#former models of tumblr

[13thpythagoras]

realizing today...my hair is a fractal for my whole body

it's exactly as curly as i am curvy...lol

why do my 20 hairs that fall out weekly sometimes form an erotic abstract self portrait??

[smile-dance-breathe]

some of you need to shut the fuck up about sabrina carpenter I am so serious

[ask-painter]

(Literally 5 seconds after)

// ooc: I like drawing things from @ask-painter and I’s roleplay thread can you tell

Bonus: silly Kari I love drawing those stupid reaction images just with Kari instead

[vrystalius]

GENERAL HC: demons usually have nests, not traditional like straw and fur nests but little tucked away areas they tend to guard.

Muzan and Kokushibo’s nests are in the infinity castle

Douma’s nest is very comfortable. Very demure. (He tears up pillows and goes apeshit. And then makes his cult members clean up and make a larger pillow for him. Because beds are for basic bitches)

Akaza probably has his nest in the infinity castle too, but he’s a bit more secretive, and prob has somewhere else

Gyutaro has his nest in the red district, (it’s filled with bones and all trinkets he likes.)

(Hantengu + clones bc I LOVE THEM) they probably have a nest in the infinity castle since he and his clones need separate areas to keep them from strangling each other… but JANEHWJ

Urogi has a more traditionally bird nest (he steals shit and makes it into his BED)

Sekido just has a bed. Shames everyone else for having a messy nest

Karaku’s nest is very soft. DO NOT BELIEVE HIM THERES SOME FREAKY SHIT IN TYERE- I know he told me :3

Aizetsu’s nest is a few rocks. He feels he doesn’t deserve a proper nest. (Get him some damn pillows. It’s causing back pain for everyone)

ENMU MY LOVE, his nest is inside the train station, idk the word but it’s where all the trains go when not in use, it’s very comfy! No sunlight, he probably uses train lights to illuminate for his human mate

TURNING HC’S (TW HUMAN EATING MENTION)

Muzan isn’t used to being gentle, and seeing his former human mate in such pain to become a demon like him. He has all his servants tend to them; Kokushibo at the door guarding, Douma out going to get nesting supplies for the newly formed demon liege, Akaza getting human meat for them. Fun stuff! 🤩 he throws a massive festival for his new demon spouse. (It’s an excuse to execute random demons)

Kokushibo has a smaller situation, he brings you a small personal feast, (well hidden human meat so you don’t feel guilty) and goes to some people to have them make human meals (just with human meat instead of beef) and personally brings you his nesting materials

Douma has everyone in the cult, and has a sacrifice for your “ascension” (cult bullshit to explain demons) and how you’d need to be quarantined for awhile (cuddles while you calm down from bloodlust) and you two eat the sacrifice

Akaza calms you by taking you out with him. Probably uses a muzzle so you stop biting him… he doesn’t try and keep you contained so much, just supervising so you don’t hurt yourself… or get caught-

Gyutaro has you and Daki in his nest, pampering you both and is hopeful his sister approves of his mate, power wise and demon appearance. (She’s just excited to have another demon to talk too dw)

Hantengu and his clones are waiting on you hand and FOOT, his clones’ mate shall have the same respect as Muzan, since Muzan chose you to be his demon mate.

Enmu puts you to sleep while this happens, easing the growing pains and hunger, you wake up basically the same just a demon bc of the dreams he gave you. 10/10 very nice.

This was very long 👍

I took pictures just in case if tumblr ate this.

This was so good!! I keep thinking about clawing and skinning Douma during the transformation while he just giggles and laughs loudly. Also, I love the nests- Gyutaro’s would probably stink of decay while Daki’s is the most prestige and comfortable. Only the most expensive fabrics and jewrely is allowed to come even near her nest.

I’m not the biggest fan of Hangengu’s clones, but Urogi stealing things for you and dropping it off at his nest, or trying to feed you foods he stole out of people’s hands like a seagull seems super funny to me XD

Also, I think Enmu tried more than once to nest inside a train but never could decide wich one to settle in since his favourite train model changes almost every week and it would be exhausting to change nests so many times, so probably decided to stay near or inside the busiest train station he could find. And yes, he will kick his feet in delight when watching a train pass by or stop to let passengers in.

Akaza probably is letting you chew and rip his forearms apart as much as you like during your transformation, he literally doesn’t care. Also, he’ll probably try to convince you to don’t eat women as well, but doesn’t mind if you eat them anyway. As long as you’re happy and fed.

I can see Muzan getting ashamed of nesting. He’s the demon kind and supposed to above such animalistic behaviours, but he can’t help to hoard the finest and highest grade pillows/blanket. He likes it comfortable and prestige. Muzan would probably spray some cologne over all of it as well to make sure it smells divine, just like him.

Muzan is probably being a little annoyed at how long your transformation is going. He’s gonna stand there, tapping his foot and checking his watch. He might even get worried and check you for any signs of a bad transformation.

Perhaps I should write more headcanons, those are fun!

[ineffabildaddy]

ineffabildaddy fic masterlist

all my fics are aziraphale/crowley🩵

you can read @bowtiepastabitch's analysis on some of the ways i explore queerness in my fics, with an excellent addition by @lalalunamoth, here!

i'm humbled to say that a few of my works have been recced by @fuckyeahgoodomensfanfic - you can read those posts here!

i have a ko-fi account where you can leave a tip here, if you're so inclined🩵

CURRENT WIPS

golly what a spirit (you can only hear it down on whickber street) (E, 5k so far, 1/2 chapters posted) - it's almost christmas eve, and aziraphale has been a total humbug all month long. crowley buys a potion from anathema that promises to get its users in the christmas spirit, and doses their bedtime tea with it. when they wake up the next morning, they have undergone some very magical and very festive transformations...🎅🏻🧝🏼

long time listener, first time caller (E, 22k so far, 4/7 chapters posted) - crowley is in love with the voice of aziraphale fell, late-night radio host, and the face of the handsome stranger he passes in the park every day. what will happen when he introduces himself, and when he has to choose between them? 📻 fic post here

wouldn't it be a lovely headline? (E, 12k so far, 4/? chapters posted) - close friends anthony j. crowley and azira fell are attending their first awards show for the film they recently co-starred in, whose sequel will only be made if they get enough public attention over the course of the weekend... how to garner this attention? why, pretend they're a couple, of course.🎬 fic post here

COMPLETED FICS

take me as your wife (E, 7.1k) - a chance romantic meeting between crowley and aziraphale in a country inn in the 1750s sets off a chain of chases and surrenders🍷fic post here

complementary colours (T, 5.7k) - post-canon. aziraphale moves into crowley's cottage in the south downs and decides to do a little detective work to learn something he's never known about the former demon - his favourite colour🔎🌈 fic post here

angel and ash (E, 5k) - with art by @wasleichtesart! crowley begins to frequent queer bars in london, presenting as a trans woman under the name ash. one night, she stumbles upon a trans man known as angel, whom she recognises immediately...🪩 fic post here

creature of mine (E, 21k) - with art by @omens-for-ophelia! aziraphale buys crowley a snake plant as a gift, whose scent triggers a naga transformation. big dick aziraphale gets stuck in🌺🎁 fic post here

you're a mirror i cannot avoid (E, 1k) - south downs domestic, erotic softness as aziraphale reassesses what it means to be himself🪞 Tumblr | AO3

in your own time (E, 33k) - human priest au set in tadfield, in which crowley and aziraphale are childhood best friends finally reunited. catholic school, apple trees, hogback wood, holy sex, and more⛪️ fic post here

Just Up The Stairs (E, 39k) - cowrite with @foolishlovers, art by @omens-for-ophelia! quiet, gentle and romantic neighbours human au featuring lots of music and harry the rabbit🐇 fic post here

close (well, you couldn't get much closer) (E, 1.4k) - post-ineffable divorce shenanigans featuring crowley using a replica model of aziraphale's penis, through which aziraphale can feel... well, everything❗️

I'm Beginning to See the Light (E, 22k) - gentle enemies to ardent lovers office christmas party human au which quickly devolves into body worship and gender-affirming sex - transmasc az, service top crowley🎄⚧ fic tag here

