#and not the popular high production value stuff

[mygwenchan]

So, the first ep was ok I think. Though the training sequence could've been shorter and I don't really like some of the camera work (someone seems to think this is an action game and not a series...). The leads are cute though, so I'll stick around for a bit longer.

[twig-tea]

Lately I’ve been feeling like Thai bl is truly all over the place with so many shows airing at once and some of the best ones flying under the radar while discourse is focused on a couple of the big messy ones. I think you’re the only person I know who is actually watching ALL of them and has been here for the whole evolution of the genre, so I’m curious what stands out to you about this current moment. Do the shows feel different to you? Is the way fandom is interacting with them changing? And what are your current favs?

I ended up writing a thesis, sorry friend lol To be fair to me there are 3 questions in there, all of them meaty! I've done my best to give a sense of where I'm at with Thai BL and how it feels like it's changed over time.

Caveating all of this: I am just one fan who I'm sure has had specific experiences that will colour my opinion, also a lot of this is just vibes so I'm open to being told I've forgotten something major or misremembered what it was like! If you are reading this and your opinion or experience is different please share, with stuff like this I'm always interested in hearing about differing opinions because the fandom experience will depend at least partly on where you hang out. For years, my main fandom space for BL was the YouTube comments section (RIP me).

Overall feel

Honestly, things overall don't feel all that different to me in Thai BL in particular, even though I'm about to talk about a lot of changes and ways it actuallyd does feel very different below lol And after reflecting about it, I think it's because these things still feel very much in flux, in a way that they've felt in flux this entire time. Producers are still figuring out the best funding and distribution models and merch models to make money; creators are still calibrating how queer these shows can be and still be popular; actors are still figuring out how to do BGP (business gay performances) without having fans interfere in their private lives off the clock. Writers are still trying to figure out how to write 12-episode arcs that don't drag in the middle or fumble the ending (which is also not new). The tension between established ships, fan expectations, and genre requirements has honestly been there almost the whole time, though the reverberations of missteps is louder now because of the larger fanbase that is (comparatively) more plugged in to live viewing. The core question in BL has always been 'how do we make this marketable', and that unsurprisingly hasn't changed, though the answer to that question has over time, if that makes sense?

Shows

Do the shows feel different? As a whole, I'd say yes. The biggest differences are of course total quantity and overall quality, but the actual distribution of % of shows that have high(er) production values (i.e. quality) feels close to the same--it was close to 50/50 in the late 2010s and now is maybe more like 40/60 with a higher percentage coming from more smaller production companies. But the numbers we're talking about are something like 15 shows in e.g. 2018 and something more like 50 shows in 2023 (being vague because there are shows that people could argue over whether they should count). The quality overall has increased, even the pulps look better, sound better, and tend to feel a little bit more put together than the pulps of even 2020 (please note that these are all relative qualifiers, most of these shows are still not objectively good). 2020 in particular was a watershed moment for high production value BLs; we get colorists and special effects artists, and sometimes decent sound production now!

There has also been an improvement in terms of what is depicted and how certain subject matter is treated very generally, though I think that's still in flux. Things like evil ex girlfriends are less common than they were and the women in BL are more likely (in general, still not always) to be treated as realized characters. We've gotten more and better femme representation in ensemble shows, and the "gay for you" trope is much less common. Consent is now considered sexy and is much more common than it was; non-consent as "sexy" has eroded and is much less common. Things that used to happen in almost every BL now happen in a much lower percentage. I also feel a little bit less worried about some of the actors on pulp sets because there is more general scrutiny about things like minor actors, intimacy coordination, BGP (business gay performance) expectations, and sexual exploitation. Overall, show recommendations these days come with fewer caveats.

The assumption that if you worked with someone on a BL once you would stay with them as an established pairing was surprisingly early in BL; I don't know if it's just because there were a few shows that had side pairings then get main shows, so the actors did work together on a few shows in a row, which made them feel established, or whether it's because the BGP started early to build hype both before and after shows aired, or whether audiences just made homophobic assumptions about how if two actors had chemistry they had to be gay for each other, and otherwise nobody would want to "play gay" more than once, or would want to have to kiss too many other men....in any case, there were huge scandals and blow-ups around this in BL on even the earliest shows, and some early shows were snubbed because of the pairing alone. Similarly, it was established very early in BL (i.e. 2016-17) that an unhappy ending for a pair would result in your show being panned; cheating was also a guaranteed flop in BL circles (though some ensemble shows that had gay relationships in them such as Friend Zone did fine with cheating plots and unhappy endings). Overall it feels like some things were only depicted in early Thai BL and creators have avoided them since due to the audience reception at the time. I will say, generally, that there have now been enough examples of people in a "branded pair" moving on to a new pair or multiple shows, that it feels less like a death knell to a BL career if one of the actors says they no longer wanted to make BLs, or if they switched companies.

I pay a lot of attention to queerness in BL, and that has changed a little bit too, though not in the way I expected. I had been expecting a more clear and steady trajectory in BL, but we've instead had real swings, and I've realized there will just always be shows that feel more or less actually gay or queer than others, and that's ok. Early Thai shows really spoiled us for good queer content, GayOK Bangkok and Diary of Tootsies are still shows by which i measure what we get now, and both of those are from 2016. I would say that more "mainstream" BL (i.e. by one of the major production companies) hit what turned out to be queer saturation around 2020 and that's where I was most surprised not see a more clear trajectory; rather than things getting more queer from there, I'd say a greater percentage of shows overall feel more queer, but we haven't (and I now suspect won't) reach the queerness we had in Thai tv in 2016. That being said, my secret running list of things I want to see in BL gets shorter every year as entries get crossed off, so I would say the range of queer experience is slowly getting captured as more content continues to be made by a wider range of production houses (PrEP being mentioned in a mainstream show is my white whale).

I know some people assume that shows are higher heat now overall, but I don't think that's true. I do think Thai television producers and directors have overalll gotten better at capturing sensuality, and acting workshops have improved chemistry-building overall too. But from what I can tell the ratio of high head and low heat content is still pretty similar to what it's always been, maybe slightly higher (e.g. at a quick glance I'd guesstimate 30% of shows had a sex scene in 2018 vs 40% in 2023).

Fandom

The main differences in fandom from the really early days and now are the ways we, as international fans, are able to engage with each other, with thai audiences at the same time, and with content creators, and the entitlement that comes with that. In the 2010s we were almost always watching after Thai airing, with either fansubs or, later, official subs, trailing online releases by days or weeks, which themselves may have trailed the Thailand airing date by days or weeks or sometimes even months. That became less true around 2019ish, and especially in 2020 when I think Thai producers were desperate to reach audiences during the start of the pandemic (and when audiences were desperate for something to distract us from what was happening in real life).

As a fan in the mid-late 2010s, watching something was either unofficial via a fansubber, or you were wading through hundreds of Thai comments to find anyone else writing about the shows in English. Now, it's actually rare we don't have immediate international distribution, though it may be paid. If the subs are not up at the same time as the official upload, even on free sites, fans get furious. It's a bit surreal to see people complain about waiting a few hours for subtitles, especially on YouTube, when we sometimes waited months for a series to finish being subbed (not to say people didn't complain back then too, because they sure did! But there were fewer international fans overall, and it wasn't an expectation that there would be subs, so fewer people complained when it happened). This meant that a lot of people only watched shows when they were complete, and people were not watching with any kind of synchronicity.

With international fans moving into simultaneous watching with Thai audiences, we suddenly had the chance to talk about shows as they were airing and affect the conversations about them and even, sometimes, the decisions. Folks seem to have differing opinions about what makes a BL, and what makes a BL good, and they are vocal about when a show doesn't meet their standard. This has always been true, but the strong opinions have more of an effect on the discourse when they're expressed in real-time to the show being aired. Also, when we have literally 3x the number of Thai shows being aired (nevermind other countries which have also increased), it seems so much more egregious to me to complain if a single show doesn't meet your particular taste. Just go watch something else! That was less possible in 2016, but now nobody has any excuse lol Please note here that I'm not saying shows should not be criticized. But when you have one loud faction saying shows should have nothing but innocent kisses if any skinship at all and showing more is distasteful and possibly homophobic, and another faction saying a show should be panned if they don't have at least one sex scene and if there is no good kiss it's homophobic, I don't know where that leaves content creators but I see the tension and how it sometimes results in my least favourite tropes like "blushing maiden" even after a couple has canonically had sex. These factions have always existed in BL fandom, this is not new, they just both seem particularly silly now with so much content to choose from.

The shows that get attention and the shows that get snubbed feel the same too, in all honesty. You can ask yourself the following questions:

Is the show a little slower paced?

Are the story beats less melodramatic?

Do its characters feel more human?

Do they feel more queer?

Is it a comedy?

Is there any risk of an unhappy ending?

Do people not think one of the lead actors is hot?

Do people ship one of the lead actors with someone who isn't his costar?

Do people have to do anything other than go to YouTube to watch it?

If the answer is yes to any of those questions, and especially to the last one, fewer people will be watching, even if the show is good. That's always been true. [Shows I'm thinking about when I say that: Make it Right, He's Coming to Me, My Ride, You're My Sky, Oxygen (though the sides in this one are also at fault), YYY, Something in my Room, Ghost Host Ghost House, Dear Doctor I'm Coming for Soul, Cooking Crush.] All this is to say, there have always been shows that have been ignored, though I agree with you OP that with more shows airing, more are being ignored at any given time.

