#considering they were my number 3 top artist | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

kissoulie · 3 months ago

Text

𓈒ㅤׂㅤ𓇼 ࣪ 𓈒ㅤׂㅤ⭒

𓆡 ⭒ㅤ𓈒ㅤׂ 🫧

— NSFW, MDNI. being in love with jongseob ♡

warnings: idol!seob, fem terms (princess, good girl), not proofread, i finally use y/n 💔 i caved at the texting bit

nsfw: fem-bodied reader, very mild daddy kink, degrading (whore, slut), exhibitionism (with verbal participation), some grinding, lmk if i missed anything

a/n: jongseob u will always be my first love 😭😭😭 idk how happy i am w this but i wrote it while listening to my playlist of songs that are so Jongseob, so there is clearly some Influence here i hope u all enjoy the appetizer, entree, & dessert 🫶 dedicated to @kisseobie rosa u are my inspiration

1. encounters

jongseob is the type of person who can get along with anyone. he'll find a topic, and he'll engage. it's like a routine to him. but with you, he was genuinely so, so excited to talk to you. maybe it was a little creepy he'd peered over your shoulder, but he immediately recognized the orange from plastic beach, and wanted to know which song you were listening to.

"that's a good one, do you listen to a lot of gorillaz?" he smiles at you, watching your expression go from taken aback to relaxed. "yeah, they're one of my top artists every month."

"kim jongseob, nice to meet you." you smile back at him, and jongseob suddenly believes in love at first sight. his stop is soon. "what's your favorite song by them?"

"definitely rhinestone eyes. i know it's super popular, but it's for good reason." your gums show when you smile, your body fully turning towards him so you can offer him one of your earbuds. "what other kind of music do you listen to?"

jongseob misses his stop. he gets lost in your proximity, swapping recommendations and adding each other on spotify. you two have been chatting for what feels like forever. he never wants this moment to end, "oh, this is my stop.."

the disappointment in your voice breaks his heart just a tad. you frown at him, bumping his head with yours on accident, "i was going to listen to it with you, but i really think you'll enjoy afraid by the neighborhood. and here's my number, i wanna know if you like it or not."

jongseob doesn't just like it, he loves it. he lives it, too. he doesn't have the courage to text you that same night, but the next morning, he adds your number to his contacts.

xxx-xxx-xxxx

hey, it's jongseob, i loved afraid it rly captured how i feel sometimes lol. text me when u get the chance, i wanna see u again

jongseob types and deletes that last part many times before ultimately deciding he should be honest with you.

y/n

morning jongseob! you're up super early haha i would love to see you after work today :) <3

2. enamored

jongseob falls fast, but you fall harder. he's aware he has many faults and flaws, and he works hard to be the best he can be for you. he is the type of boyfriend to make you many playlists, for every difference occasion. he's a date saver. he will celebrate one month, two months, three months... every month. he loves you. where soul's love is subtle, calming, and attentive; jongseob's love is energetic, warming, intense.

jongseob's love is an inferno. he assimilates you into his life seamlessly. the first step is introducing you to the rest of piwon, which goes well considering he talks about you all the time. then he's inviting you to shows, his studio, dance practice (which the members love since you always bring them snacks), rehearsals. he even wants to bring you on tour with him. he knows he can't, but he wants to share his life with you. all of it.

he sends you sooooooo many pics while he's on tour. pictures of where he is, what he's seeing, him. he misses you so much while he's away, he's calling you as often as he can.

he definitely sleeps on call with you while he's gone. and begs keeho to let you sleep over when he gets back. it's not like you'll be able to do anything with soul in the room... but, you know, bribary works in mysterious ways.

3. erotic

jongseob was never above bribing soul to leave for a while so you two could be alone. it's not like he's a kid anymore, but with you not living alone, between the two places the dorm was the better one.

over the course of their tour, you've both been teasing each other like crazy. you, sending him pictures of you in his tshirts, your body, texting him late at night.

y/n

seob i can't wait until you're home :( i'm desperate to have you inside me

seobie 🤍

baby i'm about to go on. you can't be making me hard like this

y/n

it's not like you're here to punish me though :(

[attachment]

seobie 🤍

god i'm gonna fuck you so good when i get back

y/n

but i need you now daddy

seobie

2 more weeks baby, i'll be home before you know it ❤️

he was indeed home before you knew it. by then you were so desperate for him, you jumped him the moment he closed the door to his shared room. you let him pull you onto the bed with him, whining into his mouth the whole way. "patience, baby, sho's still here."

"i don't care! i need you," you started kissing down his neck as an incentive, knowing he could never resist once your hands pressed against his abs. "besides, it's nothing he hasn't seen before."

ah, yes, shota's only incentive to not rat you out to keeho and get you kicked from the dorms: sometimes he gets to watch (and sometimes he gets to join).

jongseob sighs as you slide up onto his stomach, grinding yourself against him desperately. "let's get these shorts off you first, princess."

he pushes you up by your thighs, taking off your shorts and panties in one go. "alright, baby, set yourself back down."

you push his tank top up. god, how that drove you crazy. he squeezes your hips in reassurance while he slowly slides you across his abs. "fuck, seob-"

your moan is caught with a breathy sigh. relief washes over the both of you, "that's it, pretty girl, ride me. get yourself nice and wet."

the rasp in his voice soaks you even more. you start grinding on your own, picking up the pace. he flexes, and you tense, "so close, fuck"

jongseob stops you with a hand on your thigh, getting out of his own shorts, and pulling his tank top over his head. "think you can take me without prep?"

you nod, pulling your own shirt off. he carefully lines himself up, then sets you down. the moment he slips in is pure bliss for you, "such a good girl for me."

"seems like she's a desperate little whore for you, actually." you whine hearing shota's voice, involuntarily clenching around seob at the degrading words.

"you don't know what you're talking about, sho. she feels heavenly." jongseob nuzzles into your neck, hands pawing at you desperately.

sex with jongseob is oftentimes desperate. he gets pussydrunk very easily. he'll spend hours between your thighs, eating you out with purpose, until his dick is so hard it hurts, and he can't wait another moment to be inside you.

he'll make you beg for it. not for long, but just enough for you to get teary eyed. he has a small thing for you crying for him. he was already a bit of a perv before he met you, but ever since you first had sex he's been... corrupted, almost.

taglist: @tkooooop, @haolovre ♡

#p1harmony smut #p1harmony x reader #jongseob smut #jongseob x reader

243 notes · View notes

propheticclown · 1 month ago

Text

I need you all to understand. I've seen so many people talk about how Eridan would be slaying the fashion scene. How his fashion sense is awesome and epic, or whatever. NO! Firstly, I wanna preface this by saying that Pesterquest falls under the category of "Dubiously Canon." so his massive closet isn't actually canon. But secondly, LOOK AT HIS FUCKING FIT, MY GUY!

THE DEEP BLUE WITH THE PURPLE??? THE CAPE??? THE HAIR??? BROOOOOTHER!!! THEY EVEN CHANGED THE COLORS OF HIS SCARF AND PANTS TO LOOK BETTER IN PESTERQUEST!

It's subtle but the color shifts towards indigo/cobalt rather than royal blue. "B-But what about March Eridan? March Eridan looks good and is canon!" I don't know how brainrotted you are from buying all your clothes from shien (derogatory) and temu (derogatory) to think that March Eridan looks good, but let me just show you what it looks like again to refresh your memory.

Ignoring the insanity that's even happening with this image in the first place, this IS the Original March Eridan image. Now let me tell you why this fit is more atrocious than Kankri Vantas' takes on feminism. 1. THE COLORS DO NOT WORK!!! His VIOLET symbol combined with MAGENTA arm warmers and thigh highs and a RED SKIRT???? AUUHHG NONE OF THESE COLORS LOOK AESTHETICALLY PLEASING TOGETHER IN A FASHION SENSE!!! NAME ONE TIME RED AND PURPLE HAVE EVER LOOKED GOOD TOGETHER IN TERMS OF FASHION??? 2. STRIPES AND FUCKING PLAID??? WHAT??? IN CARTOONS, MUSIC, BOOKS, AND EVEN FUCKING GAMES, DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH "Ew stripes and plaid." IS SAID??? THAT IS LIKE THE NUMBER 1 NONO IN ANY FASHION WORLD!!! 3. AND WHILE THIS ONE IS A BIT OF A STRETCH, THERE IS NO CONVINCING ME THAT ERIDAN AMPORA WOULD WILLINGLY WEAR THIS SHIT! IT JUST DOES NOT MAKE SENSE FOR HIS CHARACTER TO WEAR THIS OUTFIT! FASHION IS A WAY OF EXPRESSING ONESELVES! FASHION, AS A MEDIUM OF ART, IS A WAY A PERSON CAN EXPRESS HOW THEY FEEL ON THE INSIDE! March Eridan as an outfit, artistically expresses confidence, empowerment and a general "I'm a bad bitch you can't kill me" energy. Here's the problem. Eridan at his base components is envious, closed off, emotionally volatile, and a massive fucking nerd, which the old outfit actually does express.

His clothes are long-sleeved, showing the least possible amount of skin he can, which usually can represent being closed off. His cape is large and grandiose, showing that he likes to be exaggerated and theatrical. His scarf indicates his nerdiness, with it being a reference to Harry Potter and how it could be a tie-back to his nerdy love of wizards. The only other outfit he's shown wearing is with a flashback to when he and Vriska were a kismesis.

Here the outfit, even with as little as we see of it, is big and intense. Unlike Vriska, who essentially doesn't change outfits, Eridan puts time and effort into each theatrical performance he considers himself to be a part of. He adores intricate and exaggerated outfits. Things that are fancy, complex, and over-the-top. So that even though he doesn't feel great on the inside, even though he feels as though he's "wworse than evverybody. all the bodies." He can still look well put together. And that's WHY I don't think March Eridan as an outfit works. It's too casual for him. It's not big or flashy in a way he likes. There's not enough for him. It doesn't cover him up and because of that, he'd feel exposed. He's not closed off anymore. It doesn't exude "Eridan Ampora". Who's "most casual" piece of apparel is probably a sweater vest.

Even in the original image, he looks uncomfortable, like he doesn't actually LIKE wearing it. The only way I can find this artistically working from a writing standpoint is if Kanaya made it for him because, in the story, it is shown time and time again that Kanaya doesn't understand Eridan, so by making him this outfit, she'd take it a step further by not even understanding what he likes. Kanaya doesn't understand that Eridan is terrified of being culled, because Kanaya doesn't have to worry about that. Kanaya doesn't understand the pressures Alternian society is forcing upon him, as an Orphaner. Because Kanaya's only societal expectation is raising the new mother grub. Kanaya doesn't think about how he's most likely going to live the longest out of all his friends. Eridan has the second highest lifespan out of every troll blood color, but even then with Feferi, she's most likely going to get culled by the Condense when she's the proper age to inherit the throne. So in Eridan's mind, he's going to be alone, expected to be an Orphaner until the day he dies, utterly alone to feed Feferi's lusus until he eventually succumbs to old age or dies in war. That's why he's so closed off, yet so emotionally grand. That's why March Eridan doesn't suit him from a fashion-artistic standpoint. It's not what Eridan Ampora embodies as a character. Envy.

