#Thailand is less horror and more Horror

[wuxian-vs-wangji]

Watched a Thai horror show on Netflix before bed. I do NOT recommend following in my footsteps, Thailand does not fuck around when it comes to horror.

[absolutebl]

hi!!! do you have favorite bl movies (maybe with happy endings too)?👀❤️

Top 10 BL Movies

(as of end of 2024, in no particular order)

My personal favorites will always have HEAs (or at least HFN). I don't love ambiguous endings and I hate sad ones. I'm going to include the Korean stuff that has been recut as movies, because I can.

1 Seven Days

Japan 2015

AKA Seven Days: Monday-Thursday AND Seven Days: Friday-Sunday

This is a cheat as it's 2 movies, but that's still less run time than your bog standard marvel tent pole these days, so it counts.

One of the best live action yaois ever made, with perfectly structured angst, fantastic characters and acting, and no problematic tropes. The leads have excellent chemistry although it’s low heat there’s still some really cute mutual kisses.

2 Can I Buy Your Love From A Vending Machine

AKA Sono Koi, Jihanki de Kaemasu ka? AKA Vending Machine Sabi Koi

Japan 2023

This movie is utterly adorable, impossibly awkward, and kinda old fashioned. About a cute nerdy little office worker (he's out!) who has a big'ol crush on the tall hulking vending machine guy. They fall in love. And that’s it. And it’s charming. There’s some first name eroticism (because Japan) and there's emphasis on communication (so not Japan) which turns this into an organically loving and talkative relationship. There’s a bit of an age gap and our office cutie may or may not have a muscles fetish (the hot bod, not the shellfish) because (if I’ve told you once I’ve told you 1 million times) Japan always goes kinky. And you know what, I loved it.

3 Restart After Come Back Home

AKA Risutato wa tadaima no ato de

Japan 2020

Atmospheric study in rural Japan meets complex family dynamics built on a romance framework of city boy meets country boy, grumpy/sunshine. It’s beautiful and icy sweet. Slow moving in places but ultimately worth the patience, low heat, low angst, and stunning.

4 His

Japan 2020

His is about being a grown adult and still struggling with coming out. It addresses the consequences choosing a life disingenuous to identity. Nagisa turns up on Shun’s doorstep with his precocious daughter in tow. This is a touch confusing to Shun since they were each others first love and Nagisa broke his heart. Shun has retreated from society, rejecting the world before it can reject him because without Nagisa he never had a reason to fight. Nagisa went the opposite, pretending to be something he was not, ending up with a daughter he adores and a wife who hates him. This movie is beautiful and the setting is unique and interesting but I'm not wild about the ending, it's HFN (happy for now). Honestly, I think I mostly liked this because I have a mad crush on Miyazawa Hio (Shun).

5 After Sundown

AKA Saengrawi

Thailand 2023

It's from Mandee and horror (neither really my thing), yet I liked it. It's oddly sweet and wholesome, for a ghost story. Phloeng and Rawee enter into an arranged marriage for confusing prophetic reasons. Twists of fate demand that they solve the mystery of a past that is haunting Phloeng's family and harming Rawee. Honestly, it makes no actual sense, but it's kinda historical, and very pretty, so I enjoyed it more than I should.

Korean BL that aired as shows but are cut together as movies & great

In some of these cases the movies are better than the originals, in some they are exactly the same.

6 Color Rush

2021

A unique paranormal twist elevates this classic high school drama into a pitch-perfect allegory for the queer coming out experience and one of the best BLs of all time (I will fight you on this).

7 Semantic Error

2022

The ultimate enemies to lovers, also the prettiest. Sexy older boy discovers pouty younger boy has outed him as a slacker, starts out bullying him, accidentally falls madly in love instead. Korea hits it entirely out of the Parks by doing a university BL with everything we expect from BL just done exactly right. Korea's signature quality executed perfectly with added bonus good story, great pacing, stunning visuals, and fantastic chemistry. You cannot ask for more from a BL, let alone a KBL.

8 To My Star

2021

Hwang Da Seul directing this show about a neurotic actor (actual puppy) who takes refuge with a grumpy chef resulting in sparks, cooking lessons, and LOVE! It’s is a touch quirky to get into, but utterly charming once it hits its stride. This is the ultimate grumpy/sunshine pairing plus the most appealing light-filled kitchen of our dreams. I adore this show so much. Limited use of BL tropes makes this feel more of a sweet contemporary gay romance between an actor plagued by scandal and the chef who accidentally adopts him, but the gentleness will appeal to fans of the BL genre.

9 Long Time No See

2017

This originally aired as a series but I have only ever seen it as a movie. So I'm counting it.

Catfishing assassins on either side of a turf war fall in love not knowing they are on opposite sides. Or do they? Suspenseful plot, good fight sequences, mature characters, hot sexitimes, and even hotter beating the shit out of each other and kissing while covered in blood (this came from KOREA?), plus an HEA. One of the greatest hidden gems of the BL genre.

10 Wish You: Your Melody in My Heart

2020

Set in the music industry featuring a talented singer and the pianist who falls in love with him (and his music), this is subtle and achingly adorable. High production, low heat, short run, very tame, and Korea, so all the pretty. Slow burn and lots of pining.

(source)

[maybe-boys-do-love]

So I shared, the Spanish-language horror visual references in this week’s Peaceful Property episode (which are great ghost story films for comparison in thematic elements, as well). The death this week, though, is yet another ghost story reference, this time in an English-language series with lots of commentary on class and the racial and gender politics of domestic work, The Haunting of Bly Manor.

🚨spoilers for both series from here on🚨

In Bly Manor, Hannah Grose, the estate’s maid is revealed late in the series to be a ghost, who had fallen into a well on the grounds. Although the series is based off Henry James’s Turn of the Screw and its celebrated film adaptation The Innocents from the 1960s and its celebrated 2000s remake The Others* with Nicole Kidman (in which the twist from the previous is that the governess main character is revealed to be dead), Hannah Grose’s death is a new addition in the Netflix series. It compounds the complex themes about class and domestic servitude in the original British story and adds issues of race to the proceedings.

Peaceful Property uses Baanchuen’s story for similar purposes. Migrant domestic work is an important issue in Southeast Asia. The International Labor Organization put out a report last year stating, “29 per cent of surveyed migrant domestic workers in Malaysia were in conditions meeting the ILO’s statistical definition of forced labour; as were 7 per cent of surveyed workers in Singapore and 4 per cent in Thailand. Indicators of involuntariness include not being able to quit your job, having to stay in the job longer than agreed, and being made to work without overtime pay, among others.” Shackles, like those on Baanchuen’s ghost, are an easily recognizable symbol of enslavement, indicating the extent of Aunt Phom’s cruelty.

But even under legal circumstances, domestic workers are one of the least protected group of laborers in Thailand and abroad. Taiwanese-American labor organizer, MacArthur “genius” grant recipient, and mentor/friend to BLM cofounder Alicia Garza, Ai-Jen Poo has a fantastic interview on On Being, in which she discusses the racialized, gendered, international, and cross-class dynamics that define domestic care work, which impacts the strategies to organizing for workers rights in the field.

“The average annual income for a home care worker [presumably in the US at the time of recording in 2020] is $15,000 per year. And I can’t think of any community that I’ve ever lived in where you can survive on $15,000 a year. It’s really quite extraordinary. And they’re there and see employers come home with a pair of shoes that are maybe more than they make in a week, and yet, their job is to care and support and love, and they do so. You can’t actually do your job as a caregiver if you dehumanize the person that is in your charge. And I think that that is so much of what’s needed in this moment. All of us need to understand that we have a profound set of challenges and inequities that we have to deal with and transform, but we have to do it with a boundless sense of compassion and humanity.”

I’d encourage some of my fellow watchers of Peaceful Property to heed Poo’s perspective on disrupting class distinctions and what the advocacy for equitable practices has looked like in her work. I’m a caseworker myself and have worked alongside people who had less privilege than me for caring wealthy people who never the less didn’t always recognize the value of those whose work they depended on and didn’t have the labor laws that might provide that guidance. There are a few pieces of work that explore this meaningfully (better than The Help, although Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer absolutely carved out depths in their characters stories that weren’t there on the page). Glad to see Peaceful Property making its attempt to explore these depths. It actually made me reflect on how many of the jobs after the first episode really focused on gendered aspects of labor—a wig-maker, assistants, food-making…

And for my Homepeach truthers out there, that gender conversation is not just about labor. Bly Manor is also notable for its queer romance storyline with a wealthier character running from her internalized homophobia/guilt after a car accident…

*Incidentally, The Others is also heavily influenced by the same Spanish film, The Spirit of the Beehive, as both referenced Spanish-language horror films in these weeks episode.

[chaos0pikachu]

Filmmaking? In My BL? - The Horror Influences of Dead Friend Forever

Okay off the bat I'ma say that this isn't me definitively saying these specific films or tv series are what inspired 100% DFF. I simply do not know what stuff the screenwriters were pulling from influence wise when writing the script, nor what the director was pulling from when directing the series, with 100% flawless certainty.

