#because its the first time they felt something like thay

[mushroom-through-the-stargate]

i love how rodney keeps calling john "kirk" when hes very clearly tom paris

[simpingforbots]

I really love your transformers series about a human being on cybertron. Kinda wondering if they ever met a human, so this little organic is just a very, very, VERY, smart rat. Anyway, I was wondering if you could make a part 4? It's ok if not.

Was hoping if you could do Alpha Trion, Shockwave, and Soundwave? Maybe even maegatronus Prime for D-13?

Don't do this request if you are busy, don't want to, or sick. I can wait a few months and years.

Have a good day/evening!!!!!!!

thank you so much.

sadly this is a human we are talking about as Transformers One yet to learn that humans are actually sentient and to learn English, and so is human. their language sounds like a clicks, whirls and other metallic noises. So it's more like figuring out by their body language and repetitive noises they make. like a certain noise thay make at you means its your name. they can see you are smart and if you were to be given buttons with certain sounds like in one video you would be able to communicate. so yes they know you are smart, just not realizing that you are THIS smart to be actually considered a sentient.

What if human ended up in transformers one

part 4

Alpha Trion

Alpha Triton, being one of 13 primes, was one of a few son's of Cybertron that realised you were more then just some organic. HE found you during one of Quintessons attacks, with your space ship being an unfortunate target to their fire. out of all your crew you were the last.

he decided it will be best for your own good to keep you by him self and try to establish some kind of contact and maybe even learn where you are from and what planet is your home. so safe to say it was not an easy task and with you being small week and made out of flesh - you quickly become something every Prime grew soft on. you were pampered with pets, soft coos and nice flesh food they could find on surface. he kept you close by, and did his best to keep away from Sentinel as he could see something dark in his eyes and fake smiles. other Primes seemed to trust the kid for some reason and Triton just decided to keep you close to him self. you did protest at first, being manhandled and treated like a some kind of pet. but soon you got used to it and even felt comfort in hand of a huge cat. You also distrusted Sentinel and just tried to avoid him. you enjoyed your life as much as you could until Sentinel lead all primes in to trap. Triton did his best to keep you out of harms way and fight, but he can only do so much. in the end he had to watch you fall and killed by Sentinel, before he was hurt. what he did not expect as to still be alive after all those years and when Pax woke him up, he saw what was left of you - just a pile of bones, near his body, you probably crawled towards him on his last breath and passed away by him. he wished he couldv'e done more, but now he need to do is give this new generation a fighting chance. though when he is captured and was decapitated, he was a bit relieved to see that Prime deemed you worthy enough to joing their after life.

Shockwave

Shockwave probably would see you as something more interesting that anything on cybertron. And before he would become the mad scientist we know of him now, before Megatron, he would 100 percent would run more safe, though still hurtful, experiments. And mostly because of lack of equipment. He would find you as your ship crashed not far from the hideout, and you only one who survived. He observed you from a far at first, trying to understand just what you are. Some strange organic life matter, super fragile and somehow very-very resilient. He observed from afar, keeping tabs and even running his own little experiment - he would find some edible fruits and place them near cave you were hiding in. He watched as you at first was warry, not knowing if you could eat it, but after time you sort of relaxed around food suddenly appearing on your "door". Then Shockwave moved on to next step. Instead of hiding he kept the distance so that you could see him. Of course first time you hid in your cave that was to small for his servo, but with prolong exposure he was even able to get closer and closer. Even one time you came close to him, watching him with curiosity in return. HE reached out with his only servo poking at your head and you touched his finger. After some time he was sure you won't mind if he brings you with him to show to Soundwave. HE was very proud of his little study! So he decided to "study" you more. You were poked, probed and measured in all sort of ways, without your consent and you protested every test he had done. by the end of all the experiments he would keep you on his shoulder, proudly showing you off to other High guards and proud with his experiments. you just wish to go back to your cave and wait for rescue ship to arrive to pick you up. What you had no idea is that Shockwave knew about the signal and already took care of it, stomping it to the ground and making sure that the signal would come of as false. so you are stuck for his intertaiment.

Soundwave

Soundwave would probably find out about you through Shockwave when he was tagged along to observe you. Soundwave was bored at first, but after some time he would come to your hide out without Shockwave, just observing you. You tinkered with some machine, clearly trying to get of this planet by sending some signal. he did not wanted this to happen as YOU were the only intertaiment here for now and kept Shockwave from dying from boredom. you did not even had a chance to properly scream when you were kidnaped by the bot and brought to High Guards and you sort of become a mascot for them. Every other bot found you entertaining, a bright light of hope to lift the gloom. Shockwave was a bit happy as well as he could run his experiments more closer. Soundwave how ever kept you close, not letting you out of his sigh because of what you were. you did not had anything to protect your fragile flesh body and easily got hurt by ether "walking" in to think, stumbling, tripping and falling on a flat surface. YOU are NOT allowed any where outside the fortress at all. Sleep? you thought you will be able to have a moment of solidarity at such moment? Forget it - your recharging place is in his chest so that Soundwave won't have to worry about you sneaking of while he rests. And Soundwave wiling to go to such lengths as to wrap a chain around your body and keep you close, as scaning your head is a bit more troublesome as the reading always come "wrong" and it's just easier to keep you closer then to know what you wanted to do. Food? you can scavenge for it only when HE brought you out and you better to gather enough to last you for weeks. so yeah. have fun with overbearing bot.

part 1 part 2 part 3

[rioagatha]

bleeding for the vampire

pairing: vampire!sofia falcone gigante x fem!reader

warnings: eventual smut (near middle to end), spoilers to episode 5, spoilers to episode 4 (backstory and how you first met Sofia), insecurity, mentions of misogyny & patriarchy, mentions of death, mentions of Arkham, slight homophobia, slight possessive themes, biting, blood drinking, fingering, clit rubbing, fluff w/ Sofia near the end (aftercare), use of pet names (bellissima and amore)

Summary: After the events of Johnny's death to Sofia's rise with her new empire, Sofia finally has her time with you.

Word count: 1.8k+

After a long day of Sofia's business, she finally has time to make up for you— her most precious love. Sofia had a new family, a new empire, she was no Falcone anymore, but a Gigante. Taking up her mother's maiden name, following her legacy that the Falcones never wanted to see.

You've met Sofia back when she and her father were still doing the Isabella Falcone Foundation, attending a few of the charity events. That was the sweet Sofia you knew, ten years before she lived in living hell due to her father. Sofia was the most beautiful woman you've seen. Her brown doe eyes were your favorite, maybe the second most favorite after she showed her fangs that she was insecure about. Sofia trusts you so much to the point she felt obsessed about you.

"I inherited this trait from my mother, I hate it how I look with them, but Alberto says it's what makes me unique." Sofia opened her mouth to point to her fangs. “Perhaps I even inherited all the vampire bullshit the movies show, the healing saliva and turning people into vampires.”

"It's not a bad trait in my opinion, it just— It makes me like you more. I agree with what Alberto said, it makes you look unique, and that's not a bad thing at all." You spoke in slight astonishment as you moved in closer to admire her canines. Sofia then closed her mouth after giving you a few seconds to see them. “Who knows? One day maybe you’ll find out if they’re true.”

Fortunately, Carmine liked you enough to the point he welcomed you to the rest of the Falcones. Although, the first time when Sofia introduced you to him, he was skeptical, like any other parent. Not because if you were going to treat her right, it’s because you were a woman. Carmine did try to talk sense to Sofia about it, but Sofia still loved you no matter what. Women should be able to love other women without being judged. That was something she told her father, but of course Carmine eventually did give the go for you to continue loving his daughter. The one other person you really talked to in the family was Alberto, Sofia’s brother. Overall, you did notice how the family treats its women within the family. Say for example, it's obvious that there's misogyny and it's shown by action— yet nobody dared to speak up about that.

During that time, you saw on the news about some victims who allegedly were hanged, it was a pretty popular topic around Gotham. Nobody knew who the killer was, until that one night in the Falcone mansion, that was the location that ticked the bomb off. That night was when Carmine was celebrating his birthday with a ton of guests in the building, including you. At thay time, you were talking with Sofia and her cousin, Carla, spilling the tea about how Lucas has a new wife.

Then a few minutes later, you overheard Oz talking to Sofia about how her father wanted to talk. Sofia excused herself from you and Carla as she made her way to Carmine's office, that was probably one of the last times you would see Sofia. Because after that talk, Sofia dragged you out of the place to take you and herself to Oz so he could drive you two home. Why did she do that? You weren't sure at the time, but there were pieces of the puzzle missing to form the bigger image.

The one moment you remembered the most was when Oz had to pull over due to the GCPD. The officers forced Sofia out and arrested her for the 7 murders of the hanged victims. Your heart stopped. Sofia wouldn’t do anything like that, never. Everything happened so quick, you tried to rush to Sofia, but the officers pulled you back. All the screams, all the horror, the night you don’t wish for again.

Learning the fact that she had to go to Arkham was the most horrifying part. That place was a hell hole, that place can make you go insane and make you be something you never wanted.

Back to the present, you stood at the window in the war room of the mansion, staring out the beautiful night sky. Without any notice of Sofia, you just began to zone out until you felt a pair of arms wrapping around your waist. The familiar scent of Sofia— smoke and the perfume she usually wore wafts your nostrils. Her nose pressed against your neck as she took in the smell of you.

"I'm so tired of men trying to take control, especially in the family. Having this new empire, a new mantle, is something that I would have done sooner rather than later." Sofia cuts the silence with her smooth and precise voice.

When she said that, you thought of the moment when Johnny got shot by her. He may have been "useful," but he contributed to the shit Carmine did. Johnny wasn't worth it. The men that sat around the table hogged all the cash Sofia offered, even with Johnny's blood in the way. Sofia needed a new family, and she got it.

Sofia nibbles the skin on your neck to stop you from daydreaming. As you bring yourself back to reality, Sofia begins to pepper you with her desperate kisses. Her fangs scratched the surface of your skin, creating soft red streaks— that's when you know Sofia is hungry.

Her left hand grips the side of your neck as she forces you to tilt your head, giving her access to your most vulnerable part of the body.

"Need you so bad, can't a girl get a reward for becoming the new boss of the family?" Sofia whispered down your neck as she stared at your flesh.

"Sof, you know you'll always get a reward, no?" You spoke to hopefully encourage Sofia to bite your neck. After all, you want her to be satisfied after a long day. When she found sense of your words, she nuzzled into your neck once again— right before she went straight to biting your neck. Sinking her sharp canines deep, making sure you bleed for her. Your blood flows into her mouth as she saviors the metallic taste. Pressing harder, your heart rate hikes up slightly when Sofia wanted to draw more blood.

“Relax, bellissima, I always make sure I don’t go to the point where I could kill you.” Sofia withdraws from your neck as she lets a small amount of your blood gush out. "Besides, even if you do die, at least I would have you all to myself."

She dived back down to lap up the liquid, moaning at the fact that she was the only person who was aloud to drink your blood. In the midst of thinking, Sofia slurps up the remaining pools of blood before sinking her fangs back into the wound she made.

You let out a small groan when you felt the same sting from the first bite. Sofia was absolutely mesmerized with drinking your blood, trying to quench her empty stomach. To make you feel better, Sofia hikes up your skirt and slides her cold right hand up your inner thigh. The coldness makes you shiver, but it makes you anticipate for her. While her hand found your panties, she could care less and ripped the pair off— tossing them to the ground. You could feel Sofia’s fingers tease your pussy as she toys with.

“What a pretty pussy, I’m glad that it’s mine. Already so wet, all because of me.” Sofia murmured as she took her time with you. She inserts two fingers into your tight cunt, thrusting with a fast pace. Knowing her, Sofia loved fucking you senseless. Sofia removed her left hand from the side of your neck, which she helped support when she drank your blood.

She slid her left hand down to rub your clit, to add extra pleasure, and to make you cum faster for her. You let out moans and whines as she continued her assault on you. Sofia pressed herself to your back more, continuing to work her magic by fucking your needy cunt and rubbing your overstimulated bud with her other hand.

As you felt the increasing need to cum, Sofia added an extra finger in your pussy, but she never stopped her pace. Therefore, you dug your nails into her hand that rubbed your clit. Creating small but beautiful crescent moon dents as a mark. This spurred on Sofia as she sucked on your wound, and to hear your heart race when you're just this close.

"Come on, amore, I know that you would be willing to cum for me. Not like you can't resist anyways." Sofia kept egging you on until you eventually give in and give what you both want.

Then, you did give in. Your walls clenched around her fingers as Sofia continued to slowly pump her fingers to help you through your orgasm. Now you were a panting mess, but at least you both were satisfied. Sofia moved her head back as her fangs were no longer in your neck. The puncture wound lightly bled still, but she kept licking and kissing it until it stopped the bleeding for the moment. Following after that action, Sofia removed her fingers from your cunt to bring them to her lips. Giving them a good clean and most importantly— to relish the taste of you. It was quite a meal for her, your cum and your blood mixed together was surely a good combo.

"You did so good for me. Let me carry you to my room so you can rest." Sofia spoke softly as she spun you around so you can meet her gaze. She lowered down to grab your legs and used her other arm to support your back. Lifting you up into her arms and then carrying you in a bridal style. Sofia loves to spoil you after sex whenever she's in a good mood.

Sofia walked into her room as she dropped you onto the bed and then removed her mother's fur coat to place it on you. The coat was a symbol of power to Sofia, since it once belonged to her mother. She then sat on the bed next to you, bringing her lips to your temple to kiss it.

"I'll be back, I just have to find Sal and then end this family war for our sake. When I return, I'll treat you with a warm bath." Sofia nuzzled against your temple before pulling away from you to eye at your healing wound on your neck. Turning away from you to change her outfit and walking away to do her business. You know that both Sofia and Sal want to kill Oz, after everything he did to Sal's family and betraying Sofia repeatedly.

[absolutebl]

10 BLs That Shook Me

@trribledelight asked for "BLs that made you think or learn smthg or shook you culturally? Eg the political considerations in Not Me..."

Let's get the rough ones out of the way first, shall we?

1 2gether

Green. One of the most egregious reps for punching down humor against femmes in BL (and there sure are a lot out there). Seriously GMMTV? Must you?

At the time we all watched this because there wasn't anything else to watch, and it's been a long time since I bothered with a rewatch, but Green is one of the reasons I just can't with this series.

I'm not knocking the actor, but the character and how the other characters behave around him, and the director with regard to this aspect of the plot and portrayal was rough going.

What shook me was how casually homophobic 2g was. It was just so odd to watch a gay romance gloss over and degrade queerness. I was like, wait, aren't they supposed to me on our side?

(Ah, the before times.)

