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the-conversation-pod · 1 year ago

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Swoon: The I Feel You Linger in the Air Episode

And we're back!

NiNi and Ben bring Ginny back to the recording booth to discuss Tee Bundit's final offering of the year. We discuss our differing responses to historical romance, the difficulties with articulating big emotions from shows, and the balancing of political messaging with romance.

Come and join us for probably the most distant NiNi and Ben have found themselves as we discuss I Feel You Linger in the Air.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Introduction 00:01:20 - I Feel You Linger in the Air: Big Damn Romance 00:21:35 - Depictions of Intimacy 00:30:21 - Head vs. Heart 00:37:37 - Beyond the Romance and Story Integration 00:49:15 - Anticipating the Special (Or Not) 00:54:08 - Final Thoughts

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

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00:00:00 - Introduction

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

00:01:20 I Feel You Linger in the Air: Big Damn Romance

NiNi

We are back. Welcome to our Swoon episode of the podcast, and on Swoon we are going to be talking about a big damn romance which is not something that we get to talk about a lot in BL. To help us do that, Ben and I have a special guest and our special guest is, duh-duh-duh-duh, Ginny! Say “hi,” Ginny.

Ginny

Hello!

NiNi

Ginny is here with us because Ginny is also into the big damn romance. So, we’re here to talk I Feel You Linger in the Air.

Ben, break it down for us. What is I Feel You Linger in the Air about?

Ben

I Feel You Linger in the Air is a historical romance set in 1928 Chiang Mai, where a young man from our timeframe ends up in the past, and ends up working for a very rich family that seems to have some sort of lordship over the region at the time. Our protagonist’s name is Jom. He is an interior designer who's been living in Chiang Mai waiting for his boyfriend to come back from England for a couple of years, and then his boyfriend comes back with some girl and its like, “Yeah, she's pregnant. We're over. Sorry, bro.” Jom has a no good, very bad day and then goes off a bridge into the river. And then a hot guy with a bunch of tattoos kisses him, and then he somehow wakes up in the past? Uh, didn't really wake up and past, he exits a river in the past, and then drama ensues.

He ends up stuck, makes a couple of friends, catches the eye of the young son of the lord of this area, and ends up becoming close to him, and finds something very meaningful in this time period, which is also strange for him because of reincarnation. Lots of people that are important to him are in this time period, but as very different people who do not know him. This ends up being used for a lot of social and political commentary, some of it very subtle, some of it not so subtle, and I guess that's mostly the show.

NiNi

So, Ginny, how’d you feel about this show?

Ginny

I had a great time with this show. It was so beautiful from beginning to end. The settings were gorgeous, the music was gorgeous. Even when it was from The Nutcracker—

[NiNi laughs]

—it was one of the most—[Ginny laughs]—sorry. It was one of the most lush feeling dramas we've gotten in BL. The whole historical setting just felt very rich and detailed. Really felt like you were soaking in it. It's kind of a slow pace, but I didn't mind that and I felt like it worked with the setting and with the big romance historical story that they were trying to tell.

In the first five or so episodes, I did feel like the romance was the weakest part, but as soon as those boys got together and we were in more of an established relationship situation, it was gorgeous. The intimacy was incredible. They got to me deep in the heart parts; really enjoyed it.

NiNi

I had a great time with it. I love a big damn romance. I've been reading big damn historical romance basically my whole life, and this captured the feeling that you get reading a big damn historical romance. There was a hint of the epic to it in certain parts. There were quiet moments in there that were really, in some ways, very romantically profound that kind of got me, like Ginny said, deep in the heart parts. I had a fabulous time.

Ben, how about you?

Ben

So, I don't like historical romance in general. I do not romanticize the past, particularly the not-so-distant past, and it makes it often very hard for me to enjoy historical romance. I'm Black, and I'm from the US, and I grew up in the South. And so it is really difficult for me to really enjoy historical romance because these large gaps in power, often, between the characters, do not work for me. It often makes me extremely uncomfortable. I understand that the context of this caste system in Thailand are different than what Black Americans experienced in my home country, but Jom's arc to me can be blandly described as him landing in the past and being upgraded to preferred house slave, and that is something I struggle with even as there's a lot of stuff in the show that I really like. The undercurrent of that really bothers me.

I also end up struggling with the end of this show when I reflect on Jom's journey because it's a very tragic story for me in a way that isn't cathartic. Like, I am still left with an intense melancholy coming out of this show that I have not been able to shake. And the parts of it that were really beautiful and enjoyable I don't think have unstuck me from how kind of sad for Jom and Yai I feel.

NiNi

It's interesting that the feeling that you're left with is sort of a melancholy, sort of a sadness, because that's not where I landed on it at all. Why the feeling of melancholy in particular?

Ben

Jom is yanked into the situation for reasons we don't understand, and then he is yanked out of this situation for reasons we don't understand. And so Yai has the unfortunate queer experience of deeply loving someone and having them ripped away from him. And he never really gets over that? Judging by his own letter to Jom that has passed down. And then for Jom, he's 25, he blew two years waiting on an ain’t shit motherfucker in Ohm, crashes his car, ends up in the past, has a very bad time, and then has a less bad time because of Yai. And then Yai is taken from him. And at least in the show, Jom gets back to our time frame.

The show remembers that Ueangphueng was his sister. He gets to eat some crepes, he gets to tell Ohm, “I don't care anymore. I just spent eight months as a slave. Whatever. You can go marry that girl.” Then he gets yanked even further back to the past?

I don't need the show to tell me why things should happen, per se…but this is a very familiar experience, having grown up in queer cinema, where a bunch of sad shit happens, and then the fucking thing is over and you're like, “Oh. Well, that was something.”

Ginny

So I did go into the show wary because I knew it was a time travel romance and the trailers looked real melancholy. They had this ode to eternal parting about them. It definitely tells you what it's gonna do from the beginning. I do feel you, especially with Yai. I'm not entirely satisfied with where they leave that Yai in the past.

I feel like Jom has a whole journey ahead of him, and he did get some healing from his own trauma, but I didn't love that they left us with this heavy sadness and pining. It didn't have to be a romantic happy ending. They did give some pointers towards maybe what he did politically that also pointed to some real Thai figures that apparently were historically influential. But I would have liked to see a little more hope and uplift in Yai’s side after Jom leaves him, because we're meant to believe that Jom changed everybody's life. He inspired Yai to sit up and take notice of the world, to pay attention to some of the injustices around him. And I would have liked to see at least more of the positive side of that from where we leave him in the past. I didn't expect that they were going to get to live their lives out forever; that was kind of never in the cards. But they did leave Yai, in particular, in a pretty melancholy place, and I'm not sure how intentional that was, that that was the full impression we were left with.

NiNi

Given that it's Tee, I'm feeling like that was pretty intentional. Tee…the ending’s always bittersweet. It's never 100% one thing or another when it comes to Tee. He's always going to leave you somewhere that's just kind of like, “Yeah, there's good here, but also life is what it is.” I feel like I just generally probably have more tolerance for that when it comes to these kinds of stories.

Like Ginny said, you know from the beginning that they're not gonna live out their whole lives together in 1928. The way the story is set up, it's just not possible that that's a thing that's gonna happen. So for me, thinking about the life that Yai lives after Jom leaves, it's not necessarily melancholy for me? He was definitely lonely and I wonder what that must have been like for him. It's more of a curiosity for me than a melancholy.

I am a person who is very into loneliness and stories about loneliness. And so, leaving 1928 Yai alone in 1928, and having him have to deal with his loneliness for the rest of his life, that actually does not bother me. It doesn't make me feel sad necessarily, because I don't necessarily see loneliness as an inherently sad thing. I think loneliness is loneliness, and it can be sad, and it can be other things.

The idea of Yai having had this great love and deciding that he doesn't want another one, basically because he's chosen at that point, “I don't want to do this again,” and devoting his life to other things from what we understand from what we get at the end of this story. Him having basically his memories of Jom for the rest of his life, but no other great love. This is something that my mind actually enjoys conceiving of and considering, but then I have some very different feelings about loneliness as somebody who spent a lot of time alone in romantic and non-romantic situations.

Ben

I would be probably less bothered about it if it was more like Brokeback Mountain. If the tragedy that separated them was mundane and contemporary, I would probably be less annoyed than this supernatural phenomenon, that we still have no real handle on, being the reason that they come together and are torn apart. That component of it is bothersome for me because I don't know why these things have to happen to Jom.

It's fine to choose not to be bothered about it or not care about it, but I really hate speculative fiction stories where the supernatural component only matters in so much as it generates drama to get big moments, and doesn't feel like it's as much of a player in the story as the people there. I'm very frustrated with I Feel You Linger in the Air, because I don't know why Jom has to suffer like this. I can enjoy Jom and Yai's romance, but I don't know why this story wants Jom to suffer this way, and for the people Jom loves to suffer.

NiNi

Ginny, do you have a conception or a narrative in your head about the why, or does a conception of the why matter to you in the story? For Ben, it's incredibly important, and him not having a conception of the why is sort of a barrier between him and the story.

Ben

If you're gonna send my Black ass to the past to become a slave, there better be a goddamn fucking reason for it.

NiNi

[laughs] I hear you, I hear you.

Ginny

As far as the mechanic, I don't need that, and I don't want that, because the story was set up with this very kind of spooky vibe, which immediately put me in a place of like, bigger than human stuff happens in this story, and we're not gonna make that make sense. That's not the kind of story we're in. But the narrative that I do see is the reincarnations and the fact that this is a love happening over three versions of Yai that have loved Jom, and the Yai that we experience for almost all of this story is the second of those, so he has already some immediate instinctive connection to this strange man who's shown up, and he kind of just goes, “Oh, this person is important to me. I've already had dreams about him. I'm gonna see what this is about.”

Why does he have to suffer like this? Because that's the story. I get what you're saying, but this is very baked into the genre and it's baked into the fundamental setup that this is gonna be a story about separation and about yearning across centuries. Those are the emotions that the story wants to deal with.

NiNi

It's fascinating for me because, as somebody who's been very steeped, as I said, in historical romance in the way that I've been steeped in historical romance and the type of historical romance that I've read across my life, you're right. It didn't even occur to me to question the why. This is the ticket for the ride. This is the price of admission. You just accept that this is the premise and you go from there. So, the idea of there being a conception of the why, it didn't even really come to my thinking on this show until Ben pointed it out.

In a story like this, the mechanics of the time travel are by nature a McGuffin, because they're not actually important to the thematic underpinnings of the story. The thematic underpinnings of the story in this case come from the characters and who they are, and Jom being from the future is part of that. Jom being this person who has lived this life in this particular time and being thrown into another time. That's where the thematic underpinning comes from. Not because of the “Why is this happening to him?” and all that kind of stuff. Even though maybe some of that stuff may come out if they get to continue the story—maybe, maybe not—because I don't see that as being something that Tee would be particularly interested in. I don't necessarily see it as something that's, for me, critical to the telling of the story.

Ben

It's because they sent him to the future. I don't think I would have cared about it if Jom had just vanished, and then he had just woken up even further in the past, and been like, “Oh, fuck,” looks at the camera, and then they end. I would have been okay then. I would have been like, “Well, we still don't understand why Jom is hopping. Perhaps the reset in another time frame will help us see that.”