#homestuck #beta trolls #eridan ampora #march eridan #outfits #fashion #art #fashion art #fashion design #maybe I'm just weird #kanaya maryam #started as a rant post but turned into an analysis post #i'm too passionate about art #character design #character dynamics #character analysis

67 notes · View notes

gardenschedule · 8 months ago

Note

just came across your excellent post of quotes about the lennon-mccartney rivalry! there's sooooooo much to unpack there, but i was especially struck by your tags and hoping you could say more:

paul thrived with someone to compete against but it hurt john a lot and seemed to wear him down#i personally believe it's the number 1 cause of the breakdown of their relationship and the breakup itself#because it lead to john stacking his deck with allies like yoko and klein and looking for his own niches to succeed in without paul there

Well that's just my armchair psychoanalysis of John haha, I think he had some seriously debilitating (and mostly unwarranted) insecurities in general and particularly in regards to Paul. Their rivalry was always present but as long as their relationship was in a good place, they were working closely together and John could consider himself top dog, it was a positive motivating force for both of them and they could share the glory. But then Paul became increasingly independent (musically, artistically and socially), started churning out A-sides at a pace John struggled to match, and competing with Paul stopped being fun and was more of a source of unhappiness and stress. Then something happened (in India or around that time) that caused him to feel worthless and humiliated, while Paul was just fine, recently engaged, etc. If you're John Lennon and you've developed an inferiority complex along with a fear of being left behind or surpassed, what do you do? You strengthen your position with people like Yoko (a stalker with artistic cred who was willing to spend every moment with him) and Klein (a John guy who flattered him and made it clear he saw John as the boss), so you've got security and support. You free yourself from the pressure to compete with Paul in music by finding different ways to stand out, like politics and art. Then you're in a position where you don't need Paul and you don't need to beat him. You try to get some power back by provoking him with Yoko related antics and threatening a divorce you don't necessarily plan to follow through on - all he has to do to get you back is submit to your demands, then you have your top dog status back and you know he loves you enough to give you that. After all, when Ringo quit he got wooed back with flowers. When George quit, he got enough leverage to make changes to how they worked. But instead, Paul retreats to Scotland, inadvertently announces the breakup, then sues you. So you publicly rage about it and are deeply hurt for the rest of your life, even thought he technically just gave you what you asked for. Few journalists or authors bother to question this and just accept that you were too good for the Beatles and were bored by them and that's why the group broke up. The end.

Anyway hope that all made sense <3

#the beatles #paul mccartney #john lennon #mclennon

130 notes · View notes

awildeternity · 7 months ago

Text

Kendrick Lamar vs Drake, my own little rant

FIRST OFF, THIS HAS CREATED SOME OF THE MOST IMMACULATE MUSIC I'VE EVER LISTENED TO. I AM VIBRATING AND NOT MANAGING TO CALM DOWN, SO I'M GOING TO RANT ABOUT IT. There's so much background to this. Drake was the one to originally put Kendrick on the world stage. Kendrick was literally an opener for one of Drake's tours back in 2012. That was before Section.80, which was Kendrick's first real studio album, and even then it was more of a mixtape at the time. So, Drake and K-dot were always basically involved with one another. However, while I don't know all of the background to it, I'm pretty sure Drake has been taking shots at literally like half of the rap game for the past few years. Future, A$AP Rocky, Kanye, and obviously Kendrick a couple of times. Saying that his first big hit was basically because of Drake, and that he kept doing features with big artists like Rihanna (LOYALTY.) and SZA (All the Stars). This all leads to a lot of bullshit recently. I'm not EXACTLY sure on the timeline (Feel free to correct me if there is anything wrong), but there are a couple of notable events, notably Drake using a *AI VOICE OF TUPAC* in a song (which led to him getting a cease and desist and a LOT of heat because, well, obviously.) Kendrick accuses him of being a culture vulture, basically trying to appropriate the Black US culture that he did not grow up with. LET'S REMEMBER DRAKE WAS ORIGINALLY BORN IN A GATED COMMUNITY FOR WHITE PEOPLE IN TORONTO. HE HAS NEVER BEEN "HOOD", NEVER LIVED THROUGH GANG VIOLENCE OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. HE STEALS ACCENTS TO SEEM LIKE HE BELONGS AND BASICALLY APPROPRIATES THE CULTURE LIKE A BITCH. I'm pretty sure J.Cole also dropped a song that called himself, Drake and Kendrick the "Big 3" of the Rap Game, to which Kendrick responded in Like That by saying "Fuck the Big 3, [] it's just big me." which obviously means that he considers himself a step above both of them. That's basically when we get to the most recent stuff, and the MEAT of the topic. Drake drops Push Ups. It is some tame shit, let's be honest with ourselves. That song calls out the fact that Drake "handed" Kendrick his first number one hit, which, yeah, he kind of did, but whatever. There's picks at Kendrick's height, his foot size, the fact that his label TOP DOG takes 50% (Hence the lyrics "drop and give me 50" and the push ups title, dropping a song and giving TPE 50% of the profits) Also calling K-dot "wiped down" by more popular artists like SZA, Travis Scott and 21 Savage. Also weirdly enough taking a shot at Metro, a producer that had worked with Kendrick on Like That, but like, why??? AND THEN. FOR A FEW WEEKS, KENDRICK SAYS NOTHING. ON TUESDAY OF THIS WEEK, THOUGH, HE DROPS THE ABSOLUTE BOMB THAT IS EUPHORIA. Euphoria is the title of Drake's show he co-produced that got a bunch of heat for having some weird sexualisation of teenage girls, which is already a pretty good hit, but the LYRICS THEMSELVES. KENDRICK LITERALLY CALLS OUT DRAKE ON SO MANY THINGS. Talking about how he's not a rap artist but a scam artist that wants to be accepted (culture vulture, again), talking about the Tupac shit with "I'd rather do that than let a Canadian [] make Pac turn in his grave", once again calling out Drake being fucking CANADIAN and trying to appropriate the culture. Also making a reference to YMW Kelly and calling Drake and J.Cole his "friends" (YMW Kelly murdered two of his friends, hence why that is a diss and not a compliment.) I have to comment on the absolute HATE FEST too. "I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk, I hate the way that you dress I hate the way that you sneak diss, if I catch flight, it's gon' be direct We hate the bitches you fuck 'cause they confuse themself with real women And notice, I said "we," it's not just me, I'm what the culture feelin'"

#kendrick vs drake #kendrick lamar #kdot #drake

56 notes · View notes

amyreads · 1 year ago

Note

I had some questions if that's alright with you.

1. What inspires your characters appearance and sense of fashion? All of your characters have such great character designs.

2. Would you say there's a difference in genre between what you like to read and what you like to write or is it the same?

3. And last but not least, what are your favorite genre of IFs to play? Is there a specific genre or type of ro/trope you enjoy?

Of course! I love these kinds of questions! Long post warning!

1. What inspires your characters appearance and sense of fashion? All of your characters have such great character designs.

Thank you so much! I worked really hard to get them to fit a vibe that felt perfect for me. I really wanted them to be fashion-forward since a lot of being fame and being visible is being on top of trends. Characters like G have stylists so G is very trendy. The characters are also very expressive not only with their music but their clothes. None of the characters are very shy when it comes to their sense of fashion was is exciting because I love describing outfits. I know some authors find it tedious and 'amateur' which I kinda see why since it's a bit juvenile but I love love love it.

For G, I was inspired by 80s rockstars with long curly hair as well as Cher in the 70s haha I knew I wanted G to have a very prominent detail and it's their long (straight, in their case) black hair. G's tattoos are sort of a mark of their growth as an artist. When they first started, they were essentially 'pure' in the sense that they had no tats and were very young. As they grew older, the tats also grew in number. Touched by fame. SO poetic /j G is very flamboyant and they are very experimental/adventurous with their clothes.

This goes for Victoria. As a model and actress, she's very fashion forward. She prefers dresses over pants and that's kind of her brand haha ! Her red hair and the fact that her stage name ends in Valentine made red her brand, and she takes advantage of that. Branding is very important for her and G, so it helps when you have that *thing* that reminds people of you.

For Seven, the infamous (lol) bandana was something that just came to me. I also wanted Seven to have a "staple" look and I just think it looks cool! Again, it's very reminiscent of the old age rock stars. If Seven were a cartoon character, the outfit they wore at the party (industrial shirt/red and black striped undershirt) would be their "everyday outfit" I think. It really shows their personality; Seven's oversized, messy look reflects them in a way. The fact that it looks deliberately disheveled but Seven worked hours to look good is very telling of who they are. Seven likes to pretend they don't care but we all know that's not the truth!

August has a very calming quality to them. Very grounding. In a story where the ROs are all messes, August's penchant for silence and calm shines. Their colors are a nice brown, green, beige. Very neutral and low-key. They wear a lot of sweaters and cardigans and linen pants because it's comfortable and cozy. Their clothes reflect their personality the most. Kinda reminds me of pajamas in a way!

Orion is pretty self explanatory. While everyone else considers BOTB and everything an outlet for their creativity, Orion sees it for what it is: a job. He dresses professionally to set him apart from the band and everyone else. He's there to work. He's very clean-cut, and very neat so it shines in his clothes.

Seb is well, I wanted Seb to be very unassuming and just normal hahaha. Everyone else dresses really stylishly and I wanted Seb to be really low-key. It's obvious he has no desire to be in the spotlight and that shows with his plain, basic clothing.

2. Would you say there's a difference in genre between what you like to read and what you like to write or is it the same?

Hm, up until recently I used to only read fantasy. I think one of my first if games was Choice of Rebels, among a few others. Writing fantasy is what helped build up my skill. All I've ever wanted to be was a fantasy author until one day...I just started hating it. I hated writing fantasy. I LOVE LOVE reading it, but I hate writing fantasy. I don't know why. I think it's because I fail to convince myself. My suspension of disbelief is very strict when it comes to my own writing, while another writer can convince me of anything in fiction so as long as it makes a lick of sense. It's weird!

I still love fantasy as a reader but I don't think I could ever write it. I do want to try one day though!

I'm more strictly slice-of-life nowadays, aside from Body Double. I think it's easier for me. I love romcoms. I love romance, which hasn't changed. I find it funny that I'm not very romantic in real life but romance is like a baseline requirement for me in stories.

One thing that stays the same is that I love angst. Reading and writing it. I don't like fluff, it makes me cringe. (There will be fluff in Infamous aha). I don't like power fantasies or any of that. Ah, I don't know!