Rather, this is a chance to talk more about horror, from films, comics, visuals, and sub-genres and how these various mediums are what I see in the fabric of DFF's horror makeup. Also, general point, this post will be discussing minor spoilers of: Scream, DFF, and Girl from Nowhere. So like, be aware~~

This post is partially inspired by an ask from @italianpersonwithashippersheart in which the anon had mentioned Scream.

I couldn't really respond to this in detail before cause I hadn't watched the series, but I have now and I can say that the show is very thoroughly nothing at all like Scream. I'm not confident in much - other than my inability to reach the top shelf at the market - but I am confident in saying that lol

But this got me thinking, what type of horror IS DFF? I've seen a lot of folks say it's a slasher, and I both agree and disagree.

Horror as a genre is vast with sub-genres, it's probably one of the most universal and popular genres globally, and every culture has their own horror legends, cult classics, mainstays and shlock.

So that's what I'm going to talk about in this post, the slasher genre, why I don't think DFF 100% can be boxed into that sub-genre, what type of horror I think DFF is, and the influences I see in DFF's filmmaking and thematics.

So if we start anywhere, we gotta start with Scream (1996) since that's a comparison I've seen being made a lot.

The main reason I disagree in the comparisons to Scream is that Scream is considered a work of satire first and foremost. Through the power of capitalism and franchising, it's also consider a "whodunit" series.

“Scream” is the first movie of its kind to execute a satire genre within a horror movie, which is one of the most iconic and memorable elements of the film. The original movie makes many references to other well-known horror films and mocks them, while simultaneously leading the same plot points. [...] Although the following films in the “Scream” franchise do not follow as much of the same mockery of horror films, they are still considered to be satirical because of their use of mockery toward the movie franchise. “Scream 2” mocks film sequels and “Scream 3” mocks film trilogies." (source)

[sidenote one of my favorite examples of satirical meta horror is Wes Craven's New Nightmare]

DFF isn't satirizing anything in horror, it's almost entirely self-serious. Sure there's a couple of moments of hilarity - dick biting, and scooter snatchin' - but overall the show plays things pretty straight (gay sex notwithstanding). I've seen some folks claim it's subverting horror tropes, but I don't see that either (would be interested in discussing that tho cause I'm curious).

I get why people make this comparison though, Scream is a 27 yr old franchise, and probably the most relevant slasher franchise currently. The new Halloween movies were...cute but aside from the first Halloween (2018) the rest of the reboot franchise had diminishing returns; each film made less than the previous, and received lower critical scores.

However, Scream has actually grown as a franchise in the States in terms of box office draw. That said, Scream is actually not a huge earner overseas, Scream IV (2023) earned more than 60% of it's box office revenue domestically. In Thailand, according to reports, it only earned about 300,000 (compared to other international territories like Brazil where it earned around 4,600,000).

So I don't think DFF is pulling much from Scream in terms of setting, tone, or story. I do think the show most resembles Scream in directorial style, specifically in the imagery of the Killer's design and in the slow-crawl mask reveals that have happened so far.

[very obviously spoilers for all the scream films watch at your own risk etc, gif by @my-rose-tinted-glasses]

So what is a slasher film or story?

"A slasher movie is a horror sub-genre that involves the murdering of a number of people by a psychopathic killer, typically via a knife or bladed tool (such as a scythe).

In general, the horror genre is known for its fear, violence and terror. It will typically feature a menacing villain, whether it be a monster or a supernatural evil spirit, for example." (source)

Other common but not inherent secondary characteristics of a slasher story will include: young adults as central characters, sex (typically as a means of punishment "sex gets you killed"), the killer is motivated by revenge, lots of gore and/or violent kills and a "final girl".

I point out common but not inherent because the main tenants of a slasher story is the overall body count, female protagonist and a mysterious (typically masked) killer.

For example, in Scream (96) Ghostface is motivated by revenge, however in Halloween (1978), Texas Chainsaw (1974), Prom Night (2008), You're Next (2011) and Wrong Turn (2003) the killers are not.

If there is a western horror franchise or film that the setting of DFF more closely aligns with, it's Friday the 13th (2009). Which was a sequel/reboot to the original Friday the 13th (1980) starring Tumblr's own Jared Padalecki as one of the leads (that was an interesting year as Jensen Ackles also starred in a remake of a classic 80s horror film My Blood Valentine).

In Friday (09) the bulk of the story takes place at a mansion styled cabin in the woods near Crystal Lake owned by one of the characters rich parents. Jason eventually hunts down each of the characters, killing them in various ways, and they even find his home with a shrine to his mother there. There's also like, a lot of sex and nudity in Friday (09) none of it fun or sexy as it's pretty, unfortunately, misogynistic.

Being in an isolated area, like the cabin in the woods in DFF and Friday (09) is also not a requirement within the slasher sub-genre.

Many slasher films, especially American classics during the genres 80s peak, actually take place more often in suburbia rather than in isolated locations like the woods. Which reflected real world anxieties from predominately white communities and a turn towards more conservative politics of that era in America.

"Those same well-kept neighborhoods and quiet backyards of my childhood were also the battlegrounds of the ’80s horror movie, a radical pivot in the genre’s history. The decade’s opening years were bracketed by the kidnappings of Etan Patz (which inspired the Missing Kids on a Milk Carton program) and Adam Walsh (which inspired his father John Walsh to later create the TV show "America’s Most Wanted"). Combined with the conservative turn in crime and punishment law brought on by the Reagan administration, horror appeared to turn from the supernatural curses of the decade before ("The Exorcist," "The Omen") to a homegrown product of our own sins. Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger are psychotic loons but also human beings who come not from afar but from down the street. The possibility that one of them could be lurking just beyond the sliding back door of a sleepover birthday seems too darkly delicious to pass up, a fictional killer standing in for a warning your parents and society gave you about “stranger danger,” real-life evil lurking in the dark." (source)

Isolated settings, while can be a setting in slashers are more often found in psychological horror films: The Strangers (2008), When A Stranger Calls (1979, 2006), Hush (2016). Also the Evil Dead (1981, 1987, 2013).

[The latter has it's own interesting history of wanting to be psychological body horror, to horror comedy cult classic, back to psychological body horror. Honestly if any franchise has influenced the "horror set in a cabin in the woods" it's Evil Dead, which is paid major homage to in Cabin in the Woods (2011).]

Sooooo is DFF a slasher?

Hm, for me, yes and no. Slashers require a high body count and pretty gory deaths. So far we've only had 3 deaths, only two of which were even committed by the killer themselves and not even by their own hand (ie directly).

For me, the slasher elements of DFF exist in the directorial styling of the film, meant invoke a classic slasher film but that's not where the true horror of the story exists.

I'm a big slasher fan, so I'm not trying to discount the sub-genre at all, lots of slasher films are good, and when done well, they're truly scary. But they also tend to be straight forward in design, the fear comes from the feature of being stalked by an unseeable and unstoppable force infiltrating what should be a safe space (your home, your school, your neighborhood, your camp grounds etc).

Which is why slasher films are also the most common horror sub-genre to be parodied (Scary Movie franchise) or made into horror comedies like Freaky (2020), The Final Girls (2015), Happy Death Day (2017), and Totally Killer (2023).

[sidenote slashers have this in common with the zombie sub-genre of horror as zombie films in America have also tended in recent years to be horror comedies or horror action like: Little Monsters (2019), Cooties (2014), Zombieland (2009), Pride Prejudice and Zombies (2016)]

I'd argue that DFF is much more in line with psychological horror than slasher horror. Because it is anything but straightforward and also has a strong emphasis on relationships and isolation as does most psychological horror.

Films like: It Comes At Night (2017), Us (2019), Perfect Blue (1997), A Tale of Two Sisters (2004), The Forgotten (2017), Dark Water (2002) all have similar elements in terms of tone as DFF.

The isolated setting, the allure of the mundane normality being a veneer for the violence lurking beneath the surface, the existence of the paranormal, the use of drugs to increase fear, the unsettling paranoia, and slow burn crawl towards all the characters being unteathered from themselves, the growing distrust between them and their loved ones, the plot twists and turns, the emphasis on human relationships and the horror that comes from those.

The backstory with Non is what pushed the show past slasher horror to psychological horror for me. Because Non's "downfall" as it were, feels more akin to the slow burn psych horror rooted in a lot of Japanese, Thai films/tv shows, and modern A24 style horror films.

The horror of Midsommar (2019) doesn't come from jump scares, or violence, but in slowly watching the protagonist grow more and more unteathered, mistreated, gaslit, more and more with each passing moment, slowly inducted into a horrific cult and being able to do nothing to stop her descent.

A big influence I saw in DFF was Girl from Nowhere (2018); the school setting, the crimes committed by a group of students against a singular student, class exploration, structural violence, the exploration of retribution are all topics explored in the first season of Girl from Nowhere.

