#conversations with airenyah

[airenyah]

day is so absorbed in his own trauma that he doesn't realize that mhok isn't doing this out of pity but because he's absolutely terrified of losing another loved one

[gillianthecat]

Thank you! I don't have any specific questions or responses right now, but I will be thinking about all this while watching actors from now on. (And no worries, I wasn't asking about that particular show, just about the general question of acting and actors' faces.)

I'm adding in your tags, if you don't mind, because as usual you have so much good stuff in there too:

#also i know i talked about ohm a lot in this post but that's mainly bc he's currently fresh on my mind with 10 years ticket airing rn #and also there's a year's worth of bbs brainrot in my brain #i have watched the entirety of bbs like 19x now and i've had a Lot of thoughts™ #(although this is still nothing compared to the 27 times i've watched the khaithird parts in tol in the past 2 years <3) #(although my thoughts watching tol have always revolved less around the acting and more around my own irl situation and my irl khai) #anyway another thing i want to point out is that all of this that i said about acting is also very relative #you have to go on a case-by-case basis #a scene-by-scene basis sometimes even moment-by-moment basis #something that works in one scene or one moment might not work in another moment #sometimes it can even be GOOD if a character doesn't show too many reactions on their face! #again it all depends a lot on the story and the character #again take ohm pawat as an example #i have to go and rewatch all of 10 years ticket again and really pay attention to what i'm about to say before i can confirm with certainty #but it seems to me as if ohm is waaaay more expressive with his face as pat than he is as phukao #which does fit the characters #judging whether someone's acting is good is often just about #''ok so there are all these concepts. so HOW does the actor use them exactly? what do they do with them?'' #and then seeing whether what they're doing is in accordance with the plot #it's really a lot like cooking: you have all the ingredients and how the outcome will be depends on how you actually use these ingredients #what works for one recipe might not work for the other and a recipe that one person likes might be hated by someone else #sometimes the outcome is totally passable and will totally satisfy your hunger #but an experienced cook might know exactly what to do in order to make the passable meal taste so much better #(like these videos where someone turns a fast-food meal into a 5 star meal) #(fast food might be good enough and satisfy you but maybe that fast food could be so much more) #(or maybe someone prefers the fast food over the 5 star meal who am i to judge 🤷🏼‍♀️) #anyway it's half past 12 so i'm gonna go watch today's ep of 10yt now bye

I appreciate everyone's good advice to just drop the damn thing, but for some reason I feel compelled to keep watching Candy Color Paradox, and then complain about it. It's feeling like my experience watching War of Y, although they are very different shows, in that I'm fascinated by it's successes and failures. And I now want to find out what the show ends up saying (either intentionally or not) about the morality of paparazzi journalism. I did notice that two minutes after I paused to write my last post Kaburagi was questioning the ethics of what they did and how it impacted their subject, so I have some hope that the show is at least trying to say something.

However to avoid polluting the tags with my negativity for people who are enjoying the show, I'll keep my criticism below readmores.

Before I get into that, are the editors at the magazine trying to match-make Kaburagi and Onoe? 🤔Because they keep singing the praises of each of them to the other one. 👀

I think the biggest problem for me is that I just don't think the actors are very good. According to MDL they're both idols and don't have much previous acting experience, and I can tell. They're both trying their best, but there is this awkward amateurism to their acting that is distracting me and makes the characters feel less real. I'm just now watching the scene with Congressman's secretary, and it's clear just how much more comfortable this older actor is on screen (at least before he sexually assaults Onoe). He moves and talks and inhabits his body in this unselfconscious way that is engaging to watch. And in the scene when Onoe is talking to his bartender friend, Masayan, my eyes kept being drawn to the bartender, even though all he was doing was listening and nodding. But he just seemed so much present and real.

I bring these two other (much more experienced) actors up because it affirmed for me that it wasn't just my imagination. Both young actors have this tentativeness to their physicality, which really doesn't work for the supposedly cool and dominating Kaburagi, but neither does it feel like it matches the awkwardness that Onoe has. It feels like the actor's own awkwardness, rather than the character's, somehow. It doesn't help matters that they both seem made-up and styled like idols rather than journalists. They just both look so young.

