#and to consider them as such would either be in bad faith or doable only if I had a very shallow understanding of what it entails

[itoshikinozomu]

It's quite a red flag when I see people on here consider tme and afab as interchangeable terms, especially if the person is tme, because not only it take away the biggest ratio of people to whom it applies which also turn out to be (arguably almost) every men, but also...what is the point to make it all about yourselves as if it was an oppression competition? To what extend do these people have to go to make sure everything in life must be about themselves and their own personal identity crisis?

[jenisis]

@bifntastic Okay, I'm gonna assume good faith and answer this here because it's going to be... a lot.

@jenisis I’m curious about how what happened in Amsterdam, if anything, more strongly affirmed your belief that Israel should be dismantled? For many it has had the opposite effect.

I'll be 100% honest, the pogrom only confirmed a running theory I had that non-jewish white supremacists would use the genocide as an excuse to justify the further persecution of the jewish people. Dissolving Israel would at the very, very least take away that excuse, and moreover could put more pressure on the world to address rampant antisemitism; so long as Israel is considered a Jewish Ethnostate, antisemites have a "villain" they can rally good people against. They don't care about Palestinian lives, they just want more jewish blood. Ever since learning about the ongoing apartheid I've been strongly of the opinion the colonial occupying body that is Israel should be taken apart; that belief hasn't increased because it was already at 100%. Hell, I'm also of the belief that the same thing should be done with the US and Canada, but that's a different can of worms.

And in a hypothetical where Israel was successfully dismantled (dare I say ethnically cleaned) where would all of the jews living there currently go? And how can their safety be guaranteed in the foreign countries they are forcibly expelled to?

I have two issues with this question. 1) I must not have been clear, that was my bad. I want the State and Governing Body of Israel dismantled, and the land and governing body to be returned to Palestinians. I in no way want more ethnic cleansing, especially of a people that I claim to be a part of. And 2) Where would the jews go? In a perfect scenario, nowhere. They wouldn't have to leave, but the land and property that they occupied would be returned to the original owners before occupation began. They can continue living in Palestine so long as they agree to obey Palestinian law, and through immigration and naturalization processes become Palestinian citizens. They would be able to purchase residential and personal property through Palestinian goverment, pay Palestinian taxes, and coexist within Palestinian borders. Again, same concept could be applied to America; the government at county, state, and national levels should have a minimum 50% indigenous leadership, dependong on historical tribal/nation territories. Dead serious. I'm hyperoversimplifying of course; it would be a long, arduous, incredibly tricky process to get to that point. As for their safety (either those that stay or those who choose to leave), I personally wouldn't be able to guarantee anything. There's no amount of protocol or legislation that prevents antisemitism 100%. And, justifiably I might add, there would be Palestinians angry enough at the remaining jewish population to harm them. We'd just have to have faith that there are enough people who would at the very least remain civil.

I’m asking this because what you say, might sound doable in theory, but in practice doesn’t hold a lot of water.

This is entirely correct. Everything I've said above is nice and shiny typed out on the gay blogging site. I'm just some jewish american biologist, I don't have any way of navigating the decolonization of an occupying force that has been hellbent on total eradication of the subjugated people, or the integration of said colonists into the repaired society. But for there to be lasting peace, it has to be done.

Forgive me for talking about an extremely sensitive topic while drinking I just need to verbalize some thoughts.

I truly believe there is nothing worse for jewish people than the existence of israel. Putting aside the outright genocide of the Palestinian people, it only serves antisemitism to keep the israeli state active. Israel being touted as an ethnostate for jews (when in actuality serving white supremacy and colonialism) only makes the jewish people as a whole a scapegoat. The pogrom today is just the tip of an insidious iceberg where a just cause (dismantling israel and returning+rebuilding occupied palestine) is being coopted by fucking neonazis as an excuse to murder jews again when you know damn well they'd do- and will do- have done- are doing- the same to arab/muslim/palestinians when the time comes. It's fucking disgusting and working exactly as intended

[rinarecommends]

Serotonin - Sero x F!Reader

Serotonin is thought to regulate mood, anxiety, and happiness in our bodies.

italicized text is meant to be spanish, however, I don’t speak spanish, and I didn’t want to try to google translate and it be wrong. Latin sero is KING though.

Nobody ever wants to be a cliche, right? But here you were being one. You became roommates with Hanta Sero a little over a year ago, and you slowly fell in love with him, irrevocably in love with him, but you were determined to suffer through it because you were sure that he would never feel the same. He was a HERO for crying out loud, a damn good one. He could have anyone he wanted, with his neat quirk that may or may not bring about not so safe thoughts, at times, and his spanish accent that would make any man or woman drop their pants, especially when he was mad, but it wasn’t just that. He was caring, always trying to save the day and people. He would give someone the shirt off his back if they needed it, it’s just who he was. He was loving, especially towards his friends and family, if the pictures hung all over the two bedroom apartment that you guys shared were any indication, even if one of those friends was a blonde asshole who was the epitome of anger in human form. He was everything you wanted, and all the things you never thought you needed all wrapped up in one person. It wasn’t really a problem, living with him while being in love with him. He didn’t date because he was too busy with hero work, so you didn’t have to see him with other women, or even think about him possibly being with someone else, until today. 

Today, you woke up like any other day. You ate the same breakfast. You did the same morning routine, except when you walked out of your room, you walked into sero arguing with someone over the phone, in spanish. You could tell it was an argument because of the language his body was using.

 “I know his ideas are normally bad, but I can not think of any other viable option, Kirishima. I need these feelings to go away, look at her and look at me, she 's perfect and she deserves someone just as perfect.” 

He angrily hung up the phone and drug his fingers through his hair in frustration, and that’s when you decided to pipe up to let him know that you were in the room with him. 

“Hanta, are you okay?” You said making him jump in surprise, and he turned to you, forcing a smile on his face, but you could tell it was forced. 

“Everything’s fine. I was just talking with Kaminari and Kirishima, and they said something stupid that set me on edge, that’s all. Anyways, Goodmorning Sweetheart.” You felt your body flush at the usual pet name that he gave you, it always made your heart flutter. You smiled brightly at him. 

“Goodmorning Cellophane.” You teased at his hero name. He rolled his eyes and scanned the room, searching for something. You could tell he found it when his eyes lit up like a christmas tree. He sighed in relief, picking up the hero belt that he had finally found after searching for it the whole time while he was on the phone, but it was just his luck for it to be hiding in plain sight. 

“I’ll be out later tonight than usual, so we won’t be able to watch movies like we usually do on friday nights. Sorry Sweetheart.” He said with his back turned to you. Your heart dropped to your feet. You always looked forward to the movie nights that became a ritual for you and him. If you didn’t know better, you’d consider them dates. 

“Oh? Work Event?” You asked with curiosity, wondering what could drag him away from movie night, knowing it had to be something related to work. 

“No, not this time. Kaminari has set me up on a date with a girl he knows, and I told him I’d go. Give dating a shot, y’know, get back out there in the field.” He rambled out, but you weren’t paying any attention. As soon as the word “date” left his mouth, your heart crumbled after each word thereafter. You forced a smile onto your face while your heart broke into a thousand pieces while screaming at you to stop him, tell him how you feel, but you let it break and silenced its screams, letting your brain convince you that it was not a good idea. Letting him know you had feelings for him could mess everything up, and you loved hanta, loved living with him, loved being his friend. You didn’t want to ruin that.

“That’s great, Hanta. I am so happy for you.” You were not happy. You knew you should be. If this was what he wanted, you should be happy for him, but you weren’t. You wanted him to want you, wanted him to love you.

“Yeah. I think it might be a good thing. Everyone needs someone to love them and be loved in return, right?” Yes. Yes they did. 

“Right!” You said with enthusiasm that you could only hope sounded genuine. He smiled at you one last time before he walked out the door, headed to work as a hero.

Once you knew he was gone, you sighed, but it came out shaky and before you knew it, you were crying, sobbing really. You felt this sharp pain through your heart as if something was squeezing and would not let go. You knew in that moment, you were experiencing real heartbreak, and the only thing to do when you’re heart broken? Call your best friend. 

It rang twice before she picked up, and if you weren’t so upset, you’d smile because you knew you could always count on the ever reliable Mina Ashido.

“Yo Bestie.” She said as she answered, her typical nonchalant greeting for answering your calls. You opened your mouth to say something to her, but all that came out was a sob. 

“I’ll be there in ten.” She said without you having to say anything, hanging up the call quickly to get to you. You let your phone fall out of your hand, clattering to the floor. How could everything go to hell so fast? You were living peacefully with the man you were secretly in love with, with no problems in sight, now he was going on a date, and it felt like the end of the world. 

She made it in eight. She came into your apartment with you on the couch sobbing, hardly able to catch your breath. 

“What Happened, Y/N?” She asked, quietly, needing to know what the problem was, so she could hopefully fix it, hating to see her best friend in this condition.

“H-h-he’s g-g-going on a-a-a da-a-a-te.” You stuttered out between your sobs. You didn’t say a name, but you didn’t have too. The thing was that your feelings towards Sero was evident to everyone but him, and apparently Kaminari who kept trying to set him up with girls, and his feelings for you were evident to everyone but you. 

“He told you that?” She said to you, all you could do was nod. 

“And you’re letting him?” She asked, making you look at her. What did she mean letting him? You didn’t have a choice in the matter of whether or not he goes out on a date. You weren’t his girlfriend, just someone that was hopelessly, desperately in love with him, who happened to be his roommate. It was like she could read your mind, and maybe she could, you had been friends since you were kids, friends throughout highschool, even though you weren’t at UA or in a hero course. She’s the reason that you were able to score this roommate when you were desperate to get out of your family home. She’s the reason you were able to meet Hanta at all. 

“N/N, you have two options here, and I am going to tell you what they are, honestly, with no sugar-coating bullshit. You can let him go out on this date, ignore your feelings forever, be insanely upset as you watch him maybe fall in love with this nameless, faceless girl, or maybe he won’t, but then there will be another one after her, and another, until he finds “the one,” and you can wallow in all the “what if?” scenarios you can come up with about your feelings towards him and how it might’ve played out if you had just said something, or you can open your eyes, and see that you are “the one” for him, and say something to him. Tell him how you feel. Then nothing has to change. He will either let you down gently because he’s not an asshole like our neighborhood #1 hero that is also an angry pomeranian, he’s SERO for crying out loud. He’s either gonna let you down gently, or he’s gonna return your feelings, but it’s a chance that you’re gonna have to take because I know you. You’ll regret it, in the long run, if you never tell him.” She took a deep breath after that monologue. Your tears continuously dried up as the words poured out of her mouth, and you felt silly. Why were you so scared to begin with? Was it rejection? She was right. Sero wouldn’t be harsh if he didn’t return your feelings. Was it the fear of change? What would really change if you confessed? You’d still be friends, if he didn’t feel the same, and you’d still be roommates, even if it’d be awkward for awhile. 

That’s when you decided. You were going to tell him how you felt. You were going to take a leap of faith and just go for it. Mina was all about living carefree and with no regrets, and she was right, when you thought about it. You would definitely regret not telling him.

You nodded at her and gave her a small smile.

“I’ll do it.” 

She sat down beside you.

“What’s the plan then?” She asked with a mischievous smirk on her face, and seeing that, you couldn’t help but match it with one of your own. Sero was certainly the love of your life, but Mina was undoubtedly your soulmate, two halves of the same hole.

“So here’s the plan…” You told her what your plan was, and she nodded along with you, agreeing with your plan, piping up when she thought something needed tweaking, and you two had a solid, doable plan almost an hour later. She left you to your own devices because she was on hero duty tonight, and she needed some semblance of rest to be able to protect the citizens at full potential.

You got dressed for the occasion and watched the clock until you knew he was almost due to clock out, and you called him.

Ring. Ring.

“Princesa. Are you okay? You never call me when I’m at work unless something is wrong.” He rushed out, answering after only two rings. Your heart soared when he called you a princess in spanish, and then it twisted in horror thinking that if you didn’t do this, that he’d call someone else that, or at the least, cease calling you that because what girl wants their boyfriend calling another girl “princess?” 

“... I’m actually not okay, Hanta. I know you have a date, but can you come home before you go? I really need you.” You inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying to keep your breathing even from all the nerves in your body standing on edge.

“... sure, princesa. I can come home before then. I’ll be there in 20. I just have to turn in paperwork and stuff. Will you be okay till then?” You nodded even though he couldn’t see you and breathed out a “yes” to give him confirmation that you’d be okay for twenty more minutes.

You hung up with him and stood up, started pacing back and forth while looking at the clock. You were actually gonna do this. This was a pivotal moment. After this, there was no going back, only forward. 

Pacing back and forth, time seemed to only drag on making those twenty minutes feel like an hour, until you heard hanta’s keys jingle in the slot, unlocking the door. 

“N/N? Where are you?” He said as he opened the door, not noticing you in the small living room. You looked at him, and your heart clenched, in the best way. He was so beautiful. He looked tired from a day of hero work. His hair was still wet from taking a shower at the hero office, like he always did, hating coming into the apartment smelly and sweaty. 

“I’m right here, Hanta.” You said making him snap his gaze to you.  He looked you up and down, probably checking to see if you were physically okay, and when he noticed that nothing was physically wrong with you, he gave you a curious look.

“You’re not hurt?” 

“I am. It’s just not a wound you can see.” you replied to him, trying to strain a smile, but not quite making it work. 

“I don’t -” He started but you shook your head.

“Do you know her name?” You asked, words tumbling out of your mouth without you really being able to think about them.

“Who?” Sero said, clearly not realizing you were talking about the girl he was supposed to go out with tonight.

“Do you know what she looks like? Is she prettier than me?” You asked, making his look grow even more confused.

“I -” He went to say something, but you continued on with your tirade, not being able to stop the words coming out of your mouth now.