2 Fish Upon the Sky

Shall we address the head wrap in the room? This BL has some of the most shockingly racist content I've seen in a long time. Also punching down humor. I fast forwarded through it and I still don't want to think about it. GMMTV should be throughly ashamed of themselves... Again. I was shook, but in a bad way.

Okay, now for the ones that shook me in a good way.

3 Until We Meet Again

I watched this early in my Thai BL journey (while it was airing) and I had no idea what to expect. Frankly, you could watch it now and still not know. It's just very unusual for a Thai BL.

The plot twist about how they each ended up reborn. Just so brilliant. I still can't get over it. So simple. SO CLEVER. So punishing for the families.

Fantastic!

4 Secret Crush On You

This one kinda shook me all along but that Daisy & Touch scene. It lives on in my head rent free forever. Just because it was so beautifully sweet and genuine and kindly towards a femme character.

I still don't like this BL.

But I love that scene in it.

5 My Beautiful Man

I went on a JOURNEY with this show. Mostly because I didn't think Japan had it in them to land something this complex. But they managed it beautifully by not shying away from the delicious messy ugliness of it all.

Possibly the greatest final episode in all BL.

And from Japan. Usually so bad at endings.

I remain gobsmacked.

6 Unknown

I shouldn't have been shooketh by this one but I really was.

The style of it while staying so down home and gritty.

How old school Chinese BL it felt yet it still managed to be very modern BL about it.

The execution and quality of the acting.

How it was aired (available in YouTube?! we NEVER get that from Taiwan!)

Also the pair branding. We haven't gotten this level of pair brand from the leads in a Taiwanese BL since SamYu.

I'm was absolutely riveted by everything about this show and its production.

I loved seeing it. I hope we get more BLs like this from Taiwan as a result.

But I ALSO hope they realize that a big factor in the popularity and the success of this show was in distribution.

It's what's for dinner.

Along with the stepbrother trope.

KOREA'S SUPRISES

I watch a lot of Kdramas as well as BL, and have done for a really long time. I'm riveted by Hallyu, from an entertainment industry perspective (what I wouldn't do to get my hands on some of their proprietary data). I also listen to a ton of Kpop.

Therefore, Korea dominates the P'ABL gets shooketh list because I had (and have) more expectations firmly in place around Korea's media product sfyle than anyone elses. Even before they started to make a big play into the BL scene.

My favorite BLs from Korea, like Semantic Error and Light on Me are EXACTLY what I expect from them, manufactured perfection. But I was also shook more times by Korea than other BL nations because I had such rigid expectations.

7 Color Rush

Yeah yeah. But it starred an idol. It started out pretty and stiff and everything I was expecting and then the concept hit me up side the head and I never recovered from the CLEVER of this show. I'm not used to my Kdramas or my BL being this high concept and SMART about their sanitized perfection.

8 Blueming

What with the 8th Sense and others since, Blueming seems to have been somewhat forgotten about. But at the time, I was shook by the down home grit of this show. By the actual pain from the characters. By the higher heat concept. By Korea actually going THERE.

And then these babies came along...

9 The 8th Sense

I just didn't think Korea had it in them. Yes, I realize now that it was a bit navel gazey, and we were weighted heavily towards the seme and his pain. I would have liked a better balance between the leads, but that's in retrospect.

At the time I couldn't believe it. A KBL dealing with mental health?

And can we talk about those sex scenes? How insanely comfortable the actors were with each other? How easy in each other's personal space? I've not seen anything else quite like that from Korea. It's super rare. I had assumed they, culturally, just didn't do casual intimacy, or if they did, it wasn't allowed on screen.

Of course now I know the CAN do it, I want more.

10 Love for Love's Sake

Okay, lots to unpack with this one. A genuine isakai BL, in the original sense of the term. The death twist didn't shake me up, but the execution, acting, open gayness, and a couple other things did. Enough to make me still think on this show with fond surprise and affection, despite its undercurrent of darkness.

I like to be shooketh.

(source)

[twig-tea]

Why We Are Gives Me Anxiety

I have been fighting myself on this We Are post for weeks because I wanted to make sure I knew what I wanted to say and was able to say it. I feel the need to say off the top that I don’t begrudge anyone who enjoyed this show and I’m genuinely glad it brought comfort to people. The show in and of itself, as 16 hour-long episodes of fluff (shout-out to @stuffnonsenseandotherthings for using this word to pinpoint the genre for this show, because it’s perfect), is not offensive or bad or wrong or any judgmental or moralistic word. And it does some things well; the centrality of the friend group was a lovely aspect to this show, and the chemistry in the friendship group scenes was on point. All of the couples have good romantic chemistry as well, and the show is packed with butterflies-inducing moments. 

That being said, I did not enjoy watching this show. I watch television mostly for the story; This show felt more like watching 16 special episodes for a show I hadn’t seen (I think this can be attributed to the point made by @italianpersonwithashippersheart in her post here that the show assumes the audience comes to the show with a pre-existing buy-in to the ships). The lack of overarching narrative structure of We Are gave my brain nothing to hold onto and I spent so much of every episode futilely trying to figure out how scenes worked with what had come before, what the show was trying to say, what these characters were thinking–all of which I knew was the wrong way to be watching, but it’s the way my brain works, so I spent a lot of the show frustrated. In short, this show wasn’t for me. 

But that’s not why I feel the need to write about it. Shows are fully allowed to not be for me, I usually can differentiate between when a show is doing something I don’t like well, or when it’s failing at its own goals. And I don’t begrudge people with different taste getting catered to sometimes; my refrain is that most problems of representation are not solved by calling for less of something, and rather than wanting something not to be made, I’d rather champion for more and a greater variety of content. And lord knows there’s enough BL to go around these days (shouting out @respectthepetty’s post along these lines, which I loved) . But We Are still worries me, and I’ve been trying to find a way to articulate that my concerns are not actually about the show itself, in isolation, but rather about how it feels like part of a pattern. This is my best attempt at laying that out. It’s going to get a little ramble-y, so apologies in advance.

Shout-out to @bengiyo who first articulated this anxiety in his post from relatively early in the show’s run . Ben gets into some of where I’m coming from with concerns about what this show means for the genre in this post, which as he mentions we've chatted about in DMs. I’m really grateful to him for these conversations because in isolation, I worried that I was being alarmist. It was helpful to have confirmation that he was feeling the same way so that I could get out of my own head.  

Ben mentions in his post that New Siwaj has been in this business a long time, and I, like Ben, have jived with him for years because he manages to imbue queer angst into his shows in a way that resonates with me, even when he’s had missteps. I'm going to lay out some of the major highlights of his work for those who haven't followed New for years.

He was an editor on Love Sick, arguably the start of the Thai BL genre as we know it today, and a show full to the brim of queer angst. He directed Make It Right, one of my favourite Thai BL comedy series. This show was also an ensemble centered around a friendship group (though admittedly it didn’t balance the friendship and romance content as strongly as We Are), and it covers so many topics that felt refreshing at the time and still are rare (morning-after sex visits to the clinic because things went poorly, hooking up on the apps, sex acts beyond just penetration, suicidality, I could go on). He also was involved in the GMMTV Waterboyy series–this was his first work for GMMTV that I am aware of. That show had a lot of issues but did explore internalized homophobia and bullying.

He worked as a cinematographer on En of Love, which is again similar to We Are in that it has several couples connected by a friendship group (and is several novels in one series), but each couple was given its own miniseries instead of bundling them into one show. En of Love also still dealt with some serious queer angst, especially in the Love Mechanics story [Sidenote, Niink, the director for En of Love, stuck with New and moved on to work for Wabi Sabi].

At this point, New created his own company, Studio Wabi Sabi, which he's said in interviews was to gain more creative control over what he was working on. And his stories became arguably even more explicitly queer and inclusive of queer trauma. He screenwrote and produced Love By Chance (which folks may not remember or know, but that core story starts off with Pete being blackmailed for being gay until Ae convinces him to come out to his mother and shut down the leverage for blackmail, and a good chunk of Pete’s character arc is unlearning internalized homophobia and not seeing himself as ‘corrupting’ Ae) and then Until We Meet Again. The queer angst in UWMA probably doesn’t need my help spelling out, but just in case anyone doesn’t know the summary, this show was about a queer couple who committed suicide in the face of homophobia in the 1980s, and were reborn and given another chance to be together in present day. I did want to note that in both of these series (LBC and UWMA) the core romance itself has no major conflicts; both AePete and DeanPharm felt like they were intentionally side-stepping so many of the usual BL drama tropes of jealousy and misunderstandings through trust and communication. Dean and Pharm’s story took that even further by having so many of the usual drama pitfalls for a gay couple just not be a problem; their only drama comes from their past lives, in a beautiful exploration of the breaking of intergenerational trauma. So many external threats to their relationship ended up being non-starters, and this was my version of a comfort series for that reason. 

From there, New started working with GMMTV again, and directed My Gear and Your Gown. This series was, to my knowledge, the first GMMTV BL series to mention HIV and to show characters getting tested at the clinic, and while it wasn’t perfect representation (didn’t get into PrEP, treated HIV as a death sentence), it felt like an important milestone.

[I’m skipping the sequels and specials he did for series I already talked about, because they don’t feel that important to the story I’m telling here and this is already so long, but I wanted to acknowledge that I’m not covering everything in his oeuvre.]

He then directed 7 Project, which had some serious storylines dealing with bullying and struggling with life in the closet, out of Wabi Sabi, and then Star and Sky out of GMMTV. Star in My Mind included one of the main characters in a beard relationship for years, and some controversy over the adaptation choices to make Daonuea (Dunk’s character) less polite than in the books. There was drama around the pronouns and characterization in that show (both Daonuea and Khabkluen use guu/mueng in the series, but in the novel, Daonuea uses rao; he also curses in the series and novel fans complained that he was too ‘masculine’). I thought it was an interesting attempt at a departure from BL character tropes to try to make Daonuea more evenly matched with Khabkluen in terms of his gender presentation in the show. Sky in Your Heart also included some angst about whether people of a particular station could be gay. Both of these shows (SIMM and SIYH) were also very trope-y, but they had clear throughlines. 

My Only 12%, the next show New directed out of Wabi Sabi, contains one of my favourite moments in all of BL, in which Seeiw sees Love of Siam and cries because it makes him realize he’s gay. There’s this heartfelt moment where he asks his sister, if there’s nothing wrong with being gay, why doesn’t the film let the gay characters have a happy ending? Despite the weird PSA ending, this show remains one of my favourites.

This is an aside but I’ve long been fascinated about this moment in New’s history: he played himself in War of Y, as a director of BL who is sick of being forced to make BL shows full of fanservice; he treats the actors with disdain and cuts marketable high heat scenes from the show which makes everyone nervous for the show’s future. Later we see him and the actor characters on set for My Only 12%, much happier. I ask myself about this moment at least once a week: Did he write this self-insert? Did someone else write the character and he just played it, and the similarities to his style were (were not?) a coincidence? I hope someone knows and tells me one day,

From there, New functioned as an Executive Producer of Dear Doctor, I’m Coming for Soul [I think this was the first outsourced project by Wabi Sabi]. This series’ entire plot is a metaphor for living in the closet and waiting for the time when the main couple can be together fully without having to hide. 

He directed A Boss and a Babe for GMMTV (which had its problems for sure, but also had Cher as an out gay man at the workplace dealing with casual homophobia in a way that was extremely satisfying), and then Between Us, which is maybe the least queer feeling show Wabi Sabi produced on its own, but did go into the issues of dating and the closet while trying to become a star (if I’ve forgotten something from this show let me know, I only watched it the once). One of the things that was so strange about this show was it being a sequel to UWMA but not engaging with the same themes. The only mention of real world queerness I can remember was the acknowledgment that they can’t get married in Thailand and Dean and Pharm discussing again going abroad and getting married there. 

Absolute Zero was a complete mess of a show; New directed this one for Wabi Sabi, and it has some similarities to UWMA in the sense of there being an attempt at saving the gays from the bury your gays trope, this time via time loop rather than reincarnation, but it did not take the issues it raised seriously enough (including the age gap created between the two characters by virtue of time travel). 

And that leads us to We Are for GMMTV, which as Pluem (@happypotato48)  wrote in his excellent post about this, includes Toey using nu and other 'feminine' or 'youthful' sounding language, but also apparently dropped the main conflict of the novel between Phum and his father (because his father disapproved of Peem).

Why did I go through all of that? Because I wanted to lay out how I've watched New Siwaj’s career go from finding a way to tell incredibly poignant and healing queer narratives (by creating his own company, and fitting these moments into the GMMTV series he did work on) to stripping out queerness from the shows he’s creating in the last year or so.

And this is a pattern we’re seeing more widely at GMMTV in particular, but also in Thai QL more widely. This is something that was touched on but not really discussed in the most recent episode of The Conversation podcast (the 23.5 and only boo! episode here). In both 23.5 and Only Boo!, the show faked out a homophobic parent and then treated their kids like they were silly to assume the worst, and I hated that.

Both Ongsa and Kang had internalized homophobia in their respective series. Both were terrified of telling their mothers about their homosexual love interest. And in both cases, their mothers told them something along the lines of 'of course I will support you no matter what'. In Ongsa's case, even though she was outed by Sun without her consent, she's the one who ends up apologizing for her hesitancy and feeling foolish for her concern. In Kang's case, the show never challenges his mother's assertion that she'll always support him even though we know she hasn’t (she was the one who wanted to prevent him from studying art before his father died), and it’s the audience that was left feeling foolish for our concern. 

In the GMMTV round table for Pride Month, it was mentioned that the decision for Ongsa's mother to be accepting of her relationship with Sun was made in order to model good parental behaviour for the older generation in the audience. In the novel, Ongsa's mother presents a significant conflict, but this conflict was erased from the show. I don't know if the same decision was made in Only Boo! for the same reason or not, but either way, the show definitely signalled to Kang's mother having an issue with Kang's relationship with Moo, and then said "sike", which I did not enjoy. The Conversation panelists were correct in the conversation linked and transcribed above that this wasn't the most egregious misstep either show made, but it feels like a telling symptom of the larger overall narrative problems that New is also now succumbing to.

It seems as though telling stories stripped of queer conflict is being seen as progressive, and possibly also easier to sell, and this is where my anxiety lies around what this will mean for Thai QL content in future. 

For the record, I am all for creating queer content in which we envision a better world for ourselves. But when that is the goal, understanding where internalized homophobia comes from and thinking through how removing parental objection will affect the character and the story is vital to the story and characterization remaining coherent. Otherwise it just ends up feeling like the show is telling queer kids that they're paranoid, rather than rightly worried (like I wrote about in this thread on My Love Mix-Up Thailand, where the same decision was made again to fake out a homophobic subplot that was removed from the adaptation but was present in the source material).