Despite Knowing Better... (E, 10.9k) - aziraphale and fem!crowley deal with the ineffable divorce by meeting in the bookshop once a week to fuck, while attempting to hold each other at arm's length. things get messy in the process...💔

Strawberry Scripture (E, 6.5k) - pwp oneshot. aziraphale and fem!crowley celebrate averting the apocalypse by playing with food, and with crowley's scales...🍰🐍

UNFINISHED FICS (hopefully someday!)

crosseyed and painless (E, 2.9k) - dom!az and fem!crowley pwp in which crowley has asked aziraphale to help her relax after a long day, and the results are not at all what she expects💦

Many Different Ways to Eat an Oyster (E, 6.5k) - aziraphale and crowley meet in ancient rome, where crowley admits that he's a virgin. aziraphale sets about putting this to rights immediately🦪

FICLETS, POEMS ETC.

i have waited (M, 0.4k) - poem in which crowley ponders how he has waited for aziraphale over the millennia🕰 Tumblr | AO3

core of a clementine (E, 0,5k) - touch-starved crowley explores the sweet torture of aziraphale's seemingly innocent, mundane actions🍊 Tumblr | AO3

you're so golden (E, 0.9k) - while coupling under cover of night in the garden of eden, crowley discovers that aziraphale has golden stretch-marks. and they aren't the only part of him that's golden...✨ Tumblr | AO3

Only in Dreams (E, 0.5k) - post-season 2 aziraphale pov musings, as he hopes to visit his lover in dreams, if not in the waking world🌫 Tumblr | AO3

Blasphemy (E, 0,4k) - crowley muses about holiness, blasphemy, and how they interact with sex with aziraphale✝️ Tumblr | AO3

Do You Remember? (E, 0.8k) - aziraphale reflects on his first time with crowley - a time in which "they aren't talking" post-season 2💘

Flecks of Stardust (G, 0,2k) - a love poem from aziraphale to crowley🖋 Tumblr | AO3

I Know (E, 0.7k) - crowley reckons he knows exactly how aziraphale wants him... 🌅 Tumblr | AO3

Solitude (G, 0,4k) - supreme archangel aziraphale reminisces on his encounters with crowley through the ages ⌛️ Tumblr | AO3

Please Touch Me (E, 0,5k) - touch-starved crowley reflects on the kind of connection he wants with aziraphale 💭 Tumblr | AO3

[askagamedev]

I'm willing to accept that AAA games should often be sold at a higher price to help deal balance the increasing cost of development. Do you think that companies would do better to raise prices quickly and wait out the sticker-shock or to try and raise prices very slowly to attract less attention?

I'm pretty sure that, as an industry, we've mostly already moved beyond that. Haven't you noticed just how many AAA game releases these days aren't about a single sale but live service? The live service model is the price increase. The cost of development for AAA fidelity games is mostly too high now to be profitable on their own. The only real exceptions are grandfathered franchises (e.g. Elder Scrolls) and first party prestige titles to help sell systems (e.g. God of War, Sony's Spider-Man). Even former mainstays like Nintendo titles and Grand Theft Auto have embraced paid DLC, ongoing content drops, and a live service model.

Everything else is basically a live service or approximates a live service (e.g. Call of Duty's annual release) with regular content updates alongside battle passes, cosmetics, and microtransactions. Lifetime spend on these games per average player is already much higher than anything we could feasibly ask for up front. Raising prices would hurt initial sales, which would also hurt long-term earnings through the forthcoming content updates. Instead, for the bump in initial sale we offer cheap plastic toys, other inexpensive pack-ins, and maybe an in-game cosmetic and call it a "collector's edition".

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[waitmyturtles]

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine "Genre BLs," Along With a Critical Take on Branded Ships

[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 take a look at my very first GMMTV series that I ever watched, The Eclipse, to examine its prowess as a "genre" BL, and to take a critical stab at the branded ship model vis à vis a successful narrative.]

HELLO. Due to BIG SUMMER LIFE (!!!) (WOW -- work trips, work changes, new projects, the regular family stuff, so much travel!), I've been a couple months delayed on getting some words down on my recent rewatch of The Eclipse for my Old GMMTV Challenge project, but I'm glad to take some time now to talk about this show.

I'm at a point in the project where my syllabus (pasted at the bottom of this post) will take me into the territory of many shows that I've already watched since starting my Thai BL journey in the fall of 2022, shows that I watched while they were airing, such as Moonlight Chicken, Bed Friend, Be My Favorite, and others. (I will be offering short, non-rewatch notes on some of these shows as I go along in the chronology.) The Eclipse is one of these.

I wanted to specifically give The Eclipse a full rewatch for a couple of reasons, the biggest one being very personal, in that The Eclipse was my very first ever-EVER GMMTV series (!!!). And, the only Thai BL I had watched, in the late summer and fall of 2022, prior to The Eclipse was KinnPorsche.

So! At the time of my watching The Eclipse in 2022, I had nooooo idea who First Kanaphan or Khaotung Thanawat were; I didn't know about the existence of branded ships in Thai BLs yet; I didn't know about the prevalence and regularity of side couples in Thai BLs, as VegasPete had been my first exposure to that; I didn't effing know about the fabulousity that is Neo Trai, none of it.

I simply just watched the show on the recommendation of a dear mutual. And, fuck, man, I totally had expected WAY more salacious material in The Eclipse coming off of KinnPorsche! At first, I was like, Thailand is WILDIN', and then it was just the GMMTV-PG FirstKhao smooches, which was fine, they were great, ha! I wasn't disappointed, but lmao, that was my mindset and understanding of my very brief introduction to Thai BLs at that very moment -- I thought it was all guns and butts and mafiosos and pool sex.

Besides rewatching The Eclipse with my now-very-experienced Thai BL glasses on to fix ALL of those past assumptions, I also wanted to rewatch the show in the understanding that filmmaker and former politician, Golf Tanwarin (the first transgender member of parliament in Thailand's House of Representatives) was addressing homophobia and leveraging their screenplay to talk about themes of stifling conformation in Thai society vis à vis the fictional environment of the Suppalo boys school. I want to demarcate this moment as an important one: at this point of my syllabus, the late summer and fall of 2022, the Thai BL landscape exists still mostly within the no-homophobia bubble, with only a handful of shows (He's Coming To Me, Secret Crush On You, etc.) stepping out of that bubble to grab the theme of homophobia and really wrangle with it frontally by way of familial and social acceptance.

However, I have to admit something as I write this review. During this recent rewatch, I had the benefit not just of my past historical chronological viewing of old shows behind me to judge The Eclipse's success as a show and as a messenger of deeper themes past straightforward romance; but I also had the benefit of foresight into the future, seeing how First and Khao served as a branded couple again in Only Friends, a series that, I believe, flopped in its narrative end due to the show prioritizing happy endings for its branded couples, rather than taking the time and the risks to break the branded ships up (or, at least, rock their foundations) to offer sophisticated social commentary on casual sex, as the initial marketing for Only Friends had initially promised.

In other words, I had critical glasses on for FirstKhao's performance, not necessarily for the actors themselves (well, kinda, lemme be for real), but I also wanted to understand better how The Eclipse centered THEM as an IT, a tangible IT, the branded ship, either against and/or vis à vis Golf's underlying critical messaging on social conformity and homophobia.

Unfortunately, through that critical lens, what I gained out of this rewatch of The Eclipse is a confirmed judgement that the common Thai BL structure of very much CENTERING a branded ship, especially emanating out of GMMTV, the central home for branded ships in Thailand, will almost CERTAINLY render a show attempting to make higher messages a weaker one in the end.

I found myself FULLY enjoying The Eclipse out of the FirstKhao sequences. When I first watched The Eclipse in 2022, I was a Thua hater, and I engaged for the very first time with @respectthepetty and others on subsequent defenses of Thua's outing of Akk and Ayan in the context of Akk and Ayan acting like loose-cannon-dillholes themselves. (This was a fabulous intro to my engaging with others on Tumblr, by the way, and I remember this discourse fondly!)