Even the series trailer for GFN and the pre-release trailer for DFF are similar in production design and tone:

Titled "BFF" the two-part finale from season 01, is about a high school reunion, where a group of now established adults come back together for a party (their reunion) only to be confronted by their past via Nanno (the shows protagonist for lack of a better term).

Through Nanno we learn about the chars past misdeeds in high school - bullying, physical assault, stealing, the works - and their current crimes as adults. As more and more layers of the truth, lies, and betrayal are revealed, the friend group begins to crack, fracture and turn against each other, growing more and more paranoid and angry.

Nanno tells the group that they've also all been drugged with poison and there's only one vial of antidote left, the "friends" all horrifically murder each other in order to get the antidote. In the end, no one survives. EXCEPT, it was all a mass hallucinate and the group wakes up, remembering everything, and quietly leave one-by-one. No longer friends, no longer not-friends, everyone forever changed by the experience.

It's an unsettling ending that leaves things open ended. This group of friends were responsible for the bullying and death of Nanno (she's fine she's like immortal or something I'm pretty sure GFN was partially influenced by Tomie by Junji Ito) and they simply refused to acknowledge what they did to her, nor talk about her, eventually forgetting she existed until forced too through a traumatic retribution by Nanno herself.

[Nanno from Girl from Nowhere, Tomie from Junji Ito's Tomie series]

DFF has a lot in common, from my perspective, with GFN in terms of tone, themes and even parts of it's story.

Nanno isn't doling out "justice" she doles out retributions, punishments, sometimes they're outright torturous. Whether the recipients "deserve" these punishments or not, is really up to the viewer. The show does a good job of showcasing a wide variety of characters who are unrepentant, sympathetic, and somewhere in between. The fears it plays upon are more slow burn, it boils the characters rather than setting them on fire like slashers do.

DFF is similar in this aspect, it boils the characters. Watching Non's story, you already know at the start it's nothing good. We know from the first flashback something bad has happened to Non, but it's not really something, it's many things - so many things - that have led to whatever tragedy the main group must pay for.

It's these compounding factors one after another that brings Non to a boil, and the same thing happens with Tan/New. The horror of DFF is more about getting under the skin, causing the characters discomfort by forcing them to confront the sins they've committed (is there anything more horrific than being seen? Especially if you ugly?).

I mentioned Junji Ito in reference to Girl from Nowhere, to say Ito has been influential on horror feels like an understatement. His series Tomie has been adapted into 7 different Japanese films, he's won 3 Eisner awards (the highest award you can win in America for comics publishing), along with a slew of awards in Japan, his series Uzumaki has been referenced in super popular anime like Jujustu Kaisen.

A big factor of Ito's work is body horror and psychological horror. His work unsettles, and is very visceral. Since Uzumaki was referenced in DFF I think rather than being influenced by specifically Uzumaki (which DFF doesn't have much in common with in regards to general story) I'd argue the show is more influenced by Ito's desire to unsettle.

[from Uzumaki], 1998]

Also potentially to take symbols of piety, faith and protection (the temple, the cross at the chars high school) and turn them into places of horror for the characters.

Like Ito did with the spiral motifs in Uzumaki, said Ito in an interview:

"The "spiral pattern" is not normally associated with horror fiction. Usually spiral patterns mark character’s cheeks in Japanese comedy cartoons, representing an effect of warmth. However, I thought it could be used in horror if I drew it a different way." (source)

[I am also begging y'all to check out Junji Ito's book Cat Diary it's hilarious, even more so b/c his style of art is so rooted in horror]

I think DFF is actually very Thai in it's exploration of what's unsettling and horrific to youth culture in Thailand currently. The feeling of haplessness, judgement, an inability to exert control over one's circumstances, mental health, consent, bullying, these were themes and topics explored in both seasons of GFN but also some of these were explored in The Whole Truth (2021) a Thai horror/mystery film.

There's a scene in The Whole Truth in which one of the protagonists school friends secretly films their younger sister getting undressed without her knowledge, and when caught, the classmate threatens to release the clip publicly and claim the sister is "a slut". One of the protagonists is also bullied at school - including by this disgusting classmate who they still consider "a friend" - but puts up with it in order to be in a friend group at all (this bullied char also has a physical disability which contributes to their mistreatment at school).

I think DFF is exploring a lot of these same topics but most of the characters are just gay this time around.

Okay I'm losing steam here a bit, this has gotten very long, but overall I'd argue that DFF is much more psychological horror than a slasher, in terms of it's tone, and story. Whilst invoking slasher imagery in it's directorial style.

That said it's much more in line with Thai and Japanese horror than American horror in regards to it's themes. If the series was going to be boiled down just to the basics, I'd quantify it as psychological horror mystery.

And those are my thoughts on DFF and horror, I guess lol I'm not 100% satisfied with this but god damn I'm tired this took forever lmao if y'all made it this far, bless and stay safe out there cause the ship wars are wildin out in these parts.

Check out other posts in the series:

Film Making? In My BL? - The Sign ep01 Edition | Aspect Ratio in Love for Love's Sake | Cinematography in My BL - Our Skyy2 vs kinnporsche, 2gether vs semantic error, 1000 Stars vs The Sign | How The Sign Uses CGI | Is BL Being Overly Influenced by Modern Western Romance Tropes? | Trends in BL (Sorta): Genre Trends

[like these posts? drop me a couple pennies on ko-fi]

[definitelynotaminion]

Rated "R" - Part 2

A continuation of this 7k fic which can be found here.

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Last time: Tim had said "I always thought you were the most interesting person in the room" re: Robin!Jason at Wayne Galas

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“I guess I certainly thought so.” Jason allowed, smoothing down the rough edges of memory. Those fucking galas were so monotonous, so fucking boring. A trial through which the reward was flying, long after even the busiest socialites had gone to bed.

“You hated them so much,” Tim huffed, “I did, too. It was—rare—when my parents were in town, we always went. Had to put in appearances since they were gone so often.”

“That’s right, the Drakes were always on trips.” Jason worked it out, “Malta, Thailand, Abu Dhabi. How did you find the time to stalk us?”

“Oh.” Tim’s voice, quieter now. A rush of laughter. “Jay. They didn’t take me with them.”

As though it’s ludicrous, as though of course not. Tim was rolling his eyes a little. Jason’s chest stuttered, jerked into the portrait of the perfect manor house next door, always empty—and suddenly not just a waste, yet another family with an extra, unused home they rarely visit, but a horror scene; a gaping maw that could swallow a child in shadows and loneliness as easily as young Bruce in the godforsaken Wayne Manor.

At least he’d had Alfred. Who had Tim had?

“What the fuck!?” Jason shouted, looking uselessly over the sightline. Tim was letting him see a lot of yellow, the flash of black. Too far for even a glimpse of skin, much less an expression.

“Jay—” Tim started, voice tripped in surprise.

“They just left you alone? Those galas—they always made sure to attend. The biggest ones, at least, four or five a fucking year.”

“Yes?” Tim bit out, cautious. Questioning? Jesus fuck.

“You were—how often did you slip up? Did Dick ever come close to catching you? Did I?” Jay punched down his pillow, rolling violently to the side. Facing Tim, facing Robin’s chosen perch.

“What does. That—”

“Just answer the fucking question, Replacement.” Jason breathes in, exhales rough. Fucking corrects: “Tim.”

It’s a peace offering and Tim snatches it up, exactly like the kind of kid who didn’t get presents as a child—who didn’t get anything. Not even his parents at home, fucking noticing that he existed. And were they any better?How did they not notice the kid-- he’d gone to those galas--

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I'll post more on tumblr in the next few days but if you want to jump ahead, there's a patreon tier for that. Fic is currently 11.7k rn.

[raelle-writing]

The reality is that most kids would be either a Fluke or Jin. If nothing else it’s because they don’t also want to be bullied or ostracized by their friends. You can criticize the choices that Jin makes but realize that he is also a child that doesn’t yet have the maturity and wisdom of an adult. I see this group of teens and their treatment of Non as a cautionary tale. Obviously this is ultimately a horror/thriller so everything is heightened to the extreme. Therefore I don’t have an issue with the gore, mayhem and fantastical elements. But this type of bullying could and does happen in real life sometimes with devastating tragedies. So I do wish that people on social media were more careful of the terms they use and directly harassing your character is not a good look. Hurling insults behind a computer screen hurts just as much as doing it in person. (IMO) The fact that they are essentially bullying you is ironic considering what DFF is about.

There is a certain irony to watch the fandom turn into bullies in defense of the bullied character. I understand being defensive of the characters you like (I'm defensive of Jin in case you haven't noticed lol). But I understand why people don't like him. I've never justified all of his actions, but I do genuinely think people are too hard on him a lot of the time.