3. And last but not least, what are your favorite genre of IFs to play? Is there a specific genre or type of ro/trope you enjoy?

I'll read anything! I don't have a favorite, I don't think, but I do love urban/modern fantasy. A mixture of slice-of-life and fantasy is the sweet spot for me.

Specific type of RO I like are the emotionally unavailable/closed off ones or the mean ones haha. I do not like easy romances. I like working for it and I think when an RO doesn't want my character it makes it so much more fun and the payoff is so much more satisfying. I need yearning...longing. I need slow burn!

I know there are readers who like playing games where the MC is important loved but I'm not a fan. I like my MC being a regular person that's treated accordingly depending on the character and the story. I don't want my MC to get special treatment or to be powerful just because they're the MC. It has to make sense to me. For me, the ROs should have a greater purpose that goes beyond just romancing the MC.

I get a lot of flak for making the MC an underdog in infamous, but MC is not meant to be the most important person in the room at the start of the story. They need to earn it, which I think feels better.

My favorite RO from any IF game is Nash so <3 I guess that says it all hahah

I hope you liked my answers! This was really fun for me lolol

#inbox #me.txt

33 notes · View notes

picathartidae · 6 months ago

Note

Ask game! Wouldst thou be so kind as to answer numbers 7, 9, 18, 19, 20? <3

Can do! If you’re okay getting Durge answers to Tav questions, since my custom/Tav characters are all from a homebrew D&D setting and not fleshed out enough within the Forgotten Realms to give proper answers for.

Though fair warning; some of these answers may be long and likely massively spoilery, for both the game and the garbage fanfiction I’m writing about it.

7. What circumstances led to your Tav becoming their class/subclass?

Alassane, through various exceedingly unfortunate circumstances, ended up alone on the streets of Baldur’s Gate for multiple years when he was 15 or so. What is an urchin in a high fantasy setting to do but to learn the ways of the con-artist, get very good at larceny, and generally fall into the lovable scoundrel and rogue archetype?

Basically, he’s a self-taught rogue who had to learn the hard way to survive on his own. He became a rogue through sheer pragmatism. He turned to being an assassin specifically around the age of 17/18, when his biological family came back into his life.

9. What was your Tav doing when they were taken by the mind flayers?

He was catatonic, as he had been for maybe nine months at that point, and imprisoned in the mind flayer colony deep beneath Moonrise Towers. Then his pod was shoved onto a nautiloid, and the rest is history.

18. What is your Tav's greatest fear?

Short answer; Alassane’s greatest fear is probably his father.

Long meandering answer; Bhaal is arguably the only thing that legitimately scares Alassane, because of the power Bhaal clearly has over him. He’s frightened of himself too, but this is mainly because of the gnawing feeling he has that there is ultimately no difference between him and his father.

Alassane leans very hard into a specific character and personality he has constructed for himself, because he cannot stand the idea of who he really is, and is terrified of the rejection and isolation that will surely come if anyone ever witnesses the truth. More specifically, he’s terrified of the idea that he is nothing more than a fragment of Bhaal, that his soul is not his own but a piece of Bhaal’s unholy essence, and that “Alassane” as a person doesn’t really exist, and maybe never has.

The fact that he was simply abandoned immediately after being “born” deeply traumatised Alassane and left him with this deep seated desire to prove himself worthy, because he believes that after everything he’s done, his father is the only one who will ever potentially accept him as he is. That gives Bhaal an unimaginable amount of power over Alassane, on top of the murder urges that can also wrest Alassane’s autonomy away from him.

Alassane is so sure that no one will ever accept/love/forgive him for the things he’s done that he sincerely believes Bhaal is his only option. Which is, of course, all insanely abusive and shit, because Bhaal is what made him that monster, but Alassane doesn’t really come to understand that until he’s forcibly removed from the situation.

19. What is your Tav's greatest desire?

To be his own person, dictate his own existence, and generally gain some sense of autonomy over who he is and his life. He isn’t really aware of this for most of his life, but ultimately when you get down to it, he wants his choices to be his own, and he wants them to matter.

20. What is your Tav's greatest regret?

Okay, this one is the most spoiler-heavy answer of the lot, so be careful.

Alassane’s greatest regret is the deaths of his foster family. It’s kind of the entire driving force behind his journey as a character, and the one thing he was never able to let go of. It’s the reason why he’s so deeply emotionally attached to his name, and why he’s violently opposed to ever going by the moniker of “the Dark Urge”.

His foster family loved him deeply, giving him a traditional family name as a way of making it clear that they considered him to be their real son, and that he would always belong with them, even after they had a biological daughter of their own. The name “Alassane Erendse” became his last connection to the life he wishes he still had, back when he did actually have that unconditional love he obviously craves. So of course, Bhaal took it all away, by having Alassane himself be the one to kill them.

The ordeal broke Alassane so thoroughly it made him numb to all the monstrous things that followed. It haunts him even after losing his memories, to the point that his “dream visitor” is a grown up version of his baby foster sister.

#answered asks #character asks #oc: alassane erendse #30 tav questions ask game

10 notes · View notes

waitmyturtles · 1 year ago

Text

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: Love of Siam, The Intersectionality of Expectations and Demands, and the Tentacles of Influence On the BL Genre Edition

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, in a long post, I cover the pre-BL film Love of Siam, and its tremendous influence on today's Thai television BL genre.]

As we recover from the first weekend of Only Friends...now for something a little different, ha.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that while I was on the chronological journey through my Old GMMTV Challenge watchlist, that I jacked up my watch schedule to roll back in time to add two pre-television-BL movies in Love of Siam (2007) and My Bromance (2014). My review of My Bromance will drop later this week, but I want to give more attention at the moment to Love of Siam, a seminal film for queer media in Thailand, and a definite influence and harbinger on the development of the future genre of television BL in Thailand after the film's release. Considering our beloved Thai BL auteurs who have been knowingly influenced by LoS: it's a must-add for the list.

Now that I've watched Love of Siam: while I know I'm reviewing it in my 2023 watch schedule out of order, I am tremendously glad that this review will sit on top of the enduring list as the first of the Old GMMTV Challenge syllabus, as I think it contains a number of themes that get explored in the future of television Thai BLs from 2014 on. As well, the film also opens a door into how Thai, pan-Asian, and international audiences of various demographics receive and have received the film over the last 16 years since the film's release.

Most importantly for this piece: I'd like to address Love of Siam in an intersectional analysis, specifically analyzing the film from the queer lens/perspective and the Asian lens/perspective. What I'd like to address about LoS is as follows:

1) A summary of the movie, why Love of Siam was remarkable when it was released, and a quick overview of who has been influenced by it in Thai BL auteur circles, 2) How the ending of the movie (spoiler alert) has been received and understood by specific audiences, 3) An intersectional overview of those potentially differing expectations and opinions, and what that intersection means for how the global television BL fandom watches and understands Thai television BLs today, 4) What we see today, theme-wise, by what works and artists I think were influenced by Love of Siam,

and other floating points as I come to them.

It was the inimitable @bengiyo who recommended -- nay, insisted -- that I watch Love of Siam, not only for the OGMMTVC syllabus, but also as a means of analyzing I Told Sunset About You by way of its story structure and resolution, which I'll get into in a few moments. (I actually had the very great pleasure of joining @bengiyo and @shortpplfedup, along with a few other clowns, to talk about ITSAY on an upcoming The Conversation podcast, in which Love of Siam came up as a topic -- thank you, Ben and NiNi, for the honor! I'll talk more about the conversation that took place in the podcast in a few moments.)

Love of Siam focuses on Mew and Tong, two young schoolboys who were separated by a family tragedy in Tong's family. After Tong's sister disappears and is presumed dead, Tong's father turns to alcoholism, and the family moves away. Tong's mother takes up the mantle of breadwinner and the glue that keeps the rest of the family together. When Mew and Tong reach high-school age, they reconnect in Bangkok's Siam Square mall. I'll try to not give too much more away, because there's a tremendous follow-up to Tong's sister's legacy within the film, but the movie is perhaps best known for its ending, in which Mew and Tong do not get together. The two had spent the film negotiating their attraction to each other in the face of the intervention of Tong's mother, who worked on keeping them apart, and reconnected with the help of a mutual friend in Ying, who originally had a crush on Mew before discovering he was gay. The ending echoes the common endings of the majority of queer media at the time, in which couples did not get together, and/or were forcibly separated, and/or were tragically eliminated. (Brokeback Mountain was released two years earlier in 2005, and André Aciman's original novel, Call Me By Your Name, comes out in the same year as LoS, in 2007.)

For broad cinematic context, Love of Siam was Thailand's entry in the 2009 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (now called Best International Film). To compare LoS to television BLs on the OGMMTVC list, only the Nadao Bangkok works (I Told Sunset About You, etc.) come at all close to the quality of LoS's filming. The acting, the cinematography, the pacing, and the story structure of this movie were all superb. I enjoyed every minute of it, despite the ending. (We had our first instance of Kob Songsit playing a father named Korn, which -- was it a coincidence that he did the same in KinnPorsche? Especially considering KinnPorsche's happy ending -- it's a high likelihood. More on this in a bit.)

The movie received a fair share of controversy upon its release, as it had been originally marketed as a love story between two heterosexual teen couples. The "surprise," as it were, of finding out that Mew and Tong were the main romantic protagonists, caught Thai audiences by surprise. The filmmakers reported that they were unaware of the modern extent, at that point, of Thailand's common homophobia, but @bengiyo also let me know that at the same time, fans of the film were devastated to not see Mew and Tong get together in the end. Despite the competing controversies, the film was the most successful film in Thailand in 2007.

It's well known that many of our favorite Thai television BL auteurs, like Backaof Noppharnach, Jojo Tichakorn, New Siwaj, and others, watched and were influenced by the film -- they've talked about it previously in interviews in Soonvijarn and other arenas. I haven't seen My Only 12%, but @bengiyo tells me that New Siwaj directly tackles Love of Siam in that series. I'll come back to talk more specific works by these auteurs, and how I think some of these auteurs responded to the influence of Love of Siam in their works, in a bit.

As I mentioned previously: the ending of Love of Siam is controversial. Tong's mother intervened with Mew to tell him to stay away from Tong. She equates Tong being with Mew romantically to "losing her son" (a notion that is repeated in the 2019 film, Dew), which she clearly doesn't want after losing her daughter. Tong's mother is later shown as seeming to accept Tong's sexuality -- but it's not clear if she will ever accept him being in an actual relationship. That's not addressed. Separately, Mew's and Tong's friend, Ying, gives up on her romantic hopes towards Mew to help Tong reconnect with Mew after their brief separation.

Ying helps Tong find a meaningful token of his past with Mew. After gifting him the token, Tong says to Mew:

"I can't be your boyfriend. But it doesn't mean that I don't love you."

And Mew, smiling, says: "Thank you."