By sending him back to the future, letting him eat crepes and hang out with Jeed, who was Ueangphueng in the past, it made me think, “Well, what the fuck was the point of all that?” You sent him to the past, he made some friends, they got the gang together and unmasked the villain, they had some great sex, they had some sad sex, and now he's back in the future. And Not!Yai walks in, confusing the absolute fuck out of us, and then they roll credits. And then they throw on a tag, because they might get a second season.

A huge knock for the show for me was being fully-reliant on novel spoilers, which were posted by the distributor of the novel, as well as given by the cast to audiences. That's not great! A good ending makes me go back to the beginning and then I want to reflect on the whole journey. I got stuck in the ending of all of this going, “Well, what the fuck was the point of everything I just watched? Why did any of this have to happen?” I don't like getting stuck at the end. I don't know what they want to say about everything that's going on. The whole for me is not greater than the sum of its parts, and it has some really good parts.

I think Nonkul and Bright do a great job playing the romance between Jom and Yai. I thought it was interesting to see a male gay couple and a female gay couple next to each other, and how that presents in this particular time frame. I really liked Ming and the other servants because most of them are honestly not that homophobic, which reflects a lot of historical context. Poor people did not care about what other poor people were doing. I liked the whole notion of a bunch of homos and their friends get together and they can take on fucking anybody!

I think episode 11, where Jom realizes he's disappearing and tells Yai, and there's this somberness that grips the show as they have to grapple with Jom's functionally-terminal illness, and they go through the process of saying goodbye to the people who mattered to them reflects an AIDS experience that I am unfortunately familiar with. That was really well done.

There's all of this great stuff all over this show that I don't feel like really spins together into something transcendent. I just have a show with a lot of pieces that I think are really spectacular. But I don't think the show itself is.

00:21:35 Depictions of Intimacy

NiNi

Let's talk about some of those pieces. Ginny, let's talk about the intimacy—let's start there. Let's talk about the intimacy through the story, the intimacy within the relationships, and then the particular scenes that you and I have been trying to sink our teeth into.

Ginny

I think I said already that initially the romance between Jom and I did not grab me. I didn't feel like their courtship had a lot of juice to it, but once they reached that point of really being in each other's orbit and being close to each other, every scene was just giving so much intensity. Mutual desire, mutual interest. So much tenderness. The way that they look at each other and touch each other is beautiful—some of the best chemistry and intimacy we've seen in a long time, I think.

Ben

The oil scene in, what, episode 6?

Ginny

They've definitely not had sex yet, but the attraction is clear and understood on both sides. There's this scene where Yai is rubbing himself with oil as just, like, skin care, and Jom starts helping him. And then you cut, and you see Jom in his room looking so worked up, and then he starts to rub the oil on himself, and you see that what's happened is Jom and Yai had this moment where he's doing this massage and it was interrupted because Yai was like, “This is too much.”

And so Jom is processing this, and very clearly implied is jerking off to this experience. And the music is so intense, and the framing is so intense, and you're intercutting between the scene with the two of them and the massage and Jom by himself. It's one of the most intensely sensual scenes that we've gotten ever, and it's done so artistically. They thought about “How are we going to frame this?” and “How do we want to tell the story of what just happened between these two men and how they both feel about it?” It's so creatively gorgeous and intense in a way that I don't see applied to intimacy scenes, and I just wanted to smooch everybody involved in it, because it was beautiful and wonderful, and I want to see more like that always.

NiNi

The way that this show filmed sex and intimacy. Ben always talks about being tasteful, but also being explicit enough for there to be an understanding that what is happening here is sex between men, and it is different from other kinds of sex. I was just kind of blown away by the creativity of it: the way that it was shot, the way that it was scored, the way that it is choreographed, the way that the emotion is built between the actors.

Ginny’s right, I haven't seen anything like this.

Ben

The only other creator who consistently gets here when it comes to sex…probably MAME? Maybe? Like, it's kind of goofy when she does it.

Ginny

MAME is different, and I am a bit of a MAME apologist, and I love her intimacy scenes, but there's something about the creative layers that are put on top of this that really speak to me. This show did so much without being very visually explicit; being so deeply sensual, without showing you very much at all. You're seeing skin and you're seeing touching, but that's not what's driving the emotion. It's the music and it's the filming choices that are making this experience so sensual, rather than just the sight of bodies and the way they're touching each other. And it was really striking.

Ben

The intimate moments themselves are not here for pure titillation. There is a strong dramatic component to each scene, which is helping the characters and the audience cope with the current struggle happening between the boys. The first scene with the oil, that was the first time that Yai was close to honest about his physical desire for Jom.

Ginny

They definitely both know at that point. I don't remember what specifically has been said, but it's been made clear between them that Yai is interested in Jom, because Jom goes into that scene kind of expecting, “Oh, is this going to lead to sex?” He thinks that's what's gonna happen, and maybe Yai did, too, but kind of got overwhelmed, or we're not sure exactly what happened that he stopped it.

Ben

I'm sure! Don't worry!

Ginny

[Ginny laughs]

Ben’s sure. What happened, Ben?

Ben

I'm just gonna get edited. [NiNi laughs] I'm glad you're here. That boy made a mess of his damn pants because he busted unexpectedly—[Ginny laughs]—and got embarrassed, and didn't know what to do, because he definitely spent too much time thinking about it because all he does is read trashy romance novels.

[Ginny laughs]

NiNi

I've forgotten about the romance novel that he made Jom read to him.

Ben

Which Jom hated!

[everyone laughs]

NiNi

But you know what it is with the intimacy scenes? They somehow managed to be incredibly sensual, but not earthy?

Ben

They got sensual without being as erotic as maybe they felt. I like when the actors get to give the audience what they want and need without you basically making the actors shoot porn. Bright and Nonkul are extremely professional. We don't always get too deep into the behind the scenes stuff, but we can see in the BTS we got that these two guys understood what they needed to accomplish in their scenes, which are very well choreographed ahead of time. And that's, I think, what really goes here is they're not just relying on actors being willing to just do shit. There's a specific intent that they're going for. So we get all of the effect we need, and it doesn't feel clumsy.

NiNi

Another thing I really loved about the intimacy in the show is how it builds from scene to scene. The other thing I like watching when I'm talking about sex in stories is tracking the emotional journey through the sexual journey. This show, I think, was really good at that, because every time we got an intimate scene between Jom and Yai, it was at a different stage of the relationship. The intimacy wanted to show us something different. It reveals something different about where the characters are, where their relationship is. When the dam finally breaks and Jom and Yai just start making out in the rain.

I talk about the show being a big damn romance. That moment is probably the most big damn romance moment in the entire show. It is epic. There's no other word to describe this moment. How it happens, how it’s shot, everything about it makes it even feel epic. There's this sense of inevitability. There's a sense of desperation. And then that carries through into the sex scene.

You come out to that scene and you're going into other scenes where things are quieter once they become more established, you can chart the emotions that you're supposed to be feeling about both the characters and the relationship through these scenes. And there aren't that many of them. They do a great job of building the intimacy and you understanding that they have this incredibly intense physical relationship without spending a lot of time on intimate scenes. As much as I enjoy seeing those scenes and parsing those scenes through the lens of the story, the fact that they don't have that many of them to me is also an accomplishment because they're able to tell that story without necessarily making their actors take their clothes off and make out all the time.

00:30:21 Head v. Heart

NiNi

The way that I feel about this show is so visceral. Ben talks a lot about rarely having heart shows, about being very analytical about the things that he watches. For me, this show…I'm not as deep into the analyzing of it as maybe Ben is. And Ginny, I don't know which side of that line that you land on.

Ginny

I'm probably somewhere in the middle. I try to sit wherever a show is gonna give me its best, so I'll love to analyze the show if it seems to really be inviting that. But this one, like you said, it's a big damn romance, and so much of what it's doing is just creating those moments. So I was enjoying sitting in those.

That kissing in the rain scene that you talked about, that was incredible. What happens immediately before that is the dance that Yai has to do with this very eligible girl, and the fantasy dance that Yai and Jom have—which is just a gutting scene. I think I did cry. Everybody is surrounding them and admiring the way that they are doing in real life for Yai and this girl, and it's the agony of what they should be able to have and can't.

This is a show that wants to dig into those pain points and I can see where for some of us who have lived that pain, it's not something that you want to sign on to. For others of us, it's like, “Yes, make me feel this thing. Take me through this in this fictional space.” We get that excruciating contrast of the publicly-affirmed love that Jom and Yai aren't allowed to have, and then we go from that right to this private, powerfully intimate moment between them.

NiNi

We talk a lot on this show about lenses and reads; who you are and where you sit being an integral part of how you look at the shows, how you take them in, what you get from them, and what you put back out. I think this is a show that for each of us, because we're coming at it from a different lens and with a different read, we had three kind of distinct almost experiences of it.

I don't have a head response to this show, so Ben talking about the why of the time travel—I just wasn't thinking about it like that. My head wasn't in it to that extent in terms of analyzing. This was strictly my feels, and I had a lot of feels from the minute that Jom sat down behind the market and stress-ate that sausage. I had a lot of feels! [laughs]

Ben

This is always going to be the struggle I have. I don't swoon. So while I do appreciate how good Bright and Nonkul are, particularly Nonkul—I had very positive responses to what he was doing. I don't ever get heart shows where I just sigh at them and like, that's it.

The first 43 minutes of this final episode are fine. I think they accomplished that part really well. I don't have a lot of complaints about that chunk of the finale. If we end there, and then go straight to the tag, I'm probably fine with this show and having a different conversation. But Jom ending up back in the water, getting snatched by a scuba diver, and I'm like, “How the fuck did he get out there so fast?” If we're jumping right back to that moment, it's the middle of the fucking night.

[NiNi laughs]

I didn't have to care this much about the specifics until suddenly I was thrown off, and now I'm having to ask fucking questions. So Jom gets rescued and then we have all this shit in the present. And we don't spend a great deal of time there with Jom grappling with what the fuck happened to him. It's just: jumps back. “Oh, right! Jeed was Ueangphueng! We haven't talked about that in 11 episodes!” Okay, sure. Ohm is here? Why? Okay, right, right. In the actual world they're from, Ohm showed up, broke up with Jom, and within six hours he drove into the fucking river. I get it. Okay, right. That's what happened. Sure. Let's deal with that. Yeah, okay. I don't care. Go home. All right. Goodbye, Ohm. BYE!

Jom is sad because he misses Yai—valid—and then he finds the box. We have a really cool moment around the box. I really love the letter, but then there's Future!Yai and I'm like, “What the fuck is he?” [Ben sighs] I hate all of this shit at the end. It feels distracting. Why does he have to go back to the future to tie up shit from his present, to then suddenly be thrown back to the fucking past?

NiNi

If I am putting my head bits on, which I am very reluctant to do with this show to be quite honest with you, because I enjoyed it so much… The only thing that maybe doesn't entirely fit is the third version of Yai at the end. ‘Cause I can see why they bring Jom back to the future. There's all this stuff that happens there that for me emotionally resonates, both the stuff with Ohm and then him opening the chest and finding the letter, and getting to see his despair and his loneliness without Yai. And then a version of Yai turning up without explanation? Okay. Yeah. Okay, fine, doesn't bother me, but I was literally deep in my feelings at that point.

I can understand also why at that moment happens and why it's not explained. Who wants to end their story on an exposition dump? Nobody.