These choices speak to adaptation choices with an eye for specific moments and story points, rather than to a narrative or character arc, which is where it feels like they fall into the wider pattern of what @bengiyo, @shortpplfedup and @ginnymoonbeam were describing in their discussion: shows caring more about hitting specific meme-able story points listed out on a whiteboard than about making cohesive sense or having something coherent to say. 

[So as not to leave it out: I don’t think there were concerns of homophobia in the Wandee Goodday novel (novel readers feel free to correct me if I’m wrong about this) but the show faked us out about homophobia concerns anyway, which again really bothered me during that watch and which adds to the pattern.] 

Now, of course, as I stated up at the top there is value in the creation of different kinds of media. These shows sell different fantasies than the ones I want to see, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have value.All of BL has some amount of fantasy that it’s buying into, that’s what comes with the territory of ‘fiction’. The BL bubble (in which homophobia doesn’t exist and all men are gay for each other) is a version that is at its most extreme; nothing bad ever happens that isn’t quickly resolved within an episode, so there is never narrative tension, and nobody really needs to be that concerned about how anything will go ever. I do not find these relaxing because I can’t buy into the fantasy they’re selling; for me, the lack of narrative tension is so unbelievable as to ruin my immersion. But I can see why that would be appealing for someone whose brain is not always on alert and running at 11/10! The problem I am anticipating is when the majority of content is made that way, and when it is done in a way that takes up all of the mainstream space. I think it’s notable that the only show that’s really felt not in the queer bubble from GMMTV in 2024 is Cooking Crush, which was done by a subsidiary team within GMMTV (and the same team went on to make Only Boo!). And this is why We Are caught my attention and made me nervous; When a director who is known for his representation of poignant queer angst makes an entire 16-hour series in which there are no significant conflicts at all and the only hint of homophobia is in Toey’s reference to being bullied prior to the timeframe of the series, I get worried about who is going to be making the queer angst shows in future!  

For the record, my personal preference for comfort shows are the shows that do not pretend the world is perfect, but do depict an idealized subset of that world→where there’s a group of people that support one another through the bullshit of others and the less than perfect world that surrounds them. Shows that teach us to be kind to one another, and ourselves. Shows that say the world is going to suck sometimes, but we can be good to one another, and not lose sight of who we are, and make space for others to be themselves. A few of my favourite Thai series that do this would be: 

Bad Buddy

Cooking Crush

City of Stars

Knock Knock Boys

Miracle of Teddy Bear

My Only 12%

Secret Crush on You

To Sir With Love

Until We Meet Again

(and of course these occur in non-Thai shows as well. A few examples of my favourites: What Did You Eat Yesterday, DNA Says Love You, Light on Me, Oppan, Marahuyo Project, TsukuTabe, Tadaima Okaeri, Koisenu Futari, Joshi-teki Seikatsu, Gameboys, Hehe and He, Twilight out of Focus, She Makes My Heart Flutter)

These are shows in which there are explicitly external judgments on the relationships in the show and/or the characters for things intrinsic to who they are, and the characters build a support structure in which folks are encouraged to be themselves within that ‘bubble’ (Bad Buddy walks a fine line because it’s within the BL bubble but the problems that the main couple face are so a direct allegory that everything feels familiar; this is also the case with Tadaima Okaeri, which is both omegaverse and one of the most beautifully kind shows of all time). 

So for now, I still have the other smaller Thai studios including Kongthup Productions (who made Knock Knock Boys; we’ll see whether their latest series Monster Next Door deals with any queer angst or not), idolFactory (just finished My Marvellous Dream is You, which had a ton of queer angst, and is currently doing The Loyal Pin, which I have hope for on this front), DeeHup (currently making I Saw You In My Dream, which I’m holding out hope for) and StarHunter Entertainment (who made City of Stars, but whose record is a little spotty on this front; Their latest, Sunset Vibes, has not done a great job of handling the theme of office relationships and blackmail so far, and feels very much in the bubble) to look forward to. 

But as you can see even just by virtue of the caveats I included above, it feels like this shift is happening in the smaller companies too (harder to see a real pattern with fewer data points, which is one of the reasons why I picked on GMMTV–in addition to it being the largest media conglomerate in Thailand and therefore able to take it). Maybe it’s nothing, maybe I’m just an anxious person. Or maybe I’m just wrong about what would be best for the genre and for queer people in Thailand as well as viewers all over the world. But I, for one, would find it a loss if Thai QL decides en masse to pivot away from queer angst, and right now it kind of feels like that’s what it’s doing. In this context, to reiterate my original point, the existence of We Are is not a problem, but is one in a set of exemplars that raised specific alarm bells due to the people involved and their history in QL and queer representation, its deviation from the source material, and the surrounding shows that seem to indicate a pattern rather than a one-off. 

[bobabisch]

I often hear the argument that Luffy is dumb, and I can't help but be ticked off every time I hear someone say it, because Luffy isn't dumb, he's simply carefree. And I mean that in the literal sense of the word. Luffy truly does not have a care in the world. Luffy chooses not to complicate things. He does things for the simple fact of wanting to and he purposely refuses to learn about people, situations, and the nuances involved with both because the nuance just pollutes the true nature of the subjects. Luffy doesn't choose to do these things out of ignorance or selfishness, but because in the grand scheme of things, all the information that he chooses to ignore is wholly unimportant both by Luffy's own standards and to the development of the story as well. What Luffy deems unimportant does not matter at all to how things play out in the anime.

Luffy, at his core, is an incredible judge of character. Luffy's relationship with Tama is a perfect example of this. By all accounts Luffy's first impression of Tama should have been negative. She came off as a little bit mean and stand-offish. However, Luffy in his natural Luffy-fashion is unbothered. He didn't need Tama to tell him or show him explicitly the kind of person she was to understand her as a person. Despite the fact that she was a little girl, Luffy treated her with basic respect right off the bat. Luffy didn't see her as child, but rather as the self-sufficient human she was. Of course his fondness for her was only furthered by the food that Tama gave him. Luffy didn't need to know anything more about Tama after he heard that she had given him her last shares of food. He didn't need to hear Tama's sad story to understand her. She treated him with kindness, like she would a friend, even though they had just met. Luffy would go to the ends of the earth for her over that simple fact. He had no desire to learn of Wano's history to better understand how Tama got to this point in her life. All he needed to do and all thay he wanted to do was return a kindness. And that he did.

The same can be said for the part Luffy plays in Nami's story. When Nami 'betrayed' Luffy, he'd simply brushed it off. Once again, Luffy knew who Nami was without having to ask and without her having to show him explicitly. Luffy saw her 'betrayal' yet did not take it at face value. Luffy refuses to leave her behind because everything Nami had said/done in that situation muddled Luffy's inherent and instinctive understanding of her character. This next bit is ironic to say because Luffy often makes decisions with his stomach rather than his head, but its clear that Luffy would rather trust his gut feeling than try to understand Nami's actions which appeared entirely contradictory to Luffy's perception of her personality/character.

This theme rings true throughout the whole anime. This happens when Luffy chooses to trust Law on Punk Hazard over Law's rather dubious choices without needing or wanting an explanation from him. This happens when he rescues Zoro at the very beginning of the anime and he simply trusts this well-known pirate hunter not to cut him down right of the post. I beg of you all, please do not dilute Luffy's complex character design down to something so trivial as him simply "being stupid".

Sorry for the tangent, I have just always felt people who say this about Luffy sell him and his whole character design short. There is so much more that I could say about this too. I could go into detail about the ways in which Luffy is as smart as the rest of the crew (in different ways than them obviously), but that would call for several more paragraphs, so I'll just cut it here I think.

Anyways tell me what y'all think, I'm curious.

[scarlet-ancunin]

Okay what about Jealous / insecure Astarion 🥺❤️

A/N: ooh i know the perfect part of the game to use for this. so there will be spoilers for this story but if you dont care about reading spoilers like myself enjoy darlings~

⋆♱✮☽🦇☽✮♰⋆⋆♱✮☽🦇☽✮♰⋆⋆♱✮☽🦇☽

I Was Being Foolish~

It was after they reached Baldur's Gate Astarion was walking close to you while you walked past another store selling goods you didn't need. You had just finished declining the reward given to you in Sharess' Caress for your job well done.

You recall how distant and uncomfortable he was at first 'sorry pet, i just dont feel comfortable doing this yet' you felt bad for even thinking of doing it so you quickly told him you wouldn't let him do something he felt uncomfortable doing. His reaction made you smile 'ugh dont be so nice to me it makes me want to be nice back' he respond looking away. It made you have butterflies in your stomach.

You, Astarion, Halsin and Gale was walking towards the Elfsong to make lodgings there but due to your inability to leave things thay catch your eye alone you ended up getting side tracked by going to the beach following clues to another murder you found out about. And because you was nosey.

You ended returning back to camp with a guilty look "sorry guys i promise i will get us a nice bed tomorrow"

-

At the camp after planning out the next days events going to the Elfsong being the first stop then everything else that follows which everyone agrees to you decided this time you would take Astarion, Shadowheart and Karlach with you this time to give Halsin and Gale a break which they appreciated.

But as you was walking back to your tent which looked alot like Astarion's but who's really paying attention, you notice Halsin look at you as if he wanted to talk.

You wave slightly and he springs into the conversation "its because of you im able to see clearly now, and i thank you for it" he starts off smiling down at you "your Welcome Halsin" you commented only to hear him start to change his tone a bit not in a bad way but a way of....was you hearing that correctly? He wanted to sleep with you?

"You know im woth Astarion right?" Halsin nods "if he allows this to happen and maybe im hoping for his future participation. But first ask Astarion" you wasn't sure if your face was red but it certainly felt like it.

You turned and walked towards Astarion almost on auto pilot and he looked up from his book arching a brow with those lovely lips pulled to a half smile. "What troubles you my love"

"Astarion you won't believe the conversation i had with Halsin-" you startle slightly when Astarion burst out laughing "i was wondering when you was going to ask me about this"

"How can you tell?" You asked Astarion bends forward slightly "I guessed. The man can't stay quiet about "enjoying the freedom of natures gifts" " he snickers "i bet he outlaw clothing if he could" he waves a dismissive hand looking at you.

"I wouldn't have considered it, if it bothered you" you said truthfully. Halsin was the kind of man and body type that did make you curious to try, but you are staying strong with Astarion and always wanted to know his thoughts on it. And you study his reaction strongly.

"Im happy for you to have as much Halsin as you wish- but i do have one question though, its not because we haven't, you know in a while is it?" His voice was calm and Collected but you can hear the vulnerability in it as well the Insecurities that was bubbling to the surface. "Love what i have with you is wholly different and special to me" Astarion gave you a timid smile "Aww, i know i was being foolish, but thank you for saying it"

The conversation was reeling in your head as you walked back to Halsin who looked hopeful but you recall as you turned and walked away how Astarion's adorable ears twitched lightly and you could have sworn it lowered slgihtly as he went in his tent.

"Im staying strong with Astarion, i love him and i don't want to lose anything we have because of any carnal lust. Im sorry Halsin" he nods his head respectfully "its alright i don't wish to ruin your relationship. But im glad i tried rather then let it bother me and never tell"

With that you went back to Astarion's tent he was struggling to trance and you had a feeling it was probably your fault so you slip inside and close the tent for privacy and slowly wrap your arms around him securely. "I love you Astarion never forget that"

You felt the tension when you touched him slowly release and a soft sigh "i love you to darling and i will never forget it" you felt one of his arms wrap around you and both of you fell into a fitful sleep / trance.

No you wouldn't trade this for anything.

⋆♱✮☽🦇☽✮♰⋆⋆♱✮☽🦇☽✮♰⋆⋆♱✮☽🦇☽

A/n: well i hope you all like this, stay beautiful darlings. I can hear half of this while writing it lol

Request are open ye

[insanely-lovely-and-random]

Alrightyy saw Challengers for numero uno tonight and these are some thoughts/things that really got me the second time round!

*Thess are just my opinions the film can be read however anyone else wants

Okay so hear me out.. Tashi is such a dom, Art is such a sub and Patrick is such a switch and oooh it got me how at the beginning it felt like he was Arts dom, then he finds this girl he thinks is fantastic and maybe he thinks she could be the glue to bring him and Art and her all together BUT then it totally fricken backfires and instead he loses both. Art the little puppy he is starts wagging his tail in Zendayas direction and next thing ya know he's got a new owner and Patricks a thing of the past much to his palable distress. I mean christ boyos living in his car and starving, boys a mess since his lost his dom and sub poor boyo, so now various things I noticed some of which I feel back up my argument haha

Gosh theres so many little moments, Patricks thing for Art seems so obvious yet Art seems totally clueless.

1) Patrick is defos bi, not just because he just so is but also cause he matches with a guy on his dating app during his swiping.

2) The doubles match they play in the past? Gosh they're all over eachother! And Pats clearly in charge of that relationship and Art seems totally cool with that (for then anyways..)

3) When him and Art are watching Tashis game at the vert beginning Patrick grabs Arts leg in exhilaration. I mean he always seems to be touching or in the space of his boy for christs sake.

4) When Tashi mentions the fact Arts going to Stamford Patrick noticeably makes a face, you could say its because shes paying attention to Art instead of him or that hes upset because shes going to college instead of going profesh BUT I really didnt read it that way. To me it looked like he was upset Art was going to college, they've been together for years after all and now their splitting up, poor boyo.

5) When Zendaya asks if theres anything going on between then, Art laughs and says no BUT Patrick??? Science and he looks down, hell he wishes there was summat.

6) He taught Art to jerk off. Fucking hell.

7) There kiss man, all three of then and then just Art and Pat, just soo much chemistry.

8) When he reveals he slwpt with Zendaya to Art, and Arts smile drops. I think he's heartbroke at him sleeping with the girl he likes but I also see it as pain at being left out. These two people he's entwined with and now he's outside looking in. I also think If Patrick had seen that reaction he'd have seen a looot sooner that his relationship with Tashi might backfire greatly.

9) Patrick vsiting Stamford, first person he goes to see, his girlfriend maybe..? NOPE hes too busy chasing Art around the tennis court 😭

10) There's a ton of hot moments in this film. And the hottest? To me? That bloody stool grab with his foot. He wants Art close, he always bloody does! And the churros christ! And once again showing Art who's top so to speak, eating his churro, and telling him hes proud of his snakey behaviour. And that it makes his relationship with Zendaya hotter (I bloody bet it does) He never ever seems to show jealousy about Arts feelings for Zendaya, he points out thay he doesn't see him as competition to her not long after and I BET his doesn't. Cause I think he'd love it if Art was with him and Zendaya.