The other thing is that when a show is good, it doesn't necessarily invite discourse. The messes are often what encourage people to dig in, fill in gaps, linger in the adrenaline. The part that does feel different is also related to the increase in genre BLs; genre stuff in general tends to get more attention in fandom spaces, and the way people are functioning as fans feels different in that they're bringing the way they interact with genre content to BL as BL has started having larger and better funded genre content. I'm thinking about those early genre BLs like He She It, My Dream, Love Poison, Golden Blood, So Much In Love, Why R U....we started getting genre shows in BL in I think 2017 and basically had 1-2 a year until 2020ish and then it increased from there; and the ones that had funding and decent distribution got engagement until they started going off the rails, and then they had even more engagement and then fell off. I don't think it's a coincidence that the shows last year that got people to write meta were La Pluie, Be My Favorite, and I Feel You Linger in the Air. When a show is building a world, there's more to say and interrogate about it, and when a genre show fails, it can fail more spectacularly than a regular romance story. The most popular BL shows used to all be straight-up BL bubble romances, but I think genre shows really started to take over a greater percentage of the popular spots in 2022 and 2023. Again, the main difference here is that there used to be 1-2 stand-out shows per year, and now there are closer to 6+ per year, and as we got more stand-out shows the variety of what type of show stood out as popular has expanded. I do think the overall percentage of shows that are more standard romance plots has reduced, partly because Thai production companies are running out of popular y-novels to adapt. So I'm anticipating we'll continue to get more genre content going forward, and maybe a higher percentage of original works too.

Shows I'm Enjoying Right Now

Right now, the Thai shows airing that I'm watching are:

Cooking Crush

Dead Friend Forever

Cherry Magic Thailand

City of Stars

The Sign

Playboyy

PitBabe

7 Days before Valentine

For Him

Of those, I'd currently most recommend Cooking Crush as a generic BL recommendation. Dead Friend Forever is very good, but is not a romance and is difficult for some to watch (there are a lot of dark themes in addition to the gore and scary bits).

Cooking Crush is doing so many things I love. I've written about the way it's set up its major conflict to be amongst the friend group here, and way the show is depicting communication between the two main characters and how they improve their communication with one another as they get closer here. Two of my biggest BL pet peeves are a conflict for the sake of a dramatic penultimate episode that ignores or retcons a character's growth or the building of trust that a couple has already gone through in the series, so the fact that this show is working so hard to establish strong communication between its leads and then setting up the significant drama to actually about friendship rather than romance is something I cannot overstate my excitement about. To tie this back into what I wrote above, this reminds me of Diary of Tootsies and I mean that in the best possible way.

Dead Friend Foreever is, like I mentioned above, not a romance; it's a slasher horror melodrama with a very well established mystery, an ensemble cast of mostly hateable characters (which I admit isn't usually my thing, but since they're likely all going to die as a result of the genre they're in I'm finding that more tolerable than usual, and there is at least one character I like). DFF did a great job of structuring the story for the ultimate payoff of information reveals. There are a lot of shows that have been messing with non-linear storytelling recently, Cooking Crush being one of the ones that actually does this poorly in my opinion, but Dead Friend Forever effectively uses non-linear storytelling so that we find out important pieces of information about particular characters at a time when that information will have the most emotional impact on what is happening in the "present" of the storyline. Every time there is a reveal, it informs what we've already seen, recontextualizes it, and means we understand some of the character motivations and actions differently from when we saw them the first time. I mentioned above that there are dark themes in this show; one of the things that I really like about this show is that the impact of class is not glossed over, and that the consequences of these events feel very real for the characters; people do terrible things in this show, but these actions are not treated lightly by the show itself.

You'd think these two shows would have nothing in common, but there are things that they share that put them both in my top category. Generally, in both of these shows, the character arcs are clear and logical; when a character does something, even if I don't like the action itself, I can understand exactly why they that and can see how it matches where they are in their arc at the time. The shows show change in characters as a result of what they experience, and the relationships in this show really matter. When characters start acting in ways that feel out of character or against their own arc because they have to in order to drive the plot forward, I struggle to remain invested; that's not happening with either of these shows. Both of these shows also treat serious topics with seriousness, and consequences for actions are real and felt by the characters in the show (and if someone gets away with something, the show is clear that this is not just). Nothing has happened that hasn't been signalled or implied earlier. Both shows also have clear class consciousness and represent the disparity caused by classism in a critical/harsh light.

Whew! I think I got to everything you asked. Thanks again for the extremely interesting question!

[absolutebl]

Be My Favorite - Flaming Hot Trash Watch Action

Ready for this?

Adapted from the y-novel You Are My Favorite by JittiRain this is one of those “rewrite the past to change the future.” Starring Krist (SOTUS) + Fluke Gawin (DBK, Not Me). I expect this to be low heat, full of LIES and manipulation.

12 eps of approx 45 min fresh content each, and I guess I am drinking on frigay for the next 3 damn months 

Main tropes: time travel/slip/loop, paranormal, university setting, soft romance, low heat, sunshine/tsundere with GMMTV’s heavy hand on classic Thai BL tropes, product placement, and high production values.

Trailer | MDL

I’m getting some shizz outta my system before I start putting the alcohol into it...

Story issues 

Let’s get this on the table. I have a mixed relationship with Jittirain’s stuff because unlike Mame who is trash to her characters with plot, Jittirain is trash to plot with characters. All characters (what limited characterization there is) will be obedient to the plot and act against personality the moment it is necessary for whatever insanity is required for audience manipulation. We The Watchers WILL feel jerked around by these jerks (but as this is GMMTV there will be no actual jerking). We WILL be lied to, and the characters will lie to each other FOR NO GOOD REASON. 

In addition to Be My Favorite JittiRain is behind: Vice Versa, 2gether, Fish Upon the Sky, and Theory of Love. Mmm humm. Yeah. Drinks are defiantly required. 

Actor issues: 

Krist: Who knew Krist would do a BL again? Like seriously? His career has been riddled with controversy and his skills as an actor widely challenged. Regarding the first, this is not that blog, take that discourse/cancel culture elsewhere. For the second? I will judged his acting based on the usual criteria: this BL, this role, this pairing, this script, and the fact that this is Thai style acting. Okay?

Gawin/Fluke: I will likely slip and call him Gawin because that’s what he used when he first crossed my radar. I have said this before but he looks like an ex of mine. So my baggage with him is all personal. Said ex and I are amicable, but it wigs me out sometimes. They even have a similar voice. I will try to get over this. 

Also the both SCREAM straight. I mean I don’t wanna judge insult or anything but these boys got breeder smeared all over them. 

Okay, so what are we doing here?

Well, as previously established: DRINKING.

AND

A new trash watch! 

Although there is always the (however faint) possibility it will become a praise watch. Sometimes that happens. But this is Jittirain so... I doubt it. 

Ready?

Here we go! 

Episode 1: Sake & Fear 

I have heartburn already. Or maybe that’s the extra chili I put on my noodles + booze + EXISTENTIAL DREAD. 

Kawi = loser, poor, stupid, shy, and friendless (AKA Japan’s ordinary bottom uke archetype) - he’s a downer, this is an issue with this kind of character, not likable. 

Pearmai = the sunshine faen fatale Kawi has a crush on 

Piseang = the tall handsome cute popular perfect seme, plays basketball perfectly (waves at Love O2O), is also a DJ (nash)

Most of this ep was spent establishing this dynamic and some kind of secret santa for college kids, a magic time travel snow globe, and the fact that the wrong couple got together. 

Why is there a dandelion in the snow globe? 

Is it a wishes thing? Do they have that superstition in Thailand?

A 12 year time jump is v Japanese. Which life-point is closer to Krist’s actual age? Ooo, half a bottle of sake and I’m salty af. 

Apparently Kawi still has same problems and the same haircut as he did as a fresher.

Could we please talk about this? It’s in ALL BL. Why does NO ONE change their hair as they age? My hair changes by the week. 

Meanwhile our ordinary bottom has turned into a wild imbecilic tsundere and our seme clearly likes that and I am too drunk for this. So is Kawi. 

You know what, it’s not as terrible as I thought it would be. I don’t like it but I can see the characters becoming appealing. Maybe? Hopefully? Why do I do this to myself?

I’m not a monster, I will give it a chance. 

At least no one has yet picked up a guitar.

See you next week, same Jittirain time, same Jittiran place, new bottle of sake.  

Episode 2: Nigori & Serenity 

The sake I’m drinking tonight is described on the bottle “silky & mild” which is also a legit review of Gawin’s acting. 

WAIT A MINUTE.

What is going on? 

What am I feeling? 

They’re lying on the grass talking to each other in a meaningful way. It’s cute. I am enjoying it. How appropriately collegiate. 

Is this... enjoyment?

Am I enjoying this show?

OMG I AM. 

help 

I ate booze-filled chocolates AS WELL AS SAKE. 

Maybe it’s the double dose? 

Am I becoming silky & mild?

I got a slow down. I can’t do this every week for 12 weeks in a row. I’m not in uni anymore. I might end up being a nice person if I continue down this road. Can’t have that.  