Ben

You got the catharsis you needed at the 43 minute mark and you were able to just walk away with that. When they kept talking after that for another 45 minutes, it caused problems for me. When we talked about other shows we've had on this podcast, we can talk about how, like, there's a lot of good shit but for you, it didn’t hit you in the chest?

This is where I sit with this show. It's good. I don't feel it.

NiNi

I got you.

00:37:37 Beyond the Romance and Story Integration

Ben

All right, now that we have covered the main stuff, and all of the oil scenes, and the sad sex, let's talk about the rest of the cast. According to book readers, much of the cast of characters around them was greatly expanded for this production. Since Tee and them clearly cared a lot about them, let's talk about them.

Let's start with Ohm/Khamsaen, Fongkaew and…Preggers… [laughs] I don't remember what her name is. She got on my damn nerves.

[Ginny laughs]

NiNi

Did we ever get her name?

Ben

According to MDL, it's Khaimuk, but I don't remember it being said.

Ginny

Yeah, I'm not sure they ever said it, which says somethin’.

NiNi

Ginny said, “Whoop there it is.”

[NiNi and Ginny laugh]

Ben

I will say that I liked the bits with Khamsaen in the past where he doesn't actually know who Jom is. He's just pissed at Jom for having no sense of class solidarity at all, and gets in his face about this. He's like, “You're fuckin’ up my bag, bro.” And Jom, who is going through his shit, beats the fuck out of this man. But then they, like, reconcile later? I actually kind of liked this.

Ginny

Yeah, I mean, I was with Jom and so in favor of him beating up that man, even though that man did not know what he had done, really, to deserve this. I was just still so mad at present-day Ohm so I was very ready to have Jom take it out on the past version of him, who had done nothing basically except be a little whiny about a girl.

Ben

I like Khamsaen’s perspective because you've got the rich people and all their bullshit-ass games, and I like how Khamsaen is just kind of a pampered mama's boy who's losing his shit because something horrible happened to the girl he cared about, and now she's in this really shitty situation, and he's just floundering and feeling super powerless because he doesn't feel like there's much he can do about that at this point.

Ginny

What they set up with Robert and the way that he wields power over his whole household and his two wives and everybody who gives a shit about them really leaves everybody feeling powerless and just kind of scrabbling around the edges for what they can get. Those early episodes really set up how under the thumb of this powerful rich man most of the people in their orbit are. That's just a giant boulder in the stream that they all have to flow around and figure out how to live their lives around.

Ben

The way that eventually unravels was kind of interesting for me, because there's this little mystery in this show about, how does Robert even get involved with this family in the first place? Why are they so intent on Robert? ‘Cause he kind of sucks and he seems like he's also bad at his job, which is to manage the forestry shit. He would much rather spend his time whipping Ming's ass, and Mings mom’s ass, or abusing his wives, than doing his fucking job. There's this whole bit with Fongkaew where we learn that while they were trying to cover up other awful things, they brutally murder Fongkaew’s father and injured her mom permanently? And that's how Fongkaew ended up in this household in the first place.

Ginny

Yeah, and it seems like she kind of knows that, and just has to live with it and live with being at this man's side who did that to her family, until she teams up with the other wife for the grand comeuppance.

Ben

We eventually learned that Ueangphueng and Mei conspired to bring Fongkaew into the house in the hopes that she would distract Robert. And they own that that was really fucked up, and they apologized for it.

Ginny

The way that his power makes everybody underneath him turn on each other and use each other as shields, and recognizing that that's not okay to do, but also you understand why they did that in that position.

Ben

You get the sense because all these characters had to be built out for the show. They were concerned about how these characters were interrelated to each other. I like the Robert character even though I despise him because I feel like they considered his role really well in the 1920s part.

NiNi

One of the things that came up to me while the show was airing was how it's kind of important, given Thailand's position in this era, that Robert is French and James is English, Thailand is never colonized, but the French were to the east in Vietnam and the English to the West. It's pincered between colonial powers, but it was never colonized itself. It was kind of like a buffer zone. Some of that feeling does come through in the way that the era is portrayed. There's clearly a lot of influence that they're getting from these colonial powers without actually being colonized themselves, and that comes through particularly in the character of the dad.

He feels like somebody who is important, not in the sense of “I am important because these powers say I am important, but I have a sense of importance in myself.” I don't know how to explain it to people who are not from places that were colonized, but it gave it verisimilitude for me anyway.

Ginny

Clearly, so much of what he wanted to do with this project was bring in some of those historical perspectives and the sociological and political stuff. And I thought he did a really good job overall of putting that in the story in a way that felt natural and felt like it fit.

NiNi

There is a fair amount of political inside the story, which is very Tee. I also feel like, in a way, he almost didn't go far enough in terms of the way he normally likes to operate, because Tee, when it comes to this stuff, he's very in your face, and it felt oddly restrained.

Ben

One of the things that I remember seeing from Tee while we were watching this was that when they were trying to do research about this period, they did not have a lot of great primary sources of what life was like for not-the-ruling class at the time and so they were building out the world kind of based upon anthropological presumptions about the era. The one bit of this ‘happened during the era’ stuff we get is the piece of news delivered at the breakfast table about two women who were living together. It ends completely in tragedy. One of them is killed and the other maybe doesn't survive the grief. I don't remember exactly what happened to the other one, and it feels significant for me that Tee wanted to make sure he put living lesbians in this world, too, by building out this relationship between Ueangphueng and Mei, and then giving them the opportunity to leave and go do their own thing.

NiNi

That brings me to an interesting question. Tee was trying to accomplish a number of different things, I think, with this story. How do you feel the romance fit inside of the wider story that Tee was trying to tell?

Ben

Honestly, poorly.

Ginny

They did not feel super well integrated. The grace that it got for me was a lot due to how well the side characters that ended up involved in a, more political stories—Robert’s whole household. All those side characters were so nicely developed early in the series and I was so invested in them that I gave the story a lot of space to develop its different themes alongside each other, rather than having a ton of overlap. But from a story crafting perspective, they were not super well integrated. I would agree with that.

Ben

The big problem was their choice to make Jom so passive for most of the show. Part of why the episode 10 stuff doesn't exactly land for me is it didn't feel like Jom was as… active of a character I would have expected, given his obeisance to this system had felt like something he was affecting for survival, and not just something he just sort of slid into because he had been hurt, and then assaulted, and then hurt again right before all of this. I feel like him teaming up with James and everybody else would have landed because it would have felt like he was a mover in that world, and that his modern perspective would have mattered more.

NiNi

I feel like this is a consistent critique of Tee. This is something we talked about when we talked about Step by Step as well. The things that he actually cares about versus the vehicle that he's using to tell his story. There is always a tension there. I feel when it comes to Tee, you kind of have to choose your adventure. You have to choose which side of the story, I guess, you're gonna pay attention to. And because I always gravitate towards the romance, I think I have a different-slash-better time with a lot of Tee’s stories than others might.

Ben

I don't like that he does that, sincerely. I don't like when BL feels like three pitches fighting for relevance because somebody with money who liked all the pitches wanted to see them play out together. I really don't like the side quest feeling of this constant theme in Tee's work. I don't like the things being loosely connected via setting or… underlying theme he thinks he's building towards? It consistently irritates me in his work.

NiNi

I feel like, Ginny, you and I are more closely aligned sometimes when it comes to some of this stuff that Tee is coming out of, partly because we get the swoonies and Ben does not.

Ben

Y'all give me shit about New Siwaj. Y’all gonna eat this shit over Tee Bundit.

NiNi

[laughs] Ginny, how do you feel about that? Do you feel that underlying tension in Tee’s work, and how do you reconcile it?

Ginny

As much as I love the romance and the swoonies, I would love someone to give Tee a bucket of money to make the sociopolitical drama that it feels like he desperately wants to make. What it feels to me like is he has to put things through this BL lens because there is money there as a creator and there's an audience there. There could have been a stronger, more cohesive drama, but I liked both halves of what we got and I didn't feel like they were actively in conflict, and I'm easily pleased. So I was okay with it.

Ben

I think he gets away with it here, but I don't think it's good, not as a unified piece.

00:49:15 Anticipating the Special (Or Not)

NiNi

So, there's gonna be a special! The special is not part of the timeline of the show, it's a non-canon kind of AU, not quite AU thing. Are you guys going to be watching this special?

Ginny

Probably. Yeah.

NiNi

Ginny's like, who am I kidding? Yes, I'm watching it. [laughs]

Ginny

Yeah.

NiNi

Ben?

Ben

I am genuinely uncertain.

NiNi

I think I’m not going to watch it. I'm so emotionally immersed in this story? I don't think I'm interested in a time-out-of-time, non-canon AU.

Ginny

Well, I'll tell you both how it is.

NiNi

Please do.

Ben

[laughs] I just don't know that I care! I like Nonkul and Bright well enough, so I'm not opposed to seeing them bro it out, I guess.

NiNi

To me, the story between these two got so emotionally deep, I don't want to watch them have hijinks.

[Ginny laughs]

Ben

It feels unearned. The story’s not complete. I would be okay with a “present Yai and Jom get to go to the fair and have a good time,” if this was coming after the second section with the Commander.

Ginny

I do kind of agree with that. I will still watch it.

[Ben and NiNi laugh]

Ben

Even though I did not like this show as much as NiNi, I am not saying that this show is bad and people shouldn't watch it or enjoy it. But… I don't really want to return to this show. That's the real thing here. We got the tag about the Commander and I was like, “ehhh… do I want them to get a second season?” I kind of don't. I don't know that I want to go back to this. I don't think I care enough.

NiNi

I am curious about two things. One, this is a period of Thai history that we haven't seen in BL. We're now getting into Thai history and BL, period, and as a person who is kind of a history junkie, I want to see what that looks like. Then the other part of it is, they can't go back to the same dynamic, right? So it's not gonna be a retread of the 1928 story. This has to be a different story because… Mustache Yai is a different character from 1928 Yai. And Jom, having been through the experience of meeting and falling in love with Yai and being separated from Yai, is also going to be a bit of a different character going into this?

So this is not the exact two same people having the exact same story, if they do this. This is two different people figuring out a different dynamic, a different story. And I am actually interested to see that, because I am impressed with the acting. And because I have been impressed with the writing. So for me, that's where I'm landing. I want the second season because I want to see that.

Ben

Well, I hope the Quantum Leap BL does a better job closing itself out next time.

NiNi

[laughs] So mad at you for calling it Quantum Leap. What about you, Ginny, you gonna watch season 2? If there is a season 2?

Ginny

Oh, definitely. I don't think the story is complete as it is. I think they tied it up enough, and that's where—I needed us to see modern Yai, because that tells us if we never get a season 2, there is a Yai and a Jom that can live out their life in the same timeline, and I need that for my peace of mind. There's a happy ending out there sometime—and hopefully we'll get to see the story take them there. But I did want to at least know that it's there for them.

But I don't think it's complete as it stands. So for that reason alone, I want the second season. I don't… know that I have a lot of faith in how good it will be? So I'm also nervous? But I'm also not afraid of bad television, so I do want there to be a second season, and I will watch it.

00:54:08 Final Thoughts

NiNi

Ginny, what did you score I Feel you Linger in the Air, and why?

Ginny

Why did I give it a 9? I agree with Ben that the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. That's a really fair and accurate way to sum it up. The ending, I think, failed in execution? I don't disagree with any of the choices that it made about what happened, but I think it could have done better with the timing. I think a little bit more explanation would have been good.