The end of the movie shows Ying sobbing heavily among her group of friends, and Mew sitting and crying in a room, saying "thank you" once more.

Jumping ahead a bit: during my participation in The Conversation podcast, the topic came up of whether or not ITSAY was an "apology" for Love of Siam. I think this question is a great way to enter what I briefly want to analyze intersectionally by way of how various audiences can interpret LoS's ending.

In conversation with the wonderful @bengiyo and @so-much-yet-to-learn (thank you both!), I understand that international queer audiences were severely disappointed in LoS's ending, for obvious reason. There was a lot in this movie that seemed to otherwise indicate acceptance of queer relationships and queer love, including by Tong's mother. That a relationship itself could not be confirmed was painful to watch.

When I was watching this film, I knew that the ending wasn't going to be good -- I just didn't know how it would play out exactly. I've had this experience before, where I'm aware that an ending of a thing I'm watching is going to be questionable, and when I get to the actual ending, I'm like -- OHHHH. Wait. I get why this ending is the way it is. The last time I felt like that was when I watched 2gether. In 2G, the ending/lack of intimacy immediately gave me a holistic understanding of why the show performed so well in Asia.

I watch Asian shows first and foremost with an Asian lens -- because I am an Asian. (I'm also a cishet woman.) My expectations of media coming from Asia are different than the expectations of non-Asian audiences. Maybe even as a cishet Asian woman -- my expectations of Asian media might be different from other Asian demographics, like Thai or pan-Asian queer audiences.

Generally speaking, the ending of LoS did not surprise me in the least, especially for being a piece from 2007. When Mew said "thank you," I was like, yep. Of course this was going to be how the movie ended.

Going back to the point I made earlier about queer media, globally, of this moment in 2007 having expected bad endings -- we come to an intersectional interpretive crossroads for Love of Siam's ending. Queer audiences were disappointed to be let down. I'm going to guess that the majority of Asian audiences, like myself, had a less surprised reaction (although again, to @bengiyo's point, it seems like some Thai fans protested the ending).

Non-happy, open-ended, and/or "bad" endings proliferate more in Asian media than in Western media. I've written about this before in a Big Meta on pain and suffering in Asian dramas. As an Asian consumer of Asian media, I've been conditioned all of life to not expect for the best of the characters I'm watching. Many of the Indian movies from the 1940s, '50s, and '60s that my parents showed me in my childhood had sad or politically-driven endings. Love being yanked right away for the sake of a "moral" or "ethical" lesson -- I'm conditioned to expect it. Most memorably for me, when I was a young lass, my parents showed me and my siblings Chemmeen, a 1965 film about a married woman nursing a long-lived lost-love with a man outside of her marriage. They had been separated all of their lives for various social status reasons. At the end of the film, when they finally embraced, they are wiped out by a storm. After the "WTF, mom and dad?!" outbursts from me and my siblings, my parents simply said -- this is the moral of a story that was important when we were growing up. You don't fall in love with someone you are not supposed to fall in love with. (Probably the saddest ending I've ever experienced in Asian media is Yoshimura Akira's Shipwrecks. I recommend it highly, but it's a bruiser.) (And MANY THANKS to my dear friend and fellow desi-homey, @neuroticbookworm, for tracking down Chemmeen based only on my hazy childhood memories!)

I've talked at length with @neuroticbookworm about our instinctual expectations of Asian media and when Asian media either toes the line of predictability (sad endings) or when it pushes the paradigm to, for us, new results (happy endings). (And this is in spite of Bollywood, which of course often has happy endings, but even Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, one of the biggest Indian movies of all time, was laced with sadness.)

LoS did something different than the media I grew up with, which I appreciated in the film. It was subtle, but as @bengiyo noted to me -- it was there. A whiff of acceptance was in the movie. This was the Thai film industry's way of beginning to play around with queer acceptance. I personally think that while the ending statements of "thank you" were stark, they did not indicate anything by way of emotional conclusion for Mew. When I saw Mew crying during his last "thank you," and Ying bawling at the end of the movie -- I took from that their acceptance of the devastation of a socially and culturally-based decision that needed to be made by Tong and his family.

Mew and Tong could acknowledge their love to each other. But for 2007 Thai cinema, they could not go further than that. To flirt with the idea that a Thai family would, in fiction, accept a gay relationship, was likely too progressive. Censors, the government, even Thai audiences, all may have balked.

The intersectional crossroads of this decision are important for me to root myself in. On the one hand, there's the disappointment of Thai, pan-Asian, and international queer audiences that Mew and Tong could not come together.

(I want to note that specifically for Western/non-Asian audiences of all demographics, there is a reality that a DEMAND that Asian filmmakers create happy endings — like Mew and Tong coming together — might be coming from a colonialist point of view, one that may ignore or not consider common Asian media practices and cultures. I unfortunately see this often in shipper culture emanating from the West, and I'm heartened that some Thai content makers are beginning to call international fans out on it. I note down below that market expectations of these endings have certainly changed in today's age, but checking privileges upon demanding something specific of Asian content is something that is always worth doing.)

On the other hand, there are Thai and pan-Asian audiences that interpret Mew and Tong not coming together as a matter of timing (the market not being ready for a confirmed queer relationship on screen), and as well, a matter of expectation that what we'd HOPE for -- Mew and Tong being together -- could AND would not happen, because conversationally, that kind of happiness would be culturally and socially impossible both in art and in real life. For instance, for Mew and Tong to negotiate their relationship with their respective families, on screen, in 2007? Talking to their parents about how they could get together? Damn. I can't.... for that time period, I cannot imagine Asian media, Thai or otherwise, going there. To involve families talking about acceptance -- I don't believe the market, Asian-based audiences, and even international Asian-diaspora audiences being ready for that. (And that's not to say that people of my generation wouldn't have welcomed it. But, for instance -- my parents' generation would have been in protest for movies depicting that kind of conflict, resolution, and outcome playing out in any sort of positive way.)

Remember, again, this is 2007. Let's jump WAY ahead for a second -- to the now, when we can have a show like My School President in 2022. A show, like LoS, that depicts two high school boys navigating attraction and love. A show that actually features a high school band (Mew being a lead singer in a band is a main plot point of LoS). And a show that includes young men falling in love and navigating their families. And Gun and Tinn end up together.

How far we've come from 2007 to now. As I noted above, the expectations of audiences outside of queer circles among Asian and international audiences for positive endings have changed drastically. I haven't even watched MSP yet, but imagine if Gun and Tinn DIDN'T get together. Think about it for a moment. Even as someone who hasn't watched the show yet -- even I know how crazy that sounds, from what we've been habituated to expect out of Thai television BLs, since the rise of the genre from Love Sick in 2014 -- a full seven years after the release of LoS. Thai, pan-Asian, and international audiences of all demographics would have been up in arms.

We know now -- again, seven years after the release of LoS -- how seminal Love Sick was for Thai television BLs, in including the Phun x Noh storyline in the context of an ensemble drama. And now, I feel like I have even more context for how UTTERLY seminal the ending of Love Sick was -- for Phun and Noh to consciously decide to BE TOGETHER, and to end the show that way, in the face of the line of previous expectations that LoS had originally had to toe. It fills my heart that so much progress could have been made in such a short time. Seven years doesn't seem short. But this is where I often drop a comparative point -- that it took 50 years for gay marriage to be legalized in America. Change sometimes seems long, but in hindsight -- change can also happen fast in context.

I think the intersectional conclusion to this is that Thai filmmakers didn’t give up in pushing to experiment with positive endings in a genre — queer media — that didn’t commonly have them. By having Phun and Noh confirm their relationship in Love Sick; by having TeeFuse and FrameBook CELEBRATE their relationships in the early BL series, Make It Right/MIR 2 — these shows began to change an expectedly doomed paradigm of sadness and heartbreak. And — AMAZINGLY! — these early shows that took such risks found accepting audiences. And the market has since responded.

Now — with these shows also came the rise of toxic shipper culture and continued homophobia of actors who are actually out and gay. That’s the gray side to all of this. But Thai BL auteurs then and now still play in this sandbox. As akin to the legislation of gay marriage in America, the progress of LGBTQ+ acceptance in Thai media and Thai society is rocky. (Remember this: Barack Obama did not outright support gay marriage when he first ran for office. He was already president when he permanently changed his public tune.) But that road is continually being paved as audiences in Thailand and globally grow ever more accepting of equal rights for all. While queer audiences celebrate this with bells on — I also am beyond thrilled that Asian audiences can take away learnings about LGBTQ+ equality, especially in countries where homosexuality is banned (Malaysia), where same-sex marriage is legal (Taiwan), and in everywhere in between, where there may be outward social practices of acceptance and internal practices of continued familial or even social homophobia. The general consistency of moving the dial forward on Thai BL media showing equality is good for ALL audiences, no matter how you cut it.

I want to take a moment to talk about the clear and enduring influence that LoS had had on present-day Thai BLs. Like I said earlier, many of our favorite Thai BL auteurs have stated that they were influenced by LoS, and I want to just do a little nerdy comparative analysis out of admiration for those creators that I simp on.

As I wrote previously, I thought LoS was brilliantly written and filmed -- it was a gorgeous movie, even at a 2.5-hour run time. LoS was rooted in a few major themes (but there are more within the film) that I see cropping up in present-day Thai BLs.

The first is the use of religion and spirituality as a means of indicating cultural mores around queer acceptance. Tong's family is Catholic. Catholic imagery peppers the film -- most notably for me, towards the end of the movie, when Tong flops on his bed with a huge poster of the cross pasted on the wall above him. Like I wrote earlier, Tong's mother has said to Mew -- if you two get together, I will lose my son. Tong being in a queer relationship is clearly against the family's Catholic practices -- the cross hovers in Tong's most intimate space.

On the flip side, Mew's family is Buddhist, and clearly demonstrated as so. I would also argue that Tong's Catholic family benefits from Buddhist beliefs, in a reincarnation plot that includes Tong's sister. As we know from the many Thai BLs that incorporate depictions of Buddhist practices -- Buddhism does not generally speak to a condemnation of the LGBTQ+ community, although local expressions and practices may differ. He's Coming To Me, Until We Meet Again, and Big Dragon are three shows that, to me, include Buddhist frameworks most distinctly, but of course -- our beloved BL guys are going to temples all the time and making merit. Even Gay OK Bangkok has multiple temple scenes -- and that's an overtly queer, non-BL drama. A temple is often a common locale that we see our beloved queer couples able to be together safely, outside the privacy of a home.

The second theme of note emanating out of LoS is filial piety. When Tong says to Mew, "I can't be your boyfriend," part of what he's saying is -- I can't do this to my family. Filial piety is SUCH a presence in many BLs -- to me, most notably in I Told Sunset About You, as I reflect on Teh's hugely emotional reaction in giving up his university admission for Oh-aew, and the fall-out vis à vis his mother that results from that decision (and Oh-aew has his own filial piety storyline as well). (I want to note that the ITSAY links include a phenomenal reblog from @bengiyo that talks in part about how ITSAY speaks to LoS -- a must-read.) Part of the presumed danger of coming out in Thai BLs, to me, stems from not only fearing rejection of one's own sexuality by a character's family -- but in also disappointing one's family in the public and private Asian family construct, especially considering that we're witnessing mostly young men coming out, who carry their own load of gender-based expectations from their families.