Honestly, I do like the fantasy of getting to re-live your college years as a cooler version of yourself. 

Although, frankly, I did fine with mine. 

(Oh thank fuck, asshole me is back.) 

I don’t know where Max came from but he is officially the most interesting character in this show. 

Also... does he look a bit like a bad boy bunny to anyone else? 

It isn’t actually like it, but I am getting a distinct 2gether vibes from this show. It makes it feel kinda dated for BL. What a fucking crazy thing to say. Ignore me, I’m drunk. 

OOOOO.... Nong teasing. Very nice.  

The over dramatic drunken kiss made me giggle. First time Krist has been properly kissed in a BL.

Sigh. 

What do I do? 

I’m enjoying it! 

Damn it. 

Episode 3: Tipsy Waffling 

I was out at the club, came home faintly tipsy. Frankly I feel a little unwell, so I’m not gonna drink anymore. So this is an unprecedented semi-sober trash watch. I’m not sure if I’m ready but so far this show been beating expectations, and I don’t expect a derailment until next ep so I’m feel okay about my life choices. 

Okay Gawin is good. I’ll give you that . His little moment if realization (and giving up). The “oh shit” look. 

Wait.

That’s Title! 

When did he leave Wabi Sabi and join GMMTV’s stable? 

Look I kinda enjoyed this bit, because it was a joke.

BUT I AM NOT HAPPY WITH THE ENDING.

Is this the beginning of the JittiRain of Doom? Or it this just good angsty story telling?

No way to know until next week.

(JittiRain of Doom - see what I did there? Aren’t I a clever little lush dragon?) 

I should go to bed now. 

I think we can safely say clouds are on the horizon and whether this is good storytelling or bad, only episode 4 will tell. 

Episode 4: It’s Happened! The Suck! 

not in a good way @heretherebedork​ said ep 4, can they call it or WHAT?! 

I’m officially calling Kwai’s pink haired Maximum hotness bestie “my café fae” and YOU can’t stop me. I love him. Or I want to be him? Or I AM him?

Difficult to know.

Checks own hair.

Not pick at at the moment. Mostly blue actually.

(I weirdly adore that blue open weave draw-string vest thing he’s rocking. Checks own closet. Wonders idly about turning a mesh laundry bag into a shirt.) 

Anygay... Café fae and I are running away together and not putting up with any of this Jittirain nonsense.

Right? 

Because this beach frolic...?  

Too cringe. Too awkward. I really don’t like all of embarrassment factor for everyone, not to mention humiliation and hazing and older kids picking on younger kids.

I’ve been done with this plot divice since SOTUS. And I’ll take it in small doses from Korea but no more Thailand. Stop it. And...

is that...

A GUITAR 

!!!

NO SINGING.

Oh, I hate this show.

Everyone listening in on the phone while he’s humiliating himself with a girl? This is fully terrible. 

I’m so uncomfortable with this whole episode. 

And yet. Secure. Because finally we are in the territory I was expecting. But ALSO I can’t bear it. 

Please make it stop.

At least Piseng is a decent human being.

And Pair. 

Screw all y’all. I’m eloping with Pair.

Wait.

What about my cafe fae? Hummmm. 

Ah! Got it. Thrupple! 

I’m not gonna lie. That was rough going. 

And I am not OK.

Although I’m digging this thrupple scheme of mine. 

Episode 5: I Am V Drunk

For those of you following the soga of ABL is a lush... 

I got my cocktail! 

Then got distracted by meeting colleagues at the bar. 

Then went for dinner and wine.

Then got another cocktail and finally made it back to the room. 

So by the time I started watching this week’s installment I was... quite drunk. 

Take this recap with a grain of salt margarita salt rim... no... not that kind of rimming, that’s just in KP, sadly... wait... what am I doing? I got distracted. This is GMMTV. Def no rimming. 

So! 

Kawi deserves his new asshole friends (stop it ABL no rimming). 

I just don’t like him. He’s too straight and whiney and homophobic. 

Could we have a romance between Pisang and Max? 

Asking for a friend me. 

Bet there would be rimming. They both seem very game. Just saying.

Different show ABL. Different show. 

Where was I? Apparently I went to the land of Bed Friends for a moment there. 

Why does anyone like Kawi? 

Max deserves better.  

Pear deserves better. 

Pisang deserves better. 

OMG!!! His utter wistful yearning over the happy gay bar. Poor baby. 

Awe don’t run away from Max. We love Max. Max is the best. You NEED a Max in your life. We all do! 

Someone described Max as “tired gay,” and I feel this keenly. 

NO SINGING. 

I DON’T LIKE WHERE THIS THREAD IS GOING. 

NO NO NO NO NO 

SKIP! Skipskipskip. 

Next week look like a classic ep 6 kiss then angst. Whatever. 

It was fine. 

This was a fine installment. 

I’m very drunk. 

Hotel all spinny. 

Hi, bed! Make me a sammitch. 

Episode 6: I Am Less Drunk Than I Should Be

I just wish this were Pisaeng’s story instead of Kawi’s. It would be a lot better. In fact, it is a lot better. Any time we get PS alone or with any other character it’s a better narrative. Any time with him and Max talking it’s the best of everything, That’s all I want on my screen.

In fact, Max is all I want. 

I love his “care bear kpop” clothes. 

This is definitely one of those shows where I don’t understand why anyone likes the central character - his friends, his love interests, his father, his audience, tumblr. 

No one should like him. He started out a loser and he’s only getting worse, and nasty to boot. 

Yes, it’s good we see him apologize, but there’s no logic behind the choices that led him to needing to make the apology in the first place! 

(No one does, honey.) 

We are heading into classic Jitiirain where are the characters are going to betray us and themselves in order to serve the narrative. 

And I’m not drunk enough for this. 

Honestly? I think Krist what is miss-cast as well. 

I’m not in the anti-Krist faction but just imagine... what if Kawi had been played by Khaotung? He has a much softer more dynamic screen presence. I think he could’ve carried even Jittirain’s patented nonsense. KT is... in fact... CUTE. 

Gawin is not an issue. (Which surprises me, since I came into this with a bias against him.) 

Because we can see PS thinks that K is cute even before the script felt the need to tell us this. 

Even when he’s being an arsehole, PS’s eyes are all soft for him. I guess some guys just are attracted to arseholes. 

Heh. 

See what I did there?

Meanwhile I hate PS’s mother! 

She = evil. 

I RECOGNIZE that balcony!

PS’s house/apartment thingy is the same as MaxNat celebrity pad in Y-Destiny. Another one for the location trackers.

That’s it, that’s all I got. 

Only one gay pun for you this evening. 

I have one job to do and I’m blowing it.

snerk

Nighty night. Don’t let the mosquitos bite leave hickeys. 

Episode 7: NO SINGING

I guess Kawi is one of those “straights” who just gets gayer the drunker he is. I know the type. 

Boozing the Kinsey Scale. 

Beer goggle queers. 

Cockeyed. 

Three sheets to the flame. 

Dick wasted. 

What else do we call them?

Oh yeah... cock tease. 

Episode 8: STOP SINGING 

Pisaeng for these last two episodes...

(singing cat never gets old, bite me) 

Good for you Pisaeng for standing up for yourself. Stop letting the straight boy jerk you around. 

(I see you in your matched couple shirts.) 

Omg I HATE Kawi just WHY IS ANYONE FRIENDS WIH HIM? 

Stop. Just this show would be so much better if he weren’t in it. 

I’m glad he lost Pisaeng and I enjoyed watching him cry. 

Even if he still made everything about himself. 

We return yet again to the fact that I love Max. Max and I are running away together. 

Pisaeng is just never Kawi’s priority, whereas the opposite is always the case. Talk about one sided love friendship relationship everything.  

Kawi the coward. 

To little too late. 

I do keep thinking about Big Eden with this series, Kawi just seems so straight no matter what he says or does or kisses.  

Poor Pisaeng he gets what he wants but it’s all out of pity, fear, and desperation. 

And all he wants is a chance to flirt? 

Is he an actual saint?

Fuck this damn show. 

(source)

As always with these trash watches, I update the original post until Tumblr has a brain fry and won’t let me anymore. Then it becomes an updated repost. Life in the dumpster fire is never dull. 

[thethirdromana]

I was gonna ask you some stuff about Quincey and the aftermath of the Civil War, but that wasn't really near the 1890s so idk if it's relevant.

Also similar to Mina maybe supporting eugenics I would imagine Seward probably engages in a lot of pseudosciences

But more interestingly, what do you think Dracula's politics would be? He's pretty removed from human society by being a vampire and his home in Transylvania is pretty remote, but he was still a nobleman there and he was moving to England, which he planned to conquer. I'm curious where he'd fall, when pretending to be and working with (?) humans in Romanian politics (if you feel like researching it) and English politics. Another cool layer to this is if you subscribe to the popular theory that he's really Vlad the Impaler. What would a warlord from the mid-1400s think of the politics 400 or so years later? That's barely even thinking about him being a vampire.

Also, what would Renfield's politics be like?

Quincey and the aftermath of the Civil War is a fascinating question that I will definitely leave for someone who knows more US history than I do.