So there were some misses. But I liked so many of the parts so much, so I gave it a 9.

NiNi

And what about you? Where do you sit?

Ben

I gave this show a 9. My ranking system is almost always about whether or not a show can be recommended to viewers, and so it becomes a 9 because it's the kind of show that BL viewers can have a very good time with, and it's the kind of show that recent converts might have a good time with? But the failures in execution from episode 10 and 12 hamper this show getting a higher score from me. It's a 9 because the parts of the show that are good are some of the best we've seen this year, but the parts that are not are frustrating in ways that also feel fair, and I kind of hate that, too.

They hedged on the finale because they hadn't gotten really greenlit for a second season. Okay, I understand the awkward place you were in. But modern Yai is probably the biggest mistake I think they made. I think they were afraid the audience would be like me and would be really put off by how unhappy that finale is, and so they threw modern Yai at us to make people feel better—but I didn't like it.

But I think the show is really, really watchable. I think it's really beautiful. I think it's a great example of what Thai production teams are capable of. I think it's also a really good showcase of what Thai talent is capable of. I think across the board the entire cast is really solid, even with my issues with the lack of conviction at the end of this series, I think this was an excellent show.

NiNi

I gave this show a 9.5. This show is incredibly expansive. There's so much that's happening in this story that I really found resonant. I feel like I felt all of the emotions that the show wanted me to feel. I followed that emotional throughline and it was an incredibly easy emotional throughline for me to follow. I didn't feel like I had to qualify my emotions when I was watching the show. If something on the screen was meant to be making me happy, it was making me happy. If something on the screen was meant to be making me feel sad it made me feel sad. There wasn't a tension between what I was feeling and what I felt like the show wanted me to feel. As a person who is very much into the fields and the vibes, it was a 9.75.

I feel like in terms of shows that we scored really highly and say that we actively like this is probably the most critical we've been of something that we have scored highly?

Ben

There are times when a show is genuinely good but doesn't hit every note that well, and you're going to hear it and you're going to go, “Oof. We definitely downloaded this from Limewire.” And—

NiNi

[laughs] Benjamin!

Ben

And—Look, I can never hear a very specific song from Third Eye Blind correctly because the track I had was a fucked up clip [laughs] from Limewire for years that had two different skips in it.

NiNi

Oh my God. You can’t say Limewire! The children don't know what that is.

Ben

I do not care about these fucking kids. [laughs] And so…

NiNi

[laughs] Ginny, Ben said “Fuck them kids.”

Ben

So, the thing can be good and still be criticized. Criticism is not inherently negative. This show took multiple huge swings and missed some of them, and I think it's totally fine to acknowledge that the show did not hit every swing it took, even if we can applaud the swings that it went for. I think it's still good to take big swings even if you don't hit them.

Ginny

Yeah, I would rather watch a dozen shows that swing big and don't hit the mark than a dozen shows that are kind of boring and self-contained, and do fine at executing an easy thing.

NiNi

Okay, so the average of 9, 9, and 9.75 is some kind of messy number between 9 and 9.75 closer to the 9 side of things, because that's how maths works. I'm not going to try to actually calculate that number. It can get a 9 from The Conversation.

Ben

It's 9.25.

NiNi

9.2—look at, look at Ben!

Ginny

Ben's like, “The math is simple actually, Madam.”

NiNi

So I Feel You Linger in the Air gets a 9.25 from The Conversation, and hopefully a commitment from Ginny that if they do come up with the second season, you're gonna be right back here on the pod talking with us about it.

Ginny

Absolutely.

NiNi

There we go. That's gonna wrap us up on our Swoon episode, our I Feel You Linger in the Air episode. We out. Say “bye,” Ginny.

Ginny

Bye!

NiNi

Say “bye” to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace.

#podcast #lgbtq #i feel you linger in the air #thai bl #bl series #winter series #season 5 #ben and nini's conversations #the conversation

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dreamweaversfavsandthoughs · 1 year ago

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Rick and Morty S7 Ep. 5: Unmortricken

(Revenge is a dish best served a la mode—or something like that)

Here there be spoilers…

My Favs

The Rick Prime saga has been resolved.

I am overall happy that Harmon and Co. decided to resolve this story now rather than have it milked for another season or two. On top of that, the story was given a somewhat satisfying conclusion or as satisfying a conclusion as a revenge story possibly can be.

Evil Morty

Evil Morty being pulled in as a reluctant ally was not on my season 7 bingo card nor was a glimpse of his origin story but here we are. It was great seeing Morty on the same level intellectually as a Rick and our Rick treats him as an equal. I don’t think we’ll see the last of him since Rick owes him for saving his life and Evil Morty has the schematics to the Omega Device.

Uncle Slo Mobius

I cracked up at both Rick and Rick Prime getting very emotional at the wiping out of Slo Mobius over infinite dimensions. RIP Slo Mobius, gone in all realities but lives on in our hearts.

“You suck at eating pussy!”

And Rick totally owns it, but to be fair, he was young. Satisfying your partner is something you have to learn, even if you’re the smartest man in the universe.

Rick beat down of Rick Prime

When I say this is one of my favorite parts of the episode I mean that I appreciate that I found it gut-churning and difficult to watch. It’s brutal and the animation of Rick Prime’s face as it becomes less and less recognizable as human coupled with a blood-soaked Rick coming out of the room with the light completely gone from his eyes. It’s effective visual storytelling. This was the only possible outcome to Rick’s lifelong quest for vengeance. It did not end triumphantly with a hero’s welcome but, instead, a whimper.

My Not Favs

The Rick Prime saga has been resolved.

So I put this down as a not favorite because there is a part of me that wishes we had the cat-and-mouse game go on a little while longer. Ultimately, the show isn’t really about him or the revenge quest but I wish we had some more time with the character. I say this knowing the season is not over yet and anything could happen but, also, there seems to be a sort of finality to the whole thing that makes me suspect that we are done with him.

My Thoughts

The end of an era.

I had read on an animation news blog that this episode marks the midpoint of the 70 episode order that was created back in 2018 and that, if all goes according to plan, the contract will be completed in three years. I don’t know if it was intentional to have this episode air in the order that it did but I can’t help but notice that it feels like the story is transitioning into a new era. There is a feel that they are starting to wind down and get ready for a potential end to the series ( I know Dan Harmon has expressed continuing to create new seasons indefinitely, but nothing has been confirmed and they are getting close to finishing the writing portion of the order so…).

It makes sense that Rick Prime would be solved as soon as it did and, honestly, I kinda expected them to resolve that thread this season or next. The reason being is that the story of Rick and Morty is not about villains and revenge quests, but about a man who is too smart and too worldly and so ground down by life, trying to find family and connections even when he claims it’s meaningless and that he’s above it all. Rick has sort of been released from this burden and now can forge a new purpose and a new pathway with the rest of his family by his side even if, mentally and emotionally, he is not ready to do that just yet. Also, this episode has opened the door to some new lore that could carry us to the series finale ( if it does end in season 10). I’m specifically thinking about the Omega Device.

Evil Morty has the schematics that he plans on keeping on hand to buy himself some much needed peace and Rick owes him for resurrecting him and neutralizing Rick Prime for the final beat down. Also, if a device could be created to wipe out someone in every timeline then maybe it could be used to create an anti-Omega Device that could bring back those who have been wiped out. Which means we are clearly going to resurrect Uncle Slo Mobius so the two of them can go get some of that elusive McDonald’s Szechuan Sauce!

Or Rick might try to resurrect Diane as an attempt to “complete” his family. Obviously, this is just speculation, but at the same time, with the information we have this feels like a natural next step in Rick’s very slow progression to finally healing from the past and accepting the family that is with him in the present. Healing is rarely linear and I could see Rick falling into another self-destructive hole that he has fooled himself into thinking we solve all his woes. Past family and present family together. Having his cake and eating it too! What could go wrong?

#rick and morty #rick and morty season 7 #RnM #rick and morty spoilers #rnm spoilers #rick sanchez #morty smith #evil morty #rick prime #unmortricken

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rose-tinted-vision · 6 months ago

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Fic: 我宁愿留在你方圆几里

Fandom: Dashing Youth (少年白马醉春风)

Relationship: Mo Qixuan/Zi Yuji (aka. Wu Xin's gay uncles)

[read it on ao3] | Spoilers for ep 27

Being raised in Tianwaitian, the one thing that had been ingrained in Yuji since young was to restore Beique to their former glory, to live in the shadows while secretly training for the day, laying in wait for the right time to strike and bring the royal family of Beili to their knees.

Qixuan and Yuji had both been displaced and orphaned at a young age, eventually taken in by His Royal Highness who had deemed them talented enough martial artists, and thus raised them as the Princess’s bodyguards and attendants.

(What no one knew was that though Yuji had pledged himself to the Young Lady, he had also pledged to himself that he would always protect Qixuan, his first and only close friend in the cold piece of land they called their home).

It was inevitable that Qixuan had developed feelings for the Young Lady, Yuji thinks, watching wistfully as Qixuan silently made his way to the chamber where she had been locked up by Lord Wuxiang.

The Young Lady had always been graceful and kind, courageously setting out on expeditions that Lord Wuxiang sent her on without complaint, even as she carried out her own secret mission to search for an innate martial artist. Qixuan was the one accompanying her more often than not, silently guarding her wherever she went, and biding by her every wish.

That sort of devotion– it was not unfamiliar.

He had seen it coming, the day when their loyalties inevitably clashed, but it didn’t make the hurt sting any less when Qixuan levelled his sword at him, urging the Young Lady to go. Surely Qixuan knew that Yuji would never harm him– as it was, Yuji’s sword stays fully sheathed even as he reasons with Qixuan in the hopes that maybe, just once, his feelings would reach his friend.

(They do not, but when has Qixuan ever noticed anyone other than the Young Lady? So he does the only thing he knows how to– the only reason why he has chosen to work for Lord Wuxiang– and lets Qixuan go after the Young Lady).

He stands before Lord Wuxiang’s chambers, steeling himself before knocking on the doors that stood tall and imposing, seemingly towering over him.

“Enter.”

“I was the one who let the Young Lady go. I am here to accept my punishment.” He kneels before Lord Wuxiang, willing his voice not to tremble, and hopes that the old man does not see through him.

“Do you know what punishment you will face?”

“I do.” Of course he knew. Yuji knew better than anyone else what sort of punishments traitors of Tianwaitian faced– he was the one doling them out more often than not.

“There is news from Nanjue that something has happened at our base there. You will go and handle it.”

“Zi Yuji will obey your command.” He complies, taking his leave without any complaint despite the furious hammering of his heart. He regrets not giving Qixuan a proper goodbye now.

Their base at Nanjue has long since been taken over by their enemies, as far as Yuji knew. Lord Wuxiang was sending him to his death– not too bad a sentence, compared to what the other traitors had faced– at least he would be able to die while doing what he loved most.

To die in battle, it wasn’t half bad.

To die in order to protect the person in his heart, it wasn’t too bad either.

He could only hope that Qixuan has gotten a decent head start before Tianwaitian was alerted of his hand in the Young Lady’s escape and the subsequent disappearance of their White haired deity.

—

As expected, their base at Nanjue had been overtaken, the once vibrant town that he had once visited now in tatters, bloody and devoid of life. Their enemies had fully taken control of the streets, turning the area into a ghost town, and now they stood guard, as if someone had alerted them of his presence.