And I also wish all the Non defenders would have a bit of nuance about his character too because he's a victim, but that doesn't exempt him from hurting others. I'll never say he cheated because I beleive we shouldn't apply that word to a situation involving coercion and power imbalances. But Non does still get his friends arrested. And he does lie to and gaslight Phee. And those are okay things to acknowledge while still having sympathy for him as a character.

I agree with you. I think most people wouldn't even do as much as Jin tbh because while he doesn't do enough arguably, he does a lot as far as defending Non over and over and over (even up until after Non disappears he's still snapping at his friends to address Non by his name). And it's really hard to be that level of defiant to your peers constantly. It's waaaaaaay easier to be Fluke and look the other way and tell yourself that you're not involved then, even if you could stop it.

Everyone online seems to have a hero complex and think they'd do the Absolute Right Thing even when there's no clear right thing in certain situations, and then they demonize these teenagers for not doing those things. (I made a thread on Twitter talking about Jin lying to the police and police corruption in the DFF narrative and in Thailand in general, including linking to a bunch of Thai tweets that talk about that and I got people replying to me saying that they live in countries with police corruption but they still would've told the truth to the police even if they would've disappeared and I got a good laugh out of that. It's so easy to be the hero in your head in a hypothetical situation, but reality is a lot harder than that).

Yeah, I don't know why this particular fandom seems to be so caught up on "if you like a character that I view as morally bad then YOU are a bad person" especially considering the audience crossover to the KPTS fandom like. Were you mad at all of the mafia boys doing mafia things in KPTS becaussssssse that was worse than a lot of what's happening in DFF so far ahahahaha

Anyway, I'm not ever going to demand that everyone likes Jin. I don't particularly care of people like him or not as long as they're not coming after ME about it. I wish people were a little less... vitriolic about the mistakes of teenagers, though I understand why many people are so mad about it. I just can't get past the idea that these people were all kids when they made these mistakes, and it's hard to see even Por die because I have sympathy for them all. Did they fuck up? Duh. Do they deserve to die...? I have a hard time with that, but I'm trying to be mentally prepared ahahahaha

I also hope all the people out there who have decided Jin is the worst person ever and deserves to die are prepared for if that doesn't happen. Because there are a lot of threads in the narrative point pretty strongly to a future redemption for him IMO (tho of course they could go in another direction, anything is possible at this point). And I have a feeling that all those people who are calling me names on Twitter aren't going to handle it well if Jin get redeemed or like... lives in the end. I have a feeling they won't handle that well.

Anyway, thanks for the message 💕

[clairedaring]

/surprise leap out from your screen! Hahahha!

Yo Claire, first! I gotta say, I didn't expect to read BL meta essays when I followed your blog, but now that it's part of my dashboard, I like it! I'm not familiar with BL culture and stuff (the only BL stuff I really like is this Japanese manga named The Summer Hikaru Died, and even then I'm more sucked in by it being of the horror genre with interesting philosophical explorations), so these essays are so interesting to read!

And another thing! This post about the highest-grossing GDH movies mentioned The Medium (which I liked!), and that reminded me: I need Thai horror recommendations!

I don't know if you're into it, but maybe some of your friends do? And they can give me some good stuff? It's been so long since I've watched Thai horror—I grew up with that shit, man. I figured that someone who watches a lot of Thai media probably knows quite some newer Thai horror films I can watch on a weekend or something. Thanks!

(P.S. I realize I still have so many thoughts about สาธุ. I'm rewatching it when I have the time and realized there are still more details I forgot from the first viewing. A lot of them is embodied by the actors so well! I hope to find the time to write some essays/rambles about those things these days! Honestly... this is the only thing I can contribute to the สาธุ/The Believers tag 🫡🥲)

Hiiii Lyn! You are always welcome in my humble inbox.

You cannot imagine my happiness knowing you will soon fill he สาธุ/The Believers tag with insightful metas/essays. No pressure though but I am now indeed impatiently waiting for more สาธุ posts.

Aw, I'm so happy to hear that you've enjoyed the BL metas I've put on your dash even though queer love series are not usually ones you would watch because they're mostly romance based. ಥ_ಥ

Okay now onto the main part of my answer. Even though romance and comedy are indeed my favorite genres of series, as an enthusiast and follower of Thai actors and their works, it is inevitable to come across horror works (films or series) starring my favorite actors. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of horor (i'm a huge scaredycat), the genre has never stopped me from watching works of my favorite actors before -> I've definitely watched more horror media than I wanted to (┬┬﹏┬┬). I'll separate my recommendations into two part: one for series and one for films.

Thai Horror Anthology Series Recommendations

1. Girl From Nowhere Season 1 & 2 (2018 -2021)

Synopsis: A mysterious, clever girl named Nanno transfers to different schools, exposing the lies and misdeeds of the students and faculty at every turn.

Thoughts: although it would qualify more as thriller than a horror, girl from nowhere offers sharp commentaries about violence, sexual assault, bullying and various social issues. The series is more like an anthology with each episodes presenting a different story. The way my jaw dropped when I found out that the storylines in the episodes are inspired by actual real news reports/stories. Watching both seasons, you may feel that S1 is less budgeted than S2 which is true because S1 wasn't funded by Netflix Thailand. After picking S1 for streaming, Netflix decided to invest in a S2 for GFN and the cinematography for S2 is just immaculate.

2. After Dark (2020)

Synopsis: When the night falls, humans are more of a threat. Composed of 4 interlinked horror stories:

"Blind Date": Pink, a dating app addict, meets Q, a mysterious handsome guy. They establish a deep connection that ends up with Pink having a strange pregnancy which haunts her until the end.

“Requiem of the Adolescent”: Lada, a nurse hired with a vast amount of money to take care of Her Serene Highness Srisaang. Her terrors awake when her patient abnormally gets better.

“Death Channel”: Off and Boat, a successful youtuber and an idol team up to create a paranormal activity channel that has been sponsored by an anonymous user, they never know what is waiting.

"Into the Hole”: Chai, a charismatic person is a one-night stand expert in hopes to record a sex tape to earn a dime. Then he meets Dao, a charming woman. His mischievous behavior continues, but this time it would not be as easy as before.

Thoughts: it's gory, gross, raw, rough and scary as hell. some of the most visually traumatic series i've ever watched. incredible acting performances.

3. Angkhan Khlumpong The Series (2021)

Sypnosis: It is made based on ghost stories that people called and shared on the "Angkhan Khlumpong" radio program.

Thoughts: Episode 5 'Imaginary Friend' is scary as hell. All the episodes are quite scary in general. The stories rely a lot on jumpscares but Thailand is really good at making scary ghosts, the makeup team is always going all the way.

Note: Netflix Thailand is producing the sequel series Terror Tuesday: Extreme (2024), which comes out in 10 days (August 20). Netflix Thailand has never really disappointed with their budget so I'm pretty sure it'll be spooky.

Thai Horror Films Recommendations

1. Hoon Payon (2023)

Synopsis: Tham searches for his brother Te in order to deliver the news of their parents' passing. Te is ordained as a monk at a temple on Don Sing Tham Island. On arrival, Tham meets Jes, the grandson of the former abbot. Jes makes hoon payon, enchanted effigies of the dead. Tham learns of a rumour that Te vanished after murdering the abbot. Tham doesn't buy the story nor does he respect the villagers' strange reverence for the sculpture of Pho Pu Sing Tham. Though his appearance is unsettling to Tham, Pho Pu Sing Tham is said to protect them. Soon, a girl goes missing, a wild predator roams the island, a vengeful ghost is rampant and worse yet, the figure of Pho Pu Sing Tham is destroyed. The enraged villagers prepare to curse and hunt down the unknown culprit.

Thoughts: I watched this for Up Poompat who plays Te and I was genuinely shocked by his performance. Not scary enough as old Thai movies but still very thrilling.

2. Shutter (2004)

Synopsis: Tun, a young photographer, and his girlfriend, Jane, were driving home after drinking with friends, when suddenly they crash into a girl that was walking in the street. Panicking, Tun tells his girlfriend to run away. The next day, Tun discovers mysterious shadows in his photographs, and his girlfriend start seeing strange things in his house.

Thoughts: This is a classic Thai horror film and arguably the best horror film Tong Banjong (the director of The Medium) has ever directed. Director Tong's forte is really horror so please don't mind that the next 3 recommended films are all from him. They are truly THE classic horror films of Thailand.

3. Alone (2007)

Synopsis: Conjoined twins Ploy and Pim are very close until Pim meets a boy named Wee, causing her to decide to separate from Ploy. The surgery is performed but Ploy does not survive. Years later, Pim and Wee are living together in South Korea when Pim suddenly has to return home to take care of her mother after she has a seizure. While back home, Pim is haunted by a ghost from her past.