This harkens back for me Thun's coming-out conversation with his mother in episode six of He's Coming To Me. In episode five, Thun asks, famously, on a rainy rooftop -- "I have this feeling, but I don't know what to call it" (which, I think, is an Aof callback to Tong asking Ying in LoS -- "what am I, Ying?"). In episode six, Thun, a young man who has already lost his father, clearly sits with concern that he might lose his mother. And, of course, Thun's mother comes back with the most empathetic response to a coming-out that I've ever seen in a Thai BL. Maybe Thun's mom is also a response to Tong's mom.

Finally, I want to go back to the theme and the idea of sad endings vs. happy endings. When I first began to get OBSESSED with Thai BLs was when I watched Bad Buddy for the first time. Bad Buddy, to me, encapsulated a feeling I had that what I was watching was DISTINCTLY, PROGRESSIVELY Asian by the many themes it included that I relate to as an Asian, from filial piety, to intergenerational trauma, to keeping secrets from family and friends, and so much more.

I think, for my interpretative stance at this point of the OGMMTVC, that it's clear that Aof Noppharnach has most commonly addressed themes and influences from LoS in his work (again acknowledging that New Siwaj did something similar in My Only 12%). I think I admire the endings of He's Coming To Me and Bad Buddy in particular because Aof did something that I think is really hard to pull off. As I said to @so-much-yet-to-learn, Aof pulled off not-necessarily-happy, open-ended resolutions to those two shows that hewed far more to real-life-level conclusions about queerness than overtly happy endings in the face of other tenuous influences, such as family rejections. At the end of He's Coming To Me, Thun is in love with a ghost that may be reborn at any point in time — Thun could lose Med without a moment’s notice. At the end of Bad Buddy, Pran and Pat are not out to their families and are separated by distance. But -- à la Love of Siam -- there are subtle indications that acceptance may be on the horizon on the part of Pran's and Pat's families.

To me, Aof negotiating these endings is just so brilliant, and hews authentically to the journey, to the path that Asian audiences, like myself, can once again relate to from the media we grew up with. If we as Asians grew up not expecting happy endings, how does that change our experience of watching shows that end happily now? By watching media with inconclusive or pointedly unhappy endings, Asian audiences are led to think that life is more complicated and gray than a happy ending would lead one to believe. From a queer lens — if the MAJORITY of queer media ends badly, then it seems that the underlying message is that the community ITSELF doesn’t DESERVE happiness. I will always appreciate the majority of Thai BLs changing this paradigm.

Many of Aof’s work sit in the middle of this, either by ending or by journey. Moonlight Chicken indicates a painful growth and acceptance process of internalized homophobia for Jim, the chicken rice vendor. Same for Phupha, from A Tale of Thousand Stars to Our Skyy 2. Pat and Pran are physically separated and mostly closeted. Thun is dating a ghost. Even Type and Man in Still 2gether are almost permanently separated by Type’s job. Aof doesn’t shy away from loose ends. He’s not giving devastation. He’s balancing, I think, the history of what was expected, with what real life often gives by way of what actually happens in imperfect situations.

And this isn’t entirely universal in Aof's works. In the two previously existent series that Aof "took over" in Kiss Me Again and 2gether: Pete and Kao are solid at the end of Dark Blue Kiss. Sarawat and Tine end nice and heaty in Still 2gether. But what I think is particularly brilliant about Aof’s overall oeuvre is that balance and appreciation he clearly has for art that questionable, open-ended endings gave to pieces back when he and I were younger folks. Aof doesn’t devastate us, or his characters. But he certainly makes all of us — his characters and his audiences — contemplate the meaning of our existences and our roles in society by way of the obstacles and inequities we all face, by the time a show of his is concluded. Those searing examinations are what I live for in his repertoire in particular, and they are what remind me the most about the Asian media I grew up with vis à vis Aof’s modern works.

I have to thank him for that. Maybe as an older viewer of Thai BLs (I'm close in age to Aof), I sometimes need a bridge to the robust happy endings that shows like Make It Right, Dark Blue Kiss, Still 2gether, and more have. Love of Siam reminded me of where we once stood. Aof's works are the bridge to a kind of 180-degree turn-of-perspective, towards a happiness in fiction that, as a child of Asian media, I never knew I could enjoy. And I'm glad, in today's age as I continue to robustly enjoy the genre that is Thai BL, that I can experience that kind of satisfaction in Thai art now.

[So all of this is happening while we're getting early into Only Friends, and Dangerous Romance premieres this week. The riches! So much going on!

Later this week, I'll publish a (hopefully short-ish) review of another film, My Bromance (2014) to talk about the Flukes and yaoi influences on BL. Then, FINALLY (!!!) will come my Manner of Death review, my A Tale of Thousand Stars rewatch review, my Lovely Writer review (LOVED THIS SHOW), and somewhere in-between, a non-OGMMTVC review of Jojo Tichakorn's The Warp Effect, which I'm HOUSING for the sake of Only Friends.

Hit list below! Hit me with feedback! (Tumblr's new web editor is jacking with this list below and not letting me strikethrough those shows that I've watched. For the most updated list, check this link right here.)

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review coming) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 5) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 6) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 7) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 8) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 9) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 10) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 11) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 12) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 13) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 14) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 15) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 16) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 17) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 18) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 19) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 20) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) 21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 24) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) (review coming) 25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (review coming) 27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review coming) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) 31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 32) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) [watching for Cheewin’s trajectory of studying queer joy from Make It Right (high school), to SCOY (college), to Bed Friend (working adults)] 35) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 36) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist 37) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 38) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 39) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 40) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 41) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults) 42) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 43) Only Friends (2023)]

#love of siam #the love of siam #love of siam meta #the love of siam meta #backaof noppharnach #new siwaj #bad buddy #he's coming to me #dark blue kiss #still 2gether #my school president #turtles catches up with old gmmtv #the old gmmtv challenge #ogmmtvc #turtles catches up with the essential bls #turtles catches up with thai bls

37 notes · View notes

1001albumsrated · 6 months ago

Text

#13: Miles Davis - Birth of the Cool (1957)

Genre(s): Jazz, Post-Bop, Cool Jazz

Welp, it only took 13 albums for me to screw up and skip an album by mistake. I went back and edited my prior posts to correct the numbering. Birth of the Cool is a pretty embarrassing one to skip too; like all self-respecting jazz listeners, I'm a big Miles fan, and had been looking forward to talking about some of his work (this is far from the last Miles album in 1001 Albums).

Despite being number 13 on the list, these are actually the earliest recordings in the whole book. Ironically, despite now being considered a classic jazz album and typically viewed as a single coherent album, Birth of the Cool is actually a compilation album comprised of 78 sides recorded by the Davis nonet for Columbia between 1949 & 1950 and later reissued together as an LP. This is more common in Miles' discography than you'd expect; many of his later albums were released a few years after the initial recording as his workflow shifted towards recording long sessions with a single band and then producing multiple albums from a few related sessions.

At the time of recording Miles was coming hot off his breakthrough success as part of Charlie Parker's band. These sessions were some of his first recordings as bandleader and established him as a pioneering voice in jazz. The cool jazz sounds on these sessions stand in stark contrast to the fast-paced technical showcases heard on most bebop albums at the time. He'd already made a name for himself as someone concerned with the aesthetics and timbral quality of sound with his unique approach to trumpet playing as part of Bird's band, focusing on playing "straight" with a pure, unembellished sound (this is a stark contrast to trumpet playing at the time, which had a strong Louis Armstrong influence with a highly embellished approach), and the Birth of the Cool sessions cemented it. The arrangement and instrumentation was highly unusual at the time (a nonet with a french horn!) but was crafted with intention to create the specific timbral textures present on the recording. This kind of thinking was mostly unheard of in jazz at the time (and arguably in music at large), with the main focus of most groups being the technical elements of the performance rather than the aesthetic ones. This approach is one of the few consistent elements in Davis' long, storied, strange career. While the aesthetic goal often changed as his sound evolved, the focus was a constant one that I personally believe is largely responsible for consistently setting his music apart from the crowd over the years.

The Birth of the Cool sessions also started to overarching trend of constant change in Miles' career. He was always trying to find the next new thing, and was never satisfied with resting on his laurels. It's as evident here as it would be throughout his career: by the time Birth of the Cool was compiled and released as an LP, Miles had already moved on to innovating hard bop, and was only a few years from pioneering modal jazz with Kind of Blue, which would turn the genre completely on its head once again. Frankly, most artists would have never left the immensely successful and influential sound of Birth of the Cool, but by the time it was released Miles was already honing in on the NEXT next big thing. To me, what's what made Miles different from the majority of his peers and earned him his legendary status today as one of jazz's finest composers and bandleaders. If you follow the careers of the other top jazz players in history you'll see similar trajectories of never being satisfied with stagnancy (artists like John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and Sun Ra all come immediately to mind; incidentally 3/4 of those listed had large roles in various iterations of Miles' bands).

Another innovative element here was that the nonet was racially diverse and integrated. I need to remind you, this was in 1949. Brown v Board wouldn't come to pass for another 5 years, and the South was still steeped in segregationist Jim Crow thinking. While things were becoming more integrated in the jazz scene, racial tensions in the US were still high at the time and it was very uncommon to see a mixed group like this, both due to the tensions of the time and due to the challenging logistics of touring with such a group (particularly in the South). Miles always said that he simply picked the best players for the job when selecting band members for a session. In this case, he was heavily inspired by modern classical music and found that many white players played that style more to his liking. You could write a whole essay on the topic of racial politics in jazz at this time and I simply don't have the room in a Tumblr post to give the topic the time it deserves, but I'd be remiss not to put the band and recordings in the context they existed in.

Anyways, it probably goes without saying, but yes you MUST hear Birth of the Cool before you die. It's a spectacular listen, and a highly influential one. Also of note, it's a good starter album if you're just getting into jazz and don't know where to begin (I'd also recommend Kind of Blue, but we'll talk more about that when we get there). It has enormous music depth, but is highly accessible to a non-jazz listener.

For the nerds: I listened to this one in hi-res on Qobuz, purely because I was on a roll at the time and didn't feel like going to the other room and throwing the CD in my main system.

Next time (skipping ahead chronologically, because I fucked up and skipped this album): Jack Takes the Floor, for real this time!