Such was the cruelty of Tianwaitian, Yuji silently laments.

They were already so few in number, and Lord Wuxiang would still choose to get rid of one of his best fighters– Yuji did not agree with the old man’s ways, but he would accept his fate without question– it was better than working without Qixuan by his side, anyhow.

So he fights without abandon, without any hope of surviving, what with each of the enemies proving to be highly skilled in their own right. The battlefield had long since been prepared, and Yuji had nothing left to live for, anyway.

—

He barely manages to survive, but he is too tired to move, hanging on by a thread between the fine line of life and death.

What he was hanging on for, he doesn’t know– until he hears a fluttering of robes, someone landing before him– Yuji is too weak to do anything other than clutch at his sword hilt, desperately trying to gather the remaining dregs of his qi, and he opens his eyes a crack.

He catches a glimpse of familiar robes, a head of snow white hair, and he briefly wonders if he is hallucinating.

Was King Yama so kind as to show him a vision of his deepest desires before he died? He dares not hope for too much.

But the Qixuan before him proves to be real, as he manoeuvres Yuji onto his back, catching his sword as the last of his strength leaves him, as Yuji finally lets his guard down in Qixuan’s presence.

“Why are you here?” He finally has the presence of mind to ask, a few minutes into their walk around the now-deserted streets.

Qixuan says nothing, his grip around him tightening as he replies cryptically, “after this ambush, our debt towards Tianwaitian for raising us has been repaid.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be following–” he pauses, choking back the blood that had risen in his throat, “following the Young Lady?”

“I couldn’t stop you from taking the punishment for me, so this is the least I can do.” Qixuan replies instead, turning into an empty house. There was no sign of its owner, its interior relatively untouched with a thin layer of dust covering its surfaces.

“But–” aren’t you in love with her? This time he is unable to hold it back, and he turns his head to cough, splatters of blood staining the wooden floor red.

“The Young Lady went to look for her lover, I doubt she would want me there.”

A blatant lie, but one that Yuji has no energy to call him out on. The temptation to sleep was too alluring, and he wants nothing more than to give in to it– which Qixuan denies, settling him on the daybed propped against the wall.

“Yuji, don’t fall asleep now,” Qixuan gives him a light slap, which startles him out of the haze clouding his mind, and his eyes snap open to meet Qixuan’s worried ones, “I’ll look around the house for medical supplies, try to regulate your zhenqi in the meantime.”

He does not know whether he even has enough qi left to regulate– he felt like nothing more than a dried up well– it would take a few days for his zhenqi to fully replenish, if he manages to survive that long.

—

“Rest, I’ll take care of Tianwaitian if they arrive.” Qixuan says firmly, gently pressing him back down.

“They’ll come to ensure that I’m dead,” Yuji protests, “and you cannot be seen by them.”

It wouldn’t be easy– Qixuan was simply too conspicuous with his hair and clothes, especially in this ghost town, where he would only stand out against it's dreary surroundings.

“Have you forgotten everything we used to do? I’ll simply do the same this time.” That said, he passes Yuji a set of robes, the very ones his attackers wore, a little worse for wear after the trashing that they endured, but he understood.

Qixuan was going to fake their deaths and let their pursuers bring back a fake body.

And well– it would have to do for now, until they thought of a better plan– scheming had never been their strong suit, having been reliant on the Young Lady or Lord Wuxiang to think up strategies while they executed them.

But nevertheless, Yuji was prepared for a life on the run, as long as Qixuan was with him.

#if you saw this before no you didn't #dashing youth #少年白马醉春风 #mo qixuan #zi yuji #i had a sideblog for all of...2(?) weeks and decided that I can't maintain one sorry folks #these two have me in a chokehold please join me in this ship 🥹🥹

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popculturebuffet · 4 months ago

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Averyfest Special: Top 12 Uncle Phil Moments (Comission by WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy pillow mounds of mashed pot-a-toes. Today kicks off Averyfest. For those like me who didn't know about this treasured event, Averyfest is a now yearly event held in Sufolk, Virginia, home of the one the only James Avery, a celebration of black culture in honor of this fine actor.

And since both Kev who comissioned this and myself happen to be big fans of avery, we decided to honor him with a little celebration of our own. THE TOP 12 UNCLE PHIL MOMENTS. While Avery had a long storied career in tv we can come back to next year, including being the first animated shredder, guesting on night court, being to my suprise the first actor to play Jim Rhodes overall in the 90's iron man cartoon, leading his own sitcom Sparks and more we'll probably find as we dig. The man is talented as hell and IS more than uncle phil.. but it's also hard to define his legacy without his best roll.

Over 6 seasons Avery gave us one of if not the best sitcom dad ever: Uncle Phil worked in a lot of contexts and played off everyone in the cast uniquely: he was respectful yet stubborn with his wife vivian, often livid at Will's antics but more than there to support his adopted son in all but paper when he needs it most, alternating between having a close bond with carlotn and being another straight man to the increasingly cartoony dweeb, grappling with ashely growing up and serving as easily hillary's best foil, exasperated at his daughters vapidity. Ther'es also of course Geoffry, his butler who hasn't met a joke he won't make about his boss and is too good at his job and too loyal, and has frankly put up with too much crap at times, for Phil to complain. Over the series Avery got to show his strong dramatic chops with the more grounded moments of character and his immense comedic chops. Avery was a wonderful man, a wonderful talent and he's dearly missed and this is entirely in his honor, showing off every inch of his performance with my 12 faviorite momnets from the show.

12) And I"m Telling You (The Script Formerly Known As.. 6-5)

This is an episode I honestly barely remember, i've watched the series casually on and off. But this is a moment i've rewatched a few times on it's own.

Now i'ts so low on this list because the moment's more Will Smiths, an actor I respect as a performer, who fucked up royally at the oscars (As did Chris Rock), an incident I was going to get into but frankly.. this isn't about Will Smith. I'll still give him credit where he's do, but this isnt the place to unpack that whole incident, plenty of people have, and I'm only adressing it because it's hard not to.

Anyways this was more Will's moment, giving a hilaroiusly over the top lipsinc to phil after Will Smith Shenanigan #129. But while Smith's capering would be fucking brilliant on it's own what sells it and lands it here is Avery's facial acting. Giving the most baffled and bug eyed performance, Uncle Phil is left somewhere between confused and pissed off before ultimately giving up and it's glorious. This moment would be good anyway but it's doubly good thanks to his reactoin to the madness before him.

11) Soullllll Train (Soul Train, 5-8)

The Soul Train ep is a fun one for Uncle Phil.. and for all involved as the banks as a whole get invited on SOULLLL TRAINNN after Phil had a great showing years ago. Phil's self concious, but goes anyway and gets a great moment dancing with his wife and showing age dosen't matter, how you feel is. We also get him dancing with a guy for funk practice, something that will never not be hilarous.

10) Hell Toupee (Geoffery Cleans Up, 2-16) I honestly forgot this was in the same episode as Geoffery Dates a Rich Lady, a plot that's nice if forgetable. This on the other hand is pure comic gold. I don't know who in the writers room shouted "let's just put james avery in a goofy toupe and riff on that" but bless them. Trying to make his dad look younger, Carlton puts him in this monstrosity while Phil is fully against the whole idea, feeling self concious. I do like how Phil's Self Conciousness is a big part of his character, that he dreads not being seen as the upstanding rich lawyer he's become. Sometims it holds him back like the Soul Train ep above or an episode coming up on the list. Other times like this.. you get it. He's fine being bald, looks honestly damn good with a bald head and beard, and dosen't really need it, Carlton just got in his head. Will's scream at seeing his second hairpiece is also worth it.

9) Pillowy Mounds of Mashed Potatoes (4-10)

Look this meme had to get here. This wasn't an episdoe I watched a lot as I didn't want to watch Avery have a heart attack, Doubly so since Avery died of problems during heart surgery. But i'll be dammend if his weird worshipful description of how much he loves potatoes dosen't get in here. He's on a diet, he misses mashed potatoes, you don't need much.

8) Judge Phillip Banks (Season 3 Arc)

This one is lower because it's not really ONE moment but the only arc I can see Phil got to himself all series and it's a great one. After finding out his mentor Judge Robertson is both an asshole and refusing to leave despite being not fit for the job, Phillipi runs. And thus shenanigans insues as he doeas with constant set backs, robertson shooting low and anything will does, or in one case Jazz using Will's car, not helping. Ironically it is Will who wins it.. by calling Robertson, a truly hilarious villian and great guest sport, out then accidently killing the man. It's a solid arc that moves Phill forward in his career while looping in everyone else for at least one bit.

7) Beauty (The Big Four-Oh, 2-7)

This is a moment i'd forgot about. The Big Four Oh is rightly remembered as Janet Hubert's best run as Aunt Viv, dancin gup a storm as she persues an old dream to see if she still has it, insecure at turning 40. Something I can relate to as turning 30 was stressful enough. 40.. 40 scares me.

But this small moment is so wonderful it made it here: Phil telling his wife just how he feels, how he gets lost in her eyes like a thousand thoughts turned to dust, her beautiful skin and just how much he admires her. It's powerful acting from avery and a reminder that while the two argue like any couple, there's real true love there. And always would be.

6) Break Out Lucille( Bank's Shot, 1-22)

One of the best moments of the whole show and another one of those little moments that reminds you while Phil is a stuff shirt now he wasn't always and is eternally not to be fucked with. I honestly don't remember most of this episode: will did a gambling, lost a lot of money, so Phil has to bail him out. Phil does so however by showing that while Will got hustled, Phil was a hustler, making his money on pool, suckering the man who suckered will into ab ad bet.. then having Geoffery break out lucille. This alone is a nice detail I didn't really examine before writing this; normally Phil tries to keep his past at arm's length, our next entry gets into that more. He's not ashamed of the lengths he had to go to get where he is, but dosen't like to dwell on it. Yet when it comes to Pool.. he clearly still enjoys it. It's something that still has a touch of class to it and he can enjoy, something that's both his past having to hustle to pay for school and something he still keeps up. So while this is to tecah will and some assholes a lesson, Phil is clearly just letting his lack of hair down and enjoying himself with this one.

5) Zeke (Not Without My Pig You Don't, 1-4)

Not Without My Pig You Don't is one of my faviorite episodes of the show and one of the most important. As I mentioned, Phil likes to keep his past at arms length. It walks that line in that while he's not ashamed of having worked hard, done everything he can or protested, he's left most of that behind and adapted to the largely white subrban world he's in now.

The series dosen't let him get away from it for long as only 4 episodes in we meet Phil's parents and his past: Turns out Phil was a farm boy, first black president of his 4h club, desgreated a local bathroom (albeit because he had to pee real bad), and had a pig. It's all pretty charming stuff: while I grew up in suburbia my dad grew up on a farm with my grandma I visited frequently and while not having pigs, just cows, it was charming to meet Will's grandma a kindly, lively woman.

What makes this a moment for Phil is how he grapples with it. He's mildly embarassed at his past when Hattie brings it up to his kids.. but he's absolutely furious when will, in a truly kind moment finding out a newpaper inteview Phillip did is going to be cut as the reporter finds it boring, tells the stories. What makes this so good is that Will isn't pulling some prank or trying to get under Phil's skin: he saw the story was going to be cut and while he laughed at Phil's antics as "Zeke", he's clearly proud of what the man acomplished even back then. It's already clear that while Will will razz phil constantly, he loves his uncle even this early.