Dracula, on the other hand... first of all, the relevant set of politics is Hungarian, not Romanian. Transylvania was part of Austria-Hungary in the 1890s. There's actually an interesting story here, in that vampire myth was originally associated primarily with Hungary. Then Bram Stoker set Dracula in Transylvania, which became part of Romania in 1920, and Romania ended up inheriting vampire myths in the process. Which has generally done the Romanian tourist industry no harm at all. (Though when I was in Bucharest last weekend, my lovely tour guide, Andrea, was clearly a bit annoyed by people asking about it).

Anyway, we have a decent sense of what Dracula's politics are, because he spells them out on May 8: he's proud to be part of a fighting, conquering race, he values "warlike days", he disdains peasants, and he generally holds that might makes right.

Given his pride in "beating the Turk on his own ground", I think we can assume that he didn't approve of Austria-Hungary's neutrality in the Russo-Turkish War in 1877-8.

In some ways he fits into contemporary society. He is a boyar, one of the highest rank of feudal nobility, who retained a great deal of power in 1890s Austria-Hungary. Where in the UK the growth of industry made the middle classes wealthier, in Austria-Hungary that wealth often went straight back to the nobility. Just six percent of the population had the right to vote in general elections, compared with 18% in the UK (meanwhile New Zealand had universal suffrage from 1893).

But Dracula is still a product of an earlier time. He wants to increase his power through conquest, not through modernising his estate or being appointed to the board of directors of a bank. And while Austria-Hungary did grow through conquest (occupying Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878, for instance), it wasn't at nearly the same scale as other contemporary empires - for example, Austria-Hungary didn't take part in the Scramble for Africa.

Honestly, it makes perfect sense that Dracula would want to come to Britain. If he wanted conquest, carried out with indifference to cruelty, he would have got on extremely well with Cecil Rhodes. To an extent this is what the story of Dracula is about: what if foreigners came to Britain and did to us what we do to them? The War of the Worlds, published at the same time, asks essentially the same question but with aliens.

(This is the bit where someone comes along and says yes, but don't forget that Bram Stoker was Irish. Which is true, but he was also a supporter of the British Empire.)

As for Renfield, most of what we learn about his politics comes from October 1. He's from high society and is a member of the Windham Club. He celebrates the roles Quincey, Van Helsing and Arthur play "by nationality, by heredity, or by the possession of natural gifts" - in other words, he seems to be open to people advancing themselves through meritocracy, but also through hereditary rights. To me, this reads as conservative, but not reactionary.

One thing that does strike me is that his point about Texas - celebrating its admittance to the Union - relates to history that was 50 years old at that point (Unless I'm misunderstanding the reference?). Renfield is 59 during the events of Dracula. Is the implication here that he's stuck in the past? We don't know how long he's been institutionalised, but since his memories of Arthur's father relate to youthful drinking games, it could be 30 years or more. He may be disconnected from contemporary politics - and given how much the world changed in the late 19th century, that could make for quite a shock if he'd ever had the chance to learn more.

As ever, I'm not a historian, and other people should feel free to offer corrections.

[trainerfangirlsmile]

I went to see the second to last show in the Anastasia The Musical run in Mexico and oh my god:

So first of all, this was the first Mexican production that I ever saw in an established theater as opposed to a tour production (that was the Cats Mexican Tour back in 2019) so I was a little excited about that fact and how it would feel.

I had heard one negative comment about it, mainly how the sets and costumes didn't make justice to the original production (this couldn't have been MORE WRONG they were absolutely breathtaking)

There was a young girl (couldn't be more than 9 y/o) that was asked if she had seen the original movie and her answer was no, which made me think that for a lot of young kids the show could've been their first approach to Anastasia and I think that's beautiful

Now onto the musical itself:

The 3rd call for starting was made by little Anya and her voice was so adorable! She also made the call for starting the 2nd act during intermission

Most of the songs were adapted from the Madrid version rather than from the Latin American Dub of the movie (where the songs were sung by a popular Mexican singer called Thalia) and while at first it slightly disappointed me, it didn't affect the value of the production at all, I found myself vibing to the music all the time

Gleb's actor had a higher-pitched voice than Ramin, which at first surprised me, but he also managed to make a much more awkward Gleb that you could, not root for per-say, but understand him and his motivations from the start? One of my friends knew nothing about the changes in the musical, but this is how they felt about it (also please take into consideration it had been some time since I had last seen a "grand duchess slime tutorial", I may have forgotten some stuff)

Vlad was a delight to see on stage, he was funny and charming, every time he came on stage you knew you would laugh, also he was shorter than Lily's actress, and it made funnier some jokes, we stan an unhinged couple

Dimitri amazed me. He was very tall and had a great singing voice, I was so nervous for the adaption of My Petersburg, but you can imagine my surprise when he made a great rendition of it, also ohmygoshhhh him in In a Crowd of Thousands? I kid you not, his yearning almost made me faint, seriously, he and Anya left almost no space for Jesus and I was over there in the second floor gasping for air when he said "your highness", the chemistry was off the charts

Lily was a riot the whole time she was on stage as well, funny, sarcastic, you named it she had it. Land of Yesterday was one of my favorite choreographies from the original production and it did not disappointed me!

The Dowager Empress had this ring in her voice that kinda reminded me of older Mexican dubs? Which makes no sense considering her age but at the same time it does considering her character, such talent she has! She and Alix's actress also made it more obvious through their short interactions that they weren't in the best of terms which I thought it was a great Easter egg for historical fans

The ensemble was amazing! They were all so incredible to watch, during Quartet at the Ballet, the dancers got such a big applause that it warmed my heart, they were seriously so amazing!

A song I was surprised that shook me emotionally was Stay, I Pray You; I had always enjoyed the song and think it is beautifully written, especially because it reflects how one may feel leaving your country "by choice" (I may be projecting a bit into it) but seeing it live and in my native language just broke me, beautifully done by the cast

Mariana Davila as Anya was such a treat to see live! I wish I had been able to meet her at the stage door, because she was just breathtaking! Her voice was so beautiful and it left me speechless so many times during the 2 ½ hours of the show, I hope she gets so many more roles and that I can keep watching her! Again, her chemistry with Dimitri was amazing and she also looked beautiful in Anya's dresses.

I left this as my last point because I think it was my favorite part but, as I had said before, a lot of the songs were adapted from the Madrid cast which, if I remember correctly, had been adapted from the Spanish Dub of the movie.

A lot of movie fans had voiced their disappointment at not being able to hear songs like Once Upon a December with the original lyrics, and Mariana had said that they had tried to change them to the ones we were used to

Upon starting the show and realizing the new lyrics, I thought, "Well, maybe it was just for some specific shows or dates" and proceeded to enjoy the show

AND THEN COMES THE END OF ACT 1 AND GUYS

Journey To The Past was sang with the exact same lyrics as the Latin American Dub from 1997.

I am not joking when I tell you that the second that I heard "No me falles no..." I looked towards my friends and was already getting my eyes welled up with tears, it was such a flashback to being 5 years old coming home from blockbuster on an early December day and just, gosh, it was too much emotionally, I really cried throughout the whole song

Also, last year, I went on an exchange program, and some of the trips I was able to make were to Paris (since it was really close to were I was studying at the time) and just, seeing the images from Paris was also a reminder that I had been able to make many dreams come true in the last year, including watching this musical

It didn't help that the lights started from the seats towards the stage, it was so poetic, I still feel emotional thinking it and it has been like 23 hours since I experienced this.

Mexico is so talented, I hope we can continue to enjoy these experiences, and not only in the capital city, everyone in all the 32 states deserves to have a magical time

[alpaca-clouds]

Media in a Solarpunk world

Yeah, there is a reason I spoke about Indie games yesterday. Because I want to speak about this one thing that I have never ever seen discussed within the solarpunk sphere.

If we established a Solarpunk world, how would it change our media landscape?

Confused? Well, let me break it down.

Solarpunk is only possible without capitalism. It is simply as it is. We will not established the "sustainable living" under capitalism. We can now discuss on whether to go socialism or communism, but... yeah. No more capitalism.

But here is where the media comes in: Most media we consume right now is released through big coorporate media outlets. This is especially true for stuff like games and movies. AAA games and blockbuster movies with their budgets of hundreds of millions and teams of thousands working behind them getting distributed through other big companies at times making billions of dollars... Even most books or comics or audiobooks or even podcasts get published and distributed through companies being valued in the hundreds of millions at least. Because the attention economy is set up in the way that you have no chance if you do not have your books on amazon and your podcasts not on spotify or itunes.

And without capitalism all of that will fall away.

This will be of course most noticable with movies and games. Again, the most popular of those will have hundreds of millions in budget and are dependent on the crunch work of thousands of people on every way of the step. And of course there is this big studio system right now deciding on what gets created.

But without capitalism... You will probably not motivate thousands of people to crunch the hell out of something. Hundreds of people? Sure. Thousands? No. Not even without the crunch. Because the current system of creating this media is not sustainable. Not from a human perspective - and not from an environmental perspective.

What I am saying is... There will probably no longer be high fidelity blockbusters or the kind of huge TV productions we have seen since Game of Thrones.

And I am here to tell you... that is actually a good thing.

See, in the gaming sphere we actually see it already. There are Indie Games that are at times created on a shoestring budget of a couple of thousand dollars. And because we have some great platforms to distribute them easily with steam and itch.io, people will actually see those games and play them. Might actually end up prefering them to the big ass million dollar games.