They're not terrible, they both have some nice moments, and Onoe's face especially is growing on me. I think he's the stronger actor, actually, he has this wonderful wide-eyed way of looking at Kaburagi that temporarly creates the illusion that these two have chemistry. The roles I suspect are actually deceptively hard to do well, balancing complex emotions with slapstick comedy. I'm not an actor, but I imagine that's something that requires a lot of experience to pull off well. But it does mean that the chemistry isn't really there, that Kaburagi's philosophical musings feel shallow instead of like insights into a moral crisis, and that Onoe's panic about falling in love doesn't ring true for me.

And oh my god that final sex scene in the car, there was no connection there, it felt like they were each in their own world, not like they were reacting to each other. Which I get, it probably feels much safer for the actors to approach it that way. But it's so obvious on screen. At least a JBL is willing to portray sexuality on screen, I guess? Next step is helping inexperienced actors get comfortable with it. (Eternal Yesterday and Utsukushii Kare were on a different level all together, production and direction wise, and the actors in Old Fashion Cupcake are such pros that they probably could have managed it on their own, though I imagine they had support. And thus concludes the list of JBL I've seen that have attempted more than dead fish kisses.)

The other problem is a mismatch of my expectations and what the show actually is. I keep wanting it to be more serious; it touches upon these complex issues—the sexual assault, ethics in journalism, Kaburagi's feelings about trading sexual favors for information—and then glancing right off of them. Whereas I keep hoping for them to dig in. But it seems very devoted to it's yaoi roots, particularly with a sexually aggressive seme and a blushing maiden uke, and not interested in going much deeper.

And since this is my space to vent, I just watched another show where a completely untrained person was miles better at tailing people and taking covert photos than than these two are. The shows are completely different in tone and budget, so perhaps it's not fair to compare, but it did make me laugh. (I don't want to spoil that show, though it's barely a spoiler, but it's this one for anyone curious.)

[bengiyo]

Why Do I Tag So Many Creators in My Posts? It’s About Respect

Earlier today I was talking with @sophsloveskpop in the notes of a post, and was asked about all of the interaction between blogs in the posts and essays about the shows. I’ve noticed an uptick in new names interacting with posts (and making great posts of their own!) and wanted to talk about why I do it and why I like fandom on Tumblr.

Fundamentally, I think it’s generally good courtesy to acknowledge when someone else has expressed a similar idea to your, or an idea that intrigues you. I think it’s best to tag that person and link to their post so that others can also experience it. It also opens you up to a dialogue with them and others.

People Like Getting Their Flowers

If someone posts an analysis or even a quirky idea that I felt the need to think about, I will mention them in my posts. None of the great content we get on here is necessarily quick to make. I absolutely love all of the gifmakers who fight against Photoshop, Tumblr, and God Himself to post snippets of shows on here for us. I wouldn’t be able to flesh out some of my posts, illustrates points, or otherwise breakup walls of text without @liyazaki, @wanderlust-in-my-soul, @pharawee, or @gabrielokun. Whenever I can’t find the gif I’m looking for through Tumblr’s terrible gif search, I reach out to one of them for permission to use their gifs directly.

Also, many of us just like being acknowledged that someone we wrote meant something to someone else. Every time I get tagged by someone in an essay I’m like:

It’s a Conversation

I don’t think fandom is about being the smartest person or the most correct person. My basic framework I’m writing from is Black Gay Nerd Who Watches a Lot of Stuff. It’s what I’m most familiar with personally, and I find that people have really responded to that.

I’ve been around for a very long time, and have been seeing folks like @so-much-yet-to-learn around the entire time, who often has more specific information about fandom life during the airing of shows. @absolutebl and @heretherebedork have watched more BL than I have, and I’ve seen at least 250 productions. ABL has some of the most comprehensive posts collecting some of the history.

I made so many friends after diving into @shortpplfedup DMs to talk about sustainable urbanism and bonding over our shared geography. Now we run @the-conversation-pod together. Through them I befriended so many others, like @elnotwoods and @kyr-kun-chan.

I’m not a color theory expert, and so I love reading posts from @respectthepetty and others (I think @sliceduplife writes about color too).

We wouldn't even have my favorite show without @isaksbestpillow.

I know what shows are coming because of @clairificusrex.

I don’t know much about music theory, but @iguessitsjustme write some great stuff about the music in these shows.

I don’t always read the body language of hands as closely as someone like @wen-kexing-apologist might.

I am not Asian, and so I like reading from @waitmyturtles, @telomeke-bbs, and @neuroticbookworm. I know that @recentadultburnout and @airenyah offer useful perspective on Thai language.