11) My God this bit gets be cause it gets echoed later. Him and Zendaya are making out and this girl who he's with and cares about is just talking bout his tennis game. And tbf what does he say?? "Weren't you gonna tell me bout Art" hells bells could you be more obvious?? And then the fight, he asks her if she's talking about tennis and her reply "I'm always talking about tennis" and I mention this cause it's gonna be relevant later.

12) The injury happens and everyone loses something. Zendaya has lost her career and ability to play tennis to her full potential. Art loses his best friend and Poor pathetic Patrick lost his bestfriend(and secret love) and his actual girlfriend all in one day!

From here on I cant guarantee my numbered points are in timeline order as the timline stated getting more out of sequence🤣

13) Zendaya and Art in the diner and after hearing Art and Pat dont talk no more saying she's a homewrecker after all. And what does Art say?? Zip. Nada. No denial just silence.

14) Okay lets talk that sauna scene. It was gloriously tragic. Patrick is clearly unaware why Art is THAT hostile towards him. I mean thinking of it from his point of view he'd have more reason to be angry considering the snakey girlfriend behaviour. But he never is angry at Art, not once no matter what he did. Of course we then discover Art is SO pissed cause he knows about Atlanta. Christ I bet pur stupid idiot boy Patrick thinks hes just being cleverly smug with that "when we were teenagers" line but idiot boyo your rubbing salt in the wounds 😭

15) still about the sauna, the naked trying to be top dog like old times but no no no, not anymore. Arts not his to be in charge of anymore. And the camera shows Art as higher while Patrick slouches nearby. Patrick asks him when he's so mad but doesn't get an answer. This scene was tragic to me, Patrick just seems hurt by Arts attitude. Art points out that they're no longer peers and I love this because thats the difference between the Zendaya/boys relationship and Arts and Pats. Pat may have been the dom so to speak with Art but he still saw them as peers. Zendaya doesn't. Thats the main difference in their relationships. Respect.

16) One of my fave damn parts of dialogue in the movie. (I really can't remember exact phrasing but this is how I rememeber it) Art is so sus of Pat, Pat asks him if he misses it, Art says he doesnt. And when Pat says he wasn't talking about tennis, Art says "Your always talking to me about tennis" and oof the punch to my gut that was. And it seemed to Patricks too! His face, this poor boy has twice been talking to the people he cares about, abou their relationship and they just say their talking about tennis, he cant catch a break😭

17) Pats reaction to Zendaya asking him to throw the game, is he offended for himself? Nopeee he's mad that she'd do that to Art. He says something along the lines of fucking him was one thing but to have Arts victory be a lie?? Gross, too far, too much of a betrayal.

18) For the third time, having just fucked Zendaya in the car and she just immediately brings up him throwing the match, like crimeny man this boy is probs sick of this game getting in the way of his relationships haha

19) Ooh that match point is glorious glorious cinema my friends. Patrick is so interesting in this whole match. Him deliberating on if he's gonna tell Art? So juicy and the way he did was fucking hilarious. That unspoken signal? Beauty.

20) Arts reaction? Wow oh wowww. The lad went through the five fricken stages of grief! The denial "fuck off!" the rage, throwing his racket, the bargaining, looking at Zendaya as if to say its not true (when she has no fucking clue what just happened). The depression, those sad sweaty tears 🥲 and then? That gorgeous smile, that acceptance. I think he felt catharsis, his marraige was clearly dysfunctional at this point and maybe knowing she cheated, knowing she'd threatened to leave if he lost, maybe that helped him let go of it. Ripped off the bandage, turned off life support, finally shake the pedestal he'd put his wife on( he compared her to jesus for christs sake). He made it through to the otherside and Patrick was there waiting for him with open arms ()iterally lol)

21) When Pat sees Arts smile? His own blossoms, clearly in relief and exaltation. I truly think he told him not to throw his game but to spur Art on. To finally unlock his potential. And to get the old Art he knew back and it bloody worked. That final back and forth, the pure energy, those sexual grunts all building up to a crescendo of a climax. Hooo boy

22) That goddamn brilliant leap in the air. Art is freed and flying, and Patrick doesn't hesitate he flings his racket to the floor because the thing that mattered to him most was never tennis. And he catches his boy with arms wide and then that embrace. They have finally come back together. It was beautiful. What does losing the match matter to Pat when he finally has his arms all over Art again just like he did in the beginning. We have come full circle.

Hahaha this is purely my own read into the movie and obvs mostly about the Patrick character and how I saw his actions. Now a few little bonus notes I noticed.

Nearly everything the boys eat/drink seems phallic, hotdogs, bananas, churros, even those drink bottles and cigarettes. Boyos are obsessed!

Zendaya on the rock at the beach was very little mermaid. Also in that scene when she said she wouldn't wanna get between em. Art said they didn't love together but Pat says "It's an open relationship" hecks you too obvious boy.

This movies so chock full of foreshadowing too, the story about Cat who got injured a week later. Patrick at Tashis party saying she'd have deals and a foundation which she does but via her relationship with Art instead just really cool script tbh

(Will probs add more when I remember em/see it for third time cause I am planning on that🤣🤣)

[poomphuripan]

Director Pepzi Banchorn Vorasataree - iQIYI Exclusive Interview Transcript

[What makes 'My Stand-In' special?]

Pepzi: The uniqueness of this series lies in my perspective of it being a youth drama. However, it's the kind of youth drama that's like... So typically youth dramas should be bright, simple and straightforward right? But this youth series has real drama and delves into the intricacies of life and emotions. It has these life stories that makes me feel like... Like about a painful youth which makes me think that having a series like this would be very interesting. Because the series not only portrays the mundane aspects of life but also adds a touch of fantasy, not in the sense of envisioning a futuristic fantasy, but rather, revolving around life's themes. I find these elements fascinating.

[What are some challenges you face as Thailand's first female Y Series (LGBTQIA+ series) director?]

Pepzi: Some refer to me as the "mother of LGBTQIA+ dramas," but not for any specific reason though but it's because I'm the only few [female directors]. Everyone else is typically called something like "father of...". With a BL series foundation, people often express delight in the fact that I make Y series, that I understand the NC scenes, and grasp the dynamics and critical scenes between same-sex characters. However, I'd like to emphasize that, my starting point/intention is that I always love to direct a love story, whether it involves same-sex or other relationships, the base of it has to be a love story. I believe that, once we have understood love, whether it's BL with men loving men or women loving women or men loving women, ultimately, they all share the same foundation being love stories [regardless of gender]. As long as we understand love enough, and perhaps it's also because of my age [re: personal experiences], I have seen been able to see various forms of love, which have evolved over different stages of my life. Therefore, to me, directing LGBTQ+ dramas is just like directing another form of love story. Each of my works revolves around love. Thus, I don't differentiate between whether it's a Y series or not.

[Why did you decide to direct "Stand-in"?]

Pepzi: The opportunity to direct "My Stand-In" arose when I met Ms. Yuan, (the CEO) of YYDS. YYDS wanted me... so they initially reached out to me, however, at that time, I was quite exhausted and looking forward to taking a break. Cause like your body/health after working on four, five series... Actually during the pandemic, I had been involved in numerous projects without any rest or travel. Until one day, I decided to take a break. I rested for several months without working, without taking on any new works. Then when Yuan contacted me again, I even told her I would only consider it after hearing the plot. I was planning to decline if it didn't pique my interest. Because I'm at that age where I should just rest. Later, I told her I wanted to meet and see the content. Ultimately, when we met and Yuan showed me the Chinese script translated in Thai, I realized it was a really interesting/fun story. The storyline was so compelling that it drew me, someone who was on a break, back to work. At that point, I had only read the plot. It wasn't until later that I found out it was based on a popular Chinese novel with millions of views. Honestly, while reading the novel, I found the storyline truly remarkable and felt compelled to direct it. It was only later that I learned about its background story and the powerful narrative it held.

[What gives you confidence in this series?]

Pepzi: First, upon receiving the plot, I thought the original Chinese version was so good. But I knew we would have to adapt storyline to make a Thai version (re:suit the Thai audience), and we had a conversation with the Chinese scriptwriters right at the beginning to ask for permission in order to make adjustments if they wanted me to make this. If they wanted me to direct, they had to trust my abilities, choices, and decisions. We had to localize the storyline to fit the Thai context. Eventually, after discussions with the original Chinese author (Shui Qian Cheng), who agreed to the adaptation adjustments, we moved forward. Every time we make a change, we would thoroughly discussed between both parties. I felt that the fact that everything proceeded smoothly from the outset was an excellent sign. Plus, being given the freedom to select the cast based on my aesthetic preferences or the vibes of the series was empowering. However, every decision I made was preceded by discussions with the team so it felt like this drama is good in all aspects. I believe that this is a BL or Y series where we really chose the main characters based on the storyline. Meaning, we looked for actors suitable for the roles according to the plot, and the result turned out great, just like it is now.

[What are the differences between the TV series and the novel?]

Pepzi: The structure is similar, but we made some changes to the context to make it more suitable for a Thai audience. It's not just about incorporating into Thai culture, but including the lifestyle or the way Thai people think and live. Because ultimately, this is a Thai series with the kind of plot geared towards a Thai audience so we believe that most of the viewers will be Thai. But we also trust that the Thai people perspectives can resonate globally. Changes can be made, but we aim to preserve the fundamental cultural aspects of Thailand.

[How is the director's job, and what's special about it?]

Pepzi: One aspect we paid particular attention to is the action scenes. While I can direct action scenes, some crucial segments required additional assistance to help me make those scenes look cool/badass. And the person who can make [those action scenes] look cool/badass is THE Kongkiat Komesiri, or P'Khom. I've known Kongkiat for a long time, over ten years. Kongkiat offered to help designing some action scenes or pivotal moments in the series. In this series, there's also a crew that many others may not know much about but it's the stunt crew team. For the stunt team of this series, Ja is responsible for/lead of the crew. P'Ja is Jeeja Yanin, I don't know if we're born in the same year (re: if we're the same age) or not. P'Ja came to help oversee our stunt, action and fight sequences and even the training of the actors. Since this series is related to stunt doubles, we aimed to gather the most talented individuals in every aspect within our capabilities. So I feel like everyone involved that we've been able to gather are people who are skilled in their respective fields. From my perspective, I've already done my best and everyone else also brings their best. So I feel like the entire team is... If it's someone in the production industry, they'd know that to be able to do that is pretty amazing.

[Why must it be Up and Poom?]

Pepzi: Why Up and Poom? Initially, we were looking for Ming and Joe. We had to find Ming and Joe. After an analysis, we found it quite challenging. So, we started with Joe. Joe's character is a stunt double, the top one in Thai martial arts dramas. He had to be handsome because he would be doubling for the hottest stars, and his acting skills needed to be top-notch. He also had to convey emotions well and be disciplined. We were searching very hard. In the end, nearly 400 actors wanted to play Joe. And I was the person who watched everyone who auditioned. We auditioned everyone, then matched and paired them up until we finally found that... we chose Up and we chose Poom. And I dare say here that on the day we made our decision, Poom wasn't necessarily the actor with best acting skill among the 400. But for me, Poom is the person who resembled Joe the most. After selecting Poom, I told him to put in more effort. I felt like I really hoped the audience would give him a chance. He wasn't someone with prior fame or popularity, but Poom is a talented actor. Because Poom had really stepped into the role/embodied his role as Joe and that Joe is the most perfect version of Joe for me.

As for Up, once we found our Joe... Actually we found our Ming first but Ming was even harder to find than Joe because he had to be born into wealth, things which we couldn't fabricate. Right? Moreover, he had to be a skilled actor because he needed to portray depth. As a top executive of a company, who had to be secretly in love with someone, someone his sister loves, and he had to back off. Then, he accidentally falls for someone else. That accidental entanglement turns out to the biggest true love of his life. We auditioned numerous people, including celebrities. Many, many people. Ultimately, it was a gut feeling, perhaps intuition? I really saw shades of Ming in Up. They resembled each other. And then Up actually came to audition. But I'm very grateful to Yuan because one day Yuan went to talk to Up saying that Pepzi's simple request was for Up to come for an audition because I wanted to see if Up was really (suitable for) that character. So Up really came to the audition. It was the first tape audition, then finally, we started looking for someone who could pair well with Up. And it took many steps before Up and Poom became our Ming and Joe.

[What do actors need to prepare to become their characters?]

Pepzi: Mostly, it was a LOT workshops but there's also many types of workshops and we have to differentiate between them. So especially for Poom, there were many workshops. We'd have a regular acting workshop, like an acting workshop between Up and Poom for them to work on their emotional scenes together. But Poom also has a separate workshop to handle stunt sequences due to his character's profession as a stunt double. Poom really had a lot of these action workshops and he worked diligently in all of them. His positions/stunt sequences he showed were really good. Shoutout to the instructors and the crew of P'Jeeja for this. Additionally, there's one last workshop and it's the intemacy workshop for the intimate scenes. Ultimately, despite containing mature content, the foundation of these scenes is love. Both actors trusted us, and we conducted rehearsals for intimate scenes beforehand. We're thankful for their cooperation and trust, and their compatibility was evident from the first shoot. This series is filled with love, not lust, but love. That's why there were those scenes. Yea, so much thanks to them.

[From day one to today, what have you seen in the actors?]

Pepzi: I've been able to witness their development as actors when they're playing these characters. Like I've said previously, we chose them because we saw Ming and Joe in them. But as they continued to portray the roles, I dare say that they are truly the actual Ming and Joe. They are the reason why I need to thank God even more for validating our decision that day. Because from what they've shown us, our decision that day was correct and it's becoming more apparent. And one more thing, I want to thank these two people for really embodying their characters and putting in immense effort to get into these roles. This is the transformation we've seen. They not only improved as actors but also became the characters themselves, like embodying their essence.

[Are you satisfied with the work after months of filming?]

Pepzi: To be honest, just like the audience, I'm eager to see it. However, we know the storyline because we're the ones arranging the plot's sequence, and I'm also responsible for editing in the post-production phase. Honestly, if I may say so without sounding conceited, I believe I gave it my all. Everyone worked diligently, and while it may not be 100% perfect for others, for us, bringing together everyone's strengths, we're not ashamed to say and we're always ready for others to see and critique.

[What were the difficulties in making this series?]

Pepzi: The difficulty was the action scenes and the drama. But both boys performed exceptionally well. I'm really thankful to them, especially with the blocking of scenes.

[What were the challenges of this script/story?]

Pepzi: The challenge of this series is making viewers believe in our protagonist's guiding storyline. This story with a male lead who I dare say that it's a character who the audience must curse at while watching. I believe some viewers will be upset, and there are certain plot points that some may not like. But like I've said, Ming is just human; he also has unlikable aspects (t/n: the exact term Pepzi used is that Ming has a few 'not so cute' aspect). However, Up's portrayal of Ming convinces us. When it airs, some people may criticize him because his character truly destestable and deserves all these the curses, but it's also important to emphasize that Up fearlessly played this role without fear of losing his image. And so I'm genuinely grateful and thankful if Up['s character] receives criticism afterward, because it's also a recognition that he plays Ming so accurately and well. Everyone please save Up.