Now, the system is not perfect, given that yes, with the exception of itch.io the shops behind it all still run under capitalism. But if you compare it to stuff like movies... It is actually already fairly democratized.

Which is also something that I would then love to see for movies. An easy way to just access indie movies. Be it the "exactly one million dollar indie movies", which are still the majority given that making movies is expensive, or actually those project done by students in their freetime.

Big cities might actually already have their "indie movie festivals" right now. But it is something I want to see more off. With a higher appreciation for movies that do not get a theatrical release, because physical big screens are limited, even if we start democratizing them. (I will talk tomorrow about what it means to democratize media.)

The internet in the end will be a big part of a solarpunk world, because it actually allows us to not only participate in society, but also will give us access to both knowledge and media.

And yes, in a smaller degree this will also impact the other forms of media. Already it is pretty possible to self-publish books or comics, but usually you will often barely get back the investment, let alone being paid for the work that went into the creation of the book from your own end.

Because chances are, that you just will not reach too many people with it. Because the big publishers will usually easily outmarket you, because they have a marketing budget that you will simply lack.

But without those central publishers existing - and work in general being differently compensated than under the capitalist system... It should be easier. Fairer. Allowing for more different ideas, for more different voices to be heard through media.

Yeah, there probably will no longer be much in terms of high fidelity special effects, because there will no longer be hundreds or thousands of SFX guys slaving away for this one big movie. But... That is okay.

Like, I will rather have a movie with a great story, than amazing big explosions, don't you agree?

[ifawnleaf]

i know ppl probably mean well when they say they don't care about the high production value but like. watcher has always had that as a top priority, at least on paper. "tv quality" was in their messaging from day 1. (whether or not their stuff is truly that quality is besides the point) telling them you liked the low budget stuff isn't telling them anything they don't already know. they have different ambitions so you're just wasting your breath imo.

and yeah it's probably not the best business decision to pursue less popular stuff and waste money on overproducing everything but like. that's the decision they're making. no one's obligated to be in their audience forever just like they aren't obligated to make the same crowd-pleasing content forever.

[kanohimineka]

The Murder of the Power Rangers: A Conspiracy

This post requires brief context of this one: https://www.tumblr.com/kanohimineka/729314732989874176/i-would-like-to-add-i-also-posted-this-to-my?source=share

I didn't want to reblog it, since this is more of its own thing, but whatever, read it anyways.

So, Cosmic Fury is now out, and it seems that our friend Simon has completely let loose. In a brief Twitter Space thingy, he took in questions from fans, where he would eventually answer them. Most of it was pretty innocuous, basic production stuff. However, there were a few moments of Hasbro heavily limiting what could be done with Cosmic Fury. The two biggest examples of this are the first two posts, with Hasbro being the ones to limit Cosmic Fury to a measly 10 episodes, despite Netflix being interested in more, the seeming circular production hell of Once and Always, and the fact that, for some reason, they only had 2 weeks to film the action footage. Of course, there is still some issues on the production's end, but they seem to have interest in continuing Power Rangers, that's just being stopped by Hasbro's Reboot plans, plans that have been in talks since 2019, Both Cosmic Fury and Dino Fury 2 being stopgaps. This fills into a continual issue that I briefly touched upon before. So, let's talk about the economics of the Power Rangers.

Power Rangers started as a massive success, a series designed on the cheap, basically only filming half a show's worth of generic sit com footage, licensing out some weird Japanese show, and ADRing your new actors over it is an extremely inexpensive production for the kind of action show it is, all things considered. Then, the series got massively popular, selling reprints of pre existing Japanese toys with some new branding, ensuring extreme profits for everyone involved, Toei, Bandai, and Saban. However, after some time, the series starts to slump in popularity, it happens to the best of us. However, Power Rangers, being, again, relatively inexpensive, and still having some cultural relevance, allowed it to stay in some form of existence for the past 30 years. It is a series that has been able to coast, staying financially viable, while still not being a gangbuster success. It persisted, giving a decent living to those around it, and allowing artists to create something fun.

It has been hot potatoed between multiple rights holders, who all eventually saw value in the way it was made. However, we jump to today. Now, Hasbro is cancelling that, as mentioned, moderate success to form a reboot of it, helmed by Jonathan Entwistle, a creator who seems like a decent fit, his two big breaks being focused on teens in small towns doing stuff, a decent fit for at least half of the Power Rangers Pipeline. It is yet to be seen how he will do in the more action heavy elements of Rangers, as again, most of his projects are smaller, but he at least seems interested, also working on some sort of Karate Kid reboot. However, it seems they want it to be bigger in scale. They want it to fit that Netflix Limited Series High Budget, Short Length structure, targeting a slightly more mature audience. However, a lot of this seems to come from one main desire. They want the Power Rangers that was there in the 90's

I don't just mean, "They Want MMPR!" though that is a symptom of this issue. What they really want is the size and growth that MMPR had back in the day. Therefore, they're going to pump their whole ass into this project, shifting it to be whatever would be seen as following the popular Hollywood trends. This, to me, is a secret side reason to hire Johnny E. He fits into that MCU Formula of hiring a relative unknown known for a few smaller, personal projects and getting them to make some big action blockbuster. And part of this is to reboot to MMPR. It is the recognizable iconography. It's the version of the Rangers my Grandma would know.

Now, it seems neat that Hasbro would want to invest into Rangers. However, they aren't really investing into what Rangers is. That has been going already, and it is only a moderate success. That's not enough. It needs to be a massive success. It needs to be the next big billion dollar hit. Which means, while they are risking the money, since they are a business, they will be trying to mitigate risk. Which, again, means they will be trying to make the safest choices possible. This means taking the old iconography, taking out the weird unique ideas and grafting on more conventional ideas. You know, making it like the MCU 5 years too late. This is an infinitely deep hole caused by the visualization of art as capital

Now, of course, most art, when made in capitalism, needs to be somewhat financially viable. This is more extreme in things like Power Rangers as they are toy vehicles, ways to sell other products, a practice heavily strengthened by the deregulation of children's television under the Reagan administration. A lot of what is going on with Rangers right now reads as the hyper extreme of this concept. At least before, Rangers was able to fit in that weird little corner of the toy shelf that had its own campy vibe, flowing with new ideas every year, staying viable through the Power Rangers brand. It is this perfect creative balance where new ideas can be forged while also staying to a single IP. Yes, Sentai footage limits this, but sticking to whatever weird ideas Toei makes forced the writers to push Power Rangers further. However, now, Hasbro is bucking away from the Sentai footage, not to be able to be more creative with the brand, but to be less creative. Bringing it to be the old Power Rangers, rather than anything new. That's why I am sceptical. And a lot of what has been discussed has only cemented that in my mind.

If anything, thanks to Simon Bennet for keeping with Rangers for so long, for making one last ride, even through Hasbro can suck. And thank you for liking my silly, pessimistic tweets. And godspeed to Johnny E, I hope you can make something good.

[pristiqgirl]

I keep seeing these tiktoks that are saying stuff like “top 10 amazon products for the beginning of the year” or like “top amazon must haves for hot girls” or “trendy amazon items I loved.” It’s always amazon. And they’re starting to get under my skin, because I’m seeing this intersection between vast overconsumption and the recent pattern of trends for women lasting for shorter and shorter amounts of time, which has been accelerated in part because of TikTok specifically. Larger brands like amazon that mistreat their workers obviously benefit from the constant cycling of trends, because they profit off of people wanting to buy different new products to remain current, but I think there’s something to be said about how much more the phenomenon affects people who are expected to buy into feminine products and ideals than those who aren’t. Whenever I see these videos, they’re always advertisements for goods that are being marketed towards women, and are mostly different variations of goods that many people already have, like clothing items or accessories, beauty products, or home decor. All goods that are traditionally marketed towards women. Partially what is insidious to me is that these companies incentivize every consumer to advertise to other consumers. I believe anyone can have an Amazon storefront, not just companies or influencers. So people benefit financially from advertising their own consumerism, and anyone can become an advertisement, so there is no end to everyone advocating for products on their personal platforms. And these feminine trends, which are defined by the style of products or even specific products themselves, come to be pushed and circulated by those advertising on their platforms, which is everyone. They come and go faster and faster, because people want to be both current and unique, so they constantly have to be doing the newest and best thing, which is advertising different products to show off the value and modernity of your own personal style. I think right now it is impossible to buy into trendy styles without producing unnecessary waste, and these companies know it and love it. It’s fast fashion, but for all aspects of life, which is inevitably what Amazon ends up being due to its incredible quantity of products and conveniently fast delivery. As soon as you see a new style, you can buy the corresponding products, and they’ll be delivered to you almost instantly, and you can use them until you see the next trending style, and at that point the cycle continues. It’s now a part of the culture, or at least the culture that I see as an American woman on tiktok. And because it’s a part of the culture, it affects social structures and hierarchies. Participation in trends allows people, particularly women for whom these trends are designed, to display their values and priorities. Those who want to display their values as people who are current, who are leaders in the culture, must remain on top of and as drivers of these trends, and in doing so show that being at the top of the social hierarchy comes from consumption and constant turnover of products. Companies have manipulated social structures so much that popularity and trendiness are inseparable from overconsumption, at such a high speed that has not ever been obtained before, and has trapped us all in this societal need be constantly consuming, all for profit and off the backs of underpaid and overworked laborers.

