#hi i am officially now in this gifset and i dislike it

[chanoeys]

FRIENDS TOW They All Turn Thirty S07E14

[butterflydm]

2020 (what a weird year)

I did not get very much done this year at all. The business I work for got us all classified as essential workers which... tbh, I did not agree with as a categorization. It’s meant