This time around, with the blessing of hindsight, I fully appreciated Louis Thanawin's FANTASTIC performance at the end of the series, as an overly frustrated and overwhelmed student wrangling with his sexuality, his attraction to Kan, and watching Kan's own struggles with his own sexuality, along with dealing with an overbearing stepfather -- and all of that happening while he was watching the hypocrisy of Akk slowly warming to Ayan, while Akk simultaneously punished The World Remembers gang. Louis, as Thua, fucking nailed it, and was an utter cutie at the end with Kan (including in Our Skyy 2, swoon). And forget about Neo Trai: Neo as Kan was one of the best performances I've seen of Neo's, as a student struggling literally to the second to manage his outward displays of automatic attraction to Thua for the sake of maintaining a façade of "order" for the Suppalo environment.

How does all of this impact my thoughts on FirstKhao as a branded ship, and AkkAyan as a fictional couple in The Eclipse?

There was so much great commentary on mental health, on social pressures and conformity, and on the reliance of history to contextualize and engage in suppression, in this show. The show hit hard and impactfully on these themes. As I just mentioned, the story of Thua was a welcome inclusion of the various ways in which homophobia impacted the Suppalo environment on micro- and macro-levels. The story of Dika is also gutting, and I appreciated The Eclipse for never turning an eye away from Ayan's continued suffering at losing his uncle so traumatically. (I also understand that there was quite a lot of conservative protest against The Eclipse in Thailand, and that the show being shortened by two episodes may have been related to this, along with the show airing during ongoing student protests.)

Unfortunately, I believe The Eclipse tripped on itself when it stepped away from these themes to move to more lighthearted moments with AkkAyan. I think the centering of this ship led to a number of key unfulfilled narrative moments, including a key factual skip later in the series, when Ayan indicates to Akk that Akk had made a promise to reveal his work against The World Remembers, a promise that did not have prior reference in earlier episodes.

This isn't to say that a budding couple can't have sweet moments. And we saw a tremendous amount of trauma coming from both Akk and Ayan, with Ayan's ongoing anger at Suppalo, and Akk's fear of rejection for his and his family's financial state, leading him to embody Suppalo's culture of suppression for the sake of his own survival at the school. These very-deeply messed-up fictional boys absolutely deserved and needed love.

But I found myself taking the most notes on this show when I felt the tones of previous scenes of protest, trauma, or attack were juxtaposed against getting Akk and Ayan together for a subsequent scene, especially later in the series, when their flirtation continued to grow. I felt this particularly during the outdoor Twitter scene in the bleachers, when Akk and Ayan were using tweets as a means of finding out who was running the counterprotest Twitter account, which was placed right after a particularly brutal attack against The World Remembers. I needed to flip my emotional attention back to a practiced GMMTV routine of watching a ship continue to warm up to each other for memorable and meme-able moments, and I found that juxtaposition jarring.

As opposed to Not Me, GMMTV's first "genre" BL that played with a sandbox outside of romance, The Eclipse was on steadier feet. While Not Me really tried to play around de-centering a shipped pair in OffGun, it truly stumbled in rushing back to inject romance throughout the storyline, particularly with DanYok taking up unexpected and discordant room (ACAB, YOK). And outside of GMMTV, we've seen many "genre" BLs actually work really well, most notably to that point in 2022, the crime-driven Manner of Death (MaxTul, my beloved), which balanced a developing romance with a legitimately interesting and unwinding mystery, all with a sharp and solid screenplay that didn't stray from its intended purpose. (Maybe I'm getting my hopes up too soon, but we're seeing "genre" BL doing well right now with 4 Minutes, and GMMTV has another, riskier, "genre" BL coming up in its crime-driven series, Kidnap.)

GMMTV, however, demands something economically from its shows, a sellable final product that can be transmogrified into fan meetings, branded items, and most of all, enduring and memorable legacies for the branded ships that center most of its BLs. At the time of The Eclipse's airing, both First and Khao had been previously paired with others (First with Gawin Caskey in Not Me; Khao with Podd Suphakorn in Tonhon Chonlotee), and the sao wais had been eagerly awaiting the debut of FirstKhao, and were fed nicely.

I can't say, quantifiably, if the majority of the global Thai BL fandom, or even the majority of the GMMTV fandom, are sao wais who only watch GMMTV shows for branded ships and guaranteed happy endings between shipped actors that only partner with the same person over and over again. I also believe that at this moment in time (in 2024), that we may be seeing differences in preferences emanating from fandoms based in Thailand, China, elsewhere in Asia, and globally, particularly in Europe and North and South America, between fans that will willingly support branded ships through very bad narrative shows, versus fans that prefer well-scripted shows above all else.

I think, after the economic earthquake that was the airing of 2gether in 2020, that GMMTV made a hard-turn decision to prioritize series that centered repeating branded ships above all other kinds of investment in other shows, including excellent screenplays.

I say this not to bemoan the opportunity for Thai filmmakers to have economic success. If these shows are making coin for Thai creatives -- maybe even the kind of coin that will allow these creatives to have more artistic freedom in their futures -- then I cannot begrudge that at all, and I wish these artists economic success.

But from a critical viewpoint of artistically narrative success, I'd argue that the last truly great narrative show of GMMTV's portfolio is 2021-22's Bad Buddy, featuring a branded ship in OhmNanon that I'm sure the network wanted to use again, one that both Nanon Korapat and Ohm Pawat knew they didn't want to repeat. Since then, while we've had a small amount of storytelling gems out of GMMTV like Moonlight Chicken, Cherry Magic Thailand, and Cooking Crush, most of what's come out of that studio has been mediocre for the past few years, with some aching stumbles having been had in shows like 23.5, Wandee Goodday, and My Love Mix-Up Thailand, which is airing now.

A major complaint across social media right now about My Love Mix-Up Thailand, centering Gemini Norawit and Fourth Nattawat, is that the show rushes to create meme-able moments between them, which is more in line with GMMTV's bottom line of engagement first. My Love Mix-Up/Kieta Hatsukoi is an utterly beloved Japanese manga and dorama. While G4 fans are drumming up the level of social media engagement that GMMTV judges "success" on, many other general BL fans have been left disappointed by the show's pulling back from honoring certain moments of hilarity and connection with the original Japanese source material (how could Fourth NOT go into the trash can?!).

I posit that it was 2gether's 2020 airing that encouraged GMMTV to make the pivot from investing in well-crafted screenplays, and taking risks to split ships up -- as the network did with Tay Tawan in 2019's 3 Will Be Free -- to center the branded ships.

And I think 2022's The Eclipse is an excellent example of the result of this decision-making: that while The Eclipse's core ideas within its screenplay were admirable, and much of the acting and romance outside of the branded ship were great to watch, that the show's needing to leave the central path of the narrative central story to spotlight the FirstKhao ship to create engagement-worthy moments ultimately took power away from the show and its message.

Only Friends -- a late-2023 show that initially marketed itself on breaking up ships and celebrating casual sex -- came back around in the end to scold any of us fans that wanted to see the ships sink. The dynamic between First and Khao in Only Friends was incredibly similar to their dynamic in The Eclipse: First acting as a tough-guy character who couldn't help being simp-ly swept away by an overpowering character played by Khao. I'm afraid the same will be repeated again in Jojo Tichakorn's next show, The Heart Killers, and I'd like to be proven wrong there, but.

It's incredible for me to reflect on what I know now about The Eclipse, and how this otherwise-excellent show was, in my eyes, economically impacted by the casting decision to prioritize a branded ship over the narrative cohesiveness of a screenplay. GMMTV has only committed even more to this path since The Eclipse's airing.

For the sake of excellent actors like First, and especially Khao: I hope they can have the future opportunity to spread their wings and act with other actors (as the very extreme majority of actors in entertainment get to enjoy), to shake off the economic prioritizing of branded ships in order to access better screenplays and stories. They deserve it, as hard-working creatives, and I'll certainly support them outside of the branded ship model, one that I believe is showing artistic wear and tear as more branded ship shows keep narratively sinking.