Thoughts: I really don't know what Director Tong is lacing in his horror films but they're always keeping me on the edge of my seat and most of the time my hands glued to my eyes 😭

4. Phobia (2008)

Synopsis: A horror movie anthology containing 4 stories-Loneliness: a woman confined to her apartment starts to receive texts from a stranger, Deadly Charm: a group of high school delinquents get cursed by a student that they bullied, The Man in the Middle: Four friends go on a camping/rafting trip that turns out far differently then they had planned, The Last Flight: A flight attendant has to accompany the body of a princess, the wife of her lover.

Thoughts: Another horror classic from GTH studio. I can't remember the details to all these stories but I can assure you when I was closing my eyes through half of this film because of how scared I was. I wanna say it's because I was young when I watched it but I'm sure I'd still be keeping my eyes close shut if I watch it again.

5. Phobia 2 (2009)

Synopsis: A horror omnibus consisting of five stories - Novice: a teenager takes refuge at a Buddhist sanctuary after committing a crime, Ward: a biker has to stay overnight in a hospital room with a strange man after an accident, Backpackers: a Japanese couple hitchhikes across Thailand until; they accept a ride from the wrong person, Salvage: karma visits woman who has successful business fixing up cars that were involved in fatal accidents, In The End: the movie crew working on a horror sequel experience a night of real fear.

Thoughts: They're all scary but I think the scariest segment is 'In The End'. I would say this is one of those rare occasions where the sequel outdid its predecessor Phobia.

6. Sick Nurses (2007)

Synopsis: A group of sexy nurses who harvest organs are haunted by the vengeful spirit of one of their dead patients.

Thoughts: this is more slasher than horror but i remember watching this when i was younger and i was scared as heck. I don't even dare to search up the trailer to embed here.

Bonus: 'not purely horror, only has creepy elements but deserves a honorable mention on this list because it's super underrated' film

Malila: The Farewell Flower (2017) dir. Nuchy Anucha Boonyawatana

Synopsis: Former lovers Shane and Pich reunite and try to heal the wounds of their past. Shane is haunted by the tragic death of his daughter, while Pich suffers a grave illness. As death approaches, Pich dedicates his remaining time to making Bai Sri, a ceremonial ornament. Meanwhile, Shane decides to become a Buddhist monk until one night at a graveyard, he encounters his lover in another form.

Thoughts: not horror but i think this film is the first that pops into my head while watching The Medium. Similar feels in their portrayal of Thai rural village lifestyle and Buddhism being a big part of both stories.

You may notice that most of these horror films from GTH Studio share similar directors, screenwriters or other creative staffs with The Medium. And that's because GDH 559 is basically the successsor of GTH Studio (which got dissolved in 2015). I've always a big fan of GDH films and I do try to watch as much GDH/GTH works as possible, but horror is really not my forte so I can only offer you these humble recommendations. I hope you'll enjoy at least one among the ones in this list.

[lazzarella]

Top 10 Things

For some reason, I've decided to compile lists of my various top ten things, a completely pointless venture because I highly doubt anyone will read it, and I already know what they are, but I'm doing it anyway! lol

(I've included: bands; solo artists; albums; books; poems; graphic novels/comics; tv shows; BL series; murder mystery shows; movies; actors; actresses; directors; musicals)

BANDS

The Beatles

ABBA

Belle and Sebastian

Led Zeppelin

The Raveonettes

The Decemberists

Ramones

Blondie

Sparks

Judas Priest

SOLO ARTISTS

John Grant

Rufus Wainwright

Connie Francis

Kylie Minogue

Angel Olsen

Prince

Sufjan Stevens

Kate Bush

David Bowie

Keaton Henson

ALBUMS

Queen of Denmark by John Grant

69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel

Rubber Soul by The Beatles

Picaresque by The Decemberists

Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin

You Could Have It So Much Better by Franz Ferdinand

Purple Rain by Prince

Transformer by Lou Reed

If You're Feeling Sinister by Belle and Sebastian

BOOKS

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Grief is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter

The Charioteer by Mary Renault

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

POEMS

Having a Coke With You by Frank O'Hara

Every poem in Crush by Richard Siken

The Second Coming by WB Yeats (alternatively, The Mermaid)

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot

Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond by e.e. cummings

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

Tired by Langston Hughes

Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo

GRAPHIC NOVELS/COMICS

Paper Girls

Ghost World

Persepolis

Bandette series

Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant + sequels

The Fade Out

The Case of the Missing Men

The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal

It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken

Nimona

TV SHOWS (that are not BLs or murder mysteries XD)

Spaced

Supernatural

The Hour

Buffy

Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes

This is England 86/88/90

I Love Lucy

Pushing Daisies

Dark

In the Flesh OR The Young Ones OR Xena (I was going to choose but meh)

(A full list of my favourite TV shows on Serializd)

BL SERIES (MASTERLIST HERE)

Moonlight Chicken

My Personal Weatherman

KinnPorsche

Cherry Magic (Thailand)

Century of Love

Wandee Goodday

Old Fashion Cupcake

A Tale of Thousand Stars

Only Friends

Jack O'Frost

(I have a feeling Kidnap is going to take the place of one of these though)

MURDER MYSTERY SHOWS

Poirot

Marple

Rosemary and Thyme

Twin Peaks (it counts XD)

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

Endeavour

Beyond Evil

Murder, She Wrote

Jonathan Creek

George Gently

MOVIES

(if I do subcategories for this, we'd be here all day! But ftr my favourite genres are film noir, musicals, rom-coms, horror—mostly slashers and gialli, 50s/60s sci-fi...)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Clue

Strictly Ballroom

Charade

Velvet Goldmine

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Call Me By Your Name

God's Own Country

Secretary

That Thing You Do!

(A full list of my favourite films on Letterboxd)

ACTORS

Robert Redford

Colin Farrell

James Spader

Keanu Reeves

Danny Kaye

Humphrey Bogart

Dirk Bogarde

Frank Sinatra

Jack Lemmon

Ben Whishaw

ACTRESSES

(only separating by gender to get more in XD)

Doris Day

Audrey Hepburn

Amy Adams

Lucille Ball

Jane Fonda

Kirsten Dunst

Marilyn Monroe

Nicole Kidman

Michelle Williams

Cate Blanchett

DIRECTORS

Gregg Araki

Alfred Hitchcock

John Waters

Sofia Coppola

Agnès Varda

Wes Anderson

Billy Wilder

Pedro Almodóvar

Stanley Donen

Dario Argento

MUSICALS

(only counting ones I've seen productions of myself)

The Rocky Horror Show

Little Shop of Horrors

Aladdin

Matilda

Cats

Chicago

Hairspray

Wicked

Singin' in the Rain

9 to 5 tied with Priscilla: Queen of the Desert

[sollucets]

ok so. so i made it out of midnight museum e3 alive but im gonna have to do something normal and calming for a while now because oh fuck me too many moths even like skipping scenes and cringing away from the screen. im unwell. many disorganized thoughts go here

so i Was right about dome frankly. i mean the hints were there (jib dialogue last episode + the long time no rent thing from e1) but for me it was that hes too stupid to be a full person (sorry baby i love u). like saying ‘is this normal’ about resurrection and lit. just going with whatever happens to him and running headlong into stupid situations. he literally Only just woke up. he has no brain head empty hes just doing the One thing hes been told hes good at and useful for. oh no baby :( they really keep putting him through it every episode LMAO.

got a Lot more worried khatha this episode plus a bunch more face touching. and sitting by his bedside. tor is So good with those shiny eyes of pain like … i dont know how he does that but its incredible. his face. his little tsundere look away / posture adjustment when dome woke up like you didnt literally die for this man recently. they are getting gayer each episode. again ive established i dont care about “bl status” it doesnt matter to me if they kiss but boy its just so…. they HAVE to know what theyre doing with this

i really like this show i Would Not have put myself through this for less agh. i still almost quit multiple times

that opening flashback scene with triphob’s grandfather was really good. by the way. i love immortals i love immortality. i love the moon (showing up just barely in blurry flashbacks)

bright did fucking Great this episode. im not too familiar with him, mostly from f4 thailand bits but he was so fucking creepy!!!!! tragic little murdery sadboy. what a mess. the whole house invasion scene was Sooooooooo. augh. freaky. everything he did was fucked up

i have some…. thoughts…. about the girl in this episode, rin, and her agency / lack thereof honestly. combined with the bride’s “men writing her story” thing….. its. hmmm. but i’m not sure i’m equipped to express that properly without rewatching and frankly i dont know if im capable of rewatching this episode

if i turn my lizard brain off also the vampire moths are a great horror concept and they were very aesthetically cool to someone who does not have. a lifelong fear of those fucking things

also yeah ‘cycle of death and rebirth’ confirms the reincarnation thing but i’m thinking that not only did khatha enounter past life dome / “that person” / “chan” but also like. present life pre-memories dome? and that’s why he was surprised when dome didnt remember him. it wouldnt make sense for him to be surprised a reincarnation didnt remember him. they definitely met pre-wipe

v fun to learn that june is immortal too??? but like. frankly im still so confused about her lmao. she was an immortal museum worker before this?? but she became the bride?? but they all forgot her past but she remembers being immortal and the artifacts? but she has bride magic now??? dont get me wrong i like her a lot shes great for wisdom and being the only one nice to dome but hoo boy

ok. theres all the bits in no particular order

so. yeah!!!! yeah i was so proud of myself for being mostly chill with the first two episodes of murder and body horror but uh i was NOT good with this. gods fuck why moths

[alexracheltravel]

Island Paradise

We awoke to our first island resort. While we only had a brief stay in Koh Samui, that didn't make it any less beautiful. We enjoyed breakfast beside the beach, sipping coffee and dipping our toes into the yellow sand. Stray dogs walked beside our table. Signs told us deliberately not to feed them. We've seen a lot of wild/strays on our trip in each country we've visited.