[Most difficult and favorite scenes]

Pepzi: The NC scene when they first met. For me, it was difficult because of the blocking for that scene and I'm the person who did the blocking myself. Feeling of enjoyment from my own work. Because the starting point is this initial spark of love from the staircase, then to the room, and then we also incorporated the raining effect while the actors have to perform the NC scenes with multiple blockings. In order for an NC scene to be beautiful, not only does it require the actors' emotions but also the right blockings and the right camera work. It's a challenge for the actors and everyone involved, but I believe the results will be great, and indeed, they've been showcased exceptionally well. There may also be complaints. For my favorite scene... Actually my favorite scene is also an NC scene. However, it's an NC near the end of the series... Because as I've said before, and I have emphasized this repeatedly to the actors that these [NC] scenes aren't just for shock value (t/n: exact term Pepzi used is that these NC scenes do not exist "simply for the viewers to drive their ships"); the specific reason is to depict the love between the characters over time. The plot spans two lifetimes, from the previous one to the current, and it's necessary to complete this love story. For the last NC scene, since I'm the person who designed every action for it, I felt like there were lots of moments that make go... [squeals] There were some shy moments, but in the end, everything stems from love. The two actors also have great chemistry, and for me, and for me, it all turned into beautiful scenes. I thank them very much.

[Explain the name of title "My Stand-in"]

Pepzi: A stand-in is like a substitute. We used a particular person as a substitute for someone else. In the storyline, Joe substitutes for everything three times. The first time, he's a stunt double, a profession on its own. But being a stuntman means it's the profession where Joe willing becomes another star's stand-in. What does this mean? Even there's fame, it belongs to the star, not the substitute. That's the first time being a stand-in. Later on, the second stand-in occurs when he suddenly has a lover who only likes him from behind because his back looks like that of the star. So, Joe is a stand-in, a stand-in again for love. The third time, Joe himself dies and is reborn. Not reborn as a new person, but being transformed into someone else's body. Finally, he circles around until he returns back again to his old life. I think this kind of substitute is his own substitute. It's the third time being a stand-in. So, this series represents Joe being substituting for many aspects.

[Expectations for this drama]

Pepzi: I only hope the viewers watching the series will see the dedication of all the actors as well as the staff. Regarding ratings and... what do they call it?... ahh Twitter trends and things like that, honestly, as a person who works on the series, I can say it without being embarassment that we want it to be high too since it's normal that everyone hopes for that as it's one metric to gauge the quality of this series. But actually more importantly for me, the buzz on Twitter should come from a genuine liking of the series from the viewers' hearts. After watching it, if everyone genuinely falls in love with this series, as creators, we naturally anticipate feedback from the audience. Whether it's praise or criticism, we're happy. But as I've said, I've given my all to showcase our best work for everyone to see.

[Recommend "My Stand-In" to everyone]

Pepzi: Thank you all. Both the actors and the staff have put their best talents into this series. I want the audience to see this as well. I want the audience to see this as well. Please pay more attention to My Stand-In. You can watch it on IQIYI Original. I really hope everyone, as I said, to see that all the staff have put their best talents into this series. We're really eager for everyone to watch it. Whether you like it or not, everyone can comment. We're very proud to introduce this series as really good. You must watch it!

You can watch the original interview here with iQIYI VIP.

[koilaniazul]

why not me?

pairing- matt sturniolo x fem!reader

summary: y/n has looked at her best friend matt differently. she loved him. but matt didn’t love her the same way.

warnings: angst, stalking (i mean kinda), just sad shit in general, matt is a meanie..!

“so what movie tonight?” you asked scrolling through your shared netflix account with matt as you waited for an answer.

but there was silence. “matt? hello?” you asked again, just to be met with silence again once more.

you looked to your left to get matt’s attention and realized he was engulfed in his phone smiling to himself.

rolling your eyes, you grabbed his phone.

“what the hell y/n!” matt said trying to snatch his phone back.

“you’ve been ignoring me and i wanna see why!” you said to matt giggling.

after a couple more failed attempts the boy gave up.

you looked at his phone and found out he was on instagram. on someone’s page. a girl.

what the what? he had been ignoring you because of a stupid girl?

you looked back at matt, his face a bright shade of red.

he yanked his phone back in anger and embarrassment. “happy now?” he muttered under his breath.

you felt a tight knot in your chest. who was that girl anyway..?

“hey. im sorry that was uncalled for” you said quietly trying to comfort him.

he couldn’t help the smile that crept up onto his face. “it’s whatever” he said calmly.

there was an awkward silence between the two and none of them wanted to break it.

“so movie?” you asked trying to get comfortable again.

matt shifted uncomfortably until he spoke. “actually i think i should get going..nick told me we need to think of video ideas for tomorrow.”

you had a puzzled look. “its saturday matt.”

he didn’t speak.

your face became red and hot as you realized what he was doing. he was trying to leave without hurting your feelings..

as you cleared your throat you spoke again. “you can go matt it’s fine.”

he smiled as he was getting up. “thanks y/n!”

and just like that he ran out the door and slammed it.

he didn’t even say goodbye.

you sat on your bed for a good 5 minutes before getting up and turning off the tv.

___________________________________________

the next day was weird. you knew you probably shouldn’t care but you couldn’t stop thinking about that girl.

who even was she? why was matt on her page in the first place? were they dating?

no.

matt would tell you.

right..?

it was becoming an obsession. so you decided to do the one thing you were an expert at, stalking.

you opened instagram and went over the search bar and typed in her name, Eliana Morgan.

her page popped up and your mind went blank.

bikini pics, photoshoots, modeling headshots, she was even an actress who played small roles in a tv show and 2 movies.

she was..so much better then…you.

as you scrolled more and more down her page you realized that matt had liked all of her photos.

all of them.

before you started to spiral, you shut off your phone and threw it across your bed.

____________________________________________

matt was coming over to your house for lunch and you thought this was the perfect time to woo him over.

you put on your cutest white skirt and long sleeved shirt with tiny little pink flowers on it. it showed off your tits too but who cares!

as you put on your finishing touches of makeup and perfume, you grabbed your phone and looked at the time.

1:05

matt was coming at 2:15 so you had plenty of time.

you ordered thai food because you couldn’t cook to save ya damn life and waited for matt.

1:35: you watched some tv to waste some time. you’d think that matt would at least text you or something but no, nothing.

1:58: what the hell? it was almost time and he still wasn’t here..? somethings wrong. you thought.

2:10: that’s it. you grabbed your phone and texted matt.

you couldn’t believe it. he was being so dry. and he had forgotten about your lunch date. what the fuck was going on?

you grabbed your bag, phone, keys and heading out the door to clear your head.

walking actually calming you down, you found a small business bakery on the more quieter side of town. the cinnamon roll was to die for.

as you continued strolling down, you stumbled across a fancy ass restaurant you definitely couldn’t afford.

peaking inside to mock rich people, you found something you definitely weren’t supposed to see.

matthew sturniolo and eiliana morgan sitting in a booth while he played with her hair.

what. the. fuck.

suddenly it clicked.

he

stood

you

up

for

her.

so many emotions flowed through your body. you couldn’t believe it.

you were stuck. frozen in place. you clutched your bag as you fought your tears.

suddenly matt looked up and met your eyes. he looked you up and down and gave you a *what the hell are you doing here??* look.

you didn’t speak.

tears welled your eyes as he rolled his eyes and continued talking with eiliana.

you ran. you ran as fast as your legs could take you.

finally after what seemed like an eternity, you reached home. tears blurred your vision when you tried to put your key inside.

you slammed the door and slid down it as you sobbed as loud as you could.

you thought to yourself,

why not me?

❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥❥

𝚔𝚘𝚒'𝚜 𝚢𝚊𝚙𝚙𝚒𝚗𝚐 ↷

alright guys why do i kind of hate this.. whateva.

bye i started this like two months ago. erm!

plsss tell me if you find any mistakes

#did not read this over

k love ya bai (·ω<)☆

⇡⇡⇡⇡⇡⇡⇡⇡⇡⇡⇡

[hallowpen]

There was a lot of destructive criticism surrounding My Marvellous Dream is You, but I actually thought the series was quite good despite its shortcomings. I'm a lot more forgiving than most when it comes to Thai GL series, and that will have absolutely affected my viewing experience. But... every time I would see a comment that just read "This is boring/terrible/stupid" without ever elaborating, I felt very much like Khun Pu's character from Be My Favorite hehe

*WARNING*: There will be minor spoilers for the final episode of My Marvellous Dream is You, should that be something you wish to avoid.

I will be the first to admit, that I was very skeptical about this series in the first handful of episodes. So let's just get my personal negatives out of the way first... I think, by now, it's no secret that I do not support where a lot of Thai GL adaptations source from. So, this series already had an admittedly disadvantaged subjective expectation from the get go. It wasn't really surprising to see pacing issues within the first 5ish episodes, that seems to be a common occurrence in Thai GLs produced by IDOLfactory. Whether that is a result of the novels the series have thus far been adapted from OR from a choice in direction is up to you. I, personally, think it's a bit of both. Where I believe certain productions struggle in letting their narratives breathe, I find the complete opposite problem to be true with IDOLfactory. There were a lot of plot points that needed restructuring or to be removed entirely in order to have a stronger cohesive story that focused on the main characters' relationship more so than it did.

Now, while I stand behind my opinion that the series could have benefited from tighter and better organized storytelling, a lot of the groundwork was there to make a decent character driven narrative. And that's what I've chosen to focus on. Wan and Kim are both deeply flawed characters. There were so many inferences to be drawn from character relevant visuals and their joint backstory that truly informed their current dynamic.

The👏🏾character👏🏾focused👏🏾visuals👏🏾in👏🏾this👏🏾show!!!

One of the most interesting parts of watching a series, for me, is having to pick up on certain character cues in order to understand and delve deeper into the core of their behaviors.

Wan and Kim share a trauma, and it's easy to see how they both became so dependent on one another to fill the void their fathers left.

In flashbacks, Wan is presented as egoistic and headstrong since high school. She is also shown to be extremely protective of Kim before she even realizes her feelings. Kim, on the other hand, is a bit more sensitive. She cherishes Wan's attention and affection to a point where she would be willing to play a little dirty in order to keep it for herself.

All of these emotions become heightened once they are forced into adult life with adult problems. Wan is struggling with her mental health. While trying to balance fame and the repercussions her actions might have on her career, Wan must also deal with her mother's alcoholism... which has essentially caused her to check out from Wan's life. Her need to have Kim by her side, and never leave her, has become less protective and more possessive. Kim's desire for approval and affection has led to an over devotion of herself to Wan and constant worrying about disappointing her mother. She's neglected her own wants and needs for so long, that she's afraid putting herself first would be considered too selfish...too much like her dad. Her mother's cancer diagnosis further pushes Kim to continue to place her mother's wishes over her own desires. Even though comments about Wan and Kim being 'annoying' or 'frustrating' were aiming to be negative... they weren't exactly wrong. The audience was supposed to feel that way. Heck, even the surrounding characters called out their behavior on more than one occasion. Because in an effort to not lose one another, Kim and Wan fell into a cyclically unhealthy dynamic where their actions and reactions were actually pushing each other away. Their inability to communicate their true feelings to each other beyond their (unbeknownst) shared dreams prevented them from making any true progress toward a romantic relationship that they both so desperately wanted, but were each terribly afraid to pursue. Their feelings for each other were put up against the reality that their love being unreciprocated could spell the end of their relationship altogether. There was an added pressure of being unfairly compared to their fathers, where any romance between them might be found 'unacceptable'. Couple that with societal views of same-sex relationships, and you can understand why these two were so hesitant to reveal their truths.

(Quick sidenote: I did not agree with the idea that what Kim and Wan did was exactly the same to what their fathers did. They did not leave and abandon their families. Marwin didn't make it easy for them, and given the glimpse we saw into his family's cruelty, it made all the sense in the world to have him react in the way he did. Kim and Wan were at least willing to stay and face the hard consequences of their choice, no matter the outcome.)

I think them having to work through all of their issues made the moment of Kim and Wan finally deciding to be together that much more satisfying... And that was the point Kru A was trying to make when he explained his direction for their relationship on social media after hearing viewer feedback (He was subsequently rudely criticized by interfans for that decision, to the point where he alluded to the fact that he might take a break from directing... but that's a whole other discussion).

That final scene of them being married purposely not clarifying whether it was in a dream or in reality alluded to the fact that their shared dream world and their real life were no longer at odds, finally. I thought it was very fitting.

The frustration caused by KimWan's lack of communication reminded me of a similar dynamic between Team and Win in Between Us, a series that suffered from a lot of the same problems (not enough focus on the two leads and irrelevant plot points). However, those characters and the actors that portrayed them didn't receive even half the amount of negative reactions. They existed, trust me, but there were a lot of positive reviews to balance it out. I'm not going to get into what that means, because I think you can make the inference for yourself.

All in all, I don't think this series deserves to be completely written off. Is it perfect? No... but an effort was made, and it wouldn't hurt to make the effort in return to understand the vision. Fay and May did an incredible job for their first go around as main leads. And I hope they get the chance to develop their craft further.

[superums]

niran "bua" Pruksamanee x tank! reader

gn!reader. fluff. alight angst. slight ableism (its in passing). no y/n or name usage. established relationship. reader is an overwatch agent. usages of thai, tell if they're wrong pls :3. no pronouns besides one mention of the word 'woman'. no gendered terms. both reader & niran are 28-31. you're a tank though its not explicitly mentioned.

colored text: niran. you.

sorry i've been gone from so long i started playing baldurs gate😭

general headcannons

you used to be a famous boxer. you were on billboards, headlining major fighting events, making tons of money goes pay-per-view fights—you were a star. you loved hearing your fans chant your name, telling off hecklers in the crowd and the adrenaline running through your veins you left the scene.

during your professional career you used to watch the news and wish you could do something about the things that were going on in the world.

you wanted to help badly but you weren't super human nor did you have any smarts to make up for it. you were just a boxer with a mean right hook.

then your life seemed to change for an instant—you lost both your arms a terrorist attack. it happened quickly; one minute you were fighting at the heavyweight championship the next you were screaming at the top of your lungs as smoke clouded your vision.

you ended your career not long after. you felt like a shell of yourself, not only because of your new disability and the phantom pains that came with it, but also because all you know is fighting.

the prosthetics the doctors offered you didn't feel the same. some couldn't hold a punch, others were hallow and the force of your you exerted would smash it into pieces without you trying.

for a while you were hounded by paparazzi, every time you were in headlines they would run up to you and say things like "it must be hard for you to go from on top of the world to nothing all in a year" or "i pity you really."

you tried to get used to the comments but no matter how many times you tried to swallow the humiliation you felt it just wouldn't go away.

after viral picture of you at the beach without your prosthetics on where people called you everything but a child of god you just decided to go far away from everyone.

you moved to a cabin on a prairie. being so far and out of the way it was a miracle you found him, or well—he found you. he came when you were close to giving up on your dream of fighting ever again.

you were sitting on your porch when you saw him from the corner of your eye standing at your warn down shack. he might have been trying to break into your house or knock you out you're not sure but you offered him a place to stay.

it might've been crazy, to let a stranger live in your roof but it was a decision made out of loneliness. he said his name niran. you let him stay with you. at first it was just for a couple of days; but then it turned into a week, then a month become months.

after a while finally he told you why he was trying to break into your house to begin with.