[Alright! So, where am I on the OGMMTV list? I've actually already finished the next show on my list, GAP The Series, this summer, and I hope I can pen that review in short order to get this series back on some kind of timely track.

HOWEVER, HEH HEH, that's actually going to be a bit difficult for me as, per the recommendation of a couple of BL elders, I am backtracking chronologically and tackling 2022's The Miracle of Teddy Bear, Thailand's first queer primetime, broadcast channel-level lakorn, which consists of 16 90-minute episodes, which, woof. Despite its hefty length, I am terribly excited to watch a show (a lakorn, EEEE!) out of the usual Thai BL bubble, one that I understand has been potentially misunderstood and/or mis-marketed to BL fandoms over the years. For the sake of its primetime airing alone, it holds an important place on the OGMMTVC syllabus. And I can't wait to take a crack at a Thai major channel's first attempt to make queer content and BL-genre-influenced content a primetime offering.

This means that, once again, My School President has been held at a delay, but I will get to MSP soon, I SWEAR! (And....oops. I'm thiiiiiinking that I might watch My Love Mix-Up after MSP at literal warp speed, literally 1.5x, to do another piece on branded ships vis à vis G4 and Au Kornprom in 2022 vs. 2024. We'll see. I may not wanna do that to myself, but... but! For science?!?! Maybe.)

Here's the updated OGMMTVC syllabus for your perusal. ONWARDS!

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) (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 (Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: preamble here, part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4) 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) (review here) 35) The Miracle of Teddy Bear (2022) (watching) 36) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here)  37) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist (part 1 and part 2) 38) Honorable Mention: War of Y (2022) (for the sake of an attempt to provide meta BL commentary within a BL in the modern BL era), with a complementary watch of Aam Anusorn’s documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy (2020) (thoughts here) 39) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 40) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine "Genre BLs," Along With a Critical Take on Branded Ships

41) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) (review coming) 42) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 43) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 44) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 45) La Pluie (2023) (review coming) 46) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 47) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 48) Only Friends (2023) (tag here) (not technically a BL, but it certainly became one in the end) 49) Last Twilight (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as Thailand’s first major BL to center disability, successfully or otherwise) 50) Cherry Magic Thailand (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as the first major Japanese-to-Thai drama adaptation, featuring the comeback of TayNew)

51) Ossan’s Love Returns (2024) (adding for the EarthMix cameo and the eventual Thai remake) 52) Dead Friend Forever (2024) (thoughts here) 53) 23.5 (2024) (GMMTV’s first GL) (thoughts here)]

[idontknowreallywhy]

Resurface 33 - Restless

What went before - Tumblr / AO3

Previous chapter

It’s fine it’s fine it’s fine.

ALL FINE.

Honest?

💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚

The first time Scott listened, thirteen people died.

John was waiting in the lounge.

He often did after the more disastrous mission failures. It was good for them to be all together at those times. Physically together.

Scott knew this.

Scott himself had strongly encouraged it in the past. So strongly, in fact, nobody needed to suggest it now - John would just appear and when Scott got back upstairs from the hangar, John would have made them both a coffee and he would sit and watch Scott pace the floor and not much would be said but they’d be together. And together they’d wait for Virgil, the Tinies, Kayo… for everyone to be back before events were discussed.

But Scott didn’t want to see John.

And he definitely didn’t want to see Virgil who was chasing him home as fast as his unopened cargo ship could travel. So he skipped the shower, changed straight into his running gear and headed out via Two’s hangar entrance before the green behemoth was even within sight of the island.

A beast of a storm was brewing, but he could get a couple of laps in before it landed.

💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙💚💙

Virgil didn’t need to look at the barometer read outs. The colour of the clouds and the niggling pressure in his head told him everything he needed to know as soon as he approached the Kermadec Ridge.

It was going to be a doozy. The kind of storm where it seemed the very sky would crash down upon the trembling Earth below and all the Earth could do was absorb the fury and wait… and hope… for it to pass.

Virgil knew how it felt.

“Scott’s not here?”

“Running.”

“Ah. Did he say…”

“He didn’t come up.”

“Oh.” Virgil eyed the large blue cup of stone-cold coffee on the countertop then picked it up and drained it in one. “Right.”

“I’ll make you a fresh cup.”

“Thanks, but it’s fine. I had one in Two.”

John raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly at the empty mug Virgil still clutched.

Virgil looked down at it.

“Oh… well… we can’t leave it sat there to… to fester… and it seemed a waste to just...” he gestured vaguely with the mug by way of sentence completion before striding over to rinse it in the sink. A quick wipe with the tea towel and he placed it back in its spot by the coffee machine. Next to the green one.

Frowning slightly, he bent down to buff a watermark from the handle. Then glanced back at the man observing him from his perch at the breakfast bar.

John had his concerned face on.

“I’m alright, John.”

“Sure you are.”

The air was so thick Virgil felt he was swimming through it. He massaged his temples. Come on weather, just break already.

“I need to show you something.” John tapped at something on his tablet and brought up a schematic of the scandium mine.

Former scandium mine.

“Can this wait? We should wait for Scott.”

“You need to know you made the right call.”

Virgil lifted his fingers, one at a time, from the counter top and noted the sensation as each set of ligaments stretched. Maybe he should play a little piano, take his mind off things…

“Virgil.”

“I do. I know I did. It was too risky. But I’m not the one needs convincing, John. He’s never going to forgive me…”

“Virgil!”

He looked up at his brother who swiped through a series of animations modelling l the sudden shift in the underlying geology that had caused the mine to entirely collapse in on itself in the space of less than seven seconds.

“If you hadn’t stopped him he’d be gone. There was no way out of there, no time for a warning. 100% certainty.”

Virgil wasn’t sure how this was meant to help. He’d already pictured it a thousand times on the agonisingly long journey home - the dark tunnel disappearing with his best friend inside. Over and over. He’d felt his own ribcage cave under the pressure of those rocks as he lost hope...

“They aren’t even contemplating any attempt to recover the…”

“Enough.”

John paused then conceded with a slight inclination of the head. Virgil gave a small smile of gratitude and went to observe the gathering storm from the balcony doors.

“Virgil?”

A breath. He tugged on the lever to open the vents, to get some damn air in the room. If anything the outside air was even more soup-like but now they could hear the faint rumbling in the distance. It was coming.

“Yes, John?” He knew his voice was higher pitched, tighter than usual and he also knew John would see that for the warning sign it was, because John did the same and both brothers knew each other well enough to know when they needed each other to leave well enough alone.

Which made it particularly surprising that he walked right over to where Virgil stood and spoke again.

“I don’t know what you said to him, but whatever it was… thank you.”

Virgil didn’t answer, he was watching the palm trees bend and sway in the gusting wind. John slipped his hand into Virgil’s and they stood together as with the sound of a thousand needles the clouds finally burst and rain hammered against the glass, blurring the trees to grey.

💚🧡💚🧡💚🧡💚🧡💚🧡💚🧡💚🧡💚🧡

Next chapter

[whencyclopedia]

Chang'an

Chang'an, located near modern Xian in Shaanxi Province, was the capital of several dynasties of ancient China from the Zhou to the Tang and eventually became one of the world's great metropolises. With regular tree-lined avenues, high walls, pleasure parks, and areas dedicated to specific functions, it provided a model which was copied by other Asian capitals, notably in Japan and Korea.

Early Settlement & Geography

A settlement from Neolithic times, Chang'an was an ideal location for a capital as it was surrounded on all sides by mountains, providing a useful obstacle to invading armies, and was close to the Yellow and Wei Rivers. The advantages of the geographical location are described in the History of the Former Han Dynasty by Pan Ku,

In abundance of flowering plants and fruits

It is the most fertile of the Nine Provinces

In natural barriers for protection and defence

It is the most impregnable refuge in heaven and earth

(in Dawson, 59)

The name Chang'an translates as 'Forever Peace', and although not quite living up to its name, the city did remain important for well over a millennium. Chang'an was an important city in the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600-1046 BCE) but first became a capital under the Western Zhou (1046-771 BCE). When the Eastern Zhou dynasty (771-256 BCE) arose, the capital moved to Luoyang, Chang'an's great rival city which several times in Chinese history replaced it as capital.