[aeoki]

Machina - Test World: Chapter 4

Location: Season Avenue (SSVRS) Characters: Mika, Sora & Makoto

< A few days later. Season Avenue inside “SSVRS”. >

Sora: HaHa~ HiHi~ HuHu~♪

There’s only a few more days left in Sora’s winter holidays! Sora will play until the very end~♪

Maybe Sora will have a walk around in the fantasy world where the “Phantom Airship” stage is. Umm, the closest teleport point is…

Oh. Mika-chan-san is online~

He’s been online a lot recently so maybe Sora should check up on him?

Being unable to leave the game world is a pretty common theme in MMOs, though.

If he ends up in some sort of trouble because he’s way too into the game, then Sora would feel bad since it was Sora who introduced him to the game~

If he’s wanting to make something, then he should probably be shopping around here…

Makoto: Ah, you’re here too, Harukawa-kun. Hello.

Sora: Yuuki-sensei~!

You’re playing video games every day too, huh~ Thanks for always testing it out for us!

Do you have any idea where Mika-chan-san might be, by the way? There are a lot of shops you can buy materials from in this area, so Sora thought he might be here~?

Makoto: Yeah. Harukawa-kun, about that…

Mika: Hello, I see you two are here today!

I got some “VL$” from makin’ stuff so I’ve opened a store. Some people said they wanted to buy some of the stuff I made with virtual currency.

It looks like there were quite a few people interested, so I used the auction (?) feature in the “Test World” and put a price on ‘em. But they fetched for a high price.

I’m glad I opened up shop in the best place in Season Avenue ‘cause of that ♪

Sora: HeHe~ Looks like Mika-chan-san has really made a name for himself as a creator in this “Test World” ♪

Makoto: No. It might be even bigger than that.

I looked things up a while ago, but it seems Kagehira-kun’s work has brought people’s attention to the “Test World” and the value of the “VL$” has increased.

Thanks to that, the “Test World” is becoming more and more popular and it’s even caught the media’s eye now that a lot of people are interested in it.

Mika: Oh, really?

I was just makin’ stuff like usual, though. But now that you mention it, all the stuff I’ve got up in the shop have bids placed on ‘em.

Well, I’m not makin’ art ‘cause I wanna make money. I’ll use the “VL$” to make up for the production cost.

I’ve got more than enough inspiration than I can handle, so I can’t talk to you guys for long. If you’ve got some time, feel free to take a look around~♪

Sora: HoHo~ You’re a true artist, huh, Mika-chan-san.

Every nook and cranny of your shop is filled with your artwork – it’s flourishing~♪

Sora wants to decorate Sora’s house in the “Test World” with one of Mika-chan-san’s artworks! 

Yuuki-sensei~ Let’s take a look at the artwork and bid on one we like.

Makoto: Sure. This is the “Test World”, so it might be worth the challenge to try and win something.

The “Test World” gets really colourful and prosperous with creators like Kagehira-kun.

It sounds pretty interesting to have an item and know that it’s designed by Kagehira-kun. I guess I’ll bid on this one.

Mika: Thanks so much. I’ll use that money to make even better artwork ♪

[ Location: Shuu’s Atelier (Paris) ]

Shuu: …………

Strange. Kagehira isn’t picking up…

It should be evening in Japan right now and he shouldn’t be working, either.

I don’t mind if he’s focused and working on something. Oddly, he wasn’t able to answer straight away yesterday, either. He should have nothing on in the meantime, seeing as he wanted to focus on his work.

…How troubling. I had intended on asking Kagehira how his work is going.

Should I give him another call…? No, I feel awkward calling Kagehira over and over again.

I have a feeling he might act overconfident and say, “Oshi-san, you’re such a worrywart”. That would be quite irritating in itself.

…I know. I’ll return earlier than planned.

Fortunately, the beginning of the New Year ended up being right after “SS” finished, meaning we’re quite free at the moment. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to check how Kagehira is doing as a surprise.

It wouldn’t be too late to contact Kagehira once I’ve arrived in Japan. I’ll change my flight right away.

…Oh? What’s the matter, Mademoiselle?

I’m just paying attention to Kagehira and have forgotten about you, you say…?

Tis but a misunderstanding, Mademoiselle. I’m not paying attention to him in the way you think I am – It’s my duty as his mentor.

This is Kagehira we’re talking about here. If he’s leading a self-indulgent lifestyle out of my sight, then I must talk some sense into him.

Non, as I said, this is not out of worry. I simply want to keep an eye on him to see whether Kagehira is slacking off or not…!

Trust me. I’ll get ready to leave Paris – there are no hidden meanings behind those words. I simply decided to return earlier than planned due to my aspirations for art. That’s all.

Now, enough sulking. Will you get your change of clothes and prepare for our return, Mademoiselle? As his mentor, I have an obligation to see his work with my own eyes.

← Previous Chapter ᠂ ⚘ ˚⊹˚ ⚘ ᠂  Next Chapter →

[nickgerlich]

The Cookie Crumbles

You know that Spring can’t be terribly far away when you see these. No, I’m not talking about the first robin red breast you see. I’m not waxing poetic about daffodils popping out with their yellow optimism. Nope. I’m talking green, as in the green of Girl Scouts selling their cookies.



It’s an annual occasion, and it is hard to avoid these hordes of young green-dressed girls and their zealous parents. Because, you know, there are prizes to be won for most sales volume.



This time around, the Girl Scouts have found themselves the victim, if you will, of a very successful new flavor variety. You see, their Raspberry Rally has been so popular that stocks have run out and people are now selling them on eBay. No kidding. Girl Scout cookies. And this particular flavor has prices as high as $350 for just one box.

The Girl Scouts are furious, because they feel like other people are profiting off of their great idea. And I’m not having it.

While the Girl Scouts love to speak of empowering young women, teaching them about entrepreneurship,  and all that noble stuff, it seems they have overlooked some very important aspects of business. If you cannot supply product to meet demand, then a secondary market will ensue. That’s where eBay comes in. It’s really no different from someone scalping a concert ticket for five times face value.

If the Girl Scouts wish to keep all the profits for themselves, they best be figuring out how to produce more of this particular flavor. That’ll shut down the eBayers.

In a strange twist, the Girl Scouts even set up online sales of these cookies, because they deemed it important for girls to know a little bit about e-commerce. I agree on that. It’s just that they should have been doing this for the last 20 years. This is nothing new.



If you’ll forgive my anecdote, let me explain (and expose) their reluctance to embrace e-commerce early this century. My oldest daughter was in the local Girl Scout chapter (or whatever they call them), and early that year, it came time to sell cookies. At the time, I was crafting websites and e-commerce portals for a variety of organizations and businesses. I told my daughter, “I’ll teach you how to build an e-commerce site for your group to sell these cookies,” and she was all ears. After all, I had put a computer mouse in her tiny hand when she was one year old, and this was now first nature.



Personally, I rather like the idea of selling them this way. It sure beats going door-to-door, or shivering outside in the Walmart parking lot. More so, it beats guilting people into parting with their money, either the girls doing it, or their parents. I hate pressured selling.



But the local Girl Scouts were not happy, and shot it down in a heartbeat. “We want the girls to focus on building relationships,” they told me. Wait. You mean you’re all about reinforcing gender stereotypes? What happened to all that empowerment rhetoric?

Oldest daughter really didn’t like the Girl Scouts all that much anyway, so we found the exit. She, just like her younger sister at the moment, went on to major in CIS. Take that and your relationships, Girl Scouts of America.

But back to the task at hand: The Girl Scouts should have been on the technology train for a long time now, and some folks at the top who don’t truly understand entrepreneurship dropped the cookie this year. I realize it can be tough to predict which will sell and which won’t, and that leftover inventory may as well as be chalked up as a loss. That’s why you have contingency plans in place with your contract manufacturers to jump on additional production runs.

Furthermore, to blame eBay and those selling on it also avoids another aspect of a free market economy. Price will be determined where supply meets demand. If you want your girls to become entrepreneurs, they need to drink a few shots of this throat-burning reality.



And at the end of the day—or winter in this case—we really don’t need these cookies. Most of us who have bought them did so to be nice, kind of like every time the Boy Scouts were selling tins of popcorn, and the Little League was hawking something else.

I got over them shutting the door on my daughter. I taught her anyway how to build a site with a shopping cart. It just wasn’t for selling cookies. But I must confess to chuckling just a bit when I read of their current dismay.

Because it appears they don’t understand the most fundamental of relationships in business, that being the one between the two most powerful forces we know. Supply Curve, meet Demand Curve. May your intersection tell us everything we need to know about the value of things.

Dr “You Go, eBayers“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

[likeabelll]

( ellie bamber, 23, cis female, she/her ) RHIANNON 'RHIA' ANDREWS has been living in Point Place for TWENTY THREE YEARS. Their favorite song is KILLER QUEEN BY QUEEN. They’re currently up to WORKING AT THE RECORD STORE, but they’d rather be ATTENDING CONCERTS. First impressions usually stick around here, and others describe them as EASY GOING, CHARISMATIC AND 'WILD'. Stick around to get to know the real them. ( sky, 21, GMT-3, she/her )

☆ born to carefree, and self-proclaimed hippies during the 60s, parents -- rhiannon was given a childhood that would set her up for what the rest of her life would be like. david & johanna instilled the basical morals & values that you'd teach your child if you wanted them to grow up into a decent person, but apart from that? they didn't believe or rules. or limitations. there was absolutely no pressure from either of them to go into a specific path. she didn't even have a curfew. they wanted her to have fun. enjoy life. and discover herself.