#1001 albums #1001 albums you must hear before you die #1001albumsrated #album review #now spinning #jazz #cool jazz #post-bop #Miles Davis #Birth of the Cool

6 notes · View notes

ladysomething · 9 months ago

Note

I love everything that you’ve written for F1 so far (you are just the most incredible writer, I could read all of the fics you’ve written a million times and never get bored) but you’ve truly outdone yourself with Where You Go, I Go!!!! I literally read chapter 2 like 4 times last week and I’ve just been counting down the days until I could read chapter 3 (but I pinky promise I do not mean that in a “write faster” kind of way, I mean it in a “I was excited that I audibly squealed when I saw you posted today” kind of way). And ABO is something that I hardly ever read. But you just do it SO well. I LOVE the world you’ve built. And this fic is just SO incredible. I wasn’t sure how you could top the first two chapters, but eek CHAPTER THREE. The way that Charles going into pre-heat prevented any questions about Max and his intentions from getting answered (the tension is buildingggg) and Pierre showing up and Charles getting claimed, oh my god every scene was incredible and I am SO EXCITED to find out where this is going, because I genuinely don’t know what to expect!!! Thank you so, so much for sharing this fic with us!!!

I am a different anon than before, but I was very interested in reading your response about if you found writing long fic to be daunting. Like prev anon, I am a numbers girl, so learning a little about your writing process/philosophy was super interesting!! I have another question if you don’t mind me asking- how do you decide on your posting schedule?! Although I would literally read this whole fic in one sitting, I do love the 1+ weeks between updates because I love getting excited for a new chapter and looking forward to it, but you said in the ask that you were already writing ch6, so I’m curious what made you pick the schedule you did!!

thanks again for sharing this fic with us, we are truly all so lucky to read it!!

ahhh!!!

well firstly I can't take the entire credit for this fic. @saiyanwitcher reached out to me after I wrote Give Me That Fire and offered to beta for me. As we were getting to know each other, she asked if I'd ever consider writing an Omegaverse fic, and I said yes, and here we are. But if there is any reason why this fic is better than the others, it's all because of her! She has spent so many hours brainstorming with me, proofreading, and pulling me back from the edge when I said "I want to do THIS" and she said "girl what" (she didn't really, everything I propose she says "alright, lets figure out how we can make that work").

I'm so delighted to hear you loved chapter 3! this whole fic is sooo different to anything I've ever written, but I LOVE exploring new themes and topics and ideas in fic - you'll never really catch me doing the same thing twice. pushing boundaries is what I love about fic, but it doesn't always pay off, so I'm SO happy to hear that people are loving this fic as much as they are.

as for your question ... which, firstly, like most artists I am extremely self involved, so talking about myself is like my fave thing to do lmao. I will answer literally ANY question you could ask.

but, posting schedule. after many years of trial and error while posting long fics, the thing I've found that works for me is that I need to have a fairly sizeable amount of the story in the can before I start posting. I usually like 5-6 chapters, but, more importantly, I want to know that I have the feel of the story before I start to post, because once I post I can't go back and change things. at about that 5-6 chapter mark, I know that I'm deep enough into a story that the plot is right, the characters are right, and the tone I'm using is right, and then I feel comfortable starting to release it out into the world.

from there, I post a chapter only when I finish a chapter. so I finished chap 6 on Tuesday, and then I worked on chap 3 on Wednesday, gave it to @saiyanwitcher to beta on Wednesday evening, and then by this morning she'd done a final check and I was okay to post.

my own personal goal is to write one chapter a week, with Wednesday being the day I'm always aiming towards. so this week I was actually a little later than my "schedule" because ch 6 was giving me a headache and it took longer to write than I wanted.

at this point, I know roughly how long it takes me to write one chapter for this story (a week), but I also know some of these chapters are harder to write than others so I HAVE to give myself some extra leeway (hence the maximum of 2 weeks).

I hope that kind of explained my thought process and as I said, I'm so happy to answer any questions!

#where you go i go #anon ask #lestappen fic

10 notes · View notes

chattegeorgiana · 26 days ago

Note

Just finished read chapter 3, I can see why you loved writing this chapter and I can’t imagine how delighted you were seeing it illustrated. The amount of easter eggs that came appeared was great the intention to detail was top notch.

I’m sure you’re thrilled getting this chapter out, I wanted to pick your brain about a few ideas/themes I noticed. In chapter 3 itself the flashbacks were all great really showing casing Tsunda character and her rise and fall until the beginning of the Naruto series. Her and Naruto relationship is pretty underrated and if you remove Sakura, Sasuke and Hinata. She would definitely be in a top 5 of important relationships to Naruto. The flashback to Madura was nice as well, he still can’t to stop about Hash can he lol? I can’t wait to see what you have in store for us next.

last thing, outside of pumih and Rav. Do you have a top 5 favorite NaruSaku artist/content creators? And out of the 3 narusaku kids who are you personally excited to write and or see illustrated?

Hope all is well and thanks again!

Hey dear!

Welcome back to my inbox. <3

Aah, it's so good that finally someone understands my excitement with this chapter. Not only from a writing pov, but also from a visual one.

@xravenniax just went god level with it! I kid you not that I started squeaking like a child when I saw the library page and the scrolls one. And yes, this chapter has a loooot of easter eggs, I was curious to see if someone would pick up on those, but apparently some of you do, hehe.

That makes me happy to be honest, not going to lie.

Now, to go back to what you wanted us to chat about...

As I said multiple times, this is going to be a story centered around Sakura, of course, however, she's not the only one I'll be exploring in the story.

I consider Tsunade to be an extremely important character to the Naruto universe, from all the reasons you listed above, plus her interconnectedness with the other characters as well, besides her being Sakura's master. Which is why in Kaika (in the written form) we see her involvement in various other core plots of the Naruto world. I wanted to show that importance of hers and have her in the story past being just Sakura's master.

She is integral to the whole Hashirama cells subplot, Konoha politics, the medical system, the ninja world, the Sannins, so on and so forth. It's quite easy actually to work with her character, honestly.

So yeah, agreed she'd be easily top 5 Naruto's most important bonds.

As for Madara, well, yeah, you can't have Madara without Hashirama the same way you can't have Naruto without Sasuke, so I had to stay true to that core element of the story haha. Plus, it serves as a great point of origin for the development I have in plan with Sakura's medical prowess, that nicely ties in to all those aspects I used to write in my old theories regarding the Hashirama/Sakura parallels. It's actually one of the reasons I had the idea to make a parallel between Sakura's struggle with Kaguya/Madara to Tsunade's own struggles, since both of them did fight Madara, so, as I said, he is the common element between the two and the connection to their medical prowess that always calls back to Hashirama's one.

As for NaruSaku content creators well, we have such a low number of them nowadays that for me, they're all precious in their own way and I do my best to support them.

I like NaruSakuArt from Insta/Twitter (x), there was also Bloom (but kinda disappeared) on Twitter, we also had my sweet @dattebae who came back for a while but disappeared again, we have a few from the Chinese community which I appreciate (but idk how to read/write their name, please forgive my uneducated self), we also have Nathaniel who is doing his own projects, but kinda keeps them in closed groups due to a lot of reposting that people do without crediting the original source, we also had Rannya but she also kind of went missing, oh and last but not least Shrimp Chips haha.

So yeah, this is kinda it. Back in the day we had lots, but a lot of them left honestly.

As for the NaruSaku kids, I really can't pick and choose. They are all so integral to the NaruSaku healing journey and symbolic to the struggles we overcame and love for this pairing that it's hard for me to really pick just one.

I'm excited to showcase all of them, but the most I'm excited about is to explore their individuality while also their interconnectedness, because as I said, I kinda have something in mind related to their powerups that shows that interconnectedness. I just hope to be able to do it proper justice.

#kaika saisei #kaika au #sakura haruno #narusaku #narusaku family #tsunade #tsunade senju #madara uchiha #hashirama senju #naruto #naruto au #naruto fanfiction #naruto fancomic

6 notes · View notes

songstuckinmahead · 2 months ago

Text

Ranking Taylor Swift's albums based on how many songs are in my playlists:

Number of songs that are in parentheses are additional songs that were not part of the original album rollout (soundtracks, remixes, vault tracks) and will be listed after the original album songs.

Okay, Let's go:

11th: Taylor Swift (self-titled Debut) - 0

It's common for an artist's first album/EP to simply be a collection of the songs they made so far and that's what this is. This isn't really an era but more just a beta test of Taylor.

But i do have a feeling that Debut tv will have the biggest amount of rerecordings as well as the biggest change in the vocals which scares me.

10th: Folklore - 1

The first of Taylor's depression decade starts with a typical COVID-19 lockdown depression yearning for a cottagecore escapism.

Following the dip of Lover and the lack of publicity due to quarantine restrictions and a surprise release made this album appear in low profile but between the times and the message of the songs it was better for it.

Songs: Cardigan.

8th (tie): The Tortured Poets Department - 2

Despite me being fully on the Eras Tour/the rerecordings/Midnights hype train, TTPDs double album and several variants started to feel a bit too much. It just felt being the 50 kg cherry on top of the thousand flavor, million calories oversaturation dessert.

This is an adult album written by an adult woman for adults. Rawdogging real life as it is with all the problems and each problem with it's own bullshit. And also a lot more swearing than before.

Songs: Fortnight, I Can Do It With A Broken Heart.

8th: (tie): Fearless - 2

The princess of the midwest waiting for her high school prince find out that she exists. That's Fearless, this album invented the cliche of removing the glasses of the shy nerdy girl to see and show the world how pretty she is.

Unlike Debut's truck country genre, being a princess in an all american high school fairytale seems to work better with her songwriting skills.

Songs: Love Story, You Belong With Me.

7th: Speak Now - 1(+2)

It makes sense for being known as the Enchanted era as this underrated album feels the least like a "Taylor Swift genre" and the most like other popular 00s grudge rock subgenres of the time, similar to Kelly Clarkson, Avril Lavigne, Paramore and Fall Out Boy (which the latter two appeared in the album).

Songs: Better Than Revenge, Electric Touch, I Can See You.

6th: Evermore - 2(+1)

Jack Antonoff once said that Taylor wrote Willow in 20 minutes it was quickly followed by the decision to make a second "COVID-19 lockdown depression yearning for a cottagecore escapism" album, and thus Evermore was born.

Honestly considering how much the two album share the theme, mv continuity, and release year. Folkmore should have been a single double album from the start.

When you read this treat the two Folkmore reviews as one in two parts.

Songs: Willow, Marjorie, Carolina.

Top 5:

5th: Midnights - 3(+1)

Now this is a type of depression i can relate to! culture counters culture and Midnight's more upbeat songs were perfectly made to counter Folkmore's cottagecore calmness. Beyonce released Act i Renaissance around the same time a bit after the COVID-19 pandemic because "the world needed to dance" and Taylor saw that regarding Midnights as well.

As much as i like the retro vibe of the album, I haven't really been able to define it (undefined vibe can be better than defined), especially with the Midnights era being the eras tour era.