Phil however dosen't want to be known as a "hog handling hick from yamacraw" so blinded by who he is NOW that he hates who he was despite again being from the farm being nothing to be ashamed of. He had two loving parents who worked hard to support them.. and Hattie hearing this is furious and calls him out. This being a sitcom Phil does manage to patch things up with a warm speech, but it feels more earned here, wtih Phil accepting his past and himself and how hard his parents worked to get him where he is today. Just because being a farm boy dosen't fit iwth who he is now dosen't mean it didn't get him there.

4) Goodbye (I, Done 6-24)

I, Done is a solid series finale, giving all the banks their happy endings: Geoffery to London to connect with his son, Ashely and Hiliary to New York for school and her show, Carlton to Princeton and the rest of the Banks somewhere east. That leaves will in Calfironia, still in school and wondering if he'd gained anything at all and hidning the fact he didn't have some grand plan. When confronted he feels like a looser.. and instead.. Phil sets him straight

You have no idea what my first memory of you is. I remember... a kid loaded with all the potential in the world. Now I see a person on the verge of realizing that potential.

While Phil always had issues with Will it';s clear from the pilot, which we'll get to he loved the boy as his own and confirms it at the end, saying Will's his son end of story. It's a powerful goodbye..a nd yet not one as he gets will to promise to call him every sunday. While we never saw it... I never doubt the two met again. And still call every sunday.

3) I Heard the Brother Speak (The Fresh Prince Project, 1-1)

This to me is Phillip Banks defining moment. It's an important one as we're only on the first episdoe and Phil spends most of it being what you'd expect from the series premise: a stuff shirt who Phill seemingly needs to get to loosened up. And that isn't untrue: there are time Will gets Phil out of his own bubble and to accept the wider black experince. But what makes the show works so well is that it's nuanced: it was a goal from the start to show there's not one kind of blackness. And that just becaue Phil is a rich man now dosen't mean he forgot his roots.

He keeps a bulk at arms length.. but there are parts that won't leave him. When Phil tries to counter part of his rebellion is simply Phillip being so bougise, claming he's forgot himself, he's not entirely wrong, as the previous episode shows just two episodes after this, but he's not right either: Phil makes it clear will DOES NOT know the full measure of him and that while rich, Phil was old enough to have been on the front lines, at the marches, encountering racists, probably getting hosed, and to have "heard the brother speak". While there's no doubt Will encountered racisim and the series never darts around that, we'll get to THE episode tackling that soon enough, it's still enough of a gap to give will pause and feels like the moment Will stops seeing phil as just this adult to rail against, but his eventual new dad. It's also a good moral for a sitcom, one not done enough: that sometimes you can' tjudge a person just by what little you know but by their ful character and past. That there's always layers beneath. And this was the first time we saw Uncle Phils.

2) BULL! (Papa's Got a Brand New Excuse 4-24)

I already put this episode at the top of my top 12 fresh prince episodes, so this isn't remotely suprising. Will's dad returned, claimed to take him on a trip then prepared to flee again. Phil spent the whole episode PISSED Lou was back. Vivian wasn't happy either, but both tried to give Will their blessing and space. But when Lou planed to abandon will AND have Phil tell him, Phil fucking explodes. he has before, lots of angry rants at Phil and Carlton most of which they deserved. But this is Phil at his most pissed off with only our #1 coming close: he tears the man apart, refusing to let Lou leave when he tries to brush him off, making the man sit and shouting BULL when Lou tries to say he'll still take the trip and tearing into him. It's one of the best reason you suck speechs i've ever witnessed tearing Down how Lou thinks he can just duck in and out of his sons life, what he's done and how yes Lou was scared, young and it's understandable.. but so was Uncle Phil who as seen by flashbacks got his fortune young but also still struggled at first, and who didn't remotely run from his responsiblities. He then forces Lou to break things to will himself before hugging the poor boy in one of the best moments of film history after WIll's epic speech and very real tears.

1) Your Grandchildren Will Need Lawyers (Mistaken Identity 1-6) This speech above is easily my faviorite fresh prince moment and one that's only gotten better with age as sadly shit like this still happens. Mistaken Identity shows the series tackle race up front and early, with Carlton and Will getting pulled over by a racist cop and accused of car theft. The two get great stuff as Carlton tries to play it normally for him while Will gets this is being caught driving while black and is used to it but still scared. The two get thrown in jail, have to fake a confession to get out, as Uncle Phil is busy at the party they were headed to in Phil's boss' car.

Vivan and Phil's response to this bullshit.. is great. Vivian is 5 seconds from beating the piss out of every last racist cop in the prisinct. Phil tries to keep it calm.. but when the racist cop at the front desk both refuses to talk to him and then is disrepsctful to vivian Phil explodes "WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE TALKING TO?" it's a perfect rage, and one clearly built from having to deal with this shit FAR too often and the realization that no, his kids aren't safe and never have been. No matter how rich he'es gotten, no matter how far he's come, they'll never see him as nothing but another black man to sneer at and throw away and he'll be fucking DAMMNED if they mistreat his sons.

Granted there is some white backup from Firth, the partner whose car it was, but it's realistic: this fucker was not taking Phil seroiusly and was bein ga royal unhelpful ass. While Phil defintely would've ripped this man to shred it's all to ssatisfying to see this fucking tool have the color drain out as he realizes how BADLY he fucked up and that he happend to pull over two innocent black men this time who happened to have backup. One dope as hell speech pointing out EVERY fucking thing Phil can sue him for later the kids are freed.

The ending is also part of this: Will rails a bit, understandably pissed if used to it... but more pissed Carlton won't accept reality: Carlton claims the system worked, that htey got out... but it's very clear had they not had a rich powerful father figure and even more if said father figure didn't have someone to coberate his story, they may of been stuck there for a crime they didn't commit. The cop didnt pull them over because carlton made a mistake: he was pulled over because a cop saw him in a fancy car and assumed it'd be an easy arrest. And it's phil's reactoin that's heartbreaking: not only is he pissed this still happens.. but he simply.. can't agree with carlton. He tells carlton he asked the same thing the first time he was stopped leaving his son stunned as he goes to bed, clearly sad that history repeats and might again.. and as present day shows it just.. keeps happening. Thanks for reading and rest in power james avery

#james avery #uncle phil #the fresh prince of bel air #will smith #comedy #sitcoms #lists #nbc

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apomaro-mellow · 1 year ago

Text

Ep 2

The Dinner Car

The next car they went into had elegant piano music playing. There was a suit standing at a restaurant podium. Just a suit, no person on the inside.

"Do you have a reservation?", the suit asked in a thick French accent.

"Uhh", Eddie looked to Steve, who looked to Lucas, who looked to Chadwick.

"My good man, I am afraid we do not have a reservation", the knight replied.

"Then we cannot allow you into this establishment."

Well they couldn't just go right back out the door. They had to find the other door and continue down the line of trains. They turned to look at each other, willing one another to come up with a plan. Steve was the one to step up to the podium.

"Look here. You obviously don't know who I am. My name is Steven Harrington. Yes, of the Indiana Harringtons, related to the Virginia Harringtons, and connected to the Kennedys by way of my Aunt Elaine. So if you don't let us in, I'll have no choice but to make a call and your job will be the least of your worries. You'll have a national incident on your hands."

While the suit had no body and thus no head or face, it was clear he was getting flustered as Steve went on. "M-my apologies Monsieur Harrington! We will have you and your guests seated right away! Rochelle! Menus! And Jon Pierre, get them some jackets! We have a dress code policy, you understand."

"I understand I just told you who I am and I still don't have a glass in my hand."

Jon Pierre, also a floating suit, provided them all with suit jackets that fit like gloves. Rochelle, a simple, black dress hovering over some heels, led them to a table. She also had a French accent.

"You will be dining with Monsieur Allard, only the best for a Harrington."

She set their menus down at a long table. At the head of it was a grand maroon suit with a top hat, accompanied by a billowing blue dress to one side and a less elaborate green suit on the other.

"Are you really related to the Kennedy's?", Lucas whispered from his spot next to Steve.

"Not even. But you gotta act like you know important people in places like this", Steve whispered back.

"What a pleasant surprise this evening brings", Allard said in a boisterous voice. "My friends, Madame Fantine and Monsieur Gaspard, it seems we have almost-royalty at our table."

Steve raised a glass in recognition. It almost sounded like a backhanded compliment but that was how these things went.

"Sitting down to dinner wasn't in any of your steps", Eddie said.

"Neither was walking a red carpet", Steve said. "Apparently sometimes we need to do things to find the door. Besides, when was the last time you ate?"

Eddie opened his mouth but his stomach answered for him with a low growl.

Fantine scoffed. "How uncouth."

"Well excuuuuse me for having bodily functions", Eddie rolled his eyes.

"Monsieurs we have but one rule here", Allard began, then said in unison with the other two. "Mind your manners."

Steve sat up straighter while Eddie slouched even more. Lucas was looking fearfully at all the utensils.

A soup was served and Eddie went out of his way to loudly slurp it every time Allard tried to speak. Steve kicked him under the table and gave him a look of reprimand.

"So Mr. Allard, what do you do for a living?", Eddie asked.

"I am an industrialist", Allard answered.

"Ahh, an industry man", Eddie said while Steve focused on cutting his food into acceptable bites. "So what's your stance on worker's rights?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Eddie", Steve hissed in warning.

"It's just that my uncle works in a factory and I know those folks put in long, hard hours and now that I'm face to face with one of the big bosses, I'm curious to know your thoughts." Eddie angled his body towards the man, letting his arm lean on the table.

"No elbows on the table!", Fantine scolded.

"What? Is the table your baby?"

"Where did you receive your education?", Gaspard asked.

"You can hardly call what I got an education", Eddie grinned.

"You know he's kind of right", Lucas agreed.

Eddie beamed. Lucas might've been on the path of a jock, but he'd always be one of his boys.

"I've been at that school for a year but it feels like the teachers have already counted me out."

"Well a professor of any caliber knows how to separate the directionless from the ambitious", Allard said.

"You hear that Lucas? We've got no direction", Eddie stuck a fork in one of his potatoes, the main course having just been served.

"If the shoe fits", Fantine huffed.

Eddie was waving his potato around as he spoke. "How can people stand to be around someone like you?"

This elicited gasps from the three of them and Steve covered his face.

"I think we've indulged you quite enough!", Allard shouted.

"Oh I'm just getting started!", Eddie shouted back, rising to his feet. He stepped onto the chair and then onto the table.

Fantine fainted and fell to the floor at the impropriety. Lucas was using the distraction to use whatever fork he wanted to eat.

"See I know I'll never be able to impress pompous bastards like you. So why even try? Why should I bend to your rules when the game is always stacked against people like me?"

"You are a child who has yet to learn his place", Allard growled. Slowly, he began to grow in size. "But pain is always the greatest teacher."

Eddie stood there frozen a moment as he was face with a giant. Steve pulled him off the table before Allard could swipe at him. They ducked under the table.

"Why do you always have to do that!?"

"Do what? Be myself?"

"Break the rules! Make people dislike you? Is it fun? Annoying people to the point where they don't wanna be around you anymore?"