"i'm a fugitive." came out of his mouth as you both sat next to each other. his cold metal hand would be on top of yours if it was still there.

you turned to face him, calculating what you should say next. you've only know him for a month, its too short to know someone but you felt like he was the nicest person you've met. "i have a price on my head in a few places... seventeen to be exact...." he continued; voice getting lower as he continued. his brown eyes searching for anger or disgust on your face. instead he was met with a mix of curiosity, confusion and maybe a little fear.

"w...what for? if you can say." silence filled the room for a bit, niran was fidgeting with his prosthetic before opening his mouth again. "i...i made a new form of life, i want to heal people."

his voice wavered a little. back then his mind really didn't understand why but in his heart wanted you to accept him, not because he was alone—but because he loved you.

you accepted him without a second thought and after that you let him stay with you. over the months he started to have feelings for you; seeing your smile, the soft voice that was so much different from the one you used in the ring. seeing how you talk to him he might have fallen in love with you as soon as he met you.

you let him advance his technology in your basement and in return he gave you new arms out of hard light.

you knew you liked him but after that; giving you a second chance with arms you could feel things with, if you didn't love him then you definitely loved him after that.

with the new pair of new arms you felt indebted to him. you started training very soon after you got used to your arms not only because you missed it but because now you feel like you have to protect him from vishkar.

when you started dating he's so sweet to you. i'm a strong believer that niran is soft with his lovers even if he is a bit of a flirt. he never rushed things with you, always going slow with everything

it took him weeks of not months to kiss you for the first time, he didn't want to rush anything with you especially when if you're still vulnerable about your situation.

he set up a lovely picnic when he realized he so desperately wanted to kiss you. a large pink tree stood in the large plot of land you call a backyard. he planted plants both real and artificial— hoping it conveyed his love for you well.

he held your hands, his flesh and cybernetic hands held yours with such softness. as he led you to the picnic blanket you felt like you were in a movie; the baby pink tree pulsated and it made you feel gooey (in a good way), the phantom pains you experienced seems to disappear in that moment, leaving just you and niran.

as you both ate he talked to you like about his day how he planned this for months. at some point in your talk strayed away from normal topics, you felt his flesh hand caress your jaw only then you noticed how close you two were; niran peering down at you.

"i've been thinking..." he whispered, you twos lips almost gravitating towards each other—stopping when you two were only a foot apart. "i want to take things slow, not to rush you.." the tree pulsed again as you stared into his eyes, his voice so gentle with you as if you'd break if he talked louder than a whisper.

"can i kiss you?" he asked, you heart warmed at the words; you didn't even speak instead you leaned in more until your lips touched. it was a kiss you of a movie, his cybernetic hand went to you back as his flesh one held your jaw. passion flowed through the two of you and its all you've ever wanted; a movie like kiss with niran.

i imagine he's very passionate when it comes to you. when he kisses you it's almost like it'll be his last; he puts his hand on your chin and cradles your head literally every time it doesn't matter whats going on

his nicknames for you หัวใจของฉัน, ดอกไม้ของฉัน, love, darling and rose

translation: my heart, my soul

he wants his pet names to represent how deeply he loves you and if you don't speak thai he'll use the most intense words he knows.

you're devoted to not only loving but protecting niran! you've tried to train him for the worst case scenario of vishkar coming; and you've come to realize he's a lover not a fighter

so when he told you he was going to join overwatch you told him you were going to follow him and were prepared to argue with him if he said other wise but instead he told you "i was hoping you'd say that"

in game head cannons

while niran flirts with the roster in a joking way just know he seriously means it when he's talking to you! some moments playful and fun while others are more... intense

you: *sigh* it's so cold, i don't know how you're dealing with this

lifeweaver: lets hug! we can warm each other up!

you: *sigh*... it's so cold, i don't know how you're dealing with this

lifeweaver: i just imagine you and i feel so warm (sexual innuendo)

he thinks it's funny to mess with you even if it's in-front of your friends. down worry in reality he wont say things like that too loud... just between you two.

when you get elems he has multiple voice lines where he's in absolute awe in what you can do and they vary on how many kills you get.

1-2 kills usually gets a "you're so cool~" or "you're blooming!" while 3-5 gets a "it's amazing such strong actions can belong to someone so gentle."

i imagine being life gripped feels the same as being dropped from a super high place almost like a roller coster so maybe you have voice lines where you express you hate getting pulled

lifeweaver: *pulls you*

you: ah! it feels so weird when you do that

lifeweaver: *pulls you*

you: im gonna hurl..

if you're critical when he pulls you however your tone changes to something more thankful and sweet

lifeweaver: *pulls you*

you: you love me! you really love me!

reference

lifeweaver: *pulls you*

you: oh niran, i could just kiss you right now!

reference

you two probably have skins that match for sure. you have an epic that just a recolor of your normal skin but its mostly white and you have baby pink forget-me-nots made out of biolight in your hair.

when he eliminates you he's always so cheeky about it. he says "*laughs* forgive me my love!" and "ยกโทษให้ฉันดอกไม้ของฉัน"

translation: forgive me my flower

when he kills you via melee however he always says "*gasp* you must train some more!" and "it looks like i'm the strongest now! *giggles*"

when you send him to the spawn room his voices lines always make him seem more in love with you than upset. he says "*sigh dreamily* oh i love that in a woman" , "such brute strength makes me love them more..." and "พวกเขาทําให้ฉันกระเด็นออกจากเท้าของฉันอย่างแท้จริง!"

translation: they knocked me off my feet literally!

[wen-kexing-apologist]

A Pause for Reflection: Part 2- Only Friends, Racism, and the Commodification of Queer Asians

Hello! It is me, your friendly neighborhood wen-kexing-apologist. Before Only Friends aired, knowing how sex heavy this show was setting up to be, I decided it might be kinda funny if instead of posting my initial reactions to the episodes, which I knew were going to be something akin to an incomprehensible key smash, if I instead committed to a bit where I wrote very dry, academic essays on sex and sex imperatives in Only Friends.

Well, I wrote an essay on Boston, his cruising habits, and my speculations around him being an embodiment of older queer culture expecting like…three people maybe to make it through legitimately 13 written pages with block text citations. But it did surprisingly well, and so now I have decided to full send. 

In my first Taking Pause post, I wrote about respectable promiscuity and the way I felt that concept impacted perceptions of queer people and queer culture, especially as it relates to engagement with Only Friends. This time, I want to dampen the mood a bit further, and discuss racism and its impact on perceptions of queer Asian characters in the BL industry. This was spurred by Only Friends and especially inspired by the posts I have seen going around that project false purity on flawed characters, but will cover Asian BL engagement more broadly as well.  

Disclaimer: I am a white Westerner, addressing this post primarily to white Westerners, and using Western sources. 

The Commodification of Queer Asian Men

Racism is a complex subject, and while people of color are not absolved of white supremacy mindsets through colorism, this invitation for conversation is mostly geared towards my fellow white Westerners. Racism is persistent, pervasive, and insidious in part because we do not always know when and how our own personal biases and learned racism impacts how we interact with the world, or in this case media. 

With the increasing mainstream acceptance of gays and lesbians, and the increasing visibility of LGBT folks more generally, gay space and straight space, gay sociality and straight sociality, are increasingly blended (Dean, 2014). The commodification of gayness is only one example of this. (Ahlm, 2017)

We are frequently spoiled by BL because of how much exposure to queer people in stories we are allowed to see. These stories are not primarily or inherently made for queer people, but what this massive index of gay shows gives the general public is large amounts of exposure to the concept of gay people (about queers), and growing popularity allows for a rapid commodification of queer Asian experience.  

I want to take a second to show the definitions of commodification, so anyone reading this is aware of what lenses I am working from.

Commodification:  to turn (something, such as an intrinsic value or a work of art) into a commodity (Miriam-Webster) 

Commodity: 

an economic good: such as…c. a mass-produced unspecialized product

a. something useful or valued; b. convenience, advantage

a good or service whose wide availability typically leads to smaller profit margins and diminishes the importance of factors (such as brand name) other than price

one that is subject to ready exchange or exploitation within a market (Miriam-Webster) 

Personally, I think it is reasonable to argue that BL and BL branded pairs are exploited by and are an exploitation of the market. We have seen the number of in-universe ads in our standard Thai BLs, the number of BLs being created every year is increasing with the understanding that these shows can be profitable, sell products, sell concert tickets, sell out theaters, make money on fan events, etc.. I think many of us have begun to love when Oishi Green Tea, Nivea Micellar Water, or Canon printers show up in our BLs, but it cannot be denied or ignored that those are commercials for products being sold to us through the images of queer characters and within queer stories. Meaning, the queer stories we are able to interact with en masse are there to sell us a product as well as a story. 

How does this relate to racism? By making queer characters of color sell products within the stories they exist in, we establish a relationship to queer characters of color that extends the commodification of queer men of color themselves beyond what already exists by nature of racism and white supremacy within queer spaces: 

It’s almost as if no gay men of color exist outside of fantasy cruises to Jamaica, Puerto Rico, or the ‘Orient’. And even then, they exist only to fulfill the sexual fantasies of gay white men. ‘Exotic’ vacations to far away places are marketed to rich white men and [low income] colored bodies are only another consumable product easily purchased with western dollars. As such, gay men of color, whether found within western borders or conveniently waiting for white arrival in the far off corners of the globe, are nothing more than commodities for consumption. (Chong-suk Han, 2007)

How many shows have we gotten out of GMMTV in recent years that are absent, or near-absent of in-universe ads? Three? The Eclipse, The Warp Effect, and Only Friends? What themes are at the center of these shows that may make them distasteful to corporations trying to sell their products? 

Now, I entered the BL scene after The Eclipse aired, so I don’t know what its reception was like at the time. But I am pretty certain it was a popular show. Yet, I have personally witnessed the adverse and negative reactions to, especially Ayan, when Our Skyy 2 x The Eclipse aired and we saw Ayan keeping a secret that was hurting Akk’s feelings. I saw the sheer amount of posts coming out of tumblr about how Akk and Ayan were characterized so wrong in this show. And, I am trying to be polite here, but there were just grossly misrepresentative takes on tumblr about the characters we got on screen in OS2, who were extremely in character based on the source material, and not the idea of the characters we have built up in our heads as the lines between Ayan and Khaotung or Akk and First blurred over time. 

The Warp Effect is a show I have constantly been asking people to watch as Only Friends approached and continue to market as required viewing while we are still in the early stages of Only Friends, but it was not widely watched as far as I could tell from the activity on my own tumblr feed and from the number of people I saw reblogging my Case for Watching TWE post who said they had yet to see it. And I get it, it was marketed more as a heterosexual show rather than a BL, but I will go down swinging to defend my position on that show as The Queerest Show of 2023 (so far). 

I think about all the ways people on tumblr have re-written certain characters in their minds to be purer, less morally dubious, more babygirl in order for them to justify loving and supporting a character that is either objectively a terrible person or who has made any number of mistakes that have gotten themselves or others hurt. Listen, my most beloved gay boys are Wen Kexing and Akk but I will be the first to tell you both those men are war criminals. That is not a joke. I love Akk to death as a character, and he let a car roll into a crowd of protestors.

Which is to say, that I am personally made to feel very uncomfortable when I see people twisting the realities of who queer Asian characters are in order to create a false, more pure and innocent version of who they want queer Asian characters to be. Why? Because it treats queer Asian male characters like dolls, like objects to manipulate and control, rather than as the people they are written and intended to be, and the fanservice that is expected of the actors that portray them is not much different: 

At the same time that they are invisible, gay Asian men are also seen as being exotic, submissive fantasies for white men. However, being seen as exotic and submissive is yet another form of subtle racism where gay Asian men are not seen as individuals but as a consumable product for white male fantasy (Ayres, 1999). (Chong-suk Han, 2007)

And yeah, I know some of you may try to deflect this by saying or thinking “wka this quote is about white men and thus does not apply to me” it does. It does apply.

On the Subject of Fan Service 

These production companies make a lot of money off of selling the fanbase the idea that these actors are romantically involved outside of their acting careers. GMMTV and Idolfactory are perhaps the most committed studios to fanservice that I have seen, often to the detriment of the health and safety of their talent and potentially their own financial interests. He’s Coming to Me was delayed, and had it’s distribution fucked with because fans protested Singto being separated from Krist and paired up with Ohm for one show. Freen was recorded and blackmailed with a video that showed she was in a romantic relationship with Seng. Articles were published making it seem like it was a truly wild concept that Man Trisanu and Ben Bunyapol were acting to create the chemistry they get on screen. These companies know they can make money off of the fictions they create, both the ones we see as television shows, and the ones we see in fan meet ups. These people are actors, some may date, some may not, some may be really good friends, some may hate each other’s guts, but the fact of the matter is we will never know for sure. Everything we see on camera is a performance. 

How Objectification of Queer Asian Men Relates to Only Friends

I mean…

I don’t know about you all, but I have seen post after post of people projecting images of purity and perfection on to Mew, twisting themselves forward and backward to justify a character’s objectively terrible decisions, or finding scapegoats to blame for their blorbo’s actions. I have seen people truly, legitimately struggle with seeing their favorite acting pair engaging in intimate scenes with different scene partners. And, to me it reads like some audience members are physically unable to separate the actor from their character, or to accurately identify reality from fiction. These are actors, they are playing characters, we know how good of actors they are. We are all aware of how much of a chameleon First is with his roles, how powerful Khao is at portraying grief on screen, how expressive Book is, etc. 

Force and Book are not fucking, Book is not stringing Force along, Force is not fucking Neo and potentially breaking Book’s heart. Top and Mew are fucking (or will). Mew is stringing Top along. Top is fucking Boston and potentially breaking Mew’s heart. Khaotung is not ditching First to go rescue Book, First is not trying and failing to maintain boundaries with Khaotung. Ray is ditching Sand to go rescue Mew, Sand is trying and failing to maintain boundaries with Ray. 