“I sat here today, and I just thought, how has he not noticed? Has he, and just chose to ignore it, but you’re not that kind of person, you wouldn’t blatantly ignore someones’ feelings. You’re a hero, acknowledging people and their feelings is a part of that job, but then you told me you were going on a date today, and my world stopped. It literally stopped because I was okay with it being unnoticed as long as nothing changed, but you dating changes everything hanta because I can’t just stand by and watch the man that I am hopelessly in love with, who just so happens to be my roommate, go on a date with someone that’s not me. Not without telling him how I feel. I don’t want to live the rest of my life with unanswered questions and thoughts about what could happen.” You sighed. Taking a breath, looking at him as you did, seeing him with wide eyes and an open mouth. He opened and closed his mouth as if to say something, but you could tell he wasn’t sure what to say. 

“I love you, Hanta Sero. I love the way you care about people in your life and people you don’t even know. I love the way you try to make sure I am okay when you get home, even though you’re the one that is out there saving lives every single day. I love the way your eyes crinkle and you have a little dimple when you smile, and I mean really smile. I love the sound of your laugh. I love the way you smell when we cuddle on the couch while watching movies because I get cold so easy. I love the way you play with my hair when you think I’ve fallen asleep during the movie, when the truth is that I just pretend because I don’t want you to stop. I love how smart you are and how you continue to surpass everyone’s beliefs about you because you’re so great and no one ever sees that, always doubting you. I see that though. I see you, Hanta, and I love you just the way that you are.” You were so into your thoughts and feelings that you weren’t even aware of the huge smile that had made its way onto his face. You just kept talking.

“I know I’m not the greatest. I get upset easily, and I’m not the smartest. I’m not athletic, and I’m a decent cook, but nothing noteworthy, and there are probably so many people that would be better for you, who could love you better, take better care of you while you’re out there saving the world, but instead of dating someone that you don’t even know, that KAMINARI picked out, is it so far fetched that you never even consider dating me, when I was right here, all along? Was I not even a thought? No matter. I’m here. I’m pouring out my feelings, despite my intense fear of you rejecting me, and I’m asking you, pleading with you to pick me. Pick me, hanta. Choose me. LOVE ME. If you just do that, if you just choose me, I’ll spend the rest of my life showing you that you made the right decision, that I’m worthy of your love. That I -” You were cut off by the feel of lips slamming onto yours, words dying in your throat as the band that was stretching so tight, finally snapped. You had kissed guys before, but it had never felt like this, no one’s lips had ever felt like they were made just for yours, but his did. They fit together with yours perfectly, in sync, as the kiss went on and on, and you never wanted it to end, but it did. He slowly pulled his lips away and took a breath.

“Please. Stop talking. I wouldn’t want to choose anyone else. How have we both been hopelessly in love with the other and never noticed each other’s feelings?” He breathed out. His words made your stomach flutter with butterflies and instead of tears or sobbing, laughter, unadulterated laughter, flew out of your mouth, making him laugh along with you.

“I guess we’re both blind when it comes to feelings, huh?” You asked, smirking, and he nodded as he leaned in to kiss you again, and everything melted away, your brain flooding with serotonin.

[the-ghost-king]

Interestingly enough the fandom isn't always rational with their criticism. Take Percy and Rachel for instance. A perfectly healthy cute and functional relationship dynamic, but people really hated it because it got in the way of Percy/Annabeth.

I think it can also come down to the fact that not all situations are exactly equal if that makes sense. If you have a character dynamic in couple A, that often playfully bully of fight with eachother that's a different dynamic than relationship B, where one person has trauma resulting from bullying and the other parter behaves in roughly the same way as couple A do. In that case the behavior may be seen as inappropriate. Not that this example has anything to do with the ships at hand, but I think a long form meta examining the different paralleling issues from both relationships and their validity would be easier.

Also I haven't seen anything about about Nico/Will being called toxic. Yikes, what are people saying exactly, because I don't doubt a lot of people might be projecting unconcious bias.

Oh absolutely, I may seem young but I remember the Rachel vs Annabeth ship wars all too well... I do not want to go back 😅

The rest is under a read more though, I got a little carried away talking! Also this isn't my best post on the issue by far so please feel free to check out the tags I mention later on!

(AN: I use nblm alongside mlm in this post because some nblm individuals will consider their attraction to men as gay, or queer, while others will not and those individuals are often closely connected to mlm experiences and they also deserve to talk about their thoughts and feelings if they wish. I am aware nonbinary people are not a monolith and not all nonbinary people will categorize themselves or their attraction this way, it's up to nonbinary individuals reading this to determine where they fall on what)

As for Solangelo being toxic some of the conversations revolve around the ableist nature of the ship, this is definitely most obviously a dynamic in BoO, and it's a more than fair point about the ship I don't have anything negative to say there in the slightest!

(The above parallels with the idea that Will is introduced as a "healer character" for the "sad gay kid", which is a fair criticism as well but one that's often left rather one sided, because while that is true- if it's a way Nico likes being treated (watched closely for injuries and cared for) then it's not wrong, and in ToN Will is seen overstepping Nico's boundaries which causes a healthy argument about Will doing so and he stops, so if Nico doesn't tell Will "no" or some variation he's obviously not horribly uncomfortable with the situation, or from the way it would be interpreted alongside previous text, there's fair reason to think he likes it)

The thing with Solangelo I see often is "Nico is still processing trauma, and internalized homophobia and isn't ready for a relationship" which is a huge misunderstanding on how trauma and internalized homophobia work as a whole, because the experiences can be different for everyone. You can absolutely date someone while processing internalized homophobia, you may struggle with certain things but it is absolutely doable for some people. And trauma is such a varied thing, and it's not like he's solely relying on Will either, he is seeing Dionysus for therapy and getting the help he needs! Your life doesn't have to go on hold for therapy no matter how much trauma you are sorting through! (Not disclosing my medical history or anything but I have struggled with both things and my life didn't stop for me to deal with them, I made new friends, went on dates, etc- it is possible depending on the person so the very narrow view of "this is unhealthy" and "this is impossible" rubs me wrong when it's treated as fact over opinion, because it's an opinion).

There's also constant discussions about how fandom (in current) fetishizes both Nico and Will, which I, and other mlm and nblm have spoken our own thoughts on multiple times to be largely ignored by the biggest perpetrators of this "they're overly fetishized narrative". There's also fairly consistent discussion of how fandom treats Nico and reduces him to uwu small gay boy, which more often than not seems to mean "effeminate" rather than actually harmful stereotyping (yes queer men are allowed to be "girly" especially considering there is some canon text that could be interpreted with that meaning, if there wasn't a plausible way to determine canon that way I wouldn't care if people were going after others feminizing Nico a bit- but the issue is again, fact and feeling aren't the same and fandom seem to conflate the two rather often).

(Some of that ties into nonbinary Nico head canons which are common as of current, and that argument quickly becomes transphobic is people don't watch themselves... Even without bringing nonbinary Nico into the equation, headcanoning Nico as femme isn't bad or wrong, and to say otherwise becomes gender policing which is bad).

There's also this weird obsession with there being a "correct way" to ship mlm ships (specifically solangelo), which when considering it's not mlm or nblm saying those things, it becomes really uncomfortable. Especially because the wording of some posts is less "hey this is homophobic" and comes off more like people are more upset at seeing an mlm couple than at the fact that they're being shipped poorly.

All of this in combination with the constant, talking over of queer guys (specifically mlm and nblm) comes off really messed up, and yeah homophobic.

It's not something that can be pinned down to one specific thing but rather a series of smaller microagressions (which in sure most of are intended in good faith but are being filled with subconscious bias) that build up over time- which is why my concern is that solangelo is facing harsher criticism/different treatment that percabeth simply for being a queer ship.

I can't be 100% sure on that like I said, because that's something that is hard to gain tangible evidence for, or maybe even impossible :/

If there wasn't so many other small things going on alongside the harsher criticism of solangelo, I would honestly just ignore it... But the weird policing of "how to ship solangelo" while proclaiming it's "overly fetishized" all while speaking over a not insignificant number of mlm and nblm who have agreed with certain opinions, or taken time to write their own (+ some of the rhetoric that can be found on he blogs of people commonly expressing these opinions) is super uncomfortable and definitely homophobic... Even if they were treating the ship kind of weird, but treating the queer guys talking about it well and actually listening (because the current solangelo fandom probably has the highest proportion of queer guys in comparison to any other fandom I've been in with an mlm ship as of right now) I wouldn't be so bothered... But sadly that's not the case..

(I'd also like to note out of my posts criticizing the current conversations happening around the issue my post saying "listen to mlm voices" got a lot more notes than some of the other ones, which I can't say is specifically anything, because like solangelo perhaps being treated unfairly to percabeth, I am willing to acknowledge there might not be an issue- but it's weird how often mlm and nblm's posts on "listen to us" will be uplifted but never any actual criticism... Just a thought)

I detail things a little closer and in more detail in some of my posts tagged #fandom homophobia, #mlm fetishism, and #gender policing in fandom, it's not a full or comprehensive list (I've only really started speaking up in the last month or so), and it is largely solangelo specific. However I am always interested in listening to the voices of other queer guys about the issues and hearing out their thoughts as well (people aren't a monolith and I'm interested in trying to be as nuanced as possible!) and I acknowledge that although I am mlm and am going to be a little better at recognizing issues and calling them out (although I like every person am not perfect of course)

So yeah! That's a bit of the current ongoings, again not a full comprehensive list, and definitely not my best explanation ever but I think the point gets across well enough? Definitely check out my other tags if you're interested in more, there's also definitely more posts I need to make on some of the things I've seen (maybe not all of them so solangelo fandom specific, and maybe some of them even more solangelo fandom specific) but it's rather slow work in progress!

[mittens-220]

Regarding Suzuno’s confession in Volume 19 and Maou’s reaction

This contains Volume 19 spoilers, so please do not read if you don’t want any spoilers. Basically this is about Suzuno’s confession and her feelings towards Maou, and how Chiho and Maou reacted to it.

Contains actual translated text from Volume 19. Only relevant excerpts will be posted.

When Suzuno spoke until 『this feeling』, she made a strange action.

“After the Archbishops complete the Holy Conquest, they will definitely obtain various riches from this world. However, they are unable to obtain any rewards from God. This is to be expected. Because we will defeat God. The 『God』 in the Bible does not exist in Ente Isla at all. However, even if they are unable to obtain anything in return from God, they might not feel any hatred, and only accept reality seriously. Then they will depend on the dream they had before to continue to implement the true principals of the belief……”

“Suzuno, san?”

Suzuno kept her right hand positioned over her own chest.

Her face was blushing.

That face was clearly older than Chiho but gave the impression that the child-like air had not fully dissipated, brimmed with a happiness which was slight and subtle, but was clearly present.

Chiho had an impression of that expression on Suzuno’s face.

No, that expression had not belonged to Suzuno.

Chiho remembered that she had shown a similar expression before.

“Then I realised. I…… definitely love Maou Sadao…… I love Demon King Satan.”

“……”

Even if she heard this sentence clearly, Chiho’s heart still unbelievably stable.

“Feeling crushed under the responsibilities of being an Archbishop and disillusioned at how the ritual was so half-heartedly carried out by other Archbishops, I returned back to Room 202 without notifying anyone. But there I ran into the frail-looking Demon King. I suddenly thought to myself: why am I only focused on continuing forward when I am suffering so much? Laughable, isn’t it? I was already crestfallen as is, realising how fickle the Church’s beliefs were, but there he was: tired to death from making Onigiri for Acies, wanting to sleep early due to work next day, and yet, still worrying whether Acies’ abnormality would affect Alas=Ramus. It seemed that his tired mind could offer no solutions, and he could only shake his head as he just sat there. Seeing that, I was convinced–I returned here because I wished for this 『everyday』 scenery.”

As Suzuno said all of this quickly, her face was filled with happiness.

“The Church is a home which guards faith with love as its foundation. To the current me, my Church, my home, is this apartment. What I love, includes the Demon King and everyone, and everything from my life here…… so…… from the bottom of my heart, I truly envy Chiho-dono.”

“Suzuno-san……”

A teardrop surfaced from Suzuno’s eyes even as she looked happy.

“I really envy Chiho-dono who can simply remain at the side of the person you love simply because you love him……”

“…… Can I, ask you a question?”

“…… Yes.”

Chiho, sounding slightly stiff, but did not harbour any jealously or malicious feelings towards Suzuno, or rather, she asked this in half-convinced tone.

“Did he show an expression as if he thought it was troublesome and after carelessly brushing it off, said he was going to work and ran away? Maou-san, that is.”

“……!”

As expected, Suzuno was so surprised that her eyes widened.

“…… How did you know? I…… already expressed my feelings to the Demon King.”

“Of course I know that. Because I am Suzuno-san’s friend.”

[Skipping some parts]

“I remembered. At that time, I saw Suzuno-san as an enemy. In order to prevent Maou-san from being stolen, I worked hard and learned various dishes from my mother…… but to me, Suzuno was just an unfamiliar adult at that time. It is only now that for the first time…… we have become love rivals.”

“Chiho-dono…… I hope that you won’t misunderstand, I am not thinking of tying the knot with the Demon King at all or grow old together with him. Other people might think of this as a destructive thought process…… I do not harbour any expectations of getting anything in return from the Demon King. But, because I love him, my only hope is that I can become one of the people who is important to the Demon King…… In fact, I plan to take this opportunity to move out from Room 202.”

[Skipping some parts, afterwards is Maou’s reaction to Suzuno’s confession]

“Damn it…… what exactly is wrong with Suzuno?”

Because Suzuno was clearly acting strange since morning, Maou felt that there was a need to properly listen to her.

Until the middle, she was still talking about how disappointed she was with the Archbishops and the Church and briefly reported on the current situation in Ente Isla.

But later on, her voice stammered more and more, and when Maou noticed……

“Ugh.”

He also felt that his behaviour later was really useless.

Humans, no, even the Demon King would be unable to make a calm judgement when they were truly faced with a completely unexpected situation.