Songs: Lavender Haze, Anti-Hero, Bejeweled, Karma (remix feat. Ice Spice).

4th: Red - 6(+1)

The most Taylor Swift album. Period. The perfect combination of the three archetypes of Taylor transitioning from the 00s country to the 10s pop while having both happy upbeat songs and sad poetic songs.

2011-2013 is a critically iconic time period and it wouldn't be the same without Red. I consider We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together as one of the holy trinity of iconic 21th century pop songs.

Between the rise of the breakup songwriter reputation(a justified reputation considering she has a 10 minute breakup song), screaming goats, and her influence reaching global levels, Red is the most important album of the Tay-lore.

Songs: State Of Grace, Red, 22, I Knew You Were Trouble, We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, Everything Has Changed, Message In A Bottle.

Top 3:

3rd: Reputation - 8(+1)

The more famous you are, the more haters and scandals you'll have, and once you reach that global stardom there's no way to avoid that. And after what happened between Taylor and Kim and Kanye, the only way to stop it was to vanish.

The pre-reputation blackout was a "you had to be there" moment when she cleared all of her social media, the snake teasers, Game Of Thrones' season 7 finale, all leading up to the 2017 VMAs.

The Look What You Made Me Do MV and the other reputation MVs was the first time she personified and dress-coded her past hits and doing it by killing them all.

Another important part of Reputation lore is the counter to the big strong bass in Delicate, her showing her vulnerability to the public hate of the past few years, while showing mostly the heavy mental toll being famous does.

If it seems like it might be my favorite album of her then how it is only 3rd place? Well we just have to wait for the rep tv vault tracks (clowning here but i never stopped loving the idea of Ready For It remix feat. BLACKPINK).

Songs: Ready For It, Look What You Made Me Do, Gorgeous, End Game, I Did Something Bad, Delicate, So It Goes..., This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, I Don't Wanna Live Forever.

2nd: lover - 8(+2)

Culture counters culture and Lover was conceived to counter and balance Reputation. Replacing the grim rainy cold metal cities with a pastel sky full of candy clouds. All the frustration was unleased with the last big machine album leaving an empty slate for her loved ones and onwards to deal with real life political problems.

And an empty slate is exactly how the album starts with I Forgot That You Existed which feels like the after therapy of This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things.

Lover is very simple, positive feelings like love, happiness and friendship as well as not to overthink your anger.

Songs: I Forgot That You Existed, Cruel Summer, Lover, I Think He Knows, Miss Americana & The Heartbreak Prince, Paper Rings, You Need To Come Down, ME!, To All The Girls You Loved Before, Lover (remix feat. Shawn Mendes).

1st place:

1989 - 7(+4)

This is it, global stardom has been reached and now she's a superstar, and as one she a bit outgrew the previous genre and city she had and was ready for a rebirth.

Taylor Swift was born in 1989 and was reborn with 1989.

Embracing pop and shedding her fake southern accent has only brought main pop girl hits while also criticizing the industry she just joined and worldwide people's reactions who were just exposed to her (Shake It Off criticized her genre transition, Blank Space criticized her breakup songwriter reputation, Bad Blood criticized the industry's "feuds").

However, even though i was there during the 1989 era, afterwards i kinda forgot the definition of the era and couldn't really remember. It just felt like the transition between Red and Reputation until i remembered it's true meaning when 1989 tv came out. It's just a main pop girl music, this was her Please Please Please (the song after the song that placed her at the top).

Of all the rerecordings across all albums Wildest Dreams had the biggest upgrade and Bad Blood remix had the biggest downgrade.

Songs: Welcome To New York, Shake It Off, Blank Space, Style, Bad Blood, Wildest Dreams, New Romantics, Bad Blood (remix feat. Kendrick Lamar), Slut!, Now That We Don't Talk, Is It Over Now?.

3 notes · View notes

bite-the-bloody-hand · 3 months ago

Text

6 SONG PLAYLIST (PART 4 - CLASSIC ROCK)

Rules: If you're tagged, make a new post with links to music and/or lyrics describing the following: 1. An event that defines your character's past 2. How your character sees themselves 3. How others view them 4. Their closest relationship (platonic or romantic) 5. A major fight scene 6. End Credits song

Friends of course my elderly gay ass was going to put together a classic rock list, what were you expecting? It's like a... Fantasy jukebox rock opera that exists in my head. Ideally animated by Ralph Bakshi with an unlimited budget. R rating. Gay as hell. Bizarre and unsettling rotoscope effects. Envision it with me.

Spotify || Youtube Music || Part 1 - Disco || Part 2 - Post-Punk Gothrock || Part 3 - Bluegrass ||

1 SIOUXIE - Into A Swan*

I feel a force I've never felt before I can't hold it down I've just got to soar And laugh in the face that is vulture law I burst out, I'm transformed I burst right out into a swan

The mysterious but intoxicating euphoria of becoming an Azata is this song; for Zell it's the heady rush of power and the boundless excitement of being finally truly alive.** Very much a top ten life experience for him, even considering how it came to him.

2 DIO - Rainbow in the Dark

There's no sign of the morning coming You've been left on your own

However that incredible transformation doesn't quite fix the lingering doubts and pain from living a life where he's so frequently set up to fail. His success comes with glory, sure, but it was hard won; made so much harder by the forces of 'light' rarely coming to his aid - and even then not without consequence.

3 JUDAS PRIEST - Jawbreaker

Crouching in the corner Wound up as a spring Piercing eyes that flash are shimmering

Even so 99% of the time people are just seeing him kick so much ass. He punches like getting hit by a high-speed bowling ball; when he isn't knocking heads, he has a glaive that he is extremely unafraid to use. He is always ready for a fight, even if he isn't actively spoiling for one. His most public persona is also the most intimidating one.

What I'm saying is that other people see Zell as a severely pissed off little man who's just barely holding it in, and they're right.

4 MEATLOAF - A Kiss is a Terrible Thing to Waste

There's a feast waiting for you And you've never even gotten a taste It's later than you think and A kiss is a terrible thing to waste

The heartbreak anthem. I like to think of this as the backdrop to an ultimately tragically unsuccessful bid for someone's heart.*** All he wants is someone who won't wait to go with him. A partner, a lover, who isn't tied to any one thing that would keep them from exploring freedom together. Perhaps someday.

5 RUSH - YYZ [Instrumental]

The amount of times Neil Peart hits the drums in this song is the number of times Zell punches someone in Alushinnyra.

6 PAT BENETAR - Hell Is For Children [CW: This song is about child abuse.]****

Hell, hell is for children And you shouldn't have to pay for your love With your bones and your flesh No, hell is for children

This track defines a lot of Zell's feelings towards the world at large, but what causes the continuing strife in Mendev in particular (to say nothing of his own upbringing.) So few people recognize how cycles of violence perpetuated by regular ass people are what allows those demons to exist in the first place. His heart breaks because the cycle won't.

*This list's outsider track. I don't feel like I'm being too controversial by saying Siouxie isn't known primarily as a rock artist, am I?

**The way it's described in-game it seems to me that becoming an Azata is a full physical transformation, and I like to headcanon it that way anyhow because Zell deserves to sometimes have nice things. Like a fully living body that doesn't hurt all the time.

***And that someone is Tristian Kingmaker because I like to make myself and my beloved and my favorite OC suffer for the art. :) The real tragedy is that Zell would have given up the road for Tristian, but ultimately Tristian would still end up leaving for Reasons.

****100% a reference to Ralph Bakshi's American Pop but also very thematically appropriate. He spent his teenage years as an unwilling Hellknight recruit, so as you can imagine. It wasn't great, but it was certainly formative.

#dj hellsing #kc zell #you asked #i'm trying not to pick favorites but this one does really speak to me

3 notes · View notes

anaxandria-writes · 1 year ago

Text

20 questions for fic writers!

Thanks for the tag @lumosatnight [see here]!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Technically 50 (I think) because one of them is in an anonymous collection so AO3 is telling me 49. I’m considering putting some more earlier works as anonymous so that number might change soon.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

245,593… but I haven’t written at least 100k of that because they’re collabs where I did art (such as WLW Big Bang 2022).

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling (44)

Teen Wolf (3)

Marvel (3)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Three Days, Three Perspectives [Drarry, E, 6.5k]

An Expensive Courtship [Drarry, E, 10.9k]

Petrichor [Steter, T, 2.5k]

Snapshots of a Pregnancy [Drarry, T, 3.8k]

🙀 ➡ 😻 ➡ 😽 [Stony, T, 5.2k]

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I’m terrible about doing this, so I’m very sporadic about it, but every comment means so much to me! I just see it and if I don’t respond immediately, they just pile up and then I never get to it? 100% getting better at replying with my ongoing WIP, What Large Hands You Have (The Better to Embrace You With) [Steter, M, 14.7k so far], since I’m posting as I write and the encouragement means SO much!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Half Past One [Drarry, M, 2.5k] which was a horror fic (my one and only one) that I wrote for a Wheel of Drarry mini exchange. There’s MCD. And gore.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I almost never not write happy endings, BUT I’m going to go with Pinocchio [Neville/Harry, E, 3.9k] because it’s crack-y, fun, and Harry gets off a ton of times. (Mostly unintentionally).

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I’ve had a couple rude-ish comments? Someone said that it would be better if it were longer, which was kind of ??? It was one of my first works and the mods reached out to me about it and they were super supportive and kind. (This is also the fic that is now anonymous, for unrelated reasons.)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I’ve written some PWPs. A little of everything, really… and a fair number of my longer works include some sex scenes. I probably read more kinky content than I write (beyond the watersports fics because apparently I have multiple?), but yeah. Pro-smut here.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

Nope. I’ve read a few, but it’s mostly not my thing.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yes! And I only found out because the person didn’t realize that it was stealing to repost on Wattpad and then apologized and asked how I felt about it…

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

My tango fic, The Cabeceo [Drarry, E, 1.9k], was translated into Spanish by @stargazing-enby last year for HD Owl Post. Which was such an amazing and wonderful gift to receive, especially because *tango*. I definitely feel like I’ve grown a lot as a writer since I first wrote it, but it’s very near and dear to me and having a translation (which I can read!) even more so. If it gives anyone any ideas… I can read Portuguese and Spanish!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Co-written? No. I’ve done art for various people before and participated in several big bangs/reverse big bangs as both an author and an artist. (ETA: 100% have co-written multiple fics no idea how I forgot those when I first answered)

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

Flintwood. (And yes, I’ve had full on spreads in my journal dedicated to Flintwood.) Don’t ask me why, but those are my athletic rivals to lovers absolute hands down favorite. For Teen Wolf, I started in Steter (so it remains my #1) and one of my all-time top comfort reads is a Steter fic, This Time Around by Green (and someone else who no longer is associated with the work), which I received a bound copy of last year as part of the Renegade Bookbinding Exchange.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