Continue reading...

[wynnyfryd]

🐳 howdy ✨

Hello there, lovely. Welcome to my blog. If you’re here I assume you’re also a deranged little doofus, and I love that about you. The brainrot gripped me and never let go, so this is primarily a steddie blog (and occasionally a personal one when I remember to check my asks.)

Steddie fic masterlist below. I also post a ton of drabbles and shorter stories on my blog, and if you want more content you can check out the monthly writing challenge I created and run with @steddieas-shegoes at @steddiemicrofic <3

————————

in progress

i don't know, you figure it out (trailer park steve au)

rated E | posting to tumblr in daily parts under #trailer park steve au, which will be added to ao3 as chapters are completed

ch. 1: part 1-5, ao3

ch. 2: part 6-8, ao3

ch. 3: part 9-12, ao3

ch. 4: part 13-18, ao3

ch. 5: part 19-22, ao3

ch. 6: part 23-27, ao3 | artwork by @inklessletter

bonus scene: stobin hangover brunch

ch. 7: part 28-32, ao3 | artwork by @foxprism

ch. 8: part 33-36, ao3

ch. 9: part 37-40, ao3

ch. 10: part 41-47, ao3

ch. 11: part 48-53, ao3

ch. 12: part 54-55, ao3

ch. 13: part 56-60, ao3

ch. 14: part 61-64, ao3

ch. 15: part 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | ao3

In which the Munsons get new neighbors, but instead of the Mayfields it’s the former King Steve and his recently widowed mom.

manic goblic dream boy

13.2k | not rated | 28/? chapters | ao3

this is where I archive all my tumblr drabbles when I remember to actually do that. each chapter is a standalone piece

completed fics

game, set, match

2.2k | E | good boy eddie munson pwp, written for @subeddieweek day 4 | ao3

baby it's cold outside (but it's real warm in your mouth)

9k | E | enemies to smothered, written with @griefabyss69 for @subeddieweek day 3 | ao3 | artwork by @donttellunclesam

Steve and Eddie get snowed in.

biting you biting you biting you- oh! kissing you!

2.5k | M | platonically non-platonic stobin crack with a dash of pre-relationship steddie | ao3

Get blackout drunk and French your friends: the musical.

it was love, love alone

2.5k | E | silly sweaty steddie sex | ao3 | podfic by @reena-jenkins

Steve and Eddie get freaky on the Hellfire throne.

nine of diamonds

1.1k | T | crack-fluff written while my train was delayed | ao3

a kinda-sorta-not-really Eddie POV sequel to ‘is this your card?’

Satanic Ritual: DO NOT WATCH!!

5.8k | E | weirdly sentimental slut time based on this art by @inklessletter | ao3

Chicago 1994: Steve and Eddie move in together, then they watch a film.

yoga dom steve series

33.3k | E | dom steve x sub eddie kink exploration series | ao3

Eddie’s ADHD as hell and Steve’s a hot stretchy boi who’s gonna box breath the brain bees into submission. or something.

relax (lay it back): 12k | E | ao3 | cowritten with @gorgeousgreymatter-x for @flintandfuss’s birthday

relax (that’s that): 2.6k | E | ao3

a masterpiece of art, it’s true: 3.3k | M | ao3

i know it’s hard to do: 9k | E | ao3

blue dream: 6.3k | E | ao3

your kiss is on my list

2.3k | T | fluff, getting together | ao3

Steddie Week 2023, day 3: discover | first kiss | ‘kiss on my list’ by hall & oates

is this your card?

4.5k | T | hellhonk origins | ao3

Steve, Robin, and Eddie kill time in a bar.

damn right, you do

2.7k | T | prompt fill for @mcneen | ao3

Steve could use a hug. Fortunately Eddie's a great hugger.

Monsoon Season

6.1k | E | crack prompt author AU | ao3

Beloved children's author Eddie Munson, meet notoriously petty smut writer Steve Harrington.

TITS! Magazine

11.9k | E | art student Eddie x model Steve AU | ao3

Eddie finds a magazine, then he finds a man.

No Son of Mine

4.5k | M | angst, hurt-comfort | ao3 | podfic by wildishly

Steve shows up at Eddie's door with a handprint on his cheek and his heart on his sleeve.

i’ll stop the world and freeze with you

634 words | G | meet-cute AU drabble | ao3

Eddie promised he’d take Max ice skating, only he doesn’t actually have a single solitary fucking clue what he’s doing. Good thing there’s a very helpful Hot Guy who can assist.

The Great Scavenger Hunt of 1986

7.9k | T | heart-warming Christmas fluff | ao3 | listen to the podfic

In 1985, Little Debbie releases their new Christmas tree snack cakes. In 1986, Robin gets the flu, and Steve sets out to cheer her up with festive treats. It's easier said than done.

(My one and only completed attempt at podfic, godDAMN how do y’all finish these editing projects?) written for Hellfire Christmas 2022

patience is a virtue

1.7k | E | self-indulgent pwp | ao3

Being patient sucks. Literally.

hayrides and late harvests

651 words | M | pre-smut drabble | ao3

day 5, prompt #31: “Let me help you. I’m begging you to let me help you.”

Bobbing for Apples at the Bottom of Lover’s Lake

1.9k | M | getting together, mopey steve x vampire eddie | ao3

Steve goes missing at the Halloween house party; Eddie tracks him down.

Steve H. Who Works in Accounting

2.9k | E | pwp that made me laugh | ao3

Robin’s in pain. Steve’s bisexuality isn’t helping. (or: Steve gets embarrassed and apparently he’s kinda into that.)

microfics

@steddiemicrofic prompt fills

paint it black 🎂🖤🎂

290 words | M | bonus round ‘birthday’ to celebrate @steddieas-shegoes | ao3

Steve bakes Eddie a birthday cake.

make me

388 words | E | March prompt ‘pin’ | ao3

“Eat a dick, Munson.” “Make me.”

Plot Holes

404 words | T | January prompt ‘hole’ | tumblr | ao3

the gates are open and time’s all fucked

🎵 Troll Toll 🎵

404 words | M | January prompt ‘hole’ | tumblr | ao3

three fandoms converged in a future wood, and I— I regret that I wrote this

the kind of charm we need

548 words | G | September prompt ‘charm’ | ao3

Nancy doesn’t appreciate him, but someone else might.

at the bottom you’ll find all our friends

442 words | M | MCD/angst | July prompt ‘pool’ | ao3

The trouble is, Eddie doesn't stay dead.

discontinued fics

note: fics in this section are NOT complete and will very likely stay that way. read them, write your own version, print em out and eat em if you like but so HELP ME if you ask when the next chapter is coming i’ll end u thank you 😘

stupid fucking star stuff

3.4k | M | stardust AU | ao3

Steve’s a star and Eddie’s in love with a guitar.

babysitters and book signings

4.2k | G | famous author Eddie x just-some-guy Steve | ao3

Steve takes the kids to a convention to meet their favorite fantasy author, one critically-acclaimed and unfairly attractive Eddie Munson.

[erika-xero]

So basically: DeviantArt ✔ Artstation ✔ Pixiv ✔ Tumblr ✔ Twitter ✔ Instagram ✔ Everyone sold their asses and their users to techbros. I see people mentioning Bluesky, but Bluesky will most likely do it too - at least one of their former directors (Jack Dorsey) was into crypto and NFT and this is definitely a red flag for me. Furaffinity is still holding up pretty nice, and you can have a gallery there even if you draw humans/elves/aliens and not anthro but it's not so easy to gain following there (I still can't figure out how to do it, and I've been on a platform for five or six years). Basically, it's not like we have any good options rather than nightshade all of our art and opt the hell in to ruin their pretty lil ai-model into unusable state. But Nightshade is only an option for visual arts, and not for texts. We still can poison the well by writing gibberish on purpose, though. Imma use some old good russenglish and hope that the next time chatgpt goes nuts it will start cursing and swearing in Russian in the middle of it's output сука блять.