Sometimes folks are going to narrow down on specific shows and consistently write about them for years on side blogs like @miscellar.

Some people have studied so much and bring specific academic lenses to the genre that I find compelling, like @emotionallychargedtowel.

In many cases, I just vibe with them really hard, like @ginnymoonbeam.

I actually didn’t always post as much as I do, but I try to keep up my Stray Thoughts project so that people can keep track of what I’m watching. I used to write less meta, but then I befriended @waitmyturtles and @lurkingshan. Any time I say anything remotely thoughtful Shan is like:

Also, though, this is Tumblr! It’s easy to tag each other and link to each other’s posts! This is what makes us different from every

Isn’t It Just More Fun?

I don’t enjoy shows passively. I grew up in a family that watched things together. My mom, dad, sister, and I all have differing tastes from each other, but we watched a lot of different things together. My friends and I discussed the things we watched at school.

I’m a big fan of the water cooler approach to TV show distribution, which basically says you want your show to be the show people are talking about on their breaks at work. I always like Film Crit Hulk’s theory that movies (and our dramas) are the proverbial campfires around which we gather to share ourselves with each other.

This is all supposed to be fun, and I have more fun when we interact. I get tagged daily by @blmpff about updates from sets, or when we all need to rush to IG to make sure Fluke Pongsakorn doesn’t cut his hair. When @bl-bam-beyond makes a new set or post they let me know, and they recently rewatched Noah’s Arc! I made friends with @gillianthecat in the last year or so, and it’s been fun seeing her make her way through fandom. I always get excited with @troubled-mind pings me in a post because I know it’s going to give me something to chew on. I didn’t have a genuine appreciation for kink culture until I watched along with @lutawolf. If something funny is happening in fandom I know @benkaaoi is going to tag me. I still get excited when @heukheuk pops up in my mentions.

I know I’ve probably forgotten so many people alone the way here, and I’m sorry if I didn’t mention you.

Tag Because It’s the Right Thing to Do

So seriously, tag people and link to their posts. Try to use the giffmakers specific tags when you’re using the search feature. Fandom is better when we all interact respectfully and enthusiastically with each other. Tumblr is special because it lets us create goofy little essays like this and tag dozens of people just to get their attention.

If you have a cool thought about a show I’m watching, tag me. If you see something funny, tag me in the comments. If you wanna hash out an idea before posting it, DM me. This is Tumblr. Don’t be shy with your thoughts. It’s okay to be wrong on the internet. It’s actually fun to be wrong on the internet about show predictions!

Thank you as always for coming to my post.

[waitmyturtles]

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: The Bad Buddy Rewatch Edition, Part 0.5 -- The BBS Meta Series Preamble

[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, I'm preambling a series of posts that I'll be publishing throughout November and December about my OGMMTVC rewatch of Bad Buddy and Our Skyy 2 x Bad Buddy x A Tale of Thousand Stars.]

After nearly a month of rewatching Bad Buddy and Our Skyy 2 x Bad Buddy x A Tale of Thousand Stars -- TWICE, holy shit! -- I'm finally putting pen to paper on a four-part series of BBS meta that I've been looking forward to writing nearly all year.

Before I start the series, I'd like to offer a not-so-quick preamble of how I got here. Before the birth of this Old GMMTV Challenge project, I was flitting and floating, enjoying a dalliance with Thai BLs here and there, while still mostly watching Japanese BLs, my entrée into overall Asian BL content. I started with KinnPorsche in the late summer of 2022, picked up The Eclipse after that on the recommendation of a dear mutual (@the-nihongo-adventure, I hope you're well!), and then picked up A Tale of Thousand Stars in order to prepare for my first live GMMTV fandom experience on Tumblr in early January with Moonlight Chicken.

That was the exact order by which I came to Bad Buddy, which I watched for the first time in January and February of this year, after MLC ended. I was so blown away. I thought I was a drama girlie before Bad Buddy, but it was like Bad Buddy had made me see facets of drama-making that I had never known or appreciated before. The act structure of episode 10 alone just sat me the hell down, let alone the brilliance of the overall story arc vis à vis Pat, Pran, the themes and motifs of intergenerational trauma and filial piety that I related to, down to my bones and bloodstream, and the millions of layers on this show that we could spend a lifetime parsing.