☆ this sounds cool, right? the other kids sure thought so! they always complained about how jealouss they were of her. and it is, in a way. it's something rhia talks about fondly, says how it made such an independent person out of her. how it made her 'free'. but, in the back of her mind, it's always nagged her. she wishes they'd given her some structure, and acted like parents instead of friends -- it bordered on neglect, at times, and made her feel like they didn't really care about her.

☆ in the end, it didn't really matter. because, whatever she didn't get at home, she got outside of it. she was the type of girl to have a lot of friends, back at school. popular, but kind. kind, but not boring. that sort of thing. she got along with all sorts of groups of people, not sticking to one -- mostly because she changed her personality around to suit whoever she was around with. that way, they'd find her cool. and, that way, she'd have attention on her. after all, why be yourself when you could play along with people's dreams and ensure their love?

☆ this is a behaviour she carried into adulthood. old habits die hard. she doesn't even know who 'herself' is, anymore.

☆ a little bit before her senior year of high school, she picked up at job at grooves, the record store. she was starting to think long term, so she figured she'd start saving up money /now/. it was easy enough. cashier. say hi, learn to work the register, wrap up the product -- and just hang out by herself, when no one was around. a good experience, to set her up.

☆ in fact, it was so good she grew to love it! she offered to close the store more often than not, and work late shifts. she liked to sit on the floor, and go through the records. use the jukebox to listen to them for free, because employee's benefit (not really, her manager wasn't aware, but she reckons he didn't care). she discovered a bunch of bands that way, and had a rerun of a few that her parents used to play in the living room when she was a kid.

☆ suffice to say, the money she'd been saving up ended up going to concert tickets. if she liked it enough, she just HAD to go and see them live! whenever they showed up in town, anyways. she wasn't invested enough to travel yet. but, when she was, she took rides with other in vans with people who were going to the same location as her.

☆ she graduated, and decided she was happy enough with her job -- happy enough to stay in it, and not pursue further education. she'd been there long enough for the manager to be fond of her, and allow her to get away with some stuff. that, and she wanted to devote herself to music. not participate in it, per se, but support those who did. live it. dance to it all night. if that were a career, she'd be employee of the month!

☆ her parents helped her with enough money to buy herself a tiny apartment, and bid her goodbye (it didn't feel like she was living there anymore, anyways, so not much changed). not too expensive, but not completely cheap. she was able to keep up with rent, and support her 2 cats (who started off hiding, but then were just accepted by the landlord because it'd been too long by the time he found them).

☆ she's known around the world of music just by how often you can find her in the audience, and backstage (she almost always has a pass around her neck). it's reached a point where she gets tickets for free, sometimes, and she's been seen numerous times in magazines just standing in the background chatting with band members. her flashy, glittery makeup, COLORFUL clothes (feather boas, mini skirts, platform boots, flowy dresses) & red hair don't allow her to go unnoticed -- but no one really knows who she is. she's been mentioned, at most, as 'a mystery groupie'.

[bestwondercloset]

Are Yeezys out of style?

How much are the replicas going for on the market? A creation of Kanye West, now known as Ye, and Adidas, the Yeezy brand has been arguably one of the most influential and trendsetting sneaker lines in recent years. In today's fast world of changing fashion trends, though, and amidst controversies surrounding the figure of Kanye West, a question naturally comes into the minds of many: does Yeezy remain relevant today?. Adding to that confusion came the rise of the replica market, further confusing the sneaker world and hyped brands like Yeezy. In this article, we analyze whether Yeezy is really out of style and go in-depth into the increasingly valuable replica market. Is Yeezy Really Out of Fashion? 1. Cultural and Fashion Influence Since their drop, probably some of the most iconic shoes in the fashion game have been the Yeezy Boost 350 and Yeezy 700. Characterized by its minimalist mindset in design, unusual colorways, and comfort, Yeezys became instant must-haves among sneakerheads and fashion enthusiasts alike. This is stuff that went way beyond just footsteps into the realms of streetwear culture and even high fashion.

Over the last few years, however, Yeezy has struggled to maintain such an intense level of cultural dominance. This is partly due to the simple saturation of the market: Adidas was churning out Yeezy models and colorways by the truckload, which, after a certain amount of time, transformed the excitement into fatigue. What was once highly exclusive and very difficult to reach became easier; thus, for those people who liked the brand only because of this exclusiveness, it was not as attractive anymore.

Kanye West Controversies Other big factors facing the Yeezy brand include personal controversies by Ye himself. For the last couple of years, he has always been in the headlines for one reason or another, saying pretty controversial things, even right down to the actions which finally led to the fallout between Adidas and the artist.

This happened in the late months of 2022. While Adidas has sold Yeezy designs sans branding, it most definitely has separation from cultural cache. While others are loyal to the brand and place its design and comfort above any controversy he might raise, Kanye's controversies make Yeezy shoes a lesser want for some. In fact, the split between Adidas and Kanye does raise questions over what is in store with the Yeezy line. But the very obvious fact is that the brand's once unquestioned dominance has been marred. Fashion is ever-changing, and so is sneaker culture. Whatever used to lead the wave in sneaker culture-for example, Yeezy shoes-have already remained in the backseat, so to say, as far as newcomer names and collaboration go. New Balance, Nike, and Jordan gave way to their respective new designs and collaborations that took center stage for most sneaker enthusiasts.

It almost seemed that even currently resurging trends toward retro and vintage sneakers threw a counteractive vibe against very futuristic shoes, say Yeezys. That being said, Yeezy sneakers do retain an extremely devoted fan base, and some silhouettes do remain ultra-sought-after. It's probably safe to say the shoes are not in as strong a position as they used to be, but the Yeezys are anything but irrelevant. Many love the minimal style and comfort of the brand, and Yeezys are very much not absent from streetwear fashion.

Market Value of the Rep As high-end sneakers, like Yeezys, continue to rise in popularity, so does their replica market. In any case, replica shoes, or "reps," as they are famously known, have gained appeal among consumers who desire a semblance of designer shoes minus, of course, the exorbitant price tag. Of course, the Yeezy brand has remained one of the biggest targets for replica producers, given the demand for the products and the iconic nature of the designs.

Affordability But naturally, one of the most driving forces of the replica market is well, affordability. Real Yeezy sneakers run well into hundreds of dollars in price, while the reselling price for the limited models goes deep into the thousands. These are just out of the budget range of so many customers. To all intents and purposes, replica Yeezys do fall within a much more affordable price category, from $50 to $150.

Indeed, this makes them very attractive to those who would want to wear Yeezys fashionably without going bankrupt.

Quality of Replicas

Over the years, the quality of replica shoes has gone from bad to good. The high-quality ones are also sometimes referred to as "1:1 replicas" and are manufactured in really close resemblance to the materials, construction, and aesthetic of real Yeezys. Sometimes, the replicas are so good that even a well-trained eye can barely separate the authentic from its replica.

The latter fact has made replicas even more alluring to the consumer who wishes to enjoy the Yeezy aesthetic without having to pay for it. One should be fully aware that even quality copies of Yeezys-those which look and even feel just like real ones-cannot boast a similar durability or comfort. Real Yeezys are made with proprietary materials and technologies, including Adidas' Boost cushioning, not replicated in the fake ones.

Ethical and Legal Considerations While the replicas are inexpensive alternatives to authentic sneakers, there are still some ethical and legal problems that one really should consider. First, the replicas infringe on the intellectual property rights of the original companies and therefore do not make questionably ethical sense to support such a counterfeit business. More importantly, some replica manufacturers are based in countries with seriously questionable labor practices and hence make the selling of replicas much more ethically problematic.

From the legal point of view of a seller, selling or attempting to pass off impersonations for the real ones is against the law. A consumer must be educated on possible risks he has while purchasing or selling fake products. However, most consumers would not pay too much heed to those and all other issues for the sake of a lesser price and availability which replicas come with.

Effect on the Sneaker Market This really hit the sneaker industry hard. To Adidas, Nike, and other brands, the rise of the replicas means a loss in sales revenue or at least devalued brand equity. All that the replica market does is underline the growing demand for reasonably affordable copies of expensive shoes. The more consumers started to move to replicas, the more reconsideration of price and amount of production may be in order by the brands. Conclusion While Yeezy shoes may have fallen out of their prime spot in the sneaker world's dominance, this doesn't exactly make them out of style. They still hold a very niche audience, and a few of their models are extremely popular. It is for this reason that Yeezy started to spiral downward in cultural dominance due to a mix of oversaturation, Kanye West controversies, and a change in fashion trends. Meanwhile, the replica market moves on, propped up by demand for affordable high-end sneakers. It finally reached a point where the prices for Replica Yeezys went down while the quality heightened, and they just became super popular. Considering all the ethical and legal aspects of this issue, the replica market is hardly to be brought to an end, and it is surely going to play a notable role in the world of sneakers for many years. Ultimately, that's going to come to personal opinion when it comes to Yeezys being "out of fashion." It's a confident brand that some find their reliance in, though others have found themselves moving onto other styles that take center stage. Another similar question will go to authentic shoes versus replicas. That goes to the individual and their priorities on budget, ethics, and the need for authenticity.