[rimeiii]

I return to WHB Tumblr to see how the game us doing and I see the fandom in shambles, damn. And after scrolling through the tag for a bit, I have...questions.

Yo how big is WHB now even? I stopped playing shortly after they introduced the paywalled Gabriel and that's one of the things I've seen several people complain about...

Like I understand the rest of the complaints - it's mostly the same complaints I've been having about the game prior to me quitting. Multiple decisions that seem to reinforce the idea that this game is heading down the P2W path, very anti-F2P practices in general, outrageous prices for the paid Nightmare Pass, no pity system on launch, the disaster that was the implementation of the Solomon's Seals gacha, the many bugs on launch especially, the small amount of farmable premium currency, and the list goes on...the pancake shop rework not only seems to be in line with the trajectory PB seems to be taking in terms of game decisions, but is also the straw that broke the camel's back for a lot of players.

But, uh, storage? Wasn't it like 2 GB tops on launch? That was reasonable I think, because Arknights was around that size on launch and back then, there was so little additional content. Only JP dubbing, no L2D E2 art or skins (the only L2D we had back then was Closure, the SHOPKEEP), 5 story chapters (which translated to 92 stages, in which around half have a Challenge Mode variant and with a large majority being unique maps), and no additional game modes.

For additional context, currently Arknights is ~6-7 GB on a fresh account with all language dubbing, and it gets bloated if you don't delete unused event data (it's ~9.7 GB for me and I have Arknights on my current phone ever since Near Light first hit Global, so just over 2 years now). Keep in mind Arknights is close to 4.5 years old in Global, and CN just celebrated their 5th anniversary a few months back.

Talking about storage, I don't think comparing WHB to older games and non-tower defense is fair either, since:

Older games in general are much easier on your device in terms of storage to content ratio and performance, mostly due to device limitations of the past requiring less sophisticated game mechanics and the devs sticking to these simpler mechanics even as time passes and technology gets more advanced. Gentle reminder that FGO is ~7 years old in NA, ~9 years old in JP, and ALSO doesn't download everything initially - afaik there's an option for that in the settings menu which bumps the total size up significantly (the wiki lists it as around 9-10 GB total).

Different genres and graphics mean different storage requirements. Anything 3D or open world will almost always have higher storage requirements compared to anything else. Path to Nowhere is around the same size as Arknights despite being younger due to the former using 3D models for their battle sprites, compared to the 2D chibis Arknights uses. Love and Deepspace, a ~5 months game, is huge because of how they do the cutscenes AND the stage-based action gameplay, but Wuthering Waves is closing the gap on size quickly despite being only ~1.5 months because it's an open world action RPG.

What I will say, though, is that WHB is not optimized well. Now I may be very unfair by comparing WHB to Punishing: Gray Raven, a game by the optimization gods known as Kurogames (people ran the PC PGR client on 2GB RAM laptops and my 4GB RAM laptop can run WuWa despite it using UE4 - an engine notorious for chugging on low end devices - albeit with lag spikes in the open world map), but when a 2D tower defense game fails to run as smoothly as a 3D action game with stylish and fast-paced combat, then we have a problem. For context, my 4GB RAM phone only has minor lag when I use a skill that has a lot of visual effects like Lee Hyperreal's Hypermatrix, but back when I played WHB I still experienced lag spikes when deploying units.

Again this all boils down to PB just not being used to the game format. Which is all well and good, Arknights was a huge departure from Girls Frontline too - a good portion of Arknights' devs worked on Girls Frontline before splitting off to work on Arknights. But what made Arknights succeed is how accessible and F2P friendly the game was, with smooth and solid gameplay as well as an engaging plot that discusses themes such as racism, discrimination, and the fragility of hope.

Of course you can argue that Arknights is a tower defense first, visual novel second. Unlike WHB, which is an otome game first, tower defense second. And I would agree, but only to a certain extent. Once you step into the realm of having Actual Combat Gameplay Elements then I believe it's your duty to make progression as reasonable as possible. Including a power gate is fine, but nothing too excessive - and certainly do not hold any significantly strong unit behind a paywall.

Because fun fact - in Arknights' entire runtime, there were only a handful of completely paywalled content:

Player icons from promotional packs for large events, particularly the Ambience Synesthesia concerts

Character skins from promotional packs, like the Exusiai and Guard Ch'en skins during the anime release

Purestream, a B4 Therapist Medic who was released as a WWF collab, where all sales from her $1 pack were donated to the WWF. Even then, she eventually became available for everyone, as she was later added to the Recruitment pool (use a resource obtained from Dailies for a chance to get units, some unique to the pool like Purestream). She was a decent healer, and her Module made her a good budget medic. Even then you're more likely using the Medics you've already built by then - for B4 budget options, Perfumer is usually better for multi-target healing and a party HP regen passive, while Sussurro is your go-to for strong single-target healing.

And guess what? None of these had any direct impact on gameplay during their paywalled period. Purestream wasn't even a B5 or B6 unit, yo. There are many better options for healers. I STILL USE THE B3 ANSEL AND HIBISCUS IN INTEGRATED STRATEGIES.

I'm just...PB's choices baffle me, and I do wish they can improve not just on the game performance standpoint, but in how they treat their playerbase in terms of in-game purchases. I hope I made that abundantly clear...

[stillness-in-green]

Hi, are you still working on the AFO Retcon Essay? You mentioned a few times you are not sure if Horikoshi retconned AFO's original plan or if he always intended for AFO to take over Tomura, but made AFO act somewhat contradictory from the start regardless. Did this ever make you feel like there are too many possibilities in regards to Horikoshi's original intentions to take into account and could therefore make it harder to write the essay?

Hi there, and thanks for your interest! I did actually talk about this a good while back, towards the beginning of the year; you can find that post here. It says pretty much exactly what you did and goes a bit further--that I'm so distrustful of Horikoshi as a writer that I have no idea anymore what might have been retconned and what was his intention from the start, and further, that even if something was his intention from the start, I don't trust him to have laid the groundwork for those intentions with honesty or good faith.

Instead of the AFO Retcon Essay, what I've been poking at instead is some sort of massive retrospective of all the problems with BNHA's endgame. That's going to require a reread on my part, and some decisions about formatting--namely, do I want to do the reread privately, on my end, and then write the Mega Chonky Essay and post it when I'm finished, or do I do it publically, read-along liveblog style, documenting the problems as I go?

At the moment, I'm leaning towards the second. I have some tentative ideas about keeping a running list of (to use a witticism from the Twitter fen) Themes & Such, ideas and ideology the series sets out and how well it lives up to those ideas--or how it fails to. I'd also like to keep track of things like character arcs and foreshadowing, documenting things with an eye to where those arcs go, what the foreshadowing amounts to, whether the series keeps its implicit promises, and so on. I suspect it would wind up looking something like a cross between the heteromorphobia essay and my chapter thoughts posts.

On the other hand, a format that deals with one group of problems at a time could feel more focused, discussing all the evidence at once of any particular topic rather than having to keep many (many) plates spinning across a retrospective of the entire series. I also already have the broad outline for that, since it was my plan last time I was seriously poking at the idea. It would probably still end up being posted in multiple parts; the parts would just cover different groups of characters or aspects of the series per installment, rather than e.g. each installment covering an arc and everything in it.

I suppose there's nothing stopping me from doing first the former and then the latter? I'm planning to reread the whole series anyway, after all.

In any case, I like that kind of installment-based format not least because I'm also in the early stages of getting a Patreon set up aimed at supporting my meatier chunks of fandom writing and potentially giving people some ability to point me at this or that topic. A multi-part analysis of BNHA--something in a similar style as my documentations of heteromorphobia, the problems with the anime's adaptation of My Villain Academia, or even, to reach back to an older fandom, my episode-by-episode write-ups on Human Debris in Gundam IBO!--strikes me as a good way to get that off the ground.