My first piece about Bad Buddy, published in February, is the post on Tumblr that I am the most proud of writing, my first post (as a relatively new Tumblr-ite) that I took days and drafts to work on. In that post, I worked out what I saw as the major theme of intergenerational trauma dominating the story landscape of Bad Buddy, framed in what I interpreted as a reflection of David Hegel's thesis-antithesis-synthesis modality of change in philosophy and art, as most poignantly reflected in Herman Hesse's Siddhartha.

In other words, y'all: I became a BBS girlie, lol.

And, partly in conversation with @miscellar, and partly by way of the just TREMENDOUS, TREMENDOUS amount of meta on Bad Buddy on Tumblr (whew, the MASTERS, @telomeke, @grapejuicegay, @dribs-and-drabbles, @airenyah, @dudeyuri, @dimplesandfierceeyes, oh my gosh, so many many more, I can't list them all!), I came to learn that Bad Buddy was a home to so many other themes, motifs, and references that honestly, my mind was blown.

For me, personally, it was ABL Sensei's original post on the newer landscape of GMMTV BLs answering to Thailand's seminal BLs, as well as @miscellar's post on BL tropes referenced and reshaped in Bad Buddy, that served as the original inspiration for the creation of the Old GMMTV Challenge project.

I needed to watch older Thai BLs to understand the landscape of how this genre was born and how it's changed and developed over time, to truly and deeply understand the impact that Bad Buddy had on me personally and artistically, and how it stands in the echelon of the Thai BL genre today, particularly by way of the influence of BBS's director, the brilliant Aof Noppharnach. I needed to know about the food that fed Bad Buddy to make Bad Buddy what it was as its own seminal drama.

So, after 32 shows and movies watched on the OGMMTVC list, I get to this moment -- my turn, my time, to pound out some BBS meta, knowing what I know now about the history of the Thai BL genre up to 2021-2022.

My four-part series of BBS meta will focus on the following:

Part 1: A look at how previous GMMTV BLs spoke to Bad Buddy in their own development, and to Bad Buddy itself. I'll take a look at the BL tropes that Bad Buddy references and reshapes. I'll touch upon Theory of Love, A Tale of Thousand Stars, Still 2gether, and many more older shows. I'll also take a look at themes in BBS that I didn't touch upon in my first BBS thesis from February 2023.

Part 2: In conjunction with my Big Meta series on themes of pain in Asian dramas, I want to take a look at the themes of pain, trust, and separation (sometimes voluntary, sometimes forced) in some Asian dramas, including Bad Buddy, Still 2gether, A Tale of Thousand Stars, Until We Meet Again, and I Promised You The Moon.

Part 3: I have had the extremely GREAT luck to engage in lengthy discussion about Bad Buddy with a number of Asian Tumblr bloggers, to discuss how we related to BBS as Asians, and what themes we could analyze from our culturally attuned and lived-in perspectives. In this meta, I'll take a look at Asian cultural touchpoints including inherited and intergenerational trauma; competition amongst one's peers; the nature of secret-keeping and what's "acceptable" to explicitly talk about in Asian family systems; and much more. (I may need to split this post into two, we'll see!)

Part 4: I'll offer some thoughts, based off of the Pain, Trust, and Separation Big Meta and the BBS Asian Cultural Touchpoints meta, on Pran leaving for Singapore, and how Thai vs. international audiences may interpret his decision to leave Thailand for two years.

I'm late to the BBS meta game, but there's no time like the present to catch the hell up. I'm happy to celebrate Bad Buddy's two-year anniversary this way, and I'm really excited that the OGMMTVC allows me to do so.

Part 1 drops later this week. Meet me at Wai's bar for a chit-chat -- and thank you for reading along!

(Tagging @dribs-and-drabbles by request! If you'd like to be tagged, please let me know! <3 )

[Here's the complete OGMMTVC watchlist as it stands today. For a more accurate look at what I've watched, please mosey over to this link!

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 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) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch 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 here) 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 (re-review here) 27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here)

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) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (watching) 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) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch For the Sake of Re-Analyzing an Politics-Focused Show After Not Me 39) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 40) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 41) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 42) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults) 43) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 44) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 45) Only Friends (2023) (tag here)]

[chickenstrangers]

2023 in Review: Meta Edition

tag game: link your top and/or favorite posts/metas/gifs for each month of 2023

Since I already did this post just for my gifs (here) this feels even more self-indulgent but I was tagged by the lovely @ranchthoughts @troubled-mind and @lurkingshan so I will indulge myself and reflect on my writing in 2023.

I properly got started a bit later in the year, and it is interesting to look at my busiest months because I tended to either be in a gif mood or a meta mood, and often didn't overlap the two (in the fall, I made a lot of gifs, so wrote a lot less meta).

I often feel like they go hand in hand though, and gifs (like all types of fan creations) are a form of analysis/comparison/meta commentary. Either I have a meta idea that I can only convey visually, or the process of making a gif takes so much time I start to have meta thoughts about it, and sometimes I write those down.

May

May was my first meta month and my busiest.

top: Bad Buddy, Tragedy, and Queer Futures which is basically my Bad Buddy thesis statement and I loved making a scholarly bibliography for a meta

favorite: Wen as Observer in Moonlight Chicken which had ideas I returned to throughout the year in gif form (here and here)

honorable mentions because I wrote a lot this month: Pat's Shirts: An Extended Analysis (inspired by shirt analysis scholars like @dribs-and-drabbles, because I love taking silly things seriously and I made myself genuinely sad thinking about Pat's Hawaiian shirts); Conflict and Empathy in My School President and Kieta Hatsukoi (two shows very close to my heart for very similar reasons, and I love a comparative essay)

June

top: Metatextuality in Our Skyy 2 BBxATOTS (linking my other OS2 metas here and here because they were all part of the same conversation)

favorite: Ghosts and Hauntings in Moonlight Chicken which was a more experimental writing attempt for me, and I loved the tags from @firstkhaolesbian @ranchthoughts @pondphuwin and @akkpipitphattana. Followed it with this gifset later in the year.

July

top: Photography in Aof's Series again I love to compare shows

favorite: Time and Grief in Eternal Yesterday, my ode to one of the most impactful and beautiful and heartbreaking shows I watched this year

August

top: a comment on the set design for Sand and Ray's houses in Only Friends

favorite: Intertwined Discoveries in He's Coming to Me and the supernatural and queer story lines in parallel

September

top: a comment on ephemerality and wardrobe in Only Friends

favorite: parallels between Beam/Jim and Alan/Wen and why I think the relationships need to be considered in tandem (thoughts I had while making these gifs). I'm also fond of this He's Coming to Me post that was the thought process behind these gifsets)

October and November

no writing of the meta variety because I decided to write 50k words for NaNoWriMo and ended up with (half) a book instead

December

top & favorite: another silly meta! Not Me is About Earrings with an excellent addition by @ranchthoughts

Some no pressure tags if you feel like talking about your writing/any other types of creative work you did this year (does not have to be monthly): anyone I tagged throughout this post already, @twig-tea @slayerkitty @emotionallychargedtowel @dudeyuri @shannankle @visualtaehyun @airenyah @telomeke @waitmyturtles @kattahj or anyone who sees this, consider yourself tagged!

[cornflowershade]

Get To Know Me Tag!

thanks for tagging me @distant-screaming ! <33 💕 and @airenyah ! <33 ☺️💗

do you make your bed? typically no. I mean, I'll pull the sheets up so that it looks kind of okay but that's about it.

what's your favourite number? i don't think i have one 🤔 but I've always preferred odd numbers.

what is your job? working with kids part-time at an after school! we get to play games and go outside and do art. on thursdays I dance with them. it's a good time :)

if you could go back to school, would you? mmm. maybe! (but it wouldn't be with the intention of going into a that new field—I just like to learn and also enjoy school lol.) I was just talking the other day about how there's so many things I would've loved to study that I didn't go for or only discovered later. Like film! I want to know how to film things and have them look super professional for my personal fan projects.

can you parallel park? nope. never learned how and haven't had a chance to continue practicing driving bc... life. i'm still on my learners permit 🙃

a job you had that would surprise people? not sure what would be surprising honesty! But uh, I used to do website design for people.

do you think aliens are real? like... no but also yes? I think it's safe to assume that somewhere in the universe there could be life of some kind.

can you drive a manual car? nope

what's your guilty pleasure? wracking my brain and i literally can't think of something right now, i'm sorry

tattoos? nope! I like to change up my aesthetics too often for something that permanent asdfg. I stick with the occasional eyeliner tattoos or henna xD

favorite color? red!!! also blue. but I love most colors <33

favorite type of music? i listen to (most) any kind of music! just depends on what I feel like :)

do you like puzzles? like physical puzzle-piece puzzles? not really, I get a little antsy and don't have the patience for them! Unless it's a kids puzzle but then they're often too easy lol. BUT if we're talking mental puzzles, I love that. Like trying to code something and crack how to get a thing working... that's fun.

any phobias? i'm a bit afraid of heights. (not being high up in all situations, but specifically if there's a way to fall down. like sure I'll climb on top of things sometimes, but if it's too high or feels like there's an easy way to fall off then i get scared. sometimes kids try to get me to climb on the jungle gym equipment at work but this is simply not going to happen).

favorite childhood sport? horseback riding :)

do you talk to yourself? yes, but not out loud, just in my head. though a lot of the time it's actually fake conversations with other people or made up people. My brain makes up situations lol.

what movies do you adore? 'the lego batman movie', 'legally blonde'... when it comes to movies i'll watch over again it's usually the more feel-good type stuff

coffee or tea? tea! (I actively dislike the taste of coffee.) But also, I find tea very calming and it makes me happy! like, it's just so cozy!! especially if you have a little time for it, to make it a peaceful moment. boil the water, pick out a cup, sit with it all warm in your hands. rushed tea is not the thing.

first thing you wanted to be growing up? either being an actress or a teacher! :)

tagging: @qt-qtoey @softneomiro @lamonnaie @celestial-sapphicss @moonkhao

[airenyah]

having a deep-talk with a friend on whatsapp about how i'm really weird about having romantic feelings for someone and thinking about that one time when my mom stumbled across utsukushii kare on viki (back when only the first season was out) and watched it and then promptly sat me down and made me watch it too and by the end of it i was having a bit of a crisis, sitting there with my jaw dropped to the ground going "oh shit i see myself in hira" while my mom is just laughing her ass off saying "there's a reason why i wanted you to see this"

[airenyah]

i'm currently in the room by myself. question now is... can i make it through the entirety of ep3 of 23.5 if i start watching now

[gillianthecat]

It was Zotter! The coffee and cognac one. My mom and I found it at a fancy chocolate store and were just choosing based on flavors, so I didn’t notice the brand until we ate it last night. (It was a present for my brother but he generously shared.)

I had Fancy Chocolate from an Austrian company last night and thought of you. (It was yummy.)

ohhhhh which company was it?? was it perchance.... zotter?? 👀

[airenyah]

bitch what?? says who????? is there a law that states that every single person on earth has to have sex at some point????

sounds like a you problem tbh!!!!!

lmao WHAT are you fucking talking about!!!!!

YEAH AND???? SO WHAT??? WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK IS THE PROBLEM WITH THAT????????

who the fuck are you to dictate what other people do (or DON'T do) in their bedrooms?????

god i really really really really despise that societal expectation that everyone HAS to have sex at some point. i hate that society thinks that you HAVE to have sex in a relationship

and i also really really really really hate and despise that thing that happens in media that a couple HAS to fuck each other pretty much the day after they get together (if they haven't already at that point). like, even IF we're talking about a relationship where the people involved really ARE going to sleep with each other at one point.... you can literally take your time???? until you get to that point???? you can get to know each other first and figure out other aspects of the relationship first before you sleep with each other for the first time???? like. that's a thing??????!!!!!!! like. you don't even have to be asexual in order to wait until you have sex with your partner??????? do the writers realize that?????? clearly they don't

honestly what's with that expectation that kawi n e e d s to fuck pisaeng right away when they've only just started dating????? let kawi get comfortable in the relationship first please???? honestly what the fuck is up with all that stress and pressure????

ngl i find this particular scene extremely uncomfortable in so many ways

[airenyah]

ok so today i had my first thai class after a really long christmas break and somehow andreas gabalier (an austrian folk singer) and his music came up. and i don't remember what exactly my teacher said but he made a comment along the lines of "andreas gabalier is considered a standard good looking dude here in austria, right?" (my teacher is from thailand, so he wasn't sure about austrian people's preferences)

and his question was met with complete silence, because the thing is... our class consists of 3 middle aged guys plus one more guy in his mid 30s. and then there's me. the only girl

and since no one answered the question about andreas gabalier's looks, our teacher then addressed me directly and following conversation ensued:

teacher: "[airenyah]?" me: (feeling slightly shy and embarrassed) ".....i don't know what andreas gabalier looks like 🙈" everyone: (breaks out in laughter) middle-aged classmate: (highly amused) "i suspect he's not your type..." (me: "oh 🙈") "you're not missing out on anything :D"

i really like my teacher but god, let me live. don't put me on the spot like that 😩😩😩

[airenyah]

love it when you end up doing work that shouldn't be your responsibility but you know you don't have to say a word bc you know your bosses are kind hearted and are seeing this shit and are decidedly not ok with it

[gillianthecat]

thank you for sharing all these thoughts and experiences @airenyah! it all seemed very coherent to me (although I am also quite sleep deprived, so it could just be that i joined you in your nonsense land 😂) And it does make me very curious about all your thoughts on acting in BLs, though no pressure of course.

I had another thought. Given that this is the BL fandom, pretty much everyone here, especially all the monolingual English speakers, are used to reading thoughts in translation. Because that's what we're doing anytime we watch a BL. So overall it's a group who is pretty understanding about how meaning and grammar shifts across languages, and practiced at looking at the underlying meaning rather than focus on the superficialities of vocabulary and sentence structure. I don't know if your concern is about how you will be received, or more about your frustration in just being able to get the words out in the first place, but I wanted to add that reassurance.

i think i was indeed asking for advice so thank you for getting it despite my confusing way of asking! i believe i'm in a situation where i want to share my thoughts but 1. i can't seem to put them in order or make them make sense 2. english is not my first language and even though i can understand it and i usually use it online rather easily i struggle with translating the more analytical thoughts from my head to english, if that makes any sense. sometimes i get very overwhelmed too because of all the shows i'm watching (i'm really gonna have to put some of them on hold), not even commenting, just watching, so i can only imagine how overwhelmed i'll be if i decided to actually post about them

the thing you said about choosing one or two shows to talk about is pretty interesting and i think it is a good idea, i'll probably do that in the future if i can even choose the ones i wanna dissect publicly

tbh i have to think about if i really wanna do it because like i say i'm pretty happy just reading all your thoughts, so well put, and reblogging some pretty gifsets. it's just that sometimes i feel like there's so much in my head -too much- and i need to write it down or it'll explode, the thoughts pile up and it gets busy, am i making any sense?

the notes app is my best friend, not just for this but in life in general

thank you for listening to me and giving me such a thoughtful answer, you were never meant to be a lurker this is your element

you're welcome! thanks for writing back. I'm glad the advice was wanted.

I would say to your first point, tumblr is probably one of the safest places to let go of the need to make sense. people ramble inchoherently on here all the time. and you can always edit things later, or delete them later, and make them unrebloggable so they don't escape your control. so, no pressure to try, but if you did want to, this is pretty good place to experiment with it.

As to the second point, I am mono-lingual so I have no direct experience with it myself, but I know there are many people on here writing about BL in English as a second/third/etc language. Perhaps one of them will see this and chime in with any thoughts?

Mine are mostly an echo of the first point - this is not a place where you need to make perfect sense. And, although English dominates BL tumblr (at least from what I have seen from my English speaking corner), you can always choose to write in your first language, just to get the thoughts out of your head and out there. there may even be other speakers of it who are interested in reading your thoughts on BL. I have google translated posts in other languages before, I'm sure other people have as well.

And of course, reading and reblogging gifsets is always a wonderful use of tumblr.

But yes, there is something about writing it all down that clears up space, like releasing a pressure valve. So I can certainly see the appeal.

thank you 😊

edit: anon - look at the comments for some great advice from other people. (thanks you all!)

[airenyah]

it's 2am and i'm rewatching ep2 of os2 msp and aghhhhhh the brainrot the brAINROT

have i mentioned that i love it when actors do actor things

[airenyah]

so i went home for semester break and earlier i showed my mom the moonlight chicken trailer bc i've been telling her that this is another one of those shows that we'd have to watch together and well. somehow i've ended up talking about my school president and showing her some of the songs from the show and now she's open to the idea of binging it (esp if she ends up liking gemini and fourth in moonlight chicken lmao)

this whole thing happened bc after the moonlight chicken trailer i also showed her the mv of the chinese song that they covered for moonlight chicken and when fourth came on she went "oh that's a nice voice!"

[airenyah]

christkindlmarkt is all fun and games until you can't feel your fingers anymore