The shining gaze, the cheeks with a hint of red and that sentence which came out from those well shaped lips caused Maou, who thought he was going to handle a malfunction, to feel as if his temples had been hit by a hunting rifle.

When he came to his senses, Maou was already on his bicycle and heading towards MgRonalds.

He did not even remember what he did before he left the house.

[Skipping some parts, this is Chiho’s conversation with Maou regarding her confession and Suzuno’s confession]

“Ah, that’s right, Maou-san.”

“Hm?”

Just as Maou finished washing his hands and shook off the water off his hands and took out a warmed up cup from the shelf.

“You need to answer Suzuno-san as soon as possible, alright?”

“…… Ugh! …… Wah! Ah……!!”

After the cup bounced in the air a few times on his hand, Maou barely caught the cup in a position close to the floor.

Then, he raised his head nervously and discovered that Chiho’s gaze that turned extremely cold.

“Y, you heard about everything?”

“I heard. About everything.”

“…… E, erhm.”

“Based on what I heard.”

Maou remained in his kneeling posture when he caught the cup and was unable to stand up.

“I feel like Suzuno-san has a chance as well.”

“Eh, ah, no, what do you mean by possibility.”

“Since you did not reply, it should be like that. I kept waiting because of this as well.”

“Ugh.”

“Whether it’s acceptance or rejection, it should both be doable. Since you did not do either one, this means that Maou-san is still hesitating, right?”

The temperature of the cup in his hand had already decreased to room temperature.

Maou had not even activated the cashier.

Chiho’s gaze caused Maou to freeze, and he was unable to move at all.

“I know it’s not the time to say this right now. Because whether it is this side or that side, there are many matters to handle and worry about. I know this very well. However,”

With a stern tone, Chiho said determinedly,

“You can’t continue running away and being vague forever.”

“W, what do you mean by escaping?”

“Is that so? It feels like things are going to continue dragging on in this vague manner.”

Chiho said harshly.

“In fact, things will only get busier after winning the Battle to Defeat God. At that time, there will be a need to handle many things which cannot be settled in one or two years. Even if we ignore this, based on Suzuno-san’s explanation, using the Holy Conquest as a trigger, the situation afterwards will become much harsher. Once things become like this, when will I be able to receive my reply?”

In the past, because Chiho had considered Maou’s situation, she decided not to push him into giving a reply, but the current situation had changed.

If things continued like this, there will definitely be no conclusion.

Maou would not accept Suzuno’s feelings, but he would not reject them as well, only continuing to run away.

In other words, this was simply because Maou,

“Maou-san is a coward.”

That was it.

Amongst everything Chiho had said to Maou before, this was definitely the harshest and most brunt sentence.

Then, this was also purely the truth.

If Maou could be like Ashiya or Urushihara and show a firm attitude to female humans, they could just find any reason to gently reject the other party.

After all, whether it was the world they live in, their mode of life or anything else, everything was different for both of sides.

He should not be so bad that he could not even do such a thing.

But Maou did not do this.

Whether it was to Chiho, or to Suzuno.

He was puzzled about the warm feelings others directed towards him, and because he did not know what to do, he looked away.

[believerindaydreams]

you knew I had to ask K for the trio :3 I love me some post-apocalypse stuf

in which there is a stubborn refusal to settle on which apocalypse this actually is

“Terminat hora diem- what utter nonsense I’m spouting. A pet affectation, at best.” Talking to fill the void has never been my art; but our resident expert has abandoned the attempt. His face turned to the wall, prayer beads slipping through his fingers. Quite dead to the world.

Perhaps Tuco’s only being reasonable, when the world’s gone so mad as this. I defied the laws of society, true; but I never thought to see them so madly cast aside.

“In days of peace, perhaps it was,” Father Paul says, gripping my shoulder with his sun-browned hand. His face has never acquired laugh lines like his brother’s; but that harsh and look seems only fitting now. “But these are not the first bad times the church has seen- we’ve learned how necessary it is, to salvage after disaster. For the sake of mind as well as spirit. Your Latin is a treasure to be shared out, not forgotten.”

“Just the same as your Spanish, in that case.” Tuco will never press the point, so I must perforce.

I don’t expect him to take it well, but the man’s a stoic after the best; not a swallow, not a flicker of self-regard. “You’re right. Though it’s been a long time, since I was Pablo Ramirez.”

“I’ll help you,” Tuco says eagerly, distracted from his empathy; and for that one bright look of eagerness, I think our resident prior would have made a harder sacrifice.

I would have done myself, if the chance was there; but Tuco’s known long since that I’d die readily enough to protect him from my errors.

And considering what we’ve already lost? What else is there to give?

******

“I knew before you told me,” Tuco says that night. Holding fast to me with more strength than wit.

A fragile lovemaking, this, and not properly deserving the name at all- nothing lofty and transformative, neither is it forgetful and cheerfully animal. My pareja has been talking incessantly now he’s found his voice again, proving his humanity every minute; and it is not how this should be but nothing is now.

“You heard it on the radio?” I’d been with Pablo when the news had come through, a lazily meaningless game of backgammon.

(Was this how superstitions began, in past centuries? For I can’t envision touching a backgammon board again with any pleasure.)

“No- no. I woke up from my siesta, and I saw Blondie standing by the window, smoking a cigarillo. He said to me, it’s finished. That’s all, but the way he said it! So much sadness in his voice… I hid beneath the covers. Then he was gone when I looked again.”

“You know he isn’t here, Tuco.” Fancy’s fancy, but fact is fact. Blondie’s not coming back this time. Won’t again walk through that door, covered in mud and exhausted from his camping trip, patiently resigned to Tuco’s lavish coddling and my own amused pleasure at his reappearance.

If I had kept up my old trade, all those contacts and lethal information at my fingertips, would he be alive now? Most likely not- an earlier grave for all us three, if I’m being honest with myself.

I wish to lie. I wish to berate myself with absurd scenarios in which we lived, whatever improbable unmarked path would have kept the three of us together. Now, that’s hardly more sensible-

“If I’d gone to him, maybe he’d be here,” Tuco says hoarsely, a dry sob sticking in his throat. “If I’d taken Blondie by the hand, if I hadn’t turned away-”

Thank a god I don’t believe in, that one of us is rational. “That’s nonsense and you know it.”

“I believe in miracles- Angel, do you know what a hellish thing it is, to believe? To think that if you’d only been holier, your faith might have been enough-”

he struggles with me then, roughly pushing his way out of my grasp, and I don’t dare stop him; it takes all my effort to keep old instincts from rising up. I might hurt him to the quick, if he caught me by surprise; and Tuco knows that well.

(That his native caution has so far deserted him, that’s a worse hurt than all the rest together. The world burning is its own affair; but my pareja is irreplaceable.)

(The more so, because Blondie wasn’t either.)

“I hate- I hate-” he’s crying now, at the foot of the bed; and it wrings my heart with a strange relief. He’ll be far more himself after such an outpouring, those quick sympathies and sudden rages of his.  

“That’s fair. Don’t berate yourself for that.”

“I hate how hungry I am.”

Rather the nonsequitur: but that’s easily remedied. It’s only a moment’s work to step out and pluck out a round, perfect orange. Listening all the time, if he should attempt something unfortunate in my absence.

But he’s not moved at all when I come back. Limp fingers won’t hold the offered sphere; I take it back, contemplating how to peel it. There’s a knife conveniently to hand, in the pocket of my neatly folded trousers.

I don’t think I could bring myself to commit even so small a violence, in Tuco’s presence. Not today. Better to take a cue from my innamorato, and tear it with my teeth- tough and rather bitter work, but doable-

Tuco’s fit looks more like a seizure than giggling; but giggling it nevertheless is. He sprawls across the quilts, close enough to touch again; I refrain until the spasming’s stopped. Then stroke him with slow careful strokes, the oil from my hands transferring to his flesh, staining him wherever I touch.

“Oh, Angel, don’t- don’t try to be him. It wouldn’t ever work.”

“That’s not what I-”

“It was a little.”

He hands me the knife; I finish quickly, putting aside the ravaged peel. Orange segments neat and unbroken, the way that Tuco prefers them. They sit on the bed, untouched.

“It occurs to me. That fruit bowl might hold the last oranges either of us will ever see.”

“Yeah, I thought of that too.”

For all his claim of appetite, his look at the fruit is uninterested at best. There’s more light in his eye when it falls on my body, still naked as his own- it’s very cold, this late. I draw the bedclothes over us, grasping for his warmth. We should have Blondie for this; and that small loss is a banality of almost unimaginable pettiness, but that does nothing to stop the odd tear dropping into Tuco’s curls.

“I mean I want to eat something, my belly’s empty. You’re here and I want to fuck you, and I want- I should be in mourning, shouldn’t I? Shouldn’t my heart be broken?”

My only comparable experience would be with my mentor; and she’d left such clear and precise instructions, a rigorous schedule to maintain, that I was left with no blank time for grieving. Blondie would never be so organised, as to provide a forthright message-

“If you have a joke, Angel, I think I could stand to hear it.”

“…it certainly would be ironic, if he’d won his wings for the sole purpose of consoling you.” There will be better times to point out the probability of his dreaming. Not tonight.

Tuco doesn’t laugh. He snorts.

“Like my partner was a saint- ha. No, he was human like me, and I’m glad of that too! You should have some of this orange, Angel, I think you’re getting light headed.”

“All right.” I sit up against the headboard, pull him upright with me. Carefully detach a single delicate segment with my bare hands, pop one end of it into my mouth. Palpitate it delicately to squeeze out the juice.

“You make that look pretty sexy…”

“Come and get it, then.”

The following could be described only as a mess.

Orange over the quilt, on my thigh, crushed against my teeth. A chunk of peel lodged jauntily behind Tuco’s ear, while juice drips down his mustache; he licks at it contentedly.

There’s waste to this, an extravagance that would seem rather contemptible to my mentor- and if she’d ever thought to mention what to do in case of apocalypse, I might have better notions, but the thought really hadn’t occurred. This time is already more grace than I’d know what to do with.

But I have not lain with my lovers for so many years, without letting their appreciation of softness bind to my sharp awareness of every moment. If he’s all I have left, I’ll have him and kiss him again-

(why, there won’t be any need to translate Spanish in bed, now-)

“God above, I’m glad to see this. Been scared to hell about you two.”

“…that’s Blondie, isn’t it?” Tuco remarks. Not turning his head.

“It is.”

“So he’s definitely there, it’s not just me.”

“Right.”

“But he wasn’t here this afternoon.”

“No?” Blondie says, looking quizzical. “I was still with Penny- it’s a lucky thing she had the plane all fueled up, we made it here on fumes. Or not even that, we kinda…crashed, actually. Not too badly. She’s clever that way.”

“Is all well?” If I allowed a bagatelle like being caught in flagrante with orange rind in my hair, by a man who has no business being anything but a ghost, to put me off my poise…it’d be a rather poor show.

“Sure! Sure. She’s waiting for me to come back with the van, so we can get all the cargo back here. I’ll have to talk to Father Paul about that, but I needed to see you two safe first-”

“I think I must be a terrible person,” Tuco says musingly, while I’m preoccupied with rediscovering every angle of my innamorato’s anatomy. Each familiar, and yet new as sunrise-

“Why?” we both chorus.

“That cargo- I guess we get to keep it, yeah?”

“Uh-huh,” Blondie agrees, between breathless kisses. (His rasping stubble is paining me, where the citric acid stings, and I would not trade the sensation for anything.) “What about it? I thought you’d be happy.”

“Oh, I don’t know. If I have you two…what kind of catastrophe is that, huh?”

“A bad one,” Blondie says mock-solemnly, wrapping an arm around his shoulder.

“A very bad one,” I agree, taking his hand.

“…it’s all the other people I feel bad for,” Tuco says gloomily, huddling between us. “Who aren’t lucky like me, you know? I mean, I’m the kind of person who- who gets killed in the first five minutes, that’s what, and then everybody else dies too, and it’s just- two blonds walk off to Eden in the sunset-”

“We’re not gonna let that happen,” Blondie insists. “You’re gonna make it through the same as us- aren’t we, Angel?”

It’s strange, really, that everything’s changed and yet nothing has at all.

“Of course.”

I drag the knife along my tongue, carefully cleaning it of acid. I may need it in future. Quite soon even, if there’s trouble on the road. 

But not, I think, just yet. 

Unfortunate Penny and her plane full of orange marmalade will simply have to wait.

[paganchristian]

A rare snow, from a long time ago, and a cardinal visiting, and our girl cat watching.  Cardinals and other birds often come when you have feeders and it is a cold day.  And many migratory birds too, come through where we live in spring and fall.  This spring we have purple finches nesting on our porch, as they’ve done a few times in the last years.  But there was a bird that might have attacked the nest, because my husband said that he saw a black bird with a yellow beak on the porch and the finches were fighting it off.  Still the parents remain on their nest, the father feeding the mother, as he does, and so maybe there are some eggs or perhaps they keep doing that even if there aren’t?  I don’t know, not an expert on such things by any means.  But I love the song of the purple finches, totally love, love, love it!  It is so musical and sweet, dreamy and cheerful.  It has often cheered me in these spring times over the last few years, including when my cats were ill and dying, a couple of years ago.  Funnily, on the day that my husband said that he saw that blackbird harassing the finches, I felt some strange urge to open my window blinds that open onto the porch where the nest is, in my bedroom, where I rarely open the blinds.  I was lying there that day on my laptop, and I’d just posted on the same day on this blog earlier, a picture of a baby mockingbird, which then I wrote this post of how it was making cute high-pitched noises and being fed and taught to fly by its mother, and then I went on to write a post about other people and how I don't’ know how to relate to their loudness and hyperactivity, or something or other, ... Kind of suggesting that most people can seem to me kind of like cute, naïve, unaware and sometimes too hyper and loud baby animals to me, it feels like,...  And I don’t recall exactly what I wrote, but basically it was like I was feeling introverted and a little bit like I just couldn’t stand normal society, normal social interactions, normal human nature, I don’t fit, and they also pick on me, but I don’t know if I wrote all that, anyway, that is the general idea, give or take some of it maybe.  Then the thing happened with the blackbird attacking the nest, as my husband told me later that night.