I've got one or two things to finish getting off my plate before then, and I'd want to wait until the last volume of BNHA officially comes out (12/4) just in case of any thirteenth-hour surprises, but keep an eye out! I'm not inclined to paywall my writing, but maybe an early access sort of model? I'm also going to want to find a blogging site that's more aimed at hosting long-form writing than Tumblr is. We'll see!

In the meantime, to give everyone an example of the kinds of things I'm looking at tracking through the story, one of the things that most vexes me about the ending is how it not only fails to resolve its contradictory ideas of saving and heroism, it feels to even recognize those contradictions. Here's a chunk of my notes on that topic from the outline of The Mega Chonky Essay in its current form.

• Nana says saving isn’t just saving someone’s life, but also making sure they’re smiling in the end. But that means that saving their life is the prerequisite. If Eri died smiling, her smiling would not prevent everyone from recognizing her death as a tragedy.         • “Perfect Victory” is defined as both “winning” and “saving” flawlessly—that is, every fight is won, and no one is left unsaved. This is introduced first as an ideal for Deku and Bakugou to strive for, with both of them needing to work on different parts of the equation, and continues to be an aspect of Bakugou’s characterization, as it comes up again in Joint Training. But it doesn’t stay locked to them, as All Might says directly to the American pilots that they can’t be allowed to die because the kids are aiming for a Perfect Victory.         • A pivotal question for Toga and the larger series is, given that Heroes are supposed to save people, how do Heroes justify killing Villains? Do they not think of Villains as people?         With all three of these ideas in place, the challenge becomes how to navigate the endgame to a place where all three concepts are honored/resolved. The ending must demonstrate that Heroes do see Villains as people while also being able to achieve their desired Perfect Victory—they must win against the Villains while also saving them, where “saving” means that the Villains’ lives are saved and they’re smiling in the end.         Or must they? After the first war, the series introduces another concept of how to save people, albeit one that runs directly counter to Nana's definition of a saved person as someone both alive and smiling: Gran Torino says that killing someone can be a way of saving them. He and Nana can’t both be right, so to confront and resolve that discrepancy, the story will have to acknowledge one of them as wrong. (Spoilers: It does not.)         In the end, Toga dies, and Deku kills Shigaraki, and if both of them die smiling, well, you sure as hell can’t say the same for e.g. Gigantomachia or All For One or Dabi or any of the thousands of unhappy Villains who wound up in prison (many of them likely bound for the gallows!), alive but decidedly not smiling. Heck, All Might, in trying to console Deku, moves the goalposts even more by suggesting that all Deku needed to do to get the credit on “saving” Shigaraki was make sure his inner child wasn’t crying anymore. Not only does he not have to live, he doesn’t even have to be smiling! An absence of obvious grief is enough!         Thus, you wind up in this place where you have an unsolvable problem: somewhere along the line, either someone failed or someone was wrong, and the story, in being unwilling to confront that disharmony, winds up undermining other established themes and goals. Did the kids “lose” because they failed to meet the criteria for the Perfect Victory? Was the definition of “saving” wrong? Was Gran Torino wrong or was Nana? Was the definition of Perfect Victory wrong? Was Toga correct in her fear that Heroes don’t see Villains as people?         No matter what the answer is, it runs afoul of some previously established Theme in the story. Even if the idea is that the ending is downbeat and bittersweet because the kids failed (and the story is using All Might’s goalpost-moving to resolve the dissonant definitions of “saving” in Gran Torino’s favor), that still means yet another theme is violated: that of BNHA being a story of how Deku+his classmates become “the greatest Heroes.” After all, the story also defined “greatest Heroes” for us! The greatest Heroes are those who can achieve Perfect Victory.

Whatever form this essay winds up taking, these are the sorts of concepts I want to discuss in terms of how the series sets them up compared to how it winds up following them through.

Thanks for the ask!

[vocaloidfactoftheday]

Have You Seen This Lost GUMI Anime Pilot?

This is a bit of an unusual post for this blog, but I think I may have come across a case of lost media involving an anime pilot starring GUMI. It's possible that it exists on the Internet, and I hesitate to declare this as "lost media," but I cannot find it anywhere, and I figured that a post on this blog was the best way to see if anyone has any leads or extra info.

The anime is titled "Koisuru Dessan Ningyo," with an English title of "Do Drawing Dolls Dream of Love?" I don't know the runtime of the pilot, but I think it was most likely around 5-7 minutes. I believe this could have been the first instance of a Vocaloid being cast in a main voice acting role (perhaps, the first one cast in any voice acting role). I'm not completely sure if they actually used the Megpoid voicebank, or had Megumi Nakajima voice act as GUMI, but the way AnimeAnime (Japanese anime news site) describes it, it seems like it may have been the former. In either case, the character that GUMI portrays in the anime is a character that is clearly made to resemble her.

(These are the only screenshots I could find that come from the pilot, but more may exist.)

The main character is a doll (who I'm not sure is named), who models for a girl's drawings before eventually falling in love with her. I don't believe GUMI's character has a name, but she plays a main role as the girl the doll falls in love with.

Where It Was Seen

The pilot aired on NHK TV on January 9, 2014, during late night (possibly just after midnight?). It aired alongside another pilot as part of the program Aoyama 1seg Kaihatsu. This was a sort of tournament, where two pilots were broadcast once a month for three months, and viewers would vote for which pilot they liked best. Then, the three winners would go against each other in a final round, where the pilot with the most votes would get picked up to become a series. (I think they held this tournament once a year from 2010 to 2014 or 2015, though I don't know if it was the exact same every time.) The broadcast was 25 minutes long for each of the first three rounds, with the first half dedicated to showing both pilots and the second half dedicated to presentations about each pilot. (This is why I think this pilot was around 5-7 minutes, though I'm not sure exactly how much time commercial breaks would take up.) For a few years, including 2014, the program was hosted by the now-disbanded Japanese girl group E-girls (no relation to what you and I know as "e-girls." in their case the E stands for "exile.")

According to the official Tumblr account, karappo-heart, this pilot won the first round of the competition! It probably didn't make it out of the finals, though, since it didn't get picked up for a series. It's also possible that it did win, but some other issues prevented its production. In any case, the Tumblr account hasn't been updated since the first round ended. While this contest was going on, three shorts were apparently available to watch on NHK's website, but they have since been removed. I think at least one of the shorts was web-exclusive. I haven't been able to find info on who actually won the finals, or even what GUMI's short won against.

People Involved

The doll is portrayed by a masked dancer refererred to as Hitori de Dekiru Mon. I can't find much info about him online, but I think his real name is Takemura Ryohei. (I'm not sure because that part on his Japanese Wikipedia article has a "citation needed" label.) AnimeAnime specifically refers to his role as being the doll's "human form," though it's possible he provided voice acting too. AnimeAnime points out the unusual nature of having a human portray a doll, and having a Vocaloid portray a human.

Masanori Okamoto (who also wrote the screenplay and produced the pilot) animated the pilot with the pixilation technique, using time-lapse pictures to show movement of objects and people (this may have included live-action photos of the doll's actor portraying a "human form" of the doll). It seems like it may have blended stop motion/puppetry and live action stills with traditional animation? This is an example of Okamoto's work from around the same time, which seems like it might have been made in a similar style:

The third known person to have worked on this is none other than Vocaloid producer sasakure.UK. He composed the theme song, which of course features GUMI, and a few other songs to be used in potential future episodes. If you're a big fan of his, the anime title may sound familiar to you, as he released 3 of these songs (though both news sites I looked at, AnimeAnime and Anime News Network, say he made 4 total) plus their instrumentals as an EP under the same title. You can listen to the whole thing on YouTube!

I think this EP uses GUMI's VOCALOID3 voicebanks (the first sounds like either Native or Sweet, the second one sounds like Adult or Power (if it even is GUMI--it sounds more like IA to me, but sasakure.UK labeled it as a GUMI song so I kinda have to take his word for it) and the third sounds like Sweet). If that's the case, her V3 voicebanks would have probably been used for the voice acting, too.