[adpacklimitedke]

How Do Woven Bags Improve Product Safety and Storage?

The robust design and material makings of woven bags make them vital for improving product safety and storage. These bags, which are made of robust polypropylene fibers, are incredibly strong and resistant to tearing, assuring that the contents stay safe although being handled and transported. The contents of woven bags can also be further protected from contamination and damage by adding sorts like secure closures and strengthened seams. For a variety of businesses needing dependable storage solutions, woven bags are the perfect option due to their resilience to severe circumstances and big loads.

Woven bags' versatility across a range of businesses As of their strength, flexibility, and environmental openness, woven bags are becoming more and more common. Weaved polypropylene, a material famous for its durability and strength, is used to make these bags. In several businesses, woven polypropylene has become a general option for businesses observing for ecological and effective packaging solutions. The Purpose of Woven Polypropylene Sacks Industries that need sturdy packaging for bulky items find woven polypropylene bags very valuable. As they can support heavy loads without losing their structural honesty, these sacks are perfect for packing chemicals, building supplies, and farming goods. Their permeable fabric keeps moisture from accumulating, assuring that the contents are safe and dry through storage and transit.

Choosing Reputable Producers of Woven Sacks Choosing the finest Woven Sacks Manufacturers is vital for companies looking to find premium packaging options. Trustworthy producers provide a range of ranges, such as bespoke designs and sizes to meet certain necessities. By collaborating with dependable producers, companies can guarantee that their woven bags satisfy industry necessities and provide the finest possible protection for their goods. Utilizing Fertilizer Bags for Specific Purposes There are numerous benefits to using woven textiles to make fertilizer bags. While protecting the contents from moisture and contamination, they are made to endure severe environmental conditions. Since of their durability, woven bags are a crucial option for agricultural operations since they guarantee fertilizers are delivered and stored safely without the possibility of spills or leaks.

Why Polypropylene Bags Are Useful Polypropylene bags are suitable more and more popular as they are strong and lightweight. They can be used in a diversity of settings, containing industrial settings and food packing. As they may be made in a range of sizes and strengths, these bags can be custom-made to meet the demands of different sectors. Their skill to withstand dampness and chemicals adds to their attraction and assurances that they can safely handle a range of items. Polypropylene Shopping Bags' Convenience The retail experience is being revolutionized by polypropylene shopping bags. Their reusable nature supports sustainability objectives by enabling customers to cut waste while still enjoying long-lasting and fashionable options for their purchases. These bags are advantageous to retailers because they are lightweight, convenient to store, and may be personalized with branding.

The Value of Bags of Sugar In order to ensure that sugar is transported and stored properly without contamination, woven sugar bags are essential in the food business. By preventing clumping and spoiling, woven bags' strength and breathability preserve the product's quality. Effectiveness of Super Sacks Bags Super sack bags are a applied answer for large-scale packaging requirements. The logistics process is streamlined and fewer smaller bags are required because these huge woven sacks can contain substantial amounts of stuff. Their sturdy construction guarantees the safety of the contents, which makes them perfect for businesses that deal with high product volumes.

[theantiinfluencer]

A Strong Case For Value Village in 2024

12 Years ago, Value Village was a godsent for me. For first office my job my budget was $100 for a full wardrobe, with Value Village it was accomplished easily. I could get shirts for a few bucks, pants for a few more and even get a couple nice blazers for around $10-$15. Fast forward to 2024, there are these new stores popping up everywhere called Value Village Boutique, I honestly didn't know what to expect. A curated Value Village? Sounds good to me.

However, if you do a quick good search you will dozens of examples of them marking up their products to outrageous prices and if you look in the google reviews you will see plenty of other customers complain about the same thing. My personal experience is similar. There are many items that are priced $30-$70 dollars if they have any sort of brand name attached to them. You would also be hard pressed to find a good shirt for under $10, although that is probably just inflation. When I see a clothing item at Value Village for $70 a part of me cries inside. If I were in the same position as I was 12 years ago and Value Village may still be an option but the "value" just wouldn't be as strong.

As Secondhand shopping has increased in popularity, so has the prices just as rapidly. Which makes me sad because the people who actually need these places for cheap clothing end up suffering, while hipsters post on social media about their finds. But, through closer inspection there is still strong case to shop there for the budget luxury consumer.

I am going to go out on a limb and say the people who are pricing these products are not nearly as knowledgeable about luxury products as the average Vintage or Consignment store employee. Therefore, I have found some pretty high end stuff for next to nothing. For example, I pick up a YMC camp collar shirt for $14, a pair of Paul Smith dress pants for $9, Made in USA Cole Haan Oxford shoes for $20, and a Coppley Blazer for $20. What does this tell me? When I see a Banana Republic Jacket for $50 and a Z Zegna one for $10, these people do not likely only know fashion based on what they see at the popular stores at the Mall OR they understand that most of their customers will not know what these brands are so they price it like any other item in the store. Either way, consumers like me, win. For the items that I purchased, I could find similar items at Vintage or Consignment stores for around 5-10 times the price.

I went on exactly 4 mass excursions of these stores and have purchased the above items plus a Champion Hoodie for $10. The total I spent was $63 CAD before tax. I did have to spend several hours searching, but for someone like me, that's the fun part. Additionally, if you become a member, they will send you coupons and you will also save 20% if you donate something (Don't abuse it!).

Are the things people say online true about this new boutique? In my experience, yes. Does it have carefully curated stuff that is much different than regular Value Villages? No. Is it still the best place to find a diamond in the rough for the best price? Absolutely!

[stuffedinfo]

7 Efficient Garage Ideas: Renovate And Maximize Your Space

The garage is one of those spaces in a home that is often neglected. Thus, this ignorance turns it into a useless, messy, and forgotten spot. Although, it’s never too late to take the step and start the recreation of your garage. 

Therefore, doing this will not just increase your storage space but will also make it look aesthetically pleasing. Hence, to help and guide you professionally in this matter, we made this article sharing different creative, easy, and efficient garage ideas. So, without any further postponement, read the blog post and move toward renovation. 

What Does a Garage Look Like?

Before learning about the most utilizing and productive garage design ideas, let’s first learn about the true meaning of it. A garage is essentially part of a residence and can either attach to your building or remain separate. It primarily serves to keep automobiles, such as cars, trucks, and bikes, in a safe place under a roof with sufficient height and closing doors.

 4 Different Types Of Garage

There are different types of garage ideas found around us. They are based on various factors, such as the size and position of the garage with respect to the resident building. Thus, the most commonly encountered types of garages are as follows:

Detached: This is the most traditional model in which the garage is detached from the main home building. Moreover, cities no longer usually have such a concept due to the hustle of moving back and forth from garage to home. 

Attached: It is the most commonly found and popular model in which the garage is attached to the resident building. The advantage of this garage is that it is situated on the ground floor, which saves time and increases the resale value. 

Carport: This is an open garage which only has a roof and no walls around. Furthermore, this model is the best alternative for those houses which have less space to make a garage. In addition to this, it is not so safe and has minimal scope of creativity.

Breezeway: It is also known as the portico model as well. This is partially attached to the building and has a passage to go to the garage via the inside of the home only. Thus, it fosters connections between garage and home. You can choose between a fully insulated hallway or an open ramp with just a roof for the breezeway passage.

7 Creative Garage Ideas

Now that you have gained basic knowledge of the garage and its types, it’s high time to learn about some finished garage ideas. Following these below mentioned steps or suggestions will benefit you in multiple ways by making your space look more stylish and functional. 

Do Personalization for the Interior Designing

One creative garage design idea is to customize the space to reflect your personality. Plus, doing this will also express your hobbies and communicate effortlessly to all the people who enter the garage. Therefore, for this you can personalize the wall by hanging neon signs of your favorite things, childhood photographs, unique collections, awards, vinyl stickers of cars you like, etc. 

Make it a Multi-Purpose Space

Make the spot multifunctional by setting up corners for your peaceful and desired tasks as one of the other garage ideas. It can be done very easily and creatively. 

For example, you can arrange a corner for your personal or professional drills by assembling gym equipment, a work desk, sports storage, preservers shelves, etc. Hence, doing this will not restrict the garage to vehicle storage only thus it will boost its usage and functionality for other tasks as well. Besides all of that, you can also make your own tiny workstation there to get more into vehicle mechanics. 

Throw out the Trash

Do not overly stuff unnecessary things in your garage as it will make it look cluttered. Therefore, perform a scheduled cleaning routine and remove all the trash that collects there with time. Moreover, any type of negligence in this matter can make vehicle parking difficult and unsafe. For example, remove things such as old paint cans, food, bottles, useless electronic equipment, clothes, paper, cupboards, etc. You should deep clean by washing the floor and dusting the installed units. 

Conclusion

In this blog post, we briefly discussed some of the most creative, unique, and easy-to-do garage ideas. We covered everything from the appearance of garages to their different types. Following these tips can help you achieve a stunning garage without needing an interior designer. We hope this page has guided you and that you’re ready to transform your vehicle’s space into a masterpiece.