The table lifted up and was thrown. Allard bent to reach for them again but they bolted in time. That was when Steve noticed something peculiar about his hat. He and Eddie ran to one of the circular tables in the restaurant, the white table cloth hiding them.

"Being my honest, annoying self is better than lying about who I am", Eddie argued in a soft voice.

"Having table manners isn't lying. It's...it's-"

"It's what, Steve?"

"It's how you survive these things!" Steve's palms had been up as he gestured, so Eddie was able to see the 161 go up to 174.

"Steve...your number."

Anymore conversation was cut off as Allard found their table and tossed that one too. "You both will learn to be functioning members of society!"

Eddie took Steve's hand and ran into the kitchen. Inside Chadwick was helping Lucas pack some food into a sack.

"Perfect timing", Lucas said. "Did you guys see what I saw on his hat?"

"Yeah", Steve nodded. "The door. It's on top of his top hat. But how do we get to it?"

"Sir Lucas has a splendid idea!", Chadwick exclaimed.

"Does it involve making an ass of myself?", Eddie asked, ripping the suit jacket off.

"Yeah", Lucas answered. "But you're used to that."

Allard was still stomping around the restaurant in a rage, somehow THAT wasn't considered rude, when Eddie burst forth from the kitchen.

"Hey ya ball of hot air? You wanna tell me which spoon I should use? Or how about women's liberation?"

Allard rounded on him and Eddie took him on a chase, distracting him while the others got ready.

"You couldn't hit the broad side of a barn!", Eddie taunted.

He kept leading him around until he saw a thumbs up from Lucas, then began running in their direction. Steve, Chadwick, and Lucas had taken the long table cloth and tied to a couple of columns in the restaurant. Eddie looked back to make sure Allard was still coming after him.

He was reaching out but Eddie jumped over the trip wire and ran behind one of the pillars. Allard only saw red and so he promptly fell over with a loud crash. The door was right there, atop his hat. Steve opened it and rushed the others outside before going out and closing the door himself.

They were all panting as the desert outside rushed by them. When he caught his breath, Eddie grabbed Steve's hand.

"Why is it going up? How long has it been doing that?"

"Steve's number is going up?", Lucas looked for himself.

"It's nothing", Steve snatched his hand away.

"It's not nothing! It could be a clue!", Eddie threw his own hands up.

"It went up when you were acting in that car before, okay? And then just now, you saw. I don't get why and we don't know for sure if it's important. It could mean nothing."

"Everything means something", Chadwick pointed out.

"It went up when we were arguing", Eddie said. "What is it? Do you think I'm annoying? Uncouth? Rude?"

"No", Steve shook his head. "None of those things. I just-you just...You don't understand."

"Then explain to me, so I can", Eddie said, eyes sincere.

Steve looked into them, feeling just the smallest bit of weight lift off him. "That's how those people are. You have to play by their rules. If you don't, you get booted out, just like we almost did."

"You called it survival earlier. Is that what it's like being a Harrington? You have to survive dinners?"

"Not...not most of them. But especially during family gatherings. It's like walking a minefield. Honestly, I wish I could be more like you, Eddie. I wish I wasn't afraid to be me all the time."

"You were right about one thing though", Eddie said. "I act out and make people hate me. If I point it out then they can't find...they can't find what I actually hate about myself."

The numbers on both of their hands changed, going down this time. Lucas clapped his hands together.

"That's it! The numbers just went down when you two were being honest about yourselves!"

"Oh that can't be it Sinclair", Eddie groaned, hands going on his hips. "A mystical magical train is invested in our emotional growth?"

"I mean, think of other stories like this. Alice in Wonderland, she thinks she wants nonsense but when she gets it she wants order. Maybe our journey is like that, learning about ourselves."

"Counterpoint, this is all an elaborate simulation game and Steve and I just lost points for being gooey and not killing the boss."

"Only one way to find out what happens if we get to zero", Steve said, nodding towards the next car.

They all really hoped something good would happen when their numbers reached zero.

Steve's number: 159

Eddie's number: 257

Lucas' number: 33

Next Episode: The Caricature Car

Tag Team:

@affablevixen

#apo writes #stranger things #fanfiction #steddie

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alaffy · 6 months ago

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The Umbrella Academy – Ep.4x02 – Jean and Gene (Spoilers)

Oh, this was the worst episode to watch while eating dinner. Also, interesting title for the episode considering….

Well, Ben did spike the drinks. Almost no one is happy with this. Also, Marigold apparently isn’t something that should be ingested as it seems to give everyone flu-like symptoms. It’s interesting to note, though, that not everyone’s powers came back the same.

Luther is back to his original form; sort of. He seems to be more man on top then he used to be. Or the makeup has changed. Ben has his tentacles, but is having trouble controlling them. Five can teleport, but it seems more adrenaline based instead of focused. Lila now shoots beams out of her eyes and it seems to be her only power. Viktor can control his power (although it’s more of a focused energy burst) and is pissed that those powers are back. Diego and Alison we'll get back to later. Klaus has no powers because it turned out he faked drinking the Saki.

The group decides they need to go back to the dry cleaners to talk to Sy and get more information. However, the dry cleaners has been cleaned out except for a map with a town circled. Either Sy is on the run or this is a trap for the siblings. The only way to find out is to go to the town.

This leads to a very long car trip, with a prolonged scene of most of the characters throwing up as “Baby Shark” plays in the background. Moving on….

That night, as Diego is driving the van and most everyone is asleep, he tells Five that he saw Lila with another man at the diner. Five tells Diego the best thing to do is to forget about it. On the one hand, I hate forced drama like this (as it is something that can easily be resolved); on the other hand…given how Diego is so excited to back on a mission, it might actually be worse for Diego to find out his wife was working undercover and didn’t involve him.

So, the group arrive at the town. It looks like it’s straight out of a Halmark movie. This should have put all of them on edge. But Ben is tired of the group and goes his own way. He ends up in a diner, where he meets Rosie. Rosie is the owner of the diner, she wasn’t born in the town, but has lived there ever since she was placed into the care of her step uncle (who also happens to be the sheriff). That’s a lot of backstory for an new character, she must be important.

Meanwhile, everyone else walks around the town, looking for clues and asking one person if they knew Jenny. During this time, Luther mentions how Sloane would have liked this place (but he doesn’t seem unhappy so he’s either accepted she’s not coming back or he’s in denial). Lila thanks Five for not outing her in the van the night before. Viktor makes it clear to Alison that, while Viktor understands why Alison made the choices she did and doesn’t hold any anger towards her (at least, he’s not actively plotting revenge), he also really doesn’t want anything to do with Alison.

This last long enough for word to spread around that these people are looking for Jennifer and, uh, everyone in the town is armed. Like military armed. Viktor fights back. Diego and Lila run for cover. Five ends up using his powers and ends up in a subway station. But it isn’t any subway station. Long story short, Five takes one of the trains and discovers they travel between timelines. And then he goes back.

While Five is on his Magical Mystery Tour, the fight continues. At the diner, Rosie suddenly finds herself surrounded by townspeople. Her step-uncle tells her to step away from Ben and to come with them, for her safety. Ben tries to help her using his tentacles. Rosie ends up running away with Ben. The step-uncle reminds the townsfolk that Rosie must not be harmed.

Meanwhile, we get to see Diego’s and Alison’s upgraded powers. Diego is somehow able stop projectiles in their tracks (in this case, a shit tone of bullets) and send them back towards the people shooting at them. Alison, meanwhile, no longer needs to “rumor” people, she can straight up control their actions.

Back at the van, Klaus (who’s been in the van the whole time) sees a woman running towards him. She’s screaming that she needs help. Klaus asks her if she’s Jennifer, she says she is. At that point Diego, Lila, Ben, and Rosie run to the van. Klaus says he found Jennifer, but Rosie says that’s not Jennifer; she is. She only goes by Rosie at the diner, so no one hitting on her knows her real name. Fake Jennifer pulls out a gun and shoots Klaus. Ben kills the woman. Ben let’s Jennifer know that they’ll take her home to her father, Sy. She doesn’t know who that is, just that it's not her father. Everyone gets Klaus inside the van.

Back in town, Luther is trying to shield Viktor, Alision, and the now returned Five from an Assault Weapons wielding Santa Claus. As he does so, Luther notices on one of the dead bodies that they are wearing armor. And the armor clearly shows that these people work for Reginald. Santa is killed by Diego driving the van, as “Baby Shark” plays in the background (seriously, did whoever own the rights to the song actually ask to read the script, or…). The three of them get inside the van, to find a dying Klaus.

In order to save Klaus, they give him some of the Marigold. It’s hard to judge what Klaus will make of this. It’s clear he had some temptation during one scene in the van, but he also seems upset that they gave him the Marigold. Of course, he had just been brought back from the dead; who knows how clear he was in that moment.

Luther tells the others about the armor and it seems, for a moment, that Reginald set this all up. Except they are then broadsided by another vehicle. The van violently roles over and we see something happening with Jennifer that indicates maybe she has powers.

After the accident, most of the people in the van are unconscious or barely conscious. Diego sees Jean and Gene standing beside the van. Diego hear Jean call Lila “Nancy,” as Gene takes Jennifer out of the van.

So, it seems like what really happened is that Jean and Gene want this Jennifer, who’s clearly being protected by Reginald. Jean and Gene, perhaps they recognized Lila in their meetings or maybe someone recognized Five in his stupid disguise, concocted the story of Jennifer being indoctrinated by The Keepers and gave them just enough evidence (along with the Marigold) in those hopes that the siblings would go get Jennifer themselves. What, of course, they don’t realize is that whatever version of the Academy they thought were in front of them; it’s not these guys. They make it very clear in the first episode, where the siblings don’t recognize the headlines on the paper. Still, the plan worked in it’s own weird way, and now Jean and Gene have Jennifer.

#the umbrella academy spoilers #the umbrella academy #viktor hargreeves #klaus hargeeves #alison hargreeves #five hargreeves #luthor hargreeves #diego hargreeves #lila pitts #ben hargeeves #reginald hargreeves #jean and gene

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carmenized-onions · 7 months ago

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First of all, happy (late) birthday! Wishing you health, wealth, and many more years 🎂

Second of all, I cried lol

I loved how you jumped between the aftermath of what happened on Friday and seeing the development of Chip’s relationship with everyone at The Beef. It’s giving Season 3, Ep 1 vibes with all the flashbacks and that was my favorite episode of the season, so yay ✨

It was sooo cool to see how you used the original scene where Mikey shows Tina the picture that Carmy sends him from Copenhagen and seeing how Chip would fit in that moment AND the confrontation between Carmy and David

“I just-I just made the-The only fuckin’ good thing in my life leave…” P A I N

Also, Carmen not being able to confidently say that he wouldn’t have taken the bait of giving the Exec Chip’s number…oof

You know what? Chip is 10000% correct about the whole Christmas dinner shitshow, like why didn’t anyone defend Mikey? Everyone kept telling him not to throw the fork, not to engage, but Lee started it! I think the only person who told Lee to shut the fuck up was Uncle Jimmy but it was a half-hearted effort at best

Seeing the moment when Mikey calls her Chip, after learning about the weight of being nicknamed Jack…and then the line “He will never realize that you consider the exchange equal”…yeah my heart can’t take this

WAIT, Chip started doing research on wine pairings to impress Syd?! oh this makes them growing apart for a few years even more painful...it should’ve been them all along bro like who tf is Carmen? Don’t know him.