Although we were staying in the Gulf of Thailand, our plan was not to stay on the larger island of Koh Samui, but on the more remote, secluded island of Koh Tao. The only way to get there is by ferry. We purposely checked into a hotel in Koh Samui because of its proximity to the ferry. The ferry was smooth and quick. We traversed 60km in an hour and a half, including stops. The television screens on the ferry advertised tourism in Thailand. Some of our favorites included:

-A influencer-style travelogue of a couple (westerners, possibly Australians) who spent two days in Bangkok and then in Phuket. We noticed they omitted jet-lag, getting sick, and financial concerns. We were also pretty sure they were actors. Not even a real couple.

-Some sort of "discover Thailand" series of commercials, stylized in movie commercials. The first imagined discovering Thailand as a sci-fi/horror film. It did not make us want to visit Thailand, but they were innovative.

At last, we arrived at Koh Tao, where we will ring in the new year! Our resort, Jamahkiri, is incredible. It is at the top of a hill on the south end of the island, overlooking an inlet called "Shark Bay." We have our own villa with an incredible living room with multiple couches, dining room, and full kitchen with doors that completely open onto our private deck with private infinity pool overlooking the ocean. One of the more beautiful views we could have asked for. 

We ordered an easy room service, Alex got a spicy green curry and Rachel got laarb and both got a coconut cocktail. We spent the day relaxing in our pool, reading in our covered outdoor couches, and generally relaxing. Rachel booked an in room massage for tomorrow and we both decided to call it a night early, but kept our shades open so we could see the stars from our floor to ceiling windows. 

As we reflect on 2022, which, aside from this trip, was not the best year, we decided to talk about the things we did love from this year. So, instead of our usual conversation, we decided to think about some of our favorite things from 2022. Read our rankings of our End of Year Best lists:

Movies/TV

A

1- Inu-Oh

2- Mad God

3- Cha Cha Real Smooth

4- Cyberpunk 2099

5- Neptune Frost

R

1- Severance S1

2- Heartstoppers S1

3- Sex Education S4

4- Sex Lives of College Girls S2

5- The Rings of Power S1

Books

A

1- Dilla Time

2- Life Ceremony 

3- Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands

4- Shuna's Journey 

5- It Was All a Dream: Biggie and the World that Made Him

R

1- Hook, Line, and Sinker

2- Princess Trap

3- Get a Life, Chloe Brown

4- Heart stoppers v4

5- From Blood and Ash

Albums

A

1- Kumoyo Island - Kikagaku Moyo

2- Renaissance - Beyonce

3- Hyper-Dimensional Expansion Beam - The Comet is Coming

4- Motomami - Rosalia

R

1- Renaissance - Beyonce

2- Harry's House - Harry Styles

3- Special - Lizzo

Food/Meals

Note: for fairness we're not including any meals from this trip. We'll do a final ranking of our favorite Honeytrip meals next week!

A

1- whole roasted cauliflower from Zohara in West Hartford

2- vegan burrito at Ursula 

3- pan seared soup dumplings f om Dumplings House in SF

4- An epic reast at Skewers by Miriam with Lyndsi, Alon, Leo and Vicki

5- Turkey Ramen made by Mr. Alex Moser (probably the best thing he's cooked this yr)

R

1- Pan-seared soup dumplings from Dumpling House in SF

2- whole roasted cauliflower from Zohara in West Hartford

3- turkey ramen made by Mr. Alex Moser 

4- Strawberry White Chocolate Layer Cake - Clementine

5- New Year's Charcuterie Board Upstate (might have been 12/31 but who's counting)

Honorable Mention: Dairy-free Boursin (shout out to Wine Squad for this epic discovery)

Happy new year, family and friends. Onward to year 2566 B.E.!

[redbaretta]

Thank you @minuutti for tagging me 🥰💖 I'm finally taking a break from real life and doing this, I'm so tired.

Are you named after anyone? Nope.

When was the last time you cried? About an hour ago. I was reading a fanfic lol.

Do you have kids? No.

What is the first thing you notice about people? Probably their makeup. But if they're not wearing makeup then their facial expression.

What colour are your eyes? Brown.

Scary movies or happy endings? Happy endings. I can watch scary movies as long as they're thrillers, suspense, detective movies, not horror or gore.

Any special talents? Making myself the most unassuming person in the room.

Where were you born? Bangkok, Thailand.

What are your hobbies? These days: reading, writing (more like drafting stuff), swimming, watching movies, and meditating.

Do you have any pets? No.

What sports do you play/have you played? Swimming is probably my favourite sport. I could've been on the swim team since middle school if my mom hadn't pulled me out and said I needed to focus on my grades. But I'm glad I get to continue it in adulthood.

How tall are you? 170 cm / 5 ft 7 in

Favourite subjects in school? Visual arts. Working on my pieces after school to complete the required studio work remains a lasting memory.

Dream job? An independent consultant. Can be in any field. As long as I'm there to make things less shitty for people.

Tagging: @eva-and-the-demons, @cl0wnlegs, @nocturnal, @tokyoproxy (if you want to!)

[shittatite]

Shittatites Nonsense Junction

I have created hundreds of lists to keep record of the things i read, watch, listen, eat (basically all my core interests as anyone's) but i can never keep a proper tab because first i am lazy, plus there is no one app where I can put all my shiz but then i remembered of my core-existence-app tumblr where i can literally dump anything and everything, just for my sake and nobody else's I am going to journal everything here on my page. oh who how I love this app So, I will be calling this my - nonsense junction and I will be updating it every month (at least try) starting from September.

August - September Junction (I know it's not over and not even midway through, I was just excited to put something, i couldnt care less about anything)-

Stuff Read - works (ao3):

Deadly Match - (enemies to lover/revenge plot/super angsty/they hate eachother until they cant and they are super in love with eachother/my best best jikook fic ever) {5/5}

Nothing New - (closeted jk/out and proud jm/roomates-friends-lovers/jk confused by the beauty of jm quite literally) {2.5/5}

books (epub/paperback):

Beautiful World Where Are You? - Sally Rooney - (two best friends in their late 20's writing letters to each other on their lives, so beautifully written that I had a hard time not underlining the whole book) {5/5}

currently reading:

The Bookshop Woman - Nanako Hanada

Stuff Watched - movies - (on any media platform)

Longlegs {USA, some website) - I liked it, i liked the jumpscares, the eeries feeling that something is off throughout the movie, the plot twist, i think this movie was supposed to creep up on you and it certainly creeped up my body {4/5}

Sleepy Hallow {USA, some website) - liked johnny depp's acting ngl (still dont like him) a lot, liked the suspense, liked watching the movie and enjoying it, dont understand how the f they became a couple but to each their own {3.5}

Stree 2 (India, - loved how the director connected the universes together from stree to munjiya, liked the cameo roles, i love movies where there is a full circle, or where the universes connect existing in the same timeline, you know?!? {4/5}

series -

Goedam (Korea, Netflix) - The only reason I gave it a watch was that I was super pmsing and wanted to watch horror and this was short but oh my did I get scared? oh yes, those 6-8 minutes were so beautifully directed that I almost died shit you not

The Boyfriend (Korea, Netflix) - Ohhhhhh my fav boys ever, super sweet, super fun like such good show about a group of boys coming together to find a chance at love, only for them to end up finding so much more, its pleasing to watch and so comforting not only to eyes but it just fills your heart with so much love and fondness, the way they articulate their feelings, I am a dai-shun girl all in all, but can we really really talk about kazuto being one of the prettiest beings on earth? like that boy is beautiful

My Stand-In (Thailand, Telegram) - I loved it I simply devoured it in one go, i couldn't stop watching no matter how toxic it got, the messier it is, the better I like it, i love poomp and up together, give them to me in anything, I will take it.