Harkening back to fanservice. Personally, I believe that only ever marketing “love pairs” (aka Force and Book’s characters as a romantic couple or First and Khao’s characters as a romantic couple on screen) severely severely limits the acting potential for any and all of the performers involved in those couplings. Can you imagine what Only Friends would be like with Neo and Louis, rather than Neo and Mark? Louis is great, but I’m not sure that he could do pining simp, or angry revenge the same way Mark can. You can see how good of a match up Fluke Pusit was with Thor in The Warp Effect and you can see how good Fluke Pusit was with Ohm Thipakorn in A Boss and a Babe. 

As I mentioned in Part One, Jojo has said there is going to be sex in every episode. We know these boys have already hurt each other and will continue to hurt each other. We know these boys have already slept around and will continue to do so. There is no need to vilify a character for being a flawed human being. There is absolutely no need to vilify an actor for portraying a character who is a flawed human being. We don’t need to uplift the characters that are withholding their sexuality from others as inherently good, moral, victims of the inherently bad, immoral, predators ruining their lives with their high sex drives. 

…popular culture is permeated with ideas that erotic variety is dangerous, unhealthy, depraved, and a menace to everything from small children to national security. Popular sexual ideology is a noxious stew made up of ideas of sexual sin, concepts of psychological inferiority… and xenophobia. The mass media nourish these attitudes with relentless propaganda…

All these hierarchies of sexual value- religious, psychiatric, and popular- function in much the same way as do ideological systems of racism, ethnocentrism, and religious chauvinism. They rationalize the well-being of the sexually privileged and the adversity of the sexual rabble…this kind of sexual morality has more in common with ideologies of racism than with true ethics. (Rubin, 1984)

I am begging people who are having difficulty seeing their favorite actor be shitty on screen to take a pause, take a breath, remember that they are actors, playing a fictional character in a fictional role. Fictional characters performing fictional actions has not, does not, and will not ever be a true and definitive indicator of that actor’s own personality, morals, or beliefs. Boston being an asshole does not mean Neo is an asshole. Ray being an asshole does not mean that Khao is an asshole just as Gaipa being kind does not mean that Khao is kind. Jojo and co are not monsters for creating a manipulative character(s), or including physical fist fights, drug use, promiscuity, cheating, sexual assault, abortion, kink, fatshaming etc. etc in to their works. You are not a bad person for liking imperfect characters who engage in bad actions, and you don’t need to create scenarios that place blame for those actions on others in order to justify liking a character.  Everyone on that set appeared to have a great time, and Jojo stated very clearly that all scenes were run by the actors in those scenes and anything the actors were not comfortable with being shown to a broader audience were immediately deleted. The actors were granted agency and autonomy that is not usually seen and we are seeing the performance they want to share with us, the performance they liked. That does not mean they themselves approve outside of fiction of the behaviors their characters may portray. 

Conclusion

We all need to, but white Westerners especially, be extremely careful and introspective with the ways we are engaging with queer Asian media. We need to be careful and introspective with the ways we are engaging with queer Asian characters. Asian BLs, Thai BLs especially lean heavily in to the commodification of queer Asian stories and characters. GMMTV sells products, and uses their talent as the salespeople, which I personally believe makes their talent, and the characters in their stories far more susceptible to objectification than, say, Japanese BLs that do not distribute their work as easily, or cater as readily to international audiences. 

As @bengiyo said in his post, it is totally totally fine if you do not like something. Only Friends could not be your style, there could be themes that are triggering for you, etc. that’s fine. But if you are refusing to engage with this Only Friends because Force as Top acted like he was fucking Neo as Boston, or squirming about whether or not you can watch other shows these actors are in going forward because their performances as dumb, horny college students in Only Friends made you question the actor’s morality, then I truly, deeply, and fully beg you to pause, take a step back, and reflect upon what it is about witnessing these behaviors that is causing your reaction. 

I want to end with the following quote: 

Thus, white men can choose when they want to be objectified, but men of color are simply objects. As discussed above, existing only as props for white male consumption represents another subtle form of racism. As Tony Ayres notes: First, there is overt belligerence…The second response is the exact opposite of this racist antagonism. It is an attraction to me because of my Asianness, my otherness ... This has nothing to do with my individual qualities as a person ... It is the fact that I conveniently fit into someone else’s fantasy (1999, p. 89) (Chong-suk Han, 2007)

As a reminder that we as fans, need to take a step back and consider if, when, and how we are objectifying queer Asian men. We are seeing a huge period of growth in the Asian BL industry, which means we are very likely to get more shows where we are going to see more stories like Only Friends that center realistic depictions of gay Asians as written and directed by gay Asians. And we have to check our privilege, homophobia, and racism at the door.

Sources

Ahlm, Jody (2017) Respectable promiscuity: Digital cruising in an era of queer liberalism, Sexualities, DOI: 10.1177/1363460716665783

Chong-suk Han (2007) They Don't Want To Cruise Your Type: Gay

Men of Color and the Racial Politics of Exclusion, Social Identities, 13:1, 51-67, DOI:

10.1080/13504630601163379 Rubin, Gayle (1984) The Thinking Sex: Notes for a Radical Theory of the Politics of Sexuality- Chapter 9: The Sex Wars.

(thank you to @bengiyo, @lurkingshan, @neuroticbookworm, @so-much-yet-to-learn, and @waitmyturtles for your beta readings!)

[absolutebl]

Rules: List 10 of your comfort shows

tagged by @he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle (thanks doll)

I rarely pass along tags but you should do this one and tag me if you do so I can see, comfort watches are my absolute FAVORITE.

This is a BL blog and I've watched most of them, so I will be picking BL. But I will only be picking BL I am rewatching for comfort right NOW.

Some of these may surprise. Ready?

My Top 10 Comfort BL's right NOW

1 kiss x kiss x kiss - perfect scandal (short)

My favorite of this series because it's basically office romance sexy bits we all wanted from Old Fashion Cupcake.

2 Jun & Jun

his show made up for in style what it lacked in substance. I like fluff. I loved this. I smile every moment I'm watching. This is very much MY style of BL.

3 Love is Science (BL cut)

Mark and Ouwen gotta be one of my all time favorite side dishes. LIS? is a noona romance with added mature side couple as well as these two, mostly interwoven. It’s a big buy in just for Mark & Ouwen but WORTH IT, and some kind soul uploaded a BL cut to YT. Everything is a touch quirky but the BL boys are beautiful, earnest, and high heat. It's one of Taiwan's favorite dynamics: the bisexual himbo meets the confident gay, but they are just LOVELY, plus tiny queer family at the end.

4 2 Moons 3

What can I say, it's utter trash but there is something about the main couple I love. A Thai pulp that felt like it came out 5 yrs ago with many of the flaws inherent to that time and studio system, including manufactured angst and convoluted plot, but an ultimately sweet main couple that (as a pairing) feels a bit more modern and is satisfying to watch. This will probably go down in history as one of the few BLs where I genuinely didn’t care about any of the side couples.

5 Love Class 2

But only "my couple." ( the mature student and the TA). I still hold that they probably should’ve had their own series.

6 Big Dragon

I didn't love this when it first aired but I am coming around to it more on the rewatch. (I may even up its score from 7 to 8 if the eventual movie sticks the landing). This is a pairing that proved itself to be a lot more sophisticated than I expected with nods at kink in a more respectful way than Mame could ever dream, plus excellent chemistry.

7 Why R U? Korea

The Korean remake of Why RU? is BOTH bizarro land, and EXACTLY what I expected. There is something comforting in watching the Cliff's notes version of a show I enjoyed before just in a different BL style. I don't know why I like this one so much, but I really do.

8 Takara & Amagi

I gnawed on my knuckles and squealed a lot with this show first time around. Now I still love it but I'm more calm. It is beyond charming: soft and gentle, packed with cuteness and high school angst, thirst, & yearning.

9 About Youth

A truly lovely little coming of age high school BL with a classic YA low drama but high angst and an earnest depth.

Clearly I'm having a bit of a high school phase because I've been thinking of doing this one next:

10 My School President

Yes, we’ve seen it all before, but I still ADORED this. And there is a lot to be said for the classics being re-executed perfectly. Who let my BL be this wholesome and funny?

[oh-its-souichi]

Brainrot

Astarion x reader

Astarion cast his eyes towards you. You were sitting around the fire next to wyll, a cup in your hand. The firelight reflected up into your face and lit it up, warming it, so much so he noticed your cheeks faintly flushed with warmth. That or it was the product of the wine that sloshed around in your cup. A half smile danced on his lips, and he turned his head to rid of it. Here he was casting googly eyes at a girl he had only bedded... once... only once. He brought his eyes back to the fire and wondered what you saw when you looked at him. Did you ever sneak glances at him? And if you did what did you see.

He hadnt seen his reflection in ages.

With a sigh, he rose from his spot around the fire, making his way to his tent. Unbenounced to him, your eyes flicked to him, a troubled look forming on your face.

At his tent, he snatched his hand mirror and held it at eye level. At first, he felt nervous to look into the reflective surface because what if his face did appear. Would he recognize himself or recoil in horror at the monster he became. He studied gold metal that made up the handle for a second being inpressed with the craftsmanship of the filigree engraved into the handle and the metal incasing the mirror. He wondered if the craftsman thought, maybe even cackled at the joke of a situation Astarion found himself in. His eternal life robbed him of his early memories, each year thing grew fuzzier and fuzzier until they were gone. Becoming more and more detached. What good would looking in a mirror do anyway if he were to catch a glimpse of himself would he recognize it anyway?

He brought his eyes up to look and at first only saw the glow of the underdark, the mushrooms and algea, and plants he didn't know, producing a plethora of colors. Lighting up the haunting purple darkness that surrounded. Though it was muggy and squishy and overall gastly smelling. There was something very beautiful about the underdark. He felt his mind wandering back to you and wondered if if you lived in a place like this before the parasite and once this was all over if thays where you would return... for from everything.. far from him.

He cast his eyes down for a moment but brought them back up, and when he did, there you were. You stood in the reflection of the mirror. He felt his face soften, and he couldn't help but think you looked so beautiful here. The pink glow of a plant behind you shone behind you, illuminating your grey-purple skin tone. Creating a pink rim around the tip of your white hair. "What are you doing with that?" You asked a curious look on your face. He sighed and dropped the mirror, turning to face you. "Fixing my hair, of course," he teased, but his voice lacked the enthusiasm required to convice you he felt okay about things. "Do you miss it?" You asked and he furrowed his brow. "Miss what darling?"

You motioned to the mirror with your hand. "Looking at yourself," He frowned. "Of course I do! I was very beautiful, I am still very beautiful. It would be nice to induge in some petty vanity from time to time!" He exclaimed, waving the mirror around. You squinted at him, seeming to look very closely. Your multicolored eyes peered into him, discected him alive. "What is it?" he said, turning his head aside, bashful. He felt pitiful. "Im just looking," you said with a pleased look on your face. You seemed to have no intention of telling him your thoughts, and felt perfectly comfortable keeping the words and opinions, conceptions, and judgments swirling around in your head. He motioned his arms at you dramatically "and?"

"I think you're very beautiful." You stated, and his heart was set to ease. He relaxed his shoulders, and a sly smile formed on his face. "Is that right, what else do you see?"

"Your smile, I like its sharpness"

"...and what else?"

Your hair and how it curls and waves." You reached out and ran your fingers through his hair. A pleasurable chil ran down his spine, and he closed his eyes to the sensation. Your touch was so gentle for a second that he thought this must be what it's like to be cherished. When you pulled your hand away, he was brought down from his high. "Not very fair of you, darling," he purred, and you smiled. "Im going to head back to my tent, I hope you sleep well." He stared at you in disbelief, after all that you were just going to walk away? You stepped to leave but he grabbed your hand. "Now, wait a second, you aren't going anywhere." He said "why walk the mighty distance to your tent when I have a perfectly good one here" he motioned "plus you cant just make me feel like that and walk away" his tone failed him again and what was meant to be a seductive tone came out more a s a cry for help.

You looked thoughtfully at him and then nodded. "I guess you're right, thebothers are-" You turned your head, glancing back at Wyll and Karlach, who sat half dazed by the fire. The others quiet in their tent. "-mostly asleep." Astarion brought his hand up to your chin and held it. "I dont care about the others, now come," he said, sliding his hand down and interlocking it to yours. You hesitated and he wanted to sob "I need to get my thi-" He cut you off shaking his head "no need, I have everything, borrow my shirt, my damn toothbrush, whatever you'd like." He said, and you laughed, a sound so sweet. "My gods, would you like to carry me in as well, take off my shoes and undress -" you stumbled on your words, and he eyed you dangerously. Mischief lurking. "You needent even ask, of course I do," he purred, easily scooping you up into his arms. He carried you into his tent and closed the flap door behind him. Gently, he set you down on the cushion of his bed and fascinated the string at the bottom of the door down. "Astarion I was-" you started but he shushed you, turning around. He slipped off his own boots then knelt down in front of you and started on yours. You cheeks burned pink and you quickly turned your head, avoiding his gaze. "Stubborn girl" he chuckled, discarding the left and then the right. "I can do it myself, you know" you said. He crawled up your legs and brought his lips inches from yours. "I know you can" he said. A smile came onto your face and you wrapped your arms around him neck, gently pressing his lips to yours. He deeped the kiss, his hands easily undoing your pants, pulling them down without ever losing you. You kicked them off the rest of the way. He reached for your shirt, looking down as he lifted the fabric off of you but froze. His eyes widened, the right side of your abdomine was splotted with large, deep blue bruises. They ran down onto your legs. You had a gash across your ribs as well that looked like it had been hastily stitched up.. He hadnt realized you had been battered from the scuffle earlier. "The hells you madwomen why didnt you say anything." He scolded, and you shrugged. "I took a potion after the fight, it will all be healed after I sleep"

He shook his head, running his fingers along the bruises. "No, this won't heal entirely in that time, and you are quite aware of that." He sighed. He took the remainder of your clothes off and then started to strip himself of his own. He gently nudged you to lay down. He took his place next to you and wrapped his arms around you tightly. "We can still-"

"No, I won't ravage you when you're... well already quite ravaged, " he mummbled, burying his face in your hair. You laughed, and he felt himself smiling. A wave of exhaustion crashing over him. You closed your eyes and nestled against his chest, your finger making their way back to his hair raking gently across his scalp. Goosebumps rose all over hia body and he sighed, feeding off of the sensation, a blessing. He kissed your forehead, falling into affection, so naturally, it scared him. Why was it so wasy with you. He was scheduled to die via mindflayer parasite. Why was he perfectly happy right now? Why did he thank those tentically bastards for infecting him and bringing him to you? He slid his arm underneath your neck and rested his hand on the back of your head, pressing you closer to him. "What color were your eyes before" you asked him and he opened his eyes staring the the wall of the tent. "I dont remember," he sighed. "My old life bled out from me a long time ago." You tipped your head back and looked into your eyes. One way crimson red and the other amynethest purple. He had never noticed that before. In fact he never noticed what color your eyes were at all. It burned him to hold you so close but have you be so far away, so unknown at the same time. "You've kept yourself pretty well hidden away. What wounds do you keep?" He asked and you xhuckled. "Is that your wau of asking me to tell you about myself?"