“Green Glows and Ginger Greens” is a Flintwood WIP that I have 20k written of, edited and posted chapter one and it’s been… 2 years. I hope to get back to it (and my other unposted Flintwood hanahaki I’ve been talking about for about as long), but it’s just… not happened.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Idea generation, maybe? I think I tend to be really good at coming up with ideas and starting writing projects that have the potential to be really interesting. I love kind of crack-y ideas, and I’ve been trying to be better at actually delving into those instead of going “this is too weird, no one will read it.” (Example: I wrote a fic from a bathroom’s POV and it still makes me laugh.)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I tend to come up with ideas that spiral out of control, but I’m terrible at finishing things so I procrastinate and then it gets rushed and not as strong as it could be. Also not using betas that often because of said procrastination. And feeling awkward about it because I never leave enough time for editing.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I love it, especially when it’s a language I speak and am like “Yes! This adds some cultural context”, etc. But also, such an important thing to get people to double check that before just throwing it in.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Back when I was a wee bb in high school? Either Protector of the Small or Harry Potter. As an adult? Also Harry Potter.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Completed on AO3? Herbology_Neville and DragonKeeperCW [Neville/Charlie, E, 11k] which was the fic I worked on whenever I was procrastinating on other fics. I’ve always wanted to go back to that universe and just haven’t had a chance, but… Neville and Charlie are adorable and I love them. I’m also loving the fic I’m posting now, as mentioned it’s What Large Hands You Have (The Better To Embrace You With), which was for Steter Bang because it really is reflective a lot of me as a person. Otherwise, I really loved the Green Glows/Snuggling, Smoothies, and Sons-in-Law universe (just need to finish both of those…)

Tagging (i never know who to tag!): @sugareey-makes-stuff (again, even though I know you were already tagged), @drwhoisginnyholmes, @makeitp1nk

#Tag game #asked and answered #ok I’m going to go hide out again because I feel weird talking about my own writing #I’m just an anxious and self-conscious bean

7 notes · View notes

beautifulpersonpeach · 2 years ago

Note

Hey BPP! I hope you’re doing well 😊

I was wondering which artists’ work are you looking forward to in 2023? Aside from the remaining BTS’ members’ solos.

Ask 2: BPP I don’t consider myself a New Jeans fan as their music hasn’t grabbed my attention yet but you sparked my interest in them so I’ve been keeping my eye out as an outsider. Holy shit their numbers are amazing considering this is their 1st comeback?? They will definitely be dominating SK this year as the Korean GP seems to like them and are paying attention to what they’re putting out. Hype Boy did amazing in the US too even though it was hardly promoted over there. Maybe this is a little too early to predict but I feel like in a year or too they will start dominating the GG scene and maybe even give BP competition internationally if their still active by then???

Ask 3: Seeing Hybe’s trajectory is crazy. From a struggling company barely able to support their artist to now having not just the biggest band in the world BTS but also New Jeans who has been a sprinting since debut, getting the 2nd fastest song to debut in Melon 100 after BTS. I’m not a fan of NJ but damn Hybe is killing the game. In just a few years they’ve established a pretty great roster of artists in Korea not even counting BTS’ global dominance and now they’re also slowly building up their artists base in Japan too. Hybe’s name carries a lot of clout now (ofc thanks in a large part to BTS) to be able to sign Techi and snatch famous former Prod48 artists. They hav stumbled a lot especially last year with LSF and trainee a but it still hasn’t changed the fact that they’re growing at a fast rate. No wonder kpop stans hate the company. I know armys joke a lot about how BH planned BTS’ career hundreds of years ago by the way that they plan albums and concepts months even years in advance but seeing the company slowly reveal their plans and acquisitions is surprising, I remember how shocked everyone was when they acquired Ithaca. It will be exciting to look back in a few years to see what they turn into and how they influence the industry.

Ask 4: I'm a little in awe about your insight into kpop. You were the first Army blogger I saw talk about NewJeans, supporting them in spite of the controversy and everything you said is what has happened. Forgive me for asking but do you work in the industry?

Ask 5: Now I see why you said NewJeans reminds you of rookie BTS. They are monster rookieing like nobody else rn

***

Hi Anon(s),

Anon in Ask 1, aside from BTS members, the artists I'm most looking forward to in 2023, are NewJeans and Esperanza Spalding. Since NewJeans is likely more relevant for my readers in this space, I'll explain why I'm excited about more music from them this year, and I'll be using comments in all your asks as touchpoints.

"Now I see why you said NewJeans reminds you of rookie BTS."

They aren't directly comparable of course, but there are parallels. Three things made me notice BTS when they debuted in 2013:

Their music

The cohesiveness of their storyline/concept

The reaction of wider k-pop fandom/industry to the group

All three bulletpoints for BTS also hold true for me with NewJeans, and is the reason I've been into them since July 22, 2022, and why I'm excited for them in 2023. I'll work my way from bottom to top.

The Reaction of Wider K-pop Fandom / Industry to the Group

Some people think BTS weren't well known and loved in Korea until their breakout in 2016, but the reality is the reaction to BTS from nearly everyone was overwhelmingly positive. Comments from an old forum:

(this particular user was still active on the forum until 2019)

"They will definitely be dominating SK this year as the Korean GP seems to like them and are paying attention to what they’re putting out. "

BTS were the definition of monster rookies, they won the rookie awards etc, and most everyone (peers, gp, and industry leaders), took notice of them and loved them. People talked about how they had a different sound, more engaging performances, and an interesting take on the school concept with songs that appealed to their age group and others. But if there's one thing to never forget about k-pop, it's how insanely hyper-competitive it is, and we all know what happened to BTS between 2013 and 2018 at the hands of k-pop stans who at BTS' debut had loved them. The stakes are higher for k-pop stans in 2023 than it was in 2013, so for anyone reading this who genuinely loves NewJeans, just be prepared. You've all already seen that NMIXX, IVE, Classy, Lapillus, etc all debuted in 2021/22 with members aged 13 - 15 under the management of a 'creepy/pedo' CEO (and ad infinitum for groups debuting in previous years), but no group has gotten more controversy for it than NewJeans, curiously only starting after their debut album pre-order numbers were released. K-pop stans are predictable because of the incentives that drive them, so for the girls' sake and your own peace of mind, try as much as possible to engage only positively in the fandom and with others.

Don't engage with the noise, which will only be amplified after YG debuts their new girl group this year. Just keep receipts. Believe me you'll have a lot of it before the year is over. And you'll need it.

The Cohesiveness and Execution of Their Storyline / Concept

(this section includes spoilers)

The biggest clue to whatever NewJeans is, is their icon: the white rabbit.

It's everywhere - in their MVs, in their outfits, in their lore and concepts, their fandom name, and in their sound which is notably both dreamy and bouncy/groovy. The way NewJeans expresses this motif in every single thing they do is easily one of the most brilliant things I've seen in k-pop. And this is partly because of how both subtle and obvious it is, and how they've taken an old tale and modernized it so it feels familiar but also self-aware.

What is this concept I'm talking about?

It's Alice in Wonderland.

Doing a full analysis of their discography so far would make this post too long and analysis isn't my forte anyway, but if NewJeans' summer release introduced fans to their sound, gifting bunnies a 'Cookie', then in their winter release NewJeans are inviting people to follow the white rabbit into their maddening, dreamlike universe. The wonderland of NewJeans is one of eternal youth and good vibes, and not necessarily Y2K as is widely believed. In my opinion.

Every group from debut Itzy to Red Velvet to XG to Triple S has tried a Y2K aesthetic and not one of them feel as nostalgic or youthful as NewJeans. Why?

From the straight unadorned long black hair, to the inclusion of Black and queer characters into central storylines about young love, to using the bunny as a metaphor for playfulness and awareness, the expression of youth and fantasy in NewJeans is so subtle and yet pervasive to me, it's obvious it has come from the mind of someone obsessed with the idea, someone who has studied what makes someone youthful beyond the temporal sense.

Much has been said at this point about the end scene in OMG and how that is Min Heejin clapping back at her detractors (lol, k-pop stans make me laugh on a daily basis y'all), but for anyone who has actually watched the MV, it's clear that everyone (including the doctors) is said to be mad or a little insane or inside this 'dream-like reality'. Everyone, including the viewer. In Ditto and OMG, NewJeans' not only break the 4th wall, they demolish it completely. You're left wondering what is real and what is an illusion. And that's the point. With that final scene in OMG with Minji bringing the hater with her into the insane asylum, and the final scene in Ditto where an Inception-like flip happens when Ban Heeseo watches her old tapes (Heeso being a representation of their fans), the creative team at Ador has brilliantly conveyed the reality of para-social relationships fans develop with their idols, as well as enclosing their fans in their own universe and memories. Not even their haters are exempt.

It's genius.

And the really exciting thing about NewJeans is they're only getting started.

I've said before that HYBE is best at storytelling, and nowhere is this more evident than in NewJeans and BTS.

Their Music

One way I like to describe NewJeans' sound is: a return to basics.

Like BTS, NewJeans' debut style in music and choreography is primarily influenced by old school (or 90s) hiphop. The primary difference between the two groups in terms of music is that NewJeans also incorporates the mirror sound (R&B) more than BTS did at debut (BTS leaned more into R&B in 2014 and 2018), and without unnecessary rap verses typical of k-pop girl groups. In other words, NewJeans is more Aaliyah (lol) than they are Janet Jackson, but the effect of listening to their music is the same.

youtube

For example, I heard OMG and immediately thought of Paradise by BTS, a song considered by a lot of ARMYs to be the tannies' best song (it's not lol, that title belongs to UGH, or HOME if you hate the sound of gunshots). OMG has a UK Garage type beat, and Paradise is the trap + lofi expression of the same idea. For the nerds like me, Paradise's producer recently did a breakdown of how he made that song and it's worth watching.

youtube

Neither 250 nor Jinsu Park have done a similar breakdown of their process for NewJeans but I'll post it here soon as they do. :)

"I’m not a fan of NJ but damn Hybe is killing the game. In just a few years they’ve established a pretty great roster of artists in Korea not even counting BTS’ global dominance and now they’re also slowly building up their artists base in Japan too."

I don't think there's anybody who disagrees with you Anon. The company has had time to prepare for BTS' enlistment and it shows. What I've always enjoyed about how BigHit manages BTS and TXT, is how they seem to prioritize music production and go in the opposite direction of where their peers are heading in terms of music/styling/concepts, and even the few times there's directional overlap, it still feels 'different'. A lot of groups will be returning in 2023: the entire SM roster, Zico, Stray Kids, etc, and I'm curious to see how HYBE will differentiate themselves without BTS.

Anon in Ask 4, no I don't work in the industry.

Updated song ranking:

Hurt

Ditto

OMG

Hype Boy

Attention.

#newjeans #new jeans #kpop #fandom behaviour #hybe #kpop music #old school hiphop #ditto #omg #bts #kpop fandom #bunnies

28 notes · View notes