The Boys S3 {USA, Prime) - I love the thrill, I am living for it, and I do get irritated by it but I like it, I love how weirder and weirder it gets

trailers - I am a girl who loves trailers, i love going to the theaters before to watch trailers, so hence a category, it is just things that i like

Sector 36 - I love crime, I have studied crime and it fascinates me, it's based on Nithari Killings and I know about the case but I am excited to watch the whole thing and I know it will be dramatized and all but it has pappy ji and vikrant in it like imma gonna give it a watch for the acting

currently watching:

The boys S4 - Butcher is going to die what?! nooo not before killing homelander

Jack and Joker - I am going down with this

Stuff Listened to (that i went gaga over)-

Neva Play by Megan and RM is here and oh my KIM NAMJOON, what in the world is that legal, what's up stallion should be injected in everyone's body

[absolutebl]

There was a surprising amount of sex in Be Mine Superstar! I really wasn’t expecting it…. Similarly, Love Syndrome had a LOT less sex than I was promised by the trailer…

Are there any BLs that had either many more or many less NC scenes than you were expecting before you started watching them?

BLs that exceeded (or underperformed) sexy expectations

Interesting question. So far, not that many Thai BLs. But I think that's just because I pay attention to the pairs and the actors in Thai stuff, and you sort of get a feel for what they will (and won't) take on. So in your examples: I know JaFirst did high heat so I expected the producers to lean into that advantage as part of BMSS because, frankly, it didn't have much else going for it.

I haven't watched Love Syndrome III yet but knowing Frank I wouldn't expect it to go super high heat in terms of actual physical contact.

I guess the ones that have surprised me are mostly out of Thailand are pulps that I knew nothing about going in. Let me see...

Thai BL that ended up being way hornier/better than I expected

Secret Crush On You - such a weird show but BillySeng brought IT, whatever IT is, they got it.

Love in Translation - yeah, what happened in that sauce isle boys? Very saucy. Whatever pun, more please.

2 Moons 3 - about on par with ForthBeam from 2 Moons 2 but nothing else in the previous 2 series would lead one to expect the horny we got in this show on the main.

Second Chance - yeah it was a throw away pulp and this studio is hit or miss on chemistry but it had one of the best kisses of its year.

Big Dragon - I don't know what I expected form the trailers, but it wasn't as good as it turned out to be. Don't get me wrong, the rest of the show is naff, but the chemistry/heat levels are scorching.

Ghost Host, Ghost House - generally the horror stuff doesn't do chemistry well, but these two have some of the best chemistry EVER put into a pulp. I really hope we see more of them.

KinnPorsche - It's no secret I'm not as wild about this show as most, but I did think the VegasPete stuff was unexpectedly killer in all ways.

Oh My Sunshine Night - yeah it was exactly what one expects from OhmFluke but THE SIDES!!!! I mean... WHAT? I'm not mad, just pleasantly surprised.

TharnType - Okay but remember at the time what we'd had from Mame was LBC (relatively low heat) and other Thai stuff I was familiar with at the time was Make It Right, Love Sick, SOTUS, and UWMA. TT was way higher heat that I'd seen from Thailand before. And then...

Why R U? - ZeeSaint's "away trip to the beach" full on sex scenes plus repping for verse was just crazy at the time. Especially since Saint played Pete in LBC before this and Zee was new to BL. Add that to the very odd and disjointed (and miss-matched) SaifahZon counter story and WRU? was this insane all over the place viewing experience, including the heat levels. There was this "what will they do next?" kind of tension over the production. Not the story (because who was following that?) but the PRODUCTION. At the time, it was welcome, but truly bonkers. What a way to drive narrative tension... pure high heat chaos.

Thai BLs where chemistry failed meet my (relatively low) expectations

My Ride - honestly, if they had just gotten the kiss right this might even have earned a 10/10 from me

Unforgotten Night - ugh

Bite Me - double ugh

Friend Forever - I know I'm the only person who watched this but why could we not have gotten ONE kiss from the leads?

Nitman - studies have since shown us it is entirely not Noh's fault... see Oh My Sunshine Night

Wedding Plan - the leads were fine, but Mame usually fails me in every way except chemistry, so "fine" is not up to her usual standards. Those standards being predominantly "they hawt together" and nothing else. There wasn't even a side dish couple to pick up the slack noodle... so to speak.

Korean BL

For most of 2022 I was consistently getting surprised by Korean BL's chemsitry when it was good but now I've settled into half expecting it yet still being delighted when it happens and is well done.

I do think Semantic Error was a bit of a seed change for them.

The problem is, now we know they can do it, we are starting to get pissed when it's bad or entirely absent.

Taiwanese BL

Taiwan is the opposite of Korea.

I expect good chemistry and almost always always get it. I struggle to think of a time when they've disappointed me (in this arena). Maybe a few? But I tend to cut Taiwan more slack than other countries because they have so few BLs and they are generally so consistent. If they falter at all, at least the side couple will pick up the slack.

Japanese BL

I have no expectations of Japan. Life as a BL fan is a lot easier that way.

(source)

[adamwatchesmovies]

Shutter (2004)

Shutter makes up for its occasionally scrappy filmmaking with surprising twists and a conclusion that burns itself into your memory. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the Hollywood remake but I remembered enough to “know” what was going to happen. Despite this, I was drawn in by the mystery and jumped in my seat enough times to call this Thai horror film a success.

Driving home after a friend’s party, Jane (Natthaweeranuch Thongmee) hits a woman with her car. Her photographer boyfriend Tun (Ananda Everingham) convinces Jane to keep driving. Soon after, Tun discovers strange shadows and images in his photographs. It seems the woman they left dead on the road has come back to make them pay.

Directed by Banjong Pisanthanakun and Parkpoom Wongpoom, Shutter doesn’t deviate much from the "J-horror" formula. The spirit appears intermittently, prompting the protagonists to gather clues about the apparition's past. They think they've found a way to appease it, but then there's a twist, etc. What makes it successful nonetheless is the way these elements are handled. Some of the scares are less “fill the room with dread” and more “quick, shocking images” but the ghost (Achita Sikamana) is still creepy. Seeing her bathed in red light as she emerges from a chemical bath inside a darkroom is unnerving. Jane is likeable despite her transgression at the beginning and there’s just something about the movie that makes you feel uneasy - in a good way. You want to know what’s going on and the more you learn about the girl, the hungrier you are for answers.

Certain aspects of photography itself help make Shutter work. That moment of uncertainty between the flash and the polaroid picture developing, or between the paper being dunked into the chemical bath and the details coming into focus builds great suspense. The camera puts us in the shoes of the photographer every time a shot is snapped. They look through the viewfinder and click the button. From there, either the coast is clear, or the ghost is right in front of them. Either way, you're sweating.

Though an element of the conclusion requires you to kind of know what social norms are like in Thailand, it isn’t so foreign that you can’t understand why the characters are behaving the way they are and everything surrounding it is upsetting in a very human, very universal way. The final scene is so twisted you kind of want to smile but you’re still reeling from the horrors that preceded it and won’t be able to. So often, horror films over-explain or lose steam towards the end. Shutter ramps up the horror and then concludes as the terror is at its peak.

You can see why Hollywood opted to remake Shutter. Some of the performances aren’t quite convincing, you can see how it could be made scarier and unlike other tales of this kind, relocating the story to another country would be easy. The fact that it turned out so awful is now even more perplexing. So what if you’ll have to read subtitles? Stick with this Shutter. (Original Thai with English subtitles, August 13, 2021)

[lrussellconceptart]

Live brief: Horror

Sketches

From my previous research for the Hellhound I started testing what dog breeds would suit the design. I tested bodies and heads as well as viciousness. I tested the Greyhound, Pitbull, Dogue De Bordeaux and the Husky. I wanted try the less traditional hunky breeds as I feel it is too cliché for the design. I feel the Greyhound has potential along with the Bordeaux. However I feel the Husky is too much of an easy choice and too traditional for a type of wolf dog.

After I did the sketches I went on to trying to create a hellhound design with a few breed choices. After feedback I was advised to make the design big. The wrinkles on some breeds was preferred with the large jaws. However I still wanted my design to be quite agile as well as large. After much deliberation I chose to try two new breeds: the Cane Corso and the Thailand Ridgeback. When creating the designs I altered their body shape to have more muscle and larger chests than normal. Taking the idea of the wrinkles from the Bordeaux, I kept that and wanted to add some around the neck area. I also too the cut ears from the Corso breed and enhanced them on all the designs. After I finished my designs I was having trouble choosing between them.

On my 3 Instagram accounts I put a poll out to see what the public felt was the best design.

Cane Corso (left) = 14

Greyhound (top) = 11

Thai Ridgeback (right) = 19

[tilbageidanmark]

🍿 The 954 Movies I saw in 2022 🍿

This is the second year since I started writing short reviews of the many films that I watch every day. A year ago I summarized my experience of seeing 885 movies in 2021. And here's the encore for 2022. (All links at the bottom of this post).

Watching nearly 3 movies a day for 2 years is not exactly 'normal', and neither am I. However, I'm a life-long cinephile who finally have the chance to do whatever the heck I want, and that's what I decided to do. I love discovering new works of art, as well as re-living forgotten memories of the past. It also got me back into the habit of writing every day, even if it's only short observations that go into my proverbial drawer.