I appreciate the “that’s what she said” joke thrown in there 🫶🏼

“‘I’m not gonna forget you love me, Chip.’ and neither of you know this is a lie, yet.” and now I’m sad again

The entire exchange between Carmy and Richie was so heartbreaking, especially when Richie hits him with “if that’s what your love is, I don’t want it and I don’t want it for Chip, either” like DAMN

“…he might as well tear his hair out because there’s no reason for it anymore if you’re not in it.” oh my guy is going THROUGH IT

The freezer scene with Mikey…yeah that was rough. Like I never really thought about just how bad Mikey got. Obviously, bad enough to the point of taking his own life, but I never pictured the moments leading up to that. The pain of withdrawals, the feelings of shame that come with relapsing. The emotional toll that it takes on everyone who loves the person that is struggling with addiction, really going through the highs and the lows with them. And the parallels between the brothers, too! Carmy and Mikey having some of the lowest moments in their lives play out in the same freezer with Chip and Richie being there for both 💔 AND the foreshadowing of the door handle breaking off one day because of how hard Mikey was pulling on it…you’re a genius fr

“Do I look like a fucking milf, what the fuck is going on —“ Not Uncle Jimmy thinking they were having a kid lol

“I don’t want to choose between her and my career. If that’s what getting a star takes, I don’t want it.” okay I think we’ve been focusing on the wrong love interest for Chip. I see the vision now, and Carmy’s not in it

The scene with Eva was so cute and then I get hit with “You’re gonna break your neck Mike. I don’t want to plan your funeral.” EVIL

“You will not realize he is trying to make things clean and square, until it is too late.” “You think Mikey has a future, still. Mikey knows he doesn’t.” Both of these stabbed me in the chest and I haven’t recovered, just fyi

Mikey wanting, needing Chip to promise him that she’ll talk to Carmy when he comes back because he knows she’s good for his soul…😔 (wait I think you said to remind you about Mikey and fire a few chapters back when I said he was playing matchmaker? I’m seated)

I love that despite still being upset with Carmen for being a dick to Chip, Richie and Syd decide to help him help himself because he’s CLEARLY in desperate need of an intervention

“He’s gonna be your man, and he’s going to fucking earn that title. He’s going to prove it.” When I tell you I’m EXCITED. Rooting for him ✨

okay being completely honest, the last portion of this chapter was really moving. It was so fucking sad to read their last phone call. But what actually made me cry was “He said he would come home and you believed him because he never lied to you before.” She set his things on a tray because he said he would come home. She fell asleep on the couch, waiting up for him because he said he would come home. Yeah. That totally didn’t break me just a little 🥲

This really has been your best chapter so far, 10/10 💜

Thank you for the birthday wishes! Sorry for the crying! But also maybe you’re welcome? Also I’m begging everyone to read this ask/answer because this is like. My director’s commentary of this chapter and i want you to play the fucking dvd extras that is this series. please.

I had Mikey’s scenes planned for so long, and I was planning on putting them all like, back to back with each other, travelling through time. And then S3EP01 came out and i was like oohhhh i could be a little spicy?? I could be a little timey wimey weird? Had a lot of fun that way.

S3 really gifted me with those two scenes to work with, because I HAD planned something similar with Mikey and Chip to the Tina and Mikey scene, but the way they did it in the show was SO much better i had to yoink it. AND they let me know exactly how Carmen would react one on one with fucking david so that’s. Ah. the timing was genuinely insane of S3 coming out pretty soon after Just Dropped, ,,, in s y n c

I shant say anything about the number because as the end of the chapter puts it, they told each other everything I wrote down. So Chips gonna have some…… thoughts about all that.

Chip’s whole dialogue about the Christmas Dinner was my own therapy. I was getting so fucking hyphy watching that scene. I dunno man. I’ve always stuck up for MY older brother when he gets thrown shit. WHY THE FUCK WAS IT ON MIKEY TO CALM DOWN?? HE’S NOT BEING ALL THAT UNREASONABLE?? BEAT HIS (uncle lee’s) ASS!!!!!!!!!!

The big like, through line I took from Mikey’s character is that he feels as though he is made to give to other people, and so when Chip is the one giving back to HIM he’s like. Oh I guess I’m not the giver here. I’m simply taking. And that’s how relationships work. Someone always has to lose. And simply never realizes that there can be relationships where the burden is fucking shared.

…berzatto men share a lot of the same brain chemicals.

Everyone go scroll and look for the ‘who folded’ poll to vote for syd (or whoever). I think you only have a couple hours left. Or go to the #sillylittlepoll tag. GO VOTE!! It’s really quite cute though. It’s referenced in Doing Too Much that they played a game of matching wines to her plates, but it was never confirmed until now that Chip literally deliberately started doing that just for Syd.

I need somewhere to rant so much about Richie in this chapter, like. Am I gonna do it here? I think I’m gonna do it here. This is the director’s commentary part. EVERYONE LISTEN TO ME !!! EVERYONE SHUT UP!!

This whole chapter was so fun to write, because each scene is very weirdly mirrored and sewn together with each other, and that very much also coincides with Richie being in BOTH sequences. Let’s just go scene for scene.

What are you amish? To 0ERR. This one is very simple, the line ends with In your life/Out of his life. Simple. Cute. Whatever. There’s also the aspect that Mikey/Richie very deliberately interrupt Chip’s mental fatigue and then no one talks to Carmen and let’s him spiral… Interesting.

Then there’s 0ERR to fixing the coffee machine. Carmen says he can do it all by himself, that he’s good by himself. And he tries to think of Chip but she’s not here and it’s not working. And then we go to coffee. Where Chip admits that she’s not good by herself and she hasn’t been for a while, and she needs The Beef. And then she spirals and Mikey is there. And he is able to calm her down. Without even asking if she was freaking.

Then coffee to handing off the dessert. Again, Carmen reminisces about his old life, he didn’t know any of his coworkers because they didn’t matter. He knows the faces of everyone here but doesn’t actually know them. Very much so unlike Chip.

Dessert to Fixing the Chair. This one’s not a big flip, but—

Fixing the Chair to the DAVID TALK is huge. Because it’s very clear, Chip used to be a lot more guarded and insecure. She still is. But worse then. And it was thanks to her Guiding Light Mikey. And he supported her, and believed in her. Believed in his brother too, but he never said it. And then with David, David says Carmen is excellent but it’s with such vitriol. Carmen doesn’t get the support, and the praise he does get doesn’t feel good. Because there’s really only a few people he actually wants it from.

You’re Needed Asshole to You’re Needed, Cousin. Not much to say more there. Just fun.

But then. There’s Narcan to I would be so lucky. Richie saw all that shit. Richie saw how much of a fucking mom friend and overly prepared Chip always is. OF COURSE he’d be so lucky to have her because he IS so lucky to have her. She’s a LITERAL LIFESAVER. And to see fucking CARMEN? MAKE HER FEEL LIKE IT WAS HER FAULT??? OHHHHHHFHHFHF. …. I should’ve made him throw fucking punches i’m mad all over again.

24 Hours Sober to Fighting in the Window, not much to say there. Their contrasts of talking one on one is enough, howeevverrr

This is where I have so much to say about Rich. Because his ‘stop being you’ means so much to me. BECAUSE he’s saying it with so much sincere love. Like he really is. Because you can see in the NEXT SCENE, with the withdrawals, he WATCHED his best friend have to very literally stop being him, and TRY to grow. Fucking RICHIE had to stop being him, he had to become the guy, he had to stage, he had to start wearing suits. He had to fucking GROW! And Richie KNOWS how fucked Carmen’s brain is. And that this kid is torturing himself in his head. The best solution for Carmen, to Richie? He needs to stop being him.

Which is why he was so fucking pokey with ‘have you done the work?’ because Mikey had to, Richie had to, even Chip had to do work. He doesn’t see that work in Carmen! He gives up on himself because he doesn’t think he’s worth the work and it PISSES RICHIE THE FUCK OFF!!

There’s also the aspect that Richie literally screams back at Mikey while he’s going through it in the freezer, and Chip has to tell him to not be mean. But Chip’s not there in Carmen’s moments anymore! So no ones there to pull him back!

The deal scene vs the bear flickering scene isn’t much besides the burn the money, but I do love that Sydney asks ‘can you stay after close?’ and that being the exact same thing Carmen said to David. The difference is Carmen actually did stay to hear the critique. Proud of him.

I’ll leave it there, because this is so much to process. But thank you for giving me a place to yap about all that.

Anyways, back to the things YOU wrote because there’s still much to discuss. The freezer scene with Mikey was one I had set up since the beginning, and it really was so crushing in execution. There’s so much love in it, with all three of them being there— And it really just makes the introduction scene from chapter one so much more painful because it felt so familiar to both of them, just without their original Bear.

My master plannnn,,,, i’ve pulled you all in,,,,

The scene with Eva was so cute and then I get hit with “You’re gonna break your neck Mike. I don’t want to plan your funeral.” EVIL “You will not realize he is trying to make things clean and square, until it is too late.” “You think Mikey has a future, still. Mikey knows he doesn’t.” Both of these stabbed me in the chest and I haven’t recovered, just fyi

Yeah i was fucked up for these i have to quote them back to you because i did get a little crazy. A little wild.

MIKEY KNEWWWW, original CarmTony shipper before they even met frfr. Which, speaking of, as promised, the Mikey Fire thing. ALRIGHT.

So in Just Dropped, as I said before, there were SO many different routes I was considering, but one of them that I didn’t mention before was that the oven that Chip fixed, once Carmen dropped the ‘you failed Mikey’-- Was going to full flame up. Like that one scene where Carm tried to light a cig and it almost lit his fucking hair on fire? That.

I ditched this idea, inevitably, because it just felt too much like me fully going ‘yeah ghosts are fucking real’. And I wanted it to be more a choice for the reader whether or not they want to see that as a thing. So instead, there was the expo clock buzzing out for no reason— And if you choose to believe it, it might be Mikey trying to both scare Carmen out of fucking tweaking (painful back massage) and get Carmen to get Chip back out of the parking lot to fix it. Alas, it doesn’t work. But he tried. He also (if you choose to believe it) made the Bear’s logo buzz out. A design you technically helped make. That was just petty older brother shit. I like to think it coincided with Chip at home and the picture frame falling off her wall.

I like this because it adds context to other random breaks. The toilet spraying water in Tony’s face when she started to think she was nothing, Carmen’s oven breaking when Syd was on the verge of losing it. I like to think the Guy is still the guy. Even dead.

I’M GLAD THE LAST SCENE WAS MOVING!! The phone call was also one of those scenes that had a lot of different routes, and I’m glad I went with a lot more of a very simple almost sweet and like,,, pedestrian phone call? Like a normal day, almost. And it just makes the rest so much worse because YEAH SHE EXPECTED HIM TO COME OVER. HELL .

Thank you for your review, and thank you so much for reading it and thank you so much for reading THIS god i just spent like an hour yapping. If anyone read this please send me your thoughts on this director’s cut alone honestly just so i know someone read it and i am not yapping into the void THANK YOU LOVE YOU KISSES HOPE THE NEXT ONE IS ALSO GOOD HOPEFULLY

#yapping #extensive yapping #onion wip #ask #serendipity 29 #i have to go close the boxes i packed now but i think the actual packing is done

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