"Well I couldnt just come out and say yhay darling, its not in my character" he groaned, his voice getting more gravely with his in reaing yearn for sleep. You sighed. "I grew up in Zirnakaynin, in the middle class partion of the city" Astarion hummed, listening to your words "its chaos down there, so Ive heard" you nodded against his chest. "Yes, its beautiful." He chuckled at your and rolled onto his sid, enttrapping you in both of his arms. "Drow were the boogeyman when we were young. The rumors of bloodbaths and cities of unregulated choas and a the pitiful deaths of outsiders. Real divas of the elven world. When my mother first informed me of them i practically shi-" his words caught in his throat and echoed in his skull, the word "mother" reverberating off the bone. A wink of a memory passed him by, to quick for him to grasp it. Since when did he remember a mother.

He sat in silence and seeming to pick up on his sudden distress you picked the conversation back up. "I moved to Menzoberranzan into my adolescence and stayed. It didn't compare to my home, but I found peace with it. My life has been good." You said simply, and it almost annoyed him, your lack of misery. "The city of spiders," he said, and you nodded, silent. "You swore in then, I presume, that does explain your eye." He looked down at you and saw your one red eye almost glowing up at him. In the tales he had head, Lolth marked her followers with red glowing eyes, intimidation in the dark of whatever. "Yes, that would be the time" you said. He felt a little shift in your tone. He seemed to have hit a sore spot, maybe you were miserable after all.

In the silence that grew, the two of you found sleep nestled in one another. The morning came, and when he awoke you were gone.

When he emerged from his tent, he almost felt disappointed not to see the sun. It was still the glowing, muggy darkness. Having been in the sun so much recently, he forgot how much he missed it. He missed waking up to warmth on his face. This region wasn't overly chilly. Where you camped now was actually oddly warm, grossely warm. Like walking into a bathroom filled with the steam of someone elses bathwater.

He shivered at the thought, then pictured walking into you in a warm bath and figured it not to be so bad. Astarion took a few steps forward but stopped when he noticed Wyll walking his way with a puzzled look on his face. Astarion walked towards him, meeting him halfway. "I'd say by the look on your face you request my attention," astarion smiled, boastful. "Yes, actually," Wyll said, coming to a halt. "I haven't seen y/n this morning, I have matters to discuss with her," he said. Astarions face dropped. Like a baloon being popped, he deflaited. Suspicious of what Wyll would want with you. He was handsome and noble, he saw you two talking but not in the way you talked with Astarion. Did he plan to snatch you up? "Why?" Astarion said, tone flat. Wyll cocked his eyebrow at him. "I assure you it's only business," he said, putting his hands up. A half smile came to his face. "I seem to have struck a cord. I didn't realize the two of you were involved, an interesting choice on her part." He chuckled

Astarion scoffed, "you've not only struck a cord you've broken the whole damn string!" He said storming off, once he got a ways away he stopped and turned pointing. "And we are not involved! Officially, at least." He hollered and continued his storming. Wyll held his hands up a smile on his face. "An interesting time this is," he chuckled and continued on his search.

You were at the far side of camp bathing in the dark waters of a small waterfall nearby. Hot springs were not common up top, so you were happy to be able to bath in warm water. You currently laid back with your head on a mushroom. You would cross the lake today to fight, so you wanted to enjoy this time alone to recuperate. You out some warm wet moss over your eyes and let yourself get lost in the warmth of the water. So lost you didn't hear the pair of feet co.ing towards you. Two pairs of feet, to be exact...

Astarion was the first to waltz up, and he felt like his prayers had been answered. You were submerged in the dark water but he could see enough to know you had no clothes on. Thoigh he could do without the pond scum you have covering your eyes. "My fancy running into you here" he said, sauntering over. You shot up. Ripping the green shit off of your face. You stood before him fully exposed, and he could only grin. "You sacred me, wreched man!" You exclaimed. You wet hair clung to your soulders, some of it still hanging down your back. You looked delectable. He dry throb hit his throat and he was overcome with the urge to taste you. "May I jo-" suddenly a twig snapped behind him and he turned his head.

Wyll walked up the trail, his eyes widening when he laid eyes on you. "Hey, wyll," you said, and he turned away. "Pardon my intrusion. I didn't think of the state you would be in." Astarion scoffed. "Dont 'hey Wyll' him, get in the water, women! Gods, you are not for everyone to see!"

You smirked and sunk slowly into the water, eyeing Wyll, who remained looking away. "I only came to see what the plan for today is." He said. You sighed and swum back to your original place. " I figured everyone could rest a bit more, pack, and then go. I dont know exactly what we are up against, but if they are foreigners in the underground, without allies, they've got to be the slightest bit tough."

Wyll nodded "I think that sounds fine. Im sorry to interrupt your lovers quarrel." You stuck your hand out. "Think nothing of it, we arent involved."

Wyll nodded and started to walk away hear Astarion shout "Officially, at least." Wyll chuckled, disappearing into camp. Astarion crossed his arms and dramatically turned his head in the opposite direction of you. You eyes him blankly. "Astarion, what is it?" You said having an inkling what his dilemma was. "You are so quick to shoot us down in front of Wyll. So maybe it's him, you fancy." He said keenly, aware he did the same things mere minutes before. You hesitated on your words. You hadnt mean to hurt his feeling. You just thought it best to keep your perso al business out of the parties. "I-" You started to say but spotted a small smile threatening to form on his lips. "You tyrant, Astarion, get in the water with me and stop with your brooding." you said, words targeted. At this point you knew how to ease him, compliments and affection, love and understanding. Astarion looked to you with a wicked smile. "Now that's what I like to hear, my darling" he started to strip off his clothes and submerge himself into the water. At first, he shivered at the warmth, and then his face relaxed. "This damn parasite has made my skin so sensitive, I can feel everything, I could barely feel a thing before." He muttered, cozying himself up to you.

...

The fight hadn't gone well for you. Well, the party won against Nere but YOU personally were tore up, Karlach as well. You had expected that from a fellow Drow and part of you felt prideful, your kind still held up their scary reputation.

You laid on the stone floor of the temple blood oozing out of your side just below the platform where the others were. You had been trapped in a corner away from the rest with Nere, and he shoved you off the side with a bash to your head. You figured he lured you, but you didn't know. You didn't think the others knew where you were, though, but you didn't pay that mind. sweat dripping from your forehead. Lava surrounded the platform, and with all the blood you lost and the suffocating heat you felt so painfully ill. You turned your head to the side and could hear Gale dumping something and his magic whirl. "She should be alright. We need to get to camp and leave before any more show up." He said. "Wait.." he muttered."Astarion wheres Y/N"

"She right..." Astarion said, and you thought you heard concern in his voice. "Where the hells is she?" he said. You couldn't hear Karlach and wondered if she was alright. Your thought faded away as the heat below you zapped away your strength. You were so hot, the metal of your armor stated to burn your skin, and you wished you could strip yourself of it. A small groan left your lips. Despite the pain, your eyes started to grow heavy, and your vision blurred. You wondered if you were just extremely tired or dying. You didn't expect to die in a battle so small, so unimportant to the grand scheme of things. To die in pursuit of finding a cure so you sidnt die by the parasite lodged in your brain. A small smile came to your lips, and you giggled. "How funny," you said. Your eyes closed and from above you - you thought you heard someone speaking. "You can't die damn you," they seemed to be saying, but the voice was too far away.

...

Astarion and Gale dragged the both of you back the camp. Karlach was just alright, unconcious and still bleeding, but her survival was pretty much guaranteed. You, on the other hand, the others weren't so sure.

Your legs and right arm were badly burned. You had severe trauma to the back of your head. The healing spells Gale and Shadowheart cast on you seemed to be lightening the load of the injuries, so they were still so bad. Astarion stood outside of your tent biting his fingernails. A disgusting habit, he seemed to have picked up from the stress. It sickened him but here he was gnawing and gnawing. He spit one of his fingernails out and peered out into camp. His mind whirled. There was still so much to do, so much more ground to cover. He mused, guardians and the parasite be damned, he might sneak you away in the night and take you back to your city. The two of you could live tofether in the darkness, away from all of this. When he first saw you laid below the platform smoking and burnt he was furious. How dare you go ahead and make him care just to die in front of him, just to cause him more pain. That feeling faded quickly away from him though, now he wanted to coddle you, rob you of your pain.

Gale was in with you now, and Astarion waited impatiently outside. He was casting more healing spells. He prayed to whoever that these ones would be enough.

Gale came out a few moments later and sighed. "I think she'll be alright," he said, putting his hand on astarions shoulder. A tsunami of relief crashed over him. He wanted to sob and scream. He didn't, though. Instead, he looked at his nails. "We arent involved, if thats what your touching up is about" he said and Gale scoffed "oh dont act nonchalant, youve stood outside her tent for three days now, sighing and gnawing" Astarion scoffed "Oh pardon me for looking after my party Mr. Calm and collected, Im not gnawing anyway Im-" there was a rustling behind the two. They whipped around started by the sudden intrusion. You emerged from the tent, and though you were so beautiful to him, Astarion thought you looked like shit. "Darling ypu mus'ent be standing." he rushed to your side, putting his arm behind your back. "Im alright, Im-" you weakly protested, but he shushed you. "No, tent now." He instructed, and you sighed.

[gblogg]

Hi G! For a mini fic, how about a female oc of your choosing getting food poisoning on a date and their partner has to help them find a place to throw up? Like maybe they're walking around and need to find a private park or parking lot or something! Thank you!

Thank you for the request, Lis! I'm so sorry that it took me this long. Also, I went a little overboard with this because it was so fun to write, so it's probably not a mini fic anymore, lol. Anyways, this is my first fic on Rose and Ezme. Enjoy!

"You ready?" Rose asked as she walked over and wrapped her arms around her girlfriend, who was fixing her hair in the mirror.

Ezme smiled as their eyes met in the mirror. "Mhm, I just don't like my hair. It won't cooperate." She frowned and dropped her hands at her side. Rose furrowed her brows, confused.

"It looks fine, darling," she said, kissing the top of her head. "I always love your hair, ma chèrie," she added, walking away. Ezme grinned and nodded, smoothing down her top and following.

They had made it to the restaurant, and Ezme had picked a Thai restaurant for them to eat at. She had ordered most of the menu because she wanted to try everything, since it was their first time trying it.

"Are you not hungry?" Ezme asked, as she noticed that Rose had hardly touched her food. Rose must've zoned out, as she was snapped back into reality hearing Ezme's voice.

She started scraping the food around on her plate. "Hm?" She answered, "What did you say?" A hiccup jolted her body, and Ezme raised her brows.

"I said, are you not hungry?" Rose didn't look up, and Ezme touched her hand. "You feeling okay, baby?" Rose sighed, looked up. Her face had become slightly pale, and she was sweating.

"Yeah, I feel fine," Ezme didn't believe her for one minute. She always knew when her girlfriend wasn't feeling well. She squinted her eyes and started monitoring her carefully.

"You know I don't believe you, right? You can't lie to save your life, babe." Rose looked her in the eyes for a second and gave up, seeing her piercing glare. She looked away and leaned back against the chair, sighing.

She burped into her fist, feeling the relief of not having to lie or hide how bad she felt. "I think the lunch I ate was bad or something," Ezme's sharp gaze softened as she realised just how bad the other woman felt.

"Are you nauseous?" Ezme's question was answered with a grimace and a nod. Rose placed her head on the table, shutting her eyes and exhaling slowly. The nausea she had been feeling since lunch was starting to increase, leaving her with this disgusting feeling in her stomach. She moaned as the silence was interrupted with a gurgle, loud enough for them both to hear.

She jumped up suddenly, her face had dropped another two shades. She muffled a wet burp against her hand and shut her eyes. Ezme turned her head and looked at her girlfriend, concerned. "What -" Before she could finish, Rose darted to the bathroom.

Ezme immediately followed her to the bathroom, concerned. She figured that Rose hardly made it as she heard liquid hit liquid and her girlfriend coughing. She found her crouched in front of the toilet with one shaky hand against the wall. Ezme's heart ached as this was a miserable image.

Rose burped up more chunky liquid into the bowl, and Ezme made a face as she heard her girlfriend make a strangled noise when more vomit forced its way up her throat, choking her. Ezme shushed her and rubbed her back as she noticed the tears streaming down Rose's face. She sniffled and wiped her hand across her mouth.

"Here baby, blow your nose." She had a piece of toilet paper in her hands, and Rose grabbed it, sniffling again.

She dropped against her girlfriend and took a deep breath before talking. "I'm sorry, I ruined our date," Ezme shook her head, dismissing her choice of words. She moved her bangs out of her face, looking down at her face.

"You just puked like crazy and you're worrying about the stupid date? I'm more worried about you right now, love." Ezme smiled as her girlfriend snuggled against her lap.

Ezme patted the top of Rose's head, "Okay, we have to get off this disgusting bathroom floor." Rose groaned and nodded slowly, agreeing. Ezme stood up and pulled Rose up off the ground, catching her as she started swaying.

They were walking back to the parking lot when Rose suddenly stopped, bracing her hands against her knees, moaning. Ezme stopped at her side, touching her back and rubbing in circles. "You gonna throw up again?" Ezme already knew the answer to that question but asked anyway. She gently pulled Rose's hair back. Without warning, Rose brought up a huge gush of vomit, which made a terrible noise coming up, causing Ezme to hold back a gag.

Rose gasped for breath as a horrible hiccup sent up another splash of liquid, joining the mess already in front of her. Rose coughed, feeling her throat burn. Ezme furrowed her brows, feeling a twinge of guilt as she couldn't do anything to help her poor girlfriend. "Holy shit baby, there's no way you can still have anything left. You're done."

Rose burped emptily and straightened up, with a hand on her stomach. "Fuck.. I'm never eating at that place again." She burped again, spitting out the saliva pooling her mouth threatening to set off her stomach again.

Ezme nodded, "I wouldn't imagine you eating there again anyway, baby. Now, can we please move away from this.. masterpiece?" She gestured towards the pool of vomit infornt of them, smiling.

"You don't appreciate my art?" Ezme rolled her eyes, and they both laughed, walking towards the car.