Most important is the joy that the process gives me, so unless my circumstances change, I plan on continuing with this “Project” for the foreseeable third year.

Below are some statistics and a few of my best finds of 2022:

Of the 954 films that I saw, 121 (12%) were films I had seen before (often repeatably), and 833 were 'New to me.' 74 of them (8%) were documentaries, 74 were short films, 7 were stand-ups and 9 were 'so bad that I couldn't finish them'.

This year I wanted to explore even more of “World” Cinema, so I saw a total of 460 “Foreign” films. They were broken into: French (76), British (71), Japanese (47), Korean (23), Swedish (22), Danish and Italian (21 each), Canadian (15), German (13), from Hong Kong (11), Russian (10), from Finland and Argentina (9 each), Iranian (8), Turkish and Czechoslovakian (7 each), Australian, Indian, Irish and Norwegian (6 each), from Iceland, Israel, Mexico (5 each), Austrian, Belgian, Spanish and Kiwi (4 each). Also multiple films from Afghanistan, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Bhutan, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Congo, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, Holland, Hungary, Indonesia, Lebanon, Macedonia, Nigeria, Palestine, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Scotland, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, Ukraine and Wales. Many of the movies I enjoyed the most came from these countries.

As far as their age, there were only 32 silent films (before 1930), Only 77 'talkies' from 1930-1960, and 572 newer ones, from 2000 to today.

Of the individual directors, here are the ones I saw the most films of:

Hitchcock (12), Sang-soo Hong (8), Mike Leigh and Truffaut (7 each), Jodorowsky (6), 5 each from Antonioni, Steven Soderbergh, Wong Kar-wai, Rohmer, Aki Kaurismäki, Godard, Roy Andersson, Milos Forman and Bruce Beresford. And 4 each from Nuri Bilge Ceylan (!), Orson Welles, Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Abbas Kiarostami, Billy Wilder, Bong Joon-ho, Michael Haneke, J C Chandor (!), Michel Gondry, Denis Villeneuve, Werner Herzog and Spielberg. (There are just too many good directors, and even more so 'bad ones'.)

In principle, I prefer films with strong emotional resonance, quiet films about real people in real “life situations”. I have no problem with 'slow cinema'. I also adore films that are very cinematic and well made, that are unique and original. I feed on art and culture, but not necessarily on 'artsy' films. On the other hand, there are many types of films that I usually avoid; horror, superheroes, blockbusters, supernatural, sci-fi, franchise, fantasy, most 'action', only some 'genre'. So my list is bent with that in mind.

Without further ado, here are a few of the new-to-me, less-obvious gems that I discovered this year. Known “classics” from the usual “Best Of Lists” are not included. This personal collection is picked at random, as there were around 60 films this year that I rated 10/10.

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Guys and Dolls (1955), the surprising musical by A Joseph L. Mankiewicz, based on the stories by Damon Runyon, reminded me of a pastel-colored Jacques Demy bonbon.

From its opening titles, to the sexy Miss Adelaide And Her Alley Kittens number, and to Brando himself singing and dancing, it kept me enchanted for 2.5 hours straight. Brando establishes many of Vito Corleone’s mannerisms in super-cool gambler Sky Masterson personality.

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2 women, waiting for the bus, recognize each other. One of them apologizes to the other for something she did years ago, when they were in school. The other one says that she forgives her, and then leaves on foot.  

This is one of 56 short, unrelated vignettes, all told quietly as a series of static shots, in Icelandic Rúnar Rúnarsson‘s meditative Echo (2019). Snippets of stories, with no thematic connections between them, except that they all happen in Iceland during Christmas. Clearly influenced by Roy Andersson, (especially his ‘Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence‘) and just as moving.

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Iceland has only 370,000 people, and they make about 10 films per year. But their cinema is terrific, including films by Baltasar Kormáku. His Virgin Mountain (2015) is a delicate and realistic story about Fúsi, a middle-age man, fat, bald, shy and lonely who’s still a virgin living with his mom. When he receives a birthday gift of line-dancing lessons he meets another lonely soul, a blond who suffers from depression and they starts a fraught relationship. Kormáku's series ‘Trapped’ is also recommended.

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One of the most unusual films I’ve never heard of, Lost in London, an audacious directorial debut. A Woody Harrelson production, written by him, directed by him, headlined by him and recreating “the worst night of his life from 2002”. Also, it was shot in a single take with one camera, and was live-broadcasted to over 550 theaters at the same time as it was shot, on January 19, 2017. On top of all that, it was an heartfelt roller-coaster with a great confessional story, and was so funny that at 2AM my 92-year old mom woke up next door and burst into my bedroom, when - forgetting where I am - I loudly screamed (at the shocking vomit scene at the club toilet...). A technical marvel! (Also, I didn’t know that he was a serious Chess player).

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I was delighted to discover a few excellent Lebanese films. Director Ziad Doueiri's West Beirut was his extremely well-made 1998 debut film. It starts on April 13, 1975 when a busload of 31 Muslims were massacred by masked terrorists, right in front of the protagonist’s school. This real event sparked the civil war that divided Beirut into Christian East Beirut and Muslim West Beirut. Surprisingly warm and authentic story about two high-school friends who wake up one day to find themselves in a war zone.

Shout-out also to his later film 'The Insult', George Peter Barbari's brilliant debut 'Death of a Virgin and the Sin of Not Living', and 'Heaven without people' by Lucien Bourjeily.

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How is it possible that you could recognize a piece by Ennio Morricone by hearing the first note, asks Hans Zimmer in Ennio: The Maestro from Giuseppe Tornatore. Morricone, the most popular and prolific film composer of the 20th century, was so much more than a film composer. This documentary makes a strong assertion that he was actually one of the greatest film-makers that ever lived.

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One of the many films with a score by Morricone that I saw for the first time was Gillo Pontecorvo's 1966 The battle for Algiers. Classic anti-colonialist, a powerful neorealist piece about the Algerian revolution and the guerrilla war for independence from the cruel occupying French regime.

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“Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man”…

I finally got to watch all 9 films of the riveting British The Up series, “one of the most important documentaries ever” This once-every-seven-years project, which followed the lives of a random group, 10 boys and 4 girls, from 7 to 63, was captivating from the very beginning, and I binged it in 2-3 days. What started as a one-off sociological study of the British class system, turned into a philosophical process of observing change in real time. It got me to think: If somebody summarized my life in a similar fashion, I would appear to distant viewers as a complete and unpredictable freak.

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Yasujirō Ozu's Equinox Flower and Floating weeds. Roger Ebert wrote about Floating weeds: “Sooner or later, everyone who loves movies comes to Ozu. He is the quietest and gentlest of directors, the most humanistic, the most serene.” My promise to myself for 2023: Go over his entire canon.

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A new discovery for me was the works of “Kogonada”, who was inspired to chose his pseudonym from a screenwriter who frequently had worked with Ozu. His dreamy debut feature, Columbus (2017) was an intimate, modern Ozu-adjacent tale about spaces, deep and quiet and emotionally fraught. Strangely, I looked for it on movie-lists for architecture nerds, and didn’t find it on any. Pure & unforgettable. He wrote it and edited it himself, beautifully.

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When I studied film at the University of Copenhagen in the late 70′s, I picked Michael Cacoyannis’ classic masterpiece Iphigenia (1977) as the topic of my final paper. Iphigenia is one of the original Greek tragedies by Euripides, and the film is still as magnificent as it was 45 years ago. With unforgettable score by Mikis Theodorakis. 10/10.

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François Truffaut magical L'Argent de poche (Small Change) has not only always been my all-time favorite movie about children, and my favorite Truffaut movie (Even more than his ‘400 blows’ and ‘The last Metro’) - it’s probably one of my top 50 films of all time. With another 2-second Truffaut cameo at the beginning. “Grégory il a fait boum!”…

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Because I don’t watch nearly any SciFi movies, I can’t tell how innovative the 2018 Swedish Aniara high-concept adaptation is, but for me it was amazing: Philosophical, poetic and unusual, it reminded me of Ingmar Bergman existentialist dramas - in space. A luxurious spaceship carrying settlers to Mars is knocked off course, and is destined to fly indefinitely toward interstellar space. Based on a 1956 book-length epic science fiction poem written by Swedish Nobel laureate Harry Martinson.

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But my favorite science fiction film of all times is World of tomorrow, Don Hertzfeldt’s Oscar nominated mind-bending, surreal masterpiece.

American Icon and genius animator Don Hertzfeldt had uploaded to YouTube this “One of the greatest short films in the history of movies”.  It is about an innocent 4 year old girl who meets an absurd grown-up third-generation clone of herself contacting her from 227 years in the future. A lighthearted philosophical joke with deep, melancholic emotions.

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Everybody builds their own hierarchy of favorites. YMMV.

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My 2021 summery with 885 movies - Here.

A simple Google spreadsheet with the raw data for both years.

(A copy of the same post to r/movies...)

All the reviews HERE.

Mercy Bow Koo.