Anyway, cardinals, ..  a typical association for them is that they mate for life.  A rather unusual thing for birds to do, so it’s notable.  And of course, the males are the more noticed usually, the bright red colors, but I also think that the females are beautiful, and I like their shades of tan, brown and reddish feathers, and greenish kind of goldish, anyway, really pretty I think, and the bright orange beaks.  But I was thinking of the idea of monogamy and fidelity and of mating for life, being married for life and all that.  I was thinking that marriage has many benefits for me, even when I don’t like it, even when it tests me to my limits.  Even when it seems abusive.  It’s not considered “correct” to say such things, but I feel like it’s true sometimes.  Not that I think it is always true, or will always be true for me, or has always been true, but over the long run, maybe it’s true so far, and maybe I hope it will remain true.  Sometimes the very things that are most upsetting and restrictive end up being the things that push me to grow, to search inside myself, or to reach out to spirit and to God.  Sometimes the things that I don’t like and that feel they will break me truly make me strong and makes me find sides of myself I didn’t know existed, and those new dimensions of my self help me.  When that kind of thing happens due to impersonal situations, then it’s often accepted, perhaps a little begrudgingly by some, who don’t always want to find the silver lining and resent those who see rainbows in storms.  I don’t necessarily thing that every storm has a rainbow (literally they don’t, lol but even figuratively, they don’t always either), and I understand that.  But if someone has found their own rainbow that far outweighs the storm, or even just slightly outweighs it and is better overall than a clear cloudless day, then that is their right and only they can say that is what is true and how it is for them, and why criticize or resent or argue?  It’s just because of jealousy and also the fear of judgment that people get angry over such positive people.  Positivity is indeed used to judge and condemn others for not being positive enough, often.  I really hate that and I’ve been there.  It’s far too unique and subjective to make many of the generalizations that are used by many people, about how and when we should all be positive and upbeat.  

But still even among those who are all about positive thinking and finding rainbows in the storms, they often will draw the line and only storms that were impersonal or storms that are about mistakes or suffering that could not be prevented, those are the only storms where silver linings are acceptable.  For a situation of choosing to stay somewhere that someone is treating you badly?  That is shamed, that is not an acceptable storm to find silver linings and say that the rainbow and the stormy day are better than the clear day. But I think sometimes even then it really is that the rainbow makes the whole day better than the cloudless one.  Literally speaking, I like storms, like the rain, the clouds, the fog, the darkness, the lightning and wind, and all those things.  I love it.  But you know, metaphorically speaking, the pain of life, the wrongness, the confusion, burden, exhaustion, lostness and all that can lead to a wonderful view, insights, gifts, healing, lessons, energy, intuition, perspective, strengths, resilience, being tested, being pushed to the limit to the corner, to find a secret way out that you didn’t know even existed but not only it exists, it is the most amazing way ever.  That you would have never found if not for being cornered into what felt it would destroy you or at the least, leave you weak, broken, a shadow of your former glory.  Maybe you are a shadow of yourself till you find that hidden way, and you don’t know it’s there and for months or years or even decades wandering you think you’ve been defeated but you were buried like a long-delayed seed to germinate and grow beyond all wonder one day, and become something someone never knew existed because they all passed by the opportunity to be trapped in suffering.  And that is shunned, not just in terms of expecting people to find their rainbows outside of being trapped in abuse and such things, but also it’s seen as wrong because we’re expected to leave behind abuse, or codependency, or whatever, regardless of rainbows, and silver linings, .. we’re expected to be strong enough and shamed when we aren’t.  Of course, among some, or maybe many, I don’t know, but among at least some people, they are seeing that it’s not so clear-cut after all.  It’s not so simple and doable for everyone, or wise or right or healthy to force them from their moldering cocoon which is still the only safe place for them to be at the time, maybe for along time will they can strengthen themselves by breaking out of the shell,...  Not being cut out of the shell, like a butterfly who cannot fly unless they free themselves, whose strength is found in being bound up in a shell and then by struggling out of the chrysalis.  When the time is ready they’ll be strong enough and only their struggle can reach them to that point of safety and strength.  Only their own struggle can safely make them strong.  

But I think that I’ve been trapped beyond the reach of any freedom that could be called at all safe,...  , even when everyone was urging and shaming and abandoning me because of thinking I could and should do better for myself, but I really couldn’t or should not, even if I might could have made it, I could see that the cost of leaving would be far more harmful or unsafe and stunting, entrapping for me, than the terrible cost of.  That is why I stayed in a position where for years and decades I was cornered till I finally found a secret way out.  Not that I’m all the way out yet, and though there are treasures in this tunnel I’ve found, the world could cave in still on me, and shut me off from the rest of life.  And what will happen, time will tell, faith hopes I will hold on to its hand and maybe it can lead me to where I need to be.   staying. 

In some ways I think that this marriage leads me to an ideal love, with God, and spirit, because I’ve become so very disillusioned with love and sexuality in this world and with romance and relationships and even friendships too, not only because of my marriage but because of all I’ve seen and I’ve seen so very much of the world.  It’s certainly got a lot of good in it but I still feel I don’t fit even among the very best of it, as far as I can see.  I don’t fit among the best, nor the worst, nor any middle shade of goodness.  I don’t fit because I’m too weird for anyone, no matter how good, bad or average they seem.  I just don’t fit because I’m too weird and if that is the case then what better life than to seek spirit, who loves me in spite of my weirdness.  The world is full to bursting with lonely people who cannot be themselves, who are silenced and stifled, suffocated and hidden, demolished, nothing left of who they were, because the world cannot handle their real selves.  And sometimes they can get by faking an appearance of who they are, or even believing in that false self and happy enough, but for other people, like myself, one cannot fake it well enough, and will fall apart and not make it if they have to live where they cannot freely, safely be their true selves.  So what better place to find the love and authenticity and air and space and awareness and freedom to be me?  What better place than a marriage in which I get to live outside the norms of society, unwanted, unseen, unneeded, but for a few duties of childcare and housework and wifely duties.  haha  And if those wifely duties make me feel numb and hurt and horrified and traumatized, because of the fact they have to be done with someone who has abused me so horribly as to destroy my mind and heart, well, he doesn’t do that much anymore, and he even seem s to be deluded into thinking he is deeply loving to me and that I feel the same about him.  The demanded I put on an act of adoring him, because I don’t know, maybe it’s his mental illness.  So now he’s believed the act.  I still feel awful about it unless I use my imagination and not only that but prayer, that God save me from this torment, and God does.  And this way I sense my spirit lovers when I must be with my husband.  If not for that, I would feel like I was being sexually abused and suffering physical pain and harm as well as emotional, which was what was happening before I learned that God can intervene in my situation.  I wasn’t being sexually abused in any physical sense, so I don’t mean to say that nor minimize that, because I know nothing about actual physical sexual abuse and it is probably much worse I guess.  But with my husband, there was no physical force used, but he made me feel like he’d divorce or cheat on me if I didn’t give him all he wanted, when I was repulsed and horrified by him altogether, but extremely unable to cope with life on my own, depressed, unable to drive, depressed in most workplace, to the point that I would have probably killed myself, been addicted to substances, ran to whatever miserable relationships I could find, delude myself with delusional spiritual seeking and escapism, but probably destroyed myself in fairly short order, and I knew that,... And if I consented to him cheating, well, all worries of diseases aside (assuming he’d be careful) still there is the risk of him leaving me then of course, and even if he didn’t leave me, likely the mental abuse he put me through would become more abusive and degrading from there, so of course I did not agree to that.  and so to me, it felt like abuse (but in the modern age they’d say I’m responsible for myself and he didn’t literally physically force me so it’s not abuse, so, just to clarify what I mean when I say I’d “feel sexually abused”,...  The only coercive abuse relating to sex that he ever tried on me was reproductive coercion, on two occasions, through manipulative means, but shocking, unhidden.  Natural birth control methods we agreed upon were willingly not used by him.  That is how my daughter was conceived, though I was miserably unable and unwilling to have and raise kids, I repeatedly told my husband.  But I decided to keep my child because I convinced myself it would be ok, so thank goodness it has been so far.  Of course, this religion I’m looking into says no birth control, except for the rhythm method, so they would probably disagree even with what we were doing, not that I was in that religion then nor am I now,...  Anyway, that’s another story, another taboo that I don’t feel like discussing now if ever).  

But I discovered God’s help this way, when he gave me lovers to cover the pain of having to sleep with my husband, to make it literally, physically feel like there was another one there, instead of my husband (I felt the energy of their astral body intensely), and my husband began to act differently, in very distinctive, too strange and too much for coincidence ways, that related to the particular lover (because there were many of them, each very unique, over time).  and I discovered all of this only through my own prayers, my own ideas.  I tried to pray and though I thought it was outside religion’s ideas of what might be acceptable, I prayed for this help and it was given to me.  But that was when I was a Hindu anyway, more than Christian or anything.  And I kept on with this and though the spirit lovers have changed, the way it works remains the same pretty much.  And I think that being made to be sexual might be good for me.  If I wasn’t married, I don’t know what would happen to my sexual self.  I rather think it would go into hibernation, but maybe because it is forced into existence, that is good for me.  I now have visions of lover and desires and affection and romance and joy and true adoration, deep compatibility, insights, conversations, with the most perfect spirit loves, astral loves, who give me so much good advice and ideas that I can’t get, that arrive like perfect sane amazing hallucinations.  But that doesn’t mean I’m “crazy”, because apparently sane people often do hallucinate, I think... I googled it and found a lot of results, and of course, in history, there are many cultures where the shamans and spiritual people hallucinate and there are religious visions and whatever.  They aren’t usually seen as being “crazy”, and when I googled it apparently there are a lot of articles and sites about sane people regularly, frequently hallucinating.  And, not just religious, or shamans, or anything, just average people.  And some of these articles that are from what look quite reputable sources I think.  I only glanced a bit at some of it, because got distracted and busy with other things, then closed the pages, because I just don’t have time but maybe later I’ll look into it more sometime, who knows.  All I can see its I appear to be sane to me, and better than that, because my visions heal me and give profound insights that I can find nowhere else, that no one else seems to have.  What is crazy about that?  Nothing as far as I am concerned.  And what is demonic either, since some religions would say, the devil is misleading you.  But I can’t see any reason to assume or suspect that it’s harmful, and I do believe that there are demonic influences that can disguise themselves as beings of light and very subtly lead you astray, by giving you so much good but giving you bad in the guise of good, that you would never notice.  Yet in spite of all that, I have carefully watched and observed very closely over months and even years and I don’t think that is like that.  I think as far as I can tell this is pure.  

And yes I know the religion I’m considering would say it’s not pure, it’s adultery, completely intolerable, but I don’t have faith in them being right.  I have considered what feels “correct” (possibly, but not necessarily correct, only what they insist is “correct”, because Jesus said so in the Bible or whatever... Though Jesus often spoke in a nonliteral kind of way, hyperbole, etc), and what feels good and loving and what feels happy and what I have found is this experiences of the spirit and astral lovers feels good and loving, but neither totally “happy”, nor “correct” (and nor can it convince me it’s likely necessarily incorrect either), it is something I have to take on faith even if religion tells me I’m wrong, the same as I’d have to take religious beliefs on faith even if other religions tell me I’m wrong, etc.  I’m following my heart, sense, rational thought, experience, and my intuition, and I’m observing what works over time and trying different things so I can get a good, balanced view of what is really going on and the long range effects, not just the immediate feelings or short term effects.  It seems this is really good, I can really tell this is good, pure, wholesome, helpful, not harmful, not sinful, not unless there is some mystery to the whole thing that i have not yet discovered, and have no reason to believe, and I think that the God I know and believe in, if he is real and not just some kind of hallucination of my mind and strange magical conjuration of my energy or whatever, if he really is real, then, the God I know would not condemn me for trying to save my own heart and soul and life from destruction, by staying close to and holding on to and immersing in the love, healing and wisdom that come from these visions,...  He’d not say, “It’s hell for you, because you didn’t reject those demonic visions that looked like pure love and absolute healing and transformational betterment of your soul and character... you deserve hell, my beloved child...  Nor would my own attempt to do what is good, loving, wise, sane, smart, logical, intuitive, and all around the best good i can see or sense, the most loving good I can sense, that would not condemn myself to hell, if you buy the view that we put ourselves into hell.  I can’t buy that argument.  I can’t see how this would lead me to the existence of hell.  Keep your faith in Hell and my doomed for Hell status.  I don’t have faith in that.  Nor fear of it, just feeling mind-boggled over it, like this shows just how distant my mind and heart are from so many other religious people.  

Another good thing about marriage for me, so far, however bad it’s been, dangerous, however uncertain, terrifying the future sometimes seems, but in addition to the love of God and spirit that my marriage provides me the space and the impetus to pursue, there is the opportunity that i can be immersed in being a mother.  That is a huge thing for me.  There is also the immense expanse of free time that I get to read, to study, if I can motivate and focus my scattered mind, my broken faithless, despairing heart to do so, and for many years I did manage to study so many amazing things, even things that I could never have learned in any normal social setting or any workplace nor any college environment, because it was things in books, things in inner exploration, divination and journaling,  and things that i learned from observation and interaction online in communities that are not like anything that could exist in the real world.  Because the real world doesn’t collect groups of rare people from across the globe and gather them together to converse on the things that no one else would even listen to much less talk in depth about.  And I spent to much time online, and doing divination, and journaling and mining the depths of my mind, heart, subconscious, and intuitive, creative self over very slow, exhaustive and difficult inner self work,  and reading rare books, that I'd never have done if not for the freedom and time that my marriage gave me.  

I know these examples of my own particular marriage and life aren’t something that may be generalized for all marriages.  They have to do with many things beyond just being married, and they even have to do with my illnesses, too, because my illnesses and mental illnesses and severe chronic symptoms also helped me learn, and my mental conditions, adhd, autism spectrum, bipolar, sensory processing disorder and even just the fact that I was so weird, and my weird personality, obsessive spiritual interests and compulsions, my extreme intuitive creative way of seeing and experiencing life, and how my weird personality made me so helplessly isolated and cut off from the normal world and life,.. Even my traumatic childhood and lifelong traumatic events,...  .  And all of these things just pushed me to be cornered in life where eventually, often much delayed, after feeling I was buried for years, I finally was able to grow, like a seed that thought I was defeated, rotting and dead, but instead I finally grew, though buried, ... I was strong, indeed, because I was buried, I was rooted, and safe.  But it was not a one time event, like a seed, once planted, then grows, and is well.  It was more like I was cornered, repeatedly, and every time that I had to escape, I was cornered in more ways.  I was cornered in many ways, with many enemies at once all pursuing me, and just when I thought I’d found a safe way to escape from or manage or defeat a particular enemy, another would be pursuing me and sometimes ones that I thought I’d gotten under control would find ways to invade and take over again. Or one enemy I thought I’d gotten in control and manageable, would change form and get worse again (like my unpredictable husband who did things to totally change the game after years of being one way, becoming much worse without any warning or signs that could have led me to think tit might happen,...  all in his head, nothing happening in our external life that would have made me predict it.. and that is why the future for myself and my daughter looks so uncertain and dangerous and hanging by a thread of hope, faith and innovation even if one day I might need to leave him or if he dies, which isn’t that unlikely given all the factors of his health issues, and so on..  

[chromacomaphoto]

The Ultimate Photographer's guide to Bangkok, Thailand: Film and Digital (2016-18)

HEAVILY UPDATED FOR 2017 AND STILL GOING STRONG FOR 2018: NEW UPDATES AND INFORMATION ARE ADDED TO THE VERY BOTTOM OF THIS ARTICLE

Following a surprisingly large influx of requests from readers of this blog for specific tips and advice about coming to Bangkok and greater Thailand for taking pictures, I looked around for such an article.  I couldn’t find a great deal of information on the net that was comprehensive, up to date, relevant to film and digital photographers and written accurately by people with enough appropriate experience to satisfy my requirements. This (lack of) discovery was equally surprising and leads to my decision to tackle the issue here myself, hopefully I have not bitten off more sticky rice and mango than I can chew. I shall avoid the off-topic aspects (well covered all over the web) such as accommodation, eating spicy food and where to exchange your traveller’s cheques. That said, there might be some key points where photographic and general interests overlap and these may warrant some brief mention, I’ll try and keep it on track.

General:

The light in Thailand is, in a word, strong. It sounds obvious but it really needs to be accounted for, you can easily get sunburnt on an overcast day walking around in Thailand, distracted by its offerings. For film users, this means that lower speed films of 100 or 200 ISO are more than adequate, 400 would be the limit that I would shoot with in the daytime and that would mandate stopping down significantly and ND filters come in handy for those preferring to be wider open for subject isolation purposes. All digital brethren need not worry about such issues of course. The quality of the light itself is absolutely amazing, especially during those golden hour times just after sunrise and immediately running up to sunset. At such times on a good day, the tropical South East Asian light has an ethereal quality and colour palette which is something often previously unknown to those coming from cooler climes, especially Europeans and the average septentrional North American. During the months in which monsoons and heavy rains pervade, namely June through to December in a typical year, it has been my observation that these golden hours have the potential to be at their most impressive. This is when the lighting in which one can find oneself is akin to dreamlike flashback scenes in films or long lost memories of experiencing mind-altering substances in your youth, to those of such proclivity. In general, the intensity of the light in the daytime is such that when shooting out in the open, I highly advocate the use of lens hoods and a filter of your choice. That said, even in such strong, unflattering overhead light at midday, the labyrinthine layout of this sprawling asphalt jungle still offers up significant shaded area and much opportunity for shadow play. Surprisingly, Bangkok can be as much a black and white shooter’s paradise as a prized locale for the colour adherent. A film shooter coming here for a holiday would do well to have at least some of both.

 Places to shoot and related issues:

If you’re here on holiday from another part of the world, I honestly think that almost anywhere in Thailand is nice to shoot. However in the interests of being as helpful and specific as possible, I will try and narrow it down to a selection of suggested ideas. Bangkok is an odd city in that it has no centre per se. If you like urban photography or candid street style shooting, in Bangkok you could try the following: Siam Square (where the kids go to look cool and be seen on the weekends), Chinatown and the sometimes seedy lower Sukhumvit areas. The former is great for a certain kind of classical Asian street work, immigrant ethnic Chinese motifs, old shop fronts and buildings that haven’t changed much in decades. Smoke and steam pour out from small food vendor’s stalls in tight alleyways with great colours abound. The latter offers snapshot opportunities of a broad mix of tourists and seedy types as well as some big city themed shooting. After dark in this area gives you a host of Thai, Arabic and Western fusion with random smiley young prostitutes and ladyboy street hustlers abound. Fast film night work on street level here can be fantastic. Busier office worker parts of town also make for fertile hunting ground on weekdays around peak times and lunch hours when the other areas might be quieter, try Sathorn, Silom or Ploenchit for smartly dressed folk hustling and bustling.  These are places where wide-angle lenses of a 24-35mm work well in my opinion. You might well find yourself in tightly squeezed and cramp spaces yet with lots of subjects and quirky elements that you feel you don’t wish to omit from the picture. Leaving a day or a half day for the main Chao Praya river express boat can be a great idea for a shoot and better than getting ripped off for a private wooden longtailed boat ride. Although to be fair, they are also great fun as you can ask the boat owner to go and stop wherever you like within reason, making for some wonderful ‘small river and its local community’ social documentary photo opportunities rather than the standard Lonely Planet cliché shots. Get the regular, larger and reasonably priced tourist boats every 30 minutes for just 150 baht atSathorn Pier, it even connects directly with the skytrain at Saphan Taksin station.

In addition to planning to shoot at various places around the city, don’t underestimate the Helmut Newton approach to choosing location on foreign shoots. His style was borne out of sheer laziness and he shot much of his best work within the hotel grounds or within one kilometer from it. I am not suggesting this be your approach but in Thai streets, you are likely to find your best shot anywhere, even very close to where you are so be ready with the camera set up for action as soon as you head out. You could easily see a small elephant, a street beggar shouting at two-post coital stray dogs with their genitals locked together and a family of four all on one motorbike transporting a desk fan and ironing board the wrong way down a one way street without a helmet between them anywhere at any time. And yes, they will be the ones giving YOU an odd look. For this reason, if your camera allows manual focusing I highly recommend zone focusing your lenses in advance and stopping down at a reasonable ISO so that you can quickly estimate your subject distance on the fly, compose and take shots very quickly. This goes for digital and film shooters. Practice a bit before your trip to get the hang of the depth of field. If you are an auto focus kind of person, you can take your chances. Don’t buy a new camera for your Bangkok adventure, it’s a bad idea photographically speaking anyway, come equipped with some kind of old faithful that you are already at ease with and know well, be it digital or film.

Don’t forget the wildcard option of getting a taxi and roaming around with a wider focus before simply asking to stop and getting out anywhere that looks interesting to you, even if it is considered plain by the locals. This is honestly not a bad idea. Bangkok is largely a pretty safe city and in broad daylight, assuming you are not behaving obnoxiously, offensively and you use your common sense, it’s perfectly ok to wander. Look around back streets and small alleyways and walkthroughs to see where normal, perhaps less well off people live. It’s really fine and the worst you have to do is find your way back to any main road before just flagging the next taxi to get back to your hotel. It might be easier and slightly safer for men than women, but on the whole this is totally doable and just needs a little confidence. The best areas for this will be away from mainstream tourist spots as the city starts to spread out a little. Go far to the East or West of the city limits or beyond if you feel up for it. Again, the great shots are everywhere in Bangkok.

For street shots with more space and air in the frame around the people, try the parks such as Lumphini, Benjakit or the two larger ones which kind of cojoin as the Suan Rotfai (railway park). Think Central Park New York or Hyde Park London but not quite as busy, on a weekday at least. That is also very close to the famous, sprawling Chatuchak market (weekends only) most easily accessed from the Morchit skytrain station. In the case of the aforementioned market, it’s quite the spectacle but a very tight squeeze indeed and market vendors might not be happy if you appear to be putting them and their wares in the frame, it’s worth being aware of this. It’s also a good place to find pickpockets plying their trade and so a foreigner with a fancy camera distracted by taking photos might be a target, doable but be warned.

As I have stumbled onto warnings, let’s get them all out of the way now lest they negate the cohesion of what follows. Don’t engage with any Thai people approaching you out of the blue, speaking English in public places. Thais are pretty shy and reserved and whilst a very friendly people, they typically don’t do this as a rule;  those that do are often looking to scam you. Photographers need to know this as you will stick out as a foreigner with a camera and will certainly encounter this somewhere on your trip. Taxis are fine and a great way to get to places to shoot, even shooting from them en route can have its place but don’t get in any taxi which is already parked nearby to a tourist spot and waiting with the driver beckoning you. Walk up the road fifty or a hundred metres either way and flag a moving taxi down. Make sure he puts the meter on as soon as you get in, if not, get out immediately. Wear loose, light clothes that cover you up in the sun, sun cream for that which isn’t covered and a hat is also great to have. Need I say comfy shoes? A quick word as I struggle to stay on topic: in Thailand they do judge a book by its cover and whilst Westerners are generally viewed with respect, it’s because they are expecting you to be ‘respectable’, at least according to their perceptions and this also applies a little to how you look. You don’t have to walk around in a three-piece suit taking pictures in a tropical country but it works out better for you in general if you are not too scruffy and beach bum in your general appearance. You don’t have to wear a vest, singlet or ‘wife-beater’ kind of deal, although it’s fine at the beach. You could wear a polo shirt with a collar. You might want to wear flip flops around the city but you could wear some plain, clean Converse and compromise a little whilst still being casual and in holiday mode. Yeah, sure… Thais wear flip-flops around the place but I’m just trying to give you the inside angle a little. Not wanting to preach, I’ll move on. I only mention this at all as you will sometimes only be treated as well as you appear, really scruffy hippie Westerners are often (unbeknownst to them) looked down on by Thais who have a special name or two to stereotype such people. Not even going to go there with the cultural do’s and don’ts beyond this as it’s too far off topic for photography specifically and you need to (easily) do that homework elsewhere. Please drink more water than you feel you need to when taking pictures outside for prolonged periods of time. Patronising? Perhaps. Essential? Definitely.  Use the skytrain and subway a lot and have your camera ready when you do, as the process of using this mode of transport is just as likely to yield great people shots and candids in its own right as the destinations to which it is taking you.

The very things that photographers based in Bangkok never, ever want to shoot again are probably the very things that you will love to make frames of on a Thai holiday. The ‘usual suspects’ top three would have to be tuk-tuks, temples and saffron-robed monks in any setting. Honourable mention goes to beggars and street vagrants of questionable mental health, of which there are very many in Thailand. It’s always interesting to me that whilst many photographers abhor the idea of taking seemingly exploitative pictures of the down and outs in their own, often developed countries, something about shooting tramps and beggars in far away exotic places somehow makes it all alright. They feel the need to embrace their inner ‘Steve McCurry’ about it all.  Photos of real life are okay in any country to my mind, as long as you are not looking to humiliate or portray people in a way that exploits and you handle yourself respectfully… I see no issue. Then there’s the more advanced variation on the standard motifs, a monk in a mall debating the purchase of a sophisticated new smartphone model can seem surprising and an uber-original shot to photographers on holiday here at first, but trust me when I tell you it’s been done to death. Doesn’t mean you can’t do it again though, right? Flickr results for such searches will surely confirm this contention. All this is fine, one photographer’s trite stereotype is another’s brave new world and Huxley himself wrote “I want to know what passion is. I want to feel something strongly”. Shoot what you feel.

Places to perhaps not shoot:

Be aware that if going around the ubiquitous nightlife and shady bar scene, cameras have the potential to get you into trouble quite quickly, often with nefarious individuals. Pulling out a camera in a go-go bar or nightclub is usually a bad idea.  In temples it is often ok but it doesn’t hurt to ask first or at least start of in a shy way and see if there are any disapproving glares to inform you of a possible faux pas in action. Certain large attractions such as the Grand Palace can be very off and on about what cameras they will and won’t allow and this can be frustrating, tripods definitely not cool here but small twisty Gorillapod affairs discreetly deployed in and out ofpetite bags can be okay. Inside the shopping mall centered society that Thailand has become in modern times, smartphones are ok but anything that looks like a dedicated camera is not a good move (but fine if on a strap and not being used). All malls and department stores typically have ‘no photo’ signs on the main entrance doors for all to see so you can’t and shouldn’t argue the point if you are asked to stop shooting. That said, even this is a lot more laid back then it should be nowadays and a quick frame snatched here or there is unlikely to elicit a defcon five response per se. Nobody asks teenagers to stop taking pictures with their smartphones of course; ironic really as these are sometimes as good as many dedicated cameras in their own right these days. Technology has blurred the lines here and old policies have not really caught up to how the world is today.

More Film shooter specific:

The X-rays in baggage scanning equipment at either of the Bangkok international airports will have no adverse effect on your film whatsoever, fogging will not occur. This is assuming the following caveats: The film speed is ISO 400 or lower. Faster film might well be ok too but I’ve never personally tested it so if in doubt, push 400 a stop or two. I prefer Tri x 400 at a two-stop push to a lot of the faster films anyway. You simply MUST take the film onto the plane with you in the cabin as carry on only, do not put film in baggage that is to go in the hold of the aircraft. If you do, all bets are off and the film will probably be ruined. Bangkok airports are perfectly film friendly otherwise as of 2016 and I have tested this personally myself countless times and continue to do so. A personal request for a close hand inspection of the film to avoid scanning, which is possible in some other countries, seems to be a bit unheard of here in my opinion. Just put it through the general scanner as you go through security as many times as they require and it’ll be fine.

Generally as with the rest of the world, film is a bit of a niche thing in Thailand these days and whilst it’s still popular with enthusiasts, Fuji Instax/Polaroiding teenagers and the younger retro hipster set, it’s not something which is that easy to find or ask about with the average person. It’s not exactly difficult though either with a little insight. For regular colour print C-41, the standard fare, cheaper Kodak Colorplus and Fuji Superia ilk can sometimes be found in small quantities in any generic Sino-Thai family owned three storey townhouse lab. That’s something that you will recognize as soon as you see one. They are prevalent all over Thailand on any large road or street. Often times, the entire three generations of family all live in it but only the ground floor houses the lab operation. The whole of the building front will likely serve as a huge sign, twenty metres high, typically a Fujifilm or Kodak colour scheme in the usual corporate branding. The operation’s longevity in the area will be determined by the extent of the sunfading of said shop front and the magnitude of the seemingly mandatory ad hoc display of photos in the ground floor window. For maximum bonus points, said display should comprise of a ‘before and after’ example of a previously considered unsalvageable torn photo from the forties (typically it’s an over zealous Photoshop job of somebody’s long deceased family member), several pictures of local civil servants wearing elaborate uniforms which bear more pips, badges and gold rope under the armpit than the most decorated war hero from The Somme and several pictures of no longer cool Thai pop-culture stars from at least seven years ago which thirty-two photo labs in the same postal code all claim to have taken. These are all your hallmarks of quality. Of course, you are still trying your luck but prints from such places are often really decent, cheap and very quick. The key word to get around the language barrier for print size is ‘jumbo’ which means slightly larger than postcard size and typically might be as little as 2 baht a print, all being well.  Examples of other sizes and paper types are usually on the wall in displays that you could just point to anyway. If you’re really lucky, in addition to the popular 90’s era Fuji processing machines that are often found in such joints, you sometimes stumble over a Fuji Frontier film scanner on its last legs for facilitating ultra cheap film scans of a high quality with low labour costs. Make it clear that you want ‘no Photoshop’ if using such a service or you might well come back to find the young Thai student-intern working the scanner for a ‘child in a fake Nike factory’ wage gives you back scans or prints in which everybody has been worked over to look like an extra from The Wizard of Oz. I mention these places as they are all over every city in Thailand and there might be a perfectly good one that has all you need just doors away from where you are staying, worth having a quick look around when you first arrive. You’ll be lucky to score black and white at such an outlet but with the trendy hipster kids trying their hand with a bit of film here and there, you sometimes see a few rolls of Kentmere or something in the background.

Other cities around Thailand also have these same photo labs everywhere on the main roads and they are just as easy to find. However be advised that by now, the ones that offer film processing will be a lot less prevalent as their sole business model will typically just be making prints from digital images. It’s not cost effective for them to keep running the film machinery. There’s often just one photo lab in a small to medium sized rural Thai city that might still develop film for you and if the one you go into doesn’t have the service, they will almost certainly know which of the other labs do. They’ll tell you the name or help you find it, it’s no lost business to them after all. I know the following cities still have at least one photo lab that devs film:  Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, Phuket, Khon Kaen, Udon Thani, Kanchanaburi, Pattaya, Hua Hin,  Ayutthaya,  Ubon, Saraburi and  Rayong (black and white, colour e41, scans and same day, often very fast development at the green Fuji shop opposite the Post Office!)I am sure that there will be equivalents of cities of at least these sizes. You’ll struggle to find anything other than colour print film once you get out of Bangkok but you can still get it in larger cities. I bought black and white film in Chiang Mai in December of 2015 and they even had devving services on offer up there as well (Photobug) which was nice to see. It was very easy to find Kodak Colorplus in different places in Chiang Mai also. Hopefully this all gives you some idea of what to expect.

For the less risk adverse, here are some Bangkok safe bets for finding film and services of a greater variety and quantity. I have no affiliation and stand to make nothing from these recommendations but these places as of 2016, will surely see you right. ‘Photogallery’ is not the easiest find up on the higher floors of Thaniya Plaza, Soi Thaniya (Skytrain station Sala Daeng) but this is probably my current number one pic. The owner is fair and honest and maintains two large commercial fridges, which are nearly always packed full of the good stuff. Kodak, Ilford, Fuji are often in stock as well as some large format and wildcard bets like those Impossible films from the Netherlands. Probably the best place to buy black and white film right now with ease in the city, if you are on holiday and don’t know the place. If you can’t get something here, you’ll still usually be able to get its equivalent in another brand and you’ll get help and advice in that regard if you need it. The shop also has lots of decent film cameras and lenses in featuring basic Japanese brands all the way up to the posh German stuff.  English communication is fine. Photogallery are open Monday through Saturday from around very late morning to early evening

One of the best large labs in Thailand for doing just about anything above and beyond the basic c41 run is probably ‘Procolorlab’. Alas they are somewhat off the beaten track, hard to find and not very ‘tourist English language drop in visit’ compatible. The good news is that Photogallery regularly deal with them and so for a slight surcharge you can go through them. I mention this as it’s darned handy for something like E6 slides or having real optical enlargements done. It’s all sent by motorcycle messenger so you don’t have to do any running around. There is another lab of repute called “IQ lab” on Silom road (another branch near Ekamai) and although they have great equipment and a long standing reputation, it’s a pricier place overall and their services are a tad diminished in recent times, they stopped doing E6 altogether last year for example. Honestly though, if you’re still shooting slide film in 2016, them’s the breaks. IQ lab do scan 4 x 5 film though but it’s a place where you can get different answers to the same question on different times and some odd scenarios depending on what materials they have in stock at any given time.

'Av Camera’ is very close to BTS Saphan Taksin and an easy google find. It’s another long-running and reputable place to visit, it’s very small and well packed as the main business here is all things modern digital photography. You can easily find them and the map on their website. The owner is a nice gentleman who is typically sat at the table in the back of the shop on any given day. They also have a film selection in stock pretty much all the time, just less quantity and variety than Photogallery. Again, you can have devving of pretty much any film type outsourced through them reliably and messengered back over to the shop for pick up at a later date. This is relevant as you could go on an island hop and pick the film up on your way back through Bangkok without carrying your film everywhere you go. You can find a nice selection of secondhand film equipment and lenses for sale here on any given day also.  Either shop is a good go to place for repairs in an emergency, they are certainly to be trusted in this regard but only you can decide if you have the time in Thailand to make that feasible.  It’s nice to know the option is there.

A more wildcard choice is perhaps Siam Digital in Siam Square. Very easy and quick from the BTS again here with a good range of developing services and turnaround. Certainly C41, black and white and I even saw some young guy dropping off a roll of E6 there circa New Year 2016 so I know they offer it but at a slightly delayed outsourced turnaround. The rest of it is all developed by themselves in house and typically with same day service, which is nice for those on holiday and hence the reason for including them here. I have seen some mixed reviews about the quality of their processing though and have never tried them personally so I can’t promise anything here. They are a good place to find film in that area, usually a few colour choices and a fair selection on black and white from the likes of Ilford. Room temperature storage only here but that’s chilled air con temperatures anyway, or at least during office hours. If all this black and white specific processing limitation stuff puts you off, you can find Ilford XP2 chromogenic C41 process ‘pseudo’ black and white at most of the above places and then you can get that developed anywhere that does regular basic colour film processing. That opens your options up a lot for developing. To be fair, I’ve shot XP2 in bright Thai sun before and found its dynamic range to be about the most flexible that I’ve ever used and so it’s certainly a reasonable compromise option. I think you can even alter the ISO of different frames a little on the same roll and still get acceptable results back but I urge you to do your own research on that.

In the Ploenchit area (skytrain stop of the same name) you can find ‘Siam TLR’ shop on the ground floor of the Mahatun building. No experience personally but I have heard the owner is happy and friendly and there’s lots of second hand cameras to see, I suspect a few other film related services are on offer here too.

For those phototourists willing to be a little more adventurous, hop in a taxi and head to ‘Central Lad Phrao’. It’s near the very northernmost end of Chatuchak park. This is a large mall but that is not the reason to go there. The key is to just walk a short way over the main road (away from the mall) and you will see a whole collection of photo labs buildings and related businesses there directly opposite this lined along the road. Many of these places sell good selections of films and offer processing. It seems that not too many have the films in fridges but the stock is usually fresh enough. I suspect some smaller shops might buy in bulk and resell from some of these larger operations. You can get harder to find films here usually. I have bought from a great selection at ‘Photo City’ before and was happy enough. There’s also a place here in this bunch called ‘A+B Digital Lab’ which has the unusual distinction of doing fast colour processing, sometimes done in a couple of hours. You could even have lunch back over inside the mall while you wait.

Film prices vary in Thailand according to brand, but it’s not too bad overall, depending of course on where you are coming from.  In general it seems to be a little cheaper than Europe for some films and a tad pricier for others. We don’t have bargains like one British pound for 24 exposure basic C41 colour rolls as per in the UK currently, for example. Some super basic films like Kodak Colorplus 36 can be snagged for around a hundred baht if you are lucky, this is very cheap for Thailand. It’s double that for the name brand quality black and white though. Some of the slightly cheaper sources are one or two well known online shops for film that are operating within Thailand from social media sites. I haven’t included those here as you generally need to be set up in Thailand with bank accounts and a home address to order so it doesn’t seem applicable to someone passing through to shoot. If you would like this info, email me through my site and I will give you up to date info.

For a nice concentration of lots of small vintage camera shops in one place, as well as some highly skilled repair people, check out Mega Plaza on Mahachai road, you’ll need a taxi to get there. There’s one shop there in particular which has quite the reputation, it’s called ‘The Eye Camera Café’ and the nice gentleman there is considered by some to be one of the best film camera repairman in the country.

There’s a guy from Hong Kong named Eddie who runs a place called ‘Camera Collection’ in Charn Issara Tower (ground floor) around the Silom Road area. It used to sell a lot of cameras and the like but he seems busier with doing paid photography in recent times I hear. He can source all the usual cameras, lenses, films and processing services that most of the already mentioned places can. I have dealt with him a few times and found the place pretty decent and straight up overall.

Traditional darkroom space hire is a real tough one and you often need to know people or friends with their own set-ups in many cases. That said, there is one which comes highly recommended called Patani Studio. The services there vary but at the time of writing (2016) it is possible to hire the studio for a day long, eight hour block of time and the only consumable you would need to bring is your own photo paper. I think the price would be around two thousand baht. You can source this through some of the aforementioned places like Photogallery perhaps or bring your own. You can find this place at 59, Soi Nana off the Charoenkrung Road. I have to be specific here. You would do very well to ask the taxi for Charoenkrung road FIRST and then find Soi Nana off this road. The reason for this is that Soi Nana is also the name of an infamous place on the lower Sukhumvit road area which has the largest concentration of hookers and go-go bars in Bangkok. Ninety-nine percent of taxi drivers are going to assume that you want to go to the latter of course. I dread to imagine the scene when you get out of the taxi there and starting asking random streetwalkers and go-go girls if they can take you to the darkroom with a red light.

What to bring general tips:

For modern digital photography, you can buy literally anything here that you would find in any other large capital city of the world in terms of consumer electronics. Reasonable prices too. Two large places are ‘Pantip Plaza’ which was at one time the country’s number one spot for electronics but has now faded somewhat from its former glory.  I like ‘Fortune Town’ better myself but be forewarned that any geek could easily waste a day walking around this huge mall and not spend the time outside taking pictures. Bangkok might even be better than some large capitals in more developed countries in this regard in fact, don’t forget how much of this stuff is made in Asia. Storage media/cards of all brands and types are readily available everywhere and often people find that they can end up slightly cheaper here than back in their own countries at times.  Replacement batteries for various cameras are also easily sourced both for original and off brand/grey stuff in the two large malls already mentioned. Also, Nikon stuff is made here in huge quantities to a high standard. You really don’t need have to go to these big places though as most modern photographic needs are met by at least one store in just about every large group of shops and retail space that you are likely to come across as you move around Bangkok. So, no need to bring too much in the way of ‘just in case’ items, especially if you like to pack light. For powering your camera: AC mains is generally two pin or two flat prong (both work) similar to US types ‘A’ and ‘C’ and they run 220 volts. Stuff from the UK works at the correct voltage without frying anything as long as you have the correct plug adapter. I hear US appliances might be a bit trickier but have never had to test this myself. You can often just USB charge camera batteries without too much hassle and the right cable nowadays of course if in doubt. Not to get too general I hope but I would recommend a decent umbrella June through December though, for the ladies this doubles up to keep the sun of you in true Asian (and Victorian England) style but looks extremely odd for a man to do. Don’t fear the monsoon season, bad weather makes for great photos and seeing as you are on a holiday or extended photography trip, you probably don’t have to be anywhere on time anyway. If you get caught out in the heavy rain, it might be a lot heavier than any rain you have ever seen before in your life but any Thais stuck out without the right kit will be equally stuck and you can follow their lead as people generally take shelter together wherever they can. The general rule is that the more extreme and violent the rain in Thailand, the quicker it stops and just twenty minutes can make all the difference sometimes, you are then on your way. It’s obviously harder to hail taxis in the rain. Staying close to subway and skytrain stations here can be handy during these months not only for the immediate shelter benefits but also because tropical South East Asian rainfall is often incredibly specific and narrow in terms of where it hits. It’s entirely possible that it hasn’t yet rained at all just one stop down the train line from the monsoon and it’s business as usual. Strange but true. A camera bag that doesn’t look like a camera bag and is quite small, maybe just big enough for a body and two lenses is ideal for Bangkok. Any bigger and you are inviting searches when going in and out of places plus it’s just too hot to be bogging yourself down with kit. I also personally hate having backpacks and the like with me when shooting street as I feel paranoid about undesirables looking to rifle the pockets when in squashed up close quarters around the city. Another great tip that is invaluable is to get the camera out of the bag as soon as you get back to where you are staying, don’t leave them stuffed in bags in this humidity. The flip side of this is even more important, when taking a camera and lens out of an air con room and out into the tropical heat of Thailand (especially in the Bangkok heat) you should let it slowly warm up before you use it. Lenses fog and condensation clings to film inside even pro level cameras . I sometimes forget this. Last year my incredibly reliable Rolleiflex ‘E’ had a winding error. It was actually user error as I cranked it over a tad over-zealously within two minutes of leaving a freezer box hotel room. The condensation caused just a slight slippage in the film transport and the frame spacing was off, overlapping several frames before it sorted itself out. When you’ve only got twelve shots on a roll, that’s less than ideal. It had never done this before or since; I didn’t let it settle into the humidity first. User error. Heed this advice for any kind of camera

When to shoot:

It’s pretty hot and humid in most of Thailand nearly all year round, some years the cool season never actually happens. It can be colder in the North depending on altitude and time of year but for the rest of us, it’s just plain hot and sticky. You can shoot anytime but getting up early and shooting before 10-11am is a great idea. Start with the first half of the golden hour and go from there. This is sometime between 6-6:30am most of the year. Thailand is great in that it is pretty consistent in terms of daylight hours. Although it gets dark quicker at the end of the year and following few months, it still only changes by maybe half an hour or more, moving slowly between these changes so you don’t notice it that much when you live here year round. There is also no daylight saving time to account for, which I personally love. In simple terms then, you’re talking about pretty much twelve hours on and twelve hours off, all year long. It’s good to have this constant as a photographer. By the same token, shooting from 5 to 6-6:30pm onwards for the last hour and a half of light is not only more comfortable for you but it yields the best evening light to work in also. Beyond that, shooting at night is possible for film shooters as Bangkok has a lot of bright lights and neon but obviously it’s better in more mainstream areas.  Going with  ISO 1600 or 3200 film is perfectly manageable with faster lenses in such places.  Digital shooters can shoot round the clock with good modern kit regardless of course in many cases; this is one area where it is an eminently practical medium. A totally random suggestion that works well for this is the Khao San Road area. It is a good example of a place in Bangkok where you can shoot at night around lots of people with bars here and there and probably not cause too much trouble with a camera, yet you should trust your senses and gut feeling on a case by case basis. It’s also cool hippie ‘turn on, tune in and drop out’ central with the current wave of gap year students rolling through every year trying to look like the counter-culture yet somehow all managing to look exactly like one another in their own mandatory style. This can be good and bad depending on your age, political leanings and levels of patience for strangers and the diatribes they can unleash upon you when well lubed with alcohol. Good for night shooting though.

Taking photos in public of Thai people:

The good news here is that Thai people are incredibly laid back and very unlikely to ever be confrontational in any given situation in general, most especially in public. You can take pictures of them but don’t get too in their faces and respect personal space, which seems a bit odd at times in such a tightly crowded city. If you want good street shots, go wider in your focal length and work with a little bit of tact and finesse whenever possible. A smaller camera is better, pointing a larger DSLR with a long zoom lens right at someone might not always meet with happy responses, but then this is true anywhere in the world and so common sense applies.

 Though there are exceptions, generally it’s no problem to walk around shooting street in Bangkok, you will be perceived as a tourist anyway so might as well live up to it. Basically, with a little practice of good street shooting techniques you can have an easy time of it. I highly recommend zone focusing, knowing your camera and lens very well, framing the shot in your mind before you lift the camera to eye level for fast shooting and not being too threatening or getting right in people’s face. Be a little bit stealthy and discreet but you don’t need to be overly sneaky or anything. I’ve rarely had a problem ever and truth be told, even Bruce Gilden could probably get away with it here, for a short while at least.  A golden rule in Thailand in general that many people learn on day one (and then forget almost immediately) also applies brilliantly to public photography here: If you smile, Thais will not be able to get angry with you. If it sounds simple, that’s because it is. Remember this, if you are caught taking a candid that you feel didn’t go down well and it has elicited frowns or other such faces of displeasure…humble, friendly smiles and walk away. That’s all you need to know.

 In Bangkok, a very basic kind of simple survival English is known to some, even though the overall standard for the country is poor. You can get shop assistants to deal with you and make a sale (or at least find someone in their team who can try) but when shooting on the street, it’s actually often useful to simply remain silent and hide behind the language barrier. This is coming from a photographer who has studied and practiced their language diligently for twenty years and has the option to use fluent Thai if needed. I’m not a fan of people who don’t make the effort to learn the language in a foreign land in general but in this scenario, I just happen to think that the ‘silent smile, slightly bowed head and keep it moving’ technique is the best communication for the situation and I’ve tested this extensively for a long time with positive results. Trust me. Please be aware that upcountry and away from tourist hotspots, the locals will be less likely to see lots and lots of foreigners and so they might react a little differently to you but that doesn’t automatically mean in a bad way. It just might be that you are an odd or unexpected sight in their day. They might also be a little more shy but it’s also highly likely that they’ll be very friendly. Your chances at blending in and being stealthy will diminish somewhat in these locales. Honestly, Thailand is just such a great place to shoot.

That is my advice and a general guide for photographers of both film and digital media for shooting in Bangkok but most of this applies pretty much as well for the rest of Thailand also. It’s a work in progress and I’ll keep adding things to it. Thanks for reading.

2017 UPDATES

The year of 2016 in Thailand was hectic, stressful and contained much distress for the Thai population at large. Regardless of these circumstances, it seems that the film shooters here were just as busy as ever, if not much more so. The sales of film in Thailand this year have been reported as very brisk indeed according to several well known suppliers and retailers of film that I have spoken to. I personally had the experience this year of either buying up the last of a pack of favourite film type  at a certain shop or just being pipped to the post by someone else buying the last packs in stock the day before. I usually have a good stock in the freezer at home but there were one or two times this year where I actually had to wait a week or so before I could get the exact films I wanted.  

Another interesting development (pun probably not intended) is that Thais have been increasingly getting into medium and large format photography and buying more of this size of film. 120 rolls and sheet films have been selling very well and there has been quite the upturn of MF and LF cameras changing hands. You won't see a big Linhof sitting around unsold for months like you often used to just a few years back. This is easy to follow as a trend, not only from direct communication with those vendors in the industry in bricks and mortar establishments,  but also from following the sales of cameras on Thai language sites and internet forums. From various sources such as websites and podcasts, it appears that in the U.S. in recently, good quality MF film gear such as Hassies and Rollies have been going up in price and selling out very quickly. I am not sure if this is a knock on effect back here in Thailand or just a general echoing of such changes but I’ve seen a similar scenario overall in Bangkok this year. 

In fact, one can even take this to a generally broader argument and suggest that many (but not all) good film cameras seem to be going north in price, at least more so than normal. A lot of young people are driving the demand, that much is clear and seems to apply here as much as anywhere. Trading of Leica glass has been really quite busy this year. One dealer I know sometimes looks like the floor of a stock exchange (on a good weekend) with punters cramming in elbow to elbow and snapping up freshly imported Leica glass from Japan. The good German stuff is (I mean in good condition, do they make any bad stuff?) changing hands very quickly and often facilitating the need to act fast if you want apotentially popular item. It goes in spits and starts at times though with seemingly nobody wanting that 35' lux for a few weeks and then five people fighting over it all at once. A key difference of late is that a lot of the younger Thai crowd that have been buying the Leitz lenses in recent years to use with mirrorless gear seem to have graduated up to just buying Leica bodies (both digital AND film) to mount them on instead.  It seems that even though the likes of the Sony bodies are better digital cameras than a lot of the Leica stuff, people just soon want to plug and play these lenses with the native cameras instead. I have seen really big increases in demand for the Pentax Super Takumar vintage lenses peaking to be much higher than just a few years ago when I last owned any of them.  There are dealers with whole drawers and dry cabinets filled with nothing but SMC Super Takumar and the like around in Bangkok currently. This is a trend that I can easily agree with. These lenses are sometimes referred to by one respected dealer I know in Bangkok as 'Leica Japan' and the quality of the glass and the images they produce are truly amazing. I have some classic shots of loved ones that I took with these lenses in years gone by that I really cherish. I would say that in Bangkok now these are definitely a current trend and very popular for use with the adapters on all of the mirrorless bodies, I have seen these kind of rigs all over the city on numerous recent outings.

For film labs I still highly recommend Procolorlab, Patani Studio (ring first as this guy is often out shooting and he has become busier in 2016, he also still does E6 slides on site with good work and turnaround!) and relative newcomers Airlab doing great work and winning over a whole lot of people (although, be aware that it’s jam packed at certain times and especially weekends as a wall to wall hipster central, consider yourself warned). They are all on Google and Facebook under the above names and all of them update their pages pretty regularly. Do try all the generic photolab 'Mom and Pop' townhouse stores in Bangkok (read the original full article above for more details on these) near where you are staying though as it's often surprising how many seemingly defunct looking places will still process C41 though. For B and W you will need to stick with the specialist labs or do your own (highly recommended anyway). As always, a good soft option still might be to try a chromogenic like Ilford XP2 (very often in stock at Photogalleryshop) if you wanna shoot B and W here and get it developed easily and locally whilst you are still in Thailand. I always think of this as a tourist’s dream option for B and W on holiday with no hassles if you can’t wait to get back to your own country and develop.

Here follows some more extensive detail on other good shops at the current time and also repairs, spares and specialist work which have not yet been covered in depth on this article before:

Get a taxi to take you to ‘Mega Plaza’ in an area often simply known as ‘Wang Burapha’ (also known as the ‘Saphan Lek’ area). You’ll easily find it on Google maps but it is a real pig to get to and so I just recommend a taxi ride. You can't mistake it once it's in your line of sight, surrounded by (real) gun shops, it has a huge sign in English and the whole place is garish orange from the outside. It's a six storey, medium sized mall which is most famous for being the centre of all things geeky and toys. This is the place people come to for knock off Chinese Lego, BB guns, real Gundam kits, hobby supplies, RC cars/planes, Playstations and games etc. It's probably one of the best places in Thailand for all of the above. That's not why you should go there however. If you go up to the fifth floor on the escalators in the very middle of the building (don't get that wrong as there are two sets) you can then turn to your right as you get off at that floor and you will find yourself in vintage camera sales and repair heaven. There are more than twenty or thirty tiny little shops (rented booths in all honesty but some are more grand and ‘shop-like’ than others) here offering all things good in camera land, with a heavy bias towards film bodies. In fact, this is the only place in Thailand where you could approach a dealer, ask about repairs for your camera and the first thing that they will say is …' We ONLY repair film cameras!" How's that for a rare response in this day and age? 

This little zone is only about half of the size of the entire mall on this floor but what you can't find here, probably doesn't exist anywhere in Thailand. They have it all, including some really left field and esoteric stuff like a Leica MDa or perhaps a Speedgraphic for the weekend sir? Several of the little shops here are purely repairs only with some very well respected and capable repair techs plying their trade in full swing. This is the place you come to make the impossible possible. I have seen guys here repairing things like Nikon F5's and they just happen to have that 'whole board' or just the one LCD section that you need and they can somehow get it all together and working again. You know that is not an easy service to find but this is the place. They can work wonders on mechanical stuff, I have recently discovered that some of the already recommended retail shops in this guide send their camera repairs to guys in this place and then add on their small commission on top so if you are not in a rush and feeling brave, you could theoretically cut out the middle man and take a chance on dealing directly with skilled techs yourself. The obvious problem here might be the language barrier though, especially if the fault were intermittent or hard to describe. For more obvious camera problems or if you had a Thai friend to help explain, it would be fairly straightforward.  This is no Tokyo camera shop but by local standards, there are some great shops here with decent inventories of great film cameras and also worth a look for classic (and sometimes modern) glass even for digital shooters of course. One problem here though is some of the vendors are unrealistic about pricing at times and approaching them as a foreigner with no Thai language skill is certainly unlikely to help them ‘re-evaluate’ their pricing. You can also find lots of film types for sale, there is a good general variety although often not in massive quantities. Lots of places here will also have a wide range of photographic accessories of a very specific nature that might be hard to source elsewhere so if you have a tricky and weird item to source, this place is your best bet (filter of an odd size, mechanical cable release anyone?)

So, whilst at Mega Plaza then, and to try and be as helpful as possible, I would like to add a newcomer or two to the recommend dealers list (no affiliation and like all recommendations on my website these are actual people that I have personally bought from and had good experiences and been treated well).  'TheEye2' camera shop (unit B507 with a yellow sign, it's small and not easy to find, if you do a 180 degree u turn when getting off the escalator on the 5th floor and walk back on yourself to the back of the building, you'll find it straight ahead). The lady owner is friendly and fair and will haggle with you a bit. You can also trade in and trade up etc. She has a large selection of classic Leica glass at all times but also lots of other great stuff. She is also directly connected to somebody reputable in another unit on the 5th floor who only does repairs but it's better to go through her first as the repair guy is not much of a one for friendly chit-chat and the price isn't any higher if you go through her as they are connected. Again, this store is on Facebook under thatname and they are very active with almost daily updates of what's in stock at any given time.

Just for a quick recap then my personal names and places of people who are good to deal with for glass and bodies (and usually film) and who won't rip you off, as of Jan 2017:

Kuhn Boonlue (a great guy) at Photogallery Shop (on facebook) inside Thaniya Plaza Sala Daeng, Silom, Bangkok (connected directly to the BTS Skytrain! Nice old glass, Leica bodies and lenses, good MF and LF equipment. Still probably my fave place for buying large amounts of film which is kept in a proper fridge!

Khun Mana (a very well known and reputable fair chap) at 'AV Camera' (close to Saphan Taksin BTS station and also on Facebook) Large selection of used Leica glass here! Their used section on their website is updated daily with prices and clear descriptions.

Khun Meow (fair and friendly woman trader) at TheEye2, 5th floor Mega Plaza, Wang Burapha, Sapah Lek, Bangkok.

I also find ‘The Shutter’ (another medium sized store just a few doors away from ‘TheEye2’ in the corner of the same floor) to be very good and fairly priced for all brands and lenses in great condition but their prices are good to start with and they really don’t want to haggle at all. The lady there is friendly and a patient, smiley type.

The first two are closed on Sundays, Khun Meow might be open then. I wouldn't go to any of them until at least lunchtime, but no later than 6pm.

Although this is veering into true caveat emptor territory, and might not be the most practical for shooters passing through Bangkok for short trips, I still would like to add something into this guide about direct, private sales of second hand cameras and lenses in Bangkok. A brave wildcard option might also be to try your hand at deals with the public and buying from somebody in Bangkok directly. Obviously the usual warnings apply and you need to decide what levels of risk you are comfortable with. It also helps if you are buying things that you know a bit about. The best webpage for my money in this area of the local Bangkok market (but also applies to other cities in Thailand) would be to google (ThaiDphoto) and click on the uppermost google search linked page. You actually don’t need to read Thai to see the equipment name for sale (nearly always in English) or the price and phone number in Arabic numerals. This is the buying and selling room of what was once a very small and quite irrelevant little site which by chance happened to become one of the busiest camera equipment trading rooms online for the whole of Thailand. The page is constantly being added to with new threads for stuff for sale all the time. A busy day might be forty new threads. This is strictly the domain for those who can get someone to speak Thai and help them with any transaction. Most people want to meet up at a Skytrain or MRT subway station and do a deal there in a large public place so it's not too dangerous on the whole as long as you use common sense. I mention this as somebody on holiday in Thailand could easily get a hotel receptionist to make the call, offer a price and get the seller to come and wait for you at an agreed time in the hotel lobby where you are staying on the skytrain or somewhere. This would be easy and quite safe and all on CCTV with security guards around the place so there's really no reason why not. You will find most sellers are happy to meet up with you and so this option is just something I thought I would throw out there as there is a brisk trade on such sites and you might well see somebody selling a lens or body that you really want right now and you just need a local to make one phone call to make it all happen. I have bought a few items from people on this website and had great experiences myself. There are certainly dealers on here also, either masquerading as private sellers or just happy to fess up to using this as an additional channel to their existing business, perhaps under a different name or whatever. No Ebay fees or Paypal nonsense though, you see, you touch, you like and you buy, or not as the case may be. You will have to decide what is best for you and what you are happy with. It's easier to check something like a lens there and then maybe, a mechanical film body might have a hidden fault that doesn't show up for a couple of minutes when you first look at it with a view to buy, like a lazy shutter in a Rollieflex that the guy makes sure he gets loosened up just before he meets you. All things that need to be considered I guess.

APRIL 2017 UPDATE:

Please be advised that as of recent months, IQ Labs no longer do any colour 35mm (c41) processing whatsoever, this applies to both Ekamai and Silom branches. No big deal really as there are lots of other options out there and IQ tended to be on the pricey side with varying consistency in their service and how they dealt with people at times. It's also yet another great reason to shoot B+W and develop yourself at home anyway!

AUGUST 2017 UPDATE:  

Recently, a reader quite rightly pointed out to me that I had somehow overlooked 'Fotofile'. I was sure that I hadn't but when I checked, turns out I had. Thanks for the heads up! So, Fotofile is a chain of shops, been around for about twenty five years or so. Most of them are just everyday, common or garden modern, digital camera and accessories shops. Nothing wrong with that. The two branches in the chain which warrant a mention are, in the first instance, The ground floor branch in the MBK centre (BTS Siam or National Stadium Area). This is a small shop about half way back in the centre, near the main side entrance which lies under the pedestrian bridge crossing that takes you to the Siam Square side of the main road. This shop sells all the new stuff as well as LOADS of good second hand lenses and digital (AND) film camera bodies. A real haven for fans of Canon and Nikon mount glass, lots to choose from, you can fondle and haggle a little. Not much in the way of huge discounts here though for sure. The pricing often seems a little bit too arbitrary for my liking, as though it depended solely on the mood of the person who put the lens in the display case on any given day. Still a pretty decent little place to check out though for sure, they have a small selection of films for sale there although not usually kept in a fridge (unlike Photogallery in Thaniya Plaza). There's another branch of Fotofile that goes under another name 'Camera and Lens' inside Central Rama 3 and this is a cute mash up of a small but fully authorised Leica dealer and a kind of glossy display of older Leica gear in the vein of a mini-museum. As well as looking cool and being quite interesting if you are into the red dot, it's also a branch that seems unusually good at procuring hard to find Leica parts such as older, obscure hoods and filters etc. At least that was the experience that I myself had there a couple of years ago. Recommended if you like that sort of thing.

'CAMERA COLLECTION'  at the Charn Issara Tower in Silom seems to have moved in recent times. I was there yesterday in that building and was surprised to find that old shop is now a hair salon! A little investigating on their social media posts and it seems that they have moved here instead:

 River city 3rd floor as Hummingbird foto. 23 Trok Rongnamkhaeng, Si Phraya Pier, Yota Road, Sampantawong, Bangkok 10100, Thailand. Please feel free to meet me (The owner Eddie, NOT anyone from Chromacomaphoto.com) there! (Please make an appointment)

There hasn't been a lot of activity on that Facebook page since they posted the new address a few months ago so let's hope that no news is good news and Mr. Eddie is still in business. Any reader of this blog who can either confirm or deny (a bad skill set if you want to work for the U.S. government, I'm sure) that 'Camera Collection' is doing okay at the new venue, feel free to drop me a line at the address shown on the bottom of this (or any) page on this site. Thanks.

OCTOBER 2017 UPDATE:

As I only like to recommend places or services that I have personally used or have been used by people who I know and trust, here follows some more detail as of October.

There is a lab up in Chiang Mai (in addition to Photobug, which is already in this guide) which has been running for a while now. It's run by two young ladies who were ex students of the local university there and who previously formally studied film photography and darkroom work. It's always nice to deal with people who also have a personal interest in the work themselves. They were known for a time on Facebook (and at the actual shop) as 'Ung Handcraft Darkroom Shop and Gallery' and that was the name with which I was still calling them. However, the same outfit is now seemingly known by another name 'Rakuda Photo Aritsans' and is still at the same place, it's a first facebook hit on Google presently under that name and so an easy lookup for their current preferred contact details/phone number etc. They even do push/pulling processing B+W and C-41 etc so it's a pretty legit service.

I know two people close to me who have used the services of the above place, under both of those different trading names. General feedback was pretty good and the ladies there are generally well-informed, happy and friendly. One possible complaint though was that the service was a bit too laid back and opening times, developing times and (especially) finished post-dev film and scans collection times should be taken with a pinch of salt. (to that point, the Facebook page of the old shop appears to even show a dialogue from an unhappy foreign customer who had to wait an hour later than the usual shop opening time to get his negs back, only to then discover five minutes before boarding his flight that they had even given him the wrong negs back, yikes!). DO NOT leave important stuff such as developing films here down to the last minute if you are facing a time critical situation such as needing them for a project or you are leaving the country with the films and scans the next day etc. Never mind what the shop tells you, it's not worth the stress, there's a good chance things can mess up.

The stuff is ready when it's ready and this might well be different from what you are actually told. This is a good rule of thumb to follow in general for almost all of the places mentioned in the guide to be honest. Things work here in Thailand in a very different way to Western countries. They might open today at the stated time, they might not. They might open later than normal or they might be closed on that day despite what it says on the door. You might get your film back today, or you might not. We might have the film in stock that we told you we had over the phone before you arrived, or we might not The customer is NOT always right in Thailand and your consumer rights are massively diminished compared to Western Europe or the States. This is not a critique of Thai culture, this is NOT a moan, this is merely an observation and one that you are highly advised to try and accept if at all possible...'cos you sure as hell ain't gonna change it :-)

I am often a fan of the wall of photolabs and film shops opposite Central Lad Phrao, they are accurately mentioned above in this guide already quite a bit. I just thought I'd mention them again today as although I rarely shoot colour, I did recently and got my stuff devved at 'Color Image' in the main row of shops there (02 9392624) and had nice results indeed. As this is very recent, I know this labs output is currently excellent and so I shall mention one of these shops specifically by name for a change as they deserve some credit. There are many others right there with similar services of course.

You'll also get B+W devved around there easily enough but personally I still highly recommend you to develop your own if at all possible.

Patani studio still going strong, still doing B+W, C-41 colour and even yes, wait for it....STILL doing E6, what a legend! His scans are as good as his wet prints, the lab space and time is still available for rent. The guy is also a real enthusiast,not just doing it from a business point of view, which is always nice. He does go out and about and shoot quite a bit so never a bad idea to contact him first, Facebook etc

A number of people have told me great things about 'Neno Camera' and lab on Lad Phrao Soi 80. (082 3535263 for Thai, if you wish to try and communicate with them in English, this number might be better:081-830-5630.). He's apparently a really well-versed gentleman and I think has even taught certain aspects of film and lab work before in a formal educational context. They are a good source of film and their Facebook page says (in Thai) that they also have darkroom rental available. Looks like they can handle 35mm, medium format and even large format in it too! Their enlargers seem to be top notch and they seem to also offer darkroom workshops from time to time, although these are aimed at Thais, in Thai one would assume. Some nice development stuff is also sometimes seen for sale on their facebook page, one to watch. I will have to say though that although I am certain it looks really good, I haven't yet personally been there or used them myself so I will not officially give them the Chromacoma gold standard recommendation until then. Probably will go there soon however, and as always...I will keep updating this info on an ongoing basis.

DECEMBER 2017 UPDATE (end of year round-up):

Thanks to everybody who comes to this site for keeping up with me and checking back here again to see what is going on. 

In the last two months I have seen the normal general trend of young people walking around with vintage film cameras ramped up to an eleven out of ten on the usual scale. One day last month whilst walking and shooting around Chinatown, I saw a line of young university student girls (maybe a dozen strong) and nearly a half of them were packing 70's and 80's film SLR's. I stopped and chatted to a couple of them and they really were shooting film, it wasn't just a case of kids toting cameras around with no film inside for cool points. I know that Thai photography courses at main universities often still require students to shoot on film only for the first year and also to do their own dev and darkroom work, which I think is a great idea. However, the young people whom I often see are not always uni students, they are just an increasing large group of young people shooting film per se. 

This is supported by the fact that whilst walking around Mega Plaza lately, I noticed the vendors who used to sell a little film here and there and maybe had no more than fifty rolls in stock often now sell a much, much larger volume and a greater variety too. When talking to such vendors they also confirmed that the huge surge in film trade throughout this year is definitely due to larger numbers of younger people buying film in Bangkok right now. Nice to see.

I had experience of using  'Neno Camera' and lab on Lad Phrao Soi 80. (082 3535263 for Thai, if you wish to try and communicate with them in English, this number might be better:081-830-5630.) I didn't tell them beforehand that I run this website or that I was looking to share reports of their service. The results were great. I heard through a Thai local pro recently that Khun Neno (rhymes with 'Hey-ho' NOT with 'Nemo'!) bypasses the local Fujifilm suppliers and directly imports everything, including all the E6 chemicals, for his processing. The film devving there is really nice and clean, just as with Patani Studio...perhaps the only other really solid choice if you are shooting positive film. All film devving at Neno's place has been worthy of a Chromacoma recommendation this far for sure so I am happy to report and share that with my readers.

The branch of 'PhotoCity' that had been inside Central Pinklao for many years (formerly in the basement with the green 'Fujifilm' stickered up windows near the pharmacies and then in a newly reopened unit on the 3rd floor following the renovation of the whole mall two years ago) has closed in the last month or two. This was owned and operated by the same family as their main branch and namesake opposite Central Lad Phrao (amongst that row of so many small photolabs there that are always stocked with film and great, fast devving options, read the full guide above again for more info if you missed that). Anyway, the sister (or cousin?) branch at Pinklao was very laid back, as in... to the point of horizontal, and were rarely if ever on top of anything. I mean they were seriously all over the place service wise even by local standards and so this is not really news that comes as any great shock. The good news however is that the main branch business at Lad Phrao is certainly very much alive and kicking with business as usual. The bad news for anyone in the West Bangkok/Pinklao area is that although very slow and messy, the service did usually end up coming through and they used to send film and scanning work (Fuji Frontier to a high standard) back and forth via messenger to the mothership branch. Quite handy if you live out that way and shoot film as there are not so many great options that way really. Oh well, never mind.

Keep checking back for updates throughout 2018 on this page and also click below or on the tabs on the right for the specific and highly detailed blow by blow shooting guides series for individual places around Bangkok.

This is the current state of play and, as always, this article will be added to with as much up to date information as possible.

APRIL 2018 UPDATE:

Thanks very much to a kind reader named Devlin for drawing the 'Polaroid Bar' to my attention, they are are a fairly new, family run outfit with a whole cafe/bar concept revolving around all things Polaroid. A nice idea and a fun place to go and check out. You can find it quite a ways out of town off the Rama 9, heading out more towards the airport in an area that I would say still just about comes under the heading of 'Hua Mak" (sounds like Mark) to locals. Closed on Monday through Thursday, which seems a bit odd so I thought it worth mentioning in case it ruins somebody's trip there. Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, 13:00-18:00 hrs only. Found on Facebook under the name 'PolaroidBar' and they are on 7 Khwaeng Hua Mak, Khet Bang Kapi, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon 10240, Thailand +66 80 444 5603. I have no affiliation whatsoever but the place comes recommended by two Chromacoma followers so I will include it here.

CLICK HERE FOR 'PLACES TO SHOOT IN BANGKOK' (MY HIGHLY DETAILED, INDIVIDUAL GUIDES ON POTENTIAL PHOTOGRAPHIC HOTSPOTS IN BANGKOK)