Places I've Looked

After some Internet searches only garnered me a few screenshots, I decided to see if there was a way I could ask sasakure.UK himself about the short. I believe he has a contact form on his website, which I used to send a message in both Japanese and English (in case Google Translate was more helpful to him than my incoherent Japanese). This was back in May of this year and I never received a response. (Since I used a website contact form and not a direct email, I don't have the message I sent him anymore. I guess that's lost media now too.)

It occured to me while writing this post that I never contacted the animator himself, Masanori Okamoto. While his Vimeo and YouTube pages don't have the pilot, and his Twitter and Tumblr links haven't been updated in several years, he does have an email address listed. I sent him a message (in English because I was too sick and tired to try to write a coherent email in Japanese and I don't like waiting to do these things). I'm not sure he still checks his email since his social media that I've found has all been inactive for years, but I will post an update if he responds.

I know that this pilot is not on the NHK website, or, again, on the animator's YouTube or Vimeo pages. I also could not find it on the Internet Archive.

Now, I don't expect anyone reading this to have saved this on their computer and kept it there since 2014. But with this post, my goal is simply to make more people aware that this exists at all, and I'd also like to learn more about it myself (such as whether or not the pilot won in the finals after all, how much animation actually exists for it, if any more screenshots are out there, etc.)

Thank you for reading such a long post! Please feel free to correct any info I got wrong, or add on to this post with any knowledge you might have about this lost pilot!

(also sorry for any typos :()

[theflowergothic]

Kelly Piquet Master Timeline - Introduction

Hey guys, it's Flowergothic

So there's been a lull in the Max/Kelly drama recently. Sure, yeah, it's a bit boring... but I want to take this time to post the timeline I've spent a lot of time on here.

I've been meaning to post it on Tumblr for a bit. I've just been busy with IRL stuff and, well, a bit lazy :p

Anyway, let's start off strong with the introduction! Meet the people involved, learn the sources I used multiple times, et cetera.

Let's go!

Full timeline can be found here.

---------------

NAMES OF NOTE: 

THE MAIN CHARACTERS

Kelly Piquet: Kelly Piquet is a Brazilian self-proclaimed model, columnist, and public relations professional, known for her relationship with Formula 1 driver Max Verstappen.

Max Verstappen: Max Verstappen is a Belgian-Dutch Formula 1 driver, recognized for his talent and competitive performance on the track.

FORMER PARTNERS/RELATIONSHIPS OF KELLY

Antonio Pedro Marcondes Ferraz: Kelly Piquet's first public relationship was with Antonio Pedro Marcondes Ferraz. They started dating in 2011, and a year later, they got engaged. However, their engagement was short-lived, and the couple broke up in 2013.

Beto Pacheco: Following her breakup with Ferraz, Kelly dated Beto Pacheco, a Brazilian influencer and entrepreneur, from 2014 to 2016. Their relationship was notable in the Brazilian social scene due to Pacheco's significant online presence.

Jérôme d’Ambrosio: In 2015 and 2016, Kelly was linked to Belgian Formula E (and former Formula 1) driver Jérôme d’Ambrosio. However, this alleged relationship became controversial when d'Ambrosio's marriage ended. Rumors circulated that Kelly played a role in the breakup. To this day they have not been confirmed by either party.

Daniil Kvyat: Kelly began dating Russian Formula 1 driver Daniil Kvyat in 2017. They had a daughter in July 2019, but separated by the end of the year. 

Kelly has also been linked to Alexandre Negrão. But because little information is available about that relationship, he will be excluded from this timeline.

FORMER PARTNERS/RELATIONSHIPS OF MAX

Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky: Max Verstappen's first known relationship was with Swedish racing driver Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky. They were together around 2015, and Mikaela is a prominent figure in motorsport herself, racing in the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship.

Roos van der Aa: In 2016, Max was reportedly in a relationship with Roos van der Aa, a Dutch model. Their relationship was short-lived.

Dilara Sanlik: A notable relationship was with Dilara Sanlik, a German student, which lasted for a couple of years until 2020. They kept their relationship mostly private, with limited social media presence and public appearances together.

Max has also been linked to Sabre Cook, Joyce Godefridi, and Maxime Pourquie. But because little information is available about those relationships, they will be excluded from this timeline.

OTHER PEOPLE OF NOTE

Nelson Piquet Sr.: Nelson Piquet Sr. is Kelly Piquet’s father and a former Formula 1 driver with three world championships. He has been involved in controversies, including making racially insensitive remarks about Lewis Hamilton, which led to public criticism​ and a ban from the F1 paddock.

Nelson Piquet Jr.: Nelson Piquet Jr. is Kelly Piquet’s older brother. He has competed in Formula 1 and Formula E, where he became the inaugural champion in 2015. His career includes the "Crashgate" incident during the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, which drew significant attention and controversy.

Jos Verstappen: Jos Verstappen is Max Verstappen’s father and a former Formula 1 driver. He raced from 1994 to 2003, with his best results being two podium finishes. Jos has been involved in Max’s career from a young age. However, he has been criticized for his aggressive and demanding behavior towards Max, which some describe as abusive. 

Sophie Kumpen: Sophie Kumpen is Max Verstappen’s mother and a former kart racer who competed at a high level in Europe.

Victoria Verstappen: Victoria Verstappen is Max Verstappen’s sister. She is known for her presence on social media and her work in the fashion industry.

Lewis Hamilton: Lewis Hamilton is a British seven-time Formula 1 World Champion known for his activism against racism and efforts to increase diversity in motorsport. The Piquet family, particularly Nelson Piquet Sr., has had several controversial moments involving Hamilton, including the use of racially insensitive language to describe him.

Lando Norris: Lando Norris is a British-Belgian Formula 1 driver known for his charismatic personality and performance on the track. He is friendly with Max, but has an unusual connection with Kelly that dates back to his debut year of 2019.

Natalie "Natty" Sifferman: Natty Sifferman is an actress and abstract artist. She gained recognition for her role in the 2017 film Rebirth. She was married to Jérôme d'Ambrosio from 2013 to 2015​, and has accused Kelly of having an affair with Jérôme while they were married.

Sara (aka Kellypiquetsource): Sara is a longtime fan of Kelly’s who used to run a Kelly-themed Instagram page titled “Kellypiquetsource”. She would end up being criticized for standing by Kelly after her controversial political views came to light in 2022.

Frequently-used sources

https://www.tumblr.com/maxverstepponme/713099451104935936/kelly-list-of-events-complete-for-now?source=share (Used with permission! Thank you, @maxverstepponme)

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/17871420 (Archive)

[sgiandubh]

Caite is surrounded by friends who work in the industry in one way or another

‏This is reflected on her career

‏On the contrary, Sam seems distant. We do not see him in strong events that support his appearance, such as invitations to award festivals or famous fashion shows, although Sam is the reason for Outlander's popularity

Dear Caite Anon,

Please write her name properly, if you are playing the unsolicited solicitor on her behalf.

Like all of us, Caitriona (this is the proper way to mention her, you and her are NOT intimate, as far as I know) is surrounded by her family, childhood friends, fashion old acquaintances, showbiz acquaintances. Since that Remarkable Week-end, we rarely see or hear from them and almost always on purpose. Since that Remarkable Week-end, she also seems to rely on her MUA team to promote her image on Social Media.

The Gay Brigade is a very effective and permanent presence in her life. Always in protective mode.

She is invited to fashion shows via her contacts from her former life as a model. I have written extensively about that. There is nothing to add. She is also invited to some - not all, seemingly and not the most important, either: again, I have covered that in real time and extensively - seasonal events and that is excellent for her.

Sam visibly chooses to participate to a different type of events. Keepers of The Quaich comes to mind. Sports events. Book events. A different profile and different lucrative projects. He is anything but distant, Anon.

I have covered in great detail what I think is a deliberate networking strategy of theirs, allowing them to have extensive contacts in as many areas of interest as possible.

Unlike many blogs on Tumblr, my archives are open. Before trying very hard to annoy me, please refer to them. They are open for a reason, Anon.

Next time, try better - you're not there, yet. Not there at all. And your inane argument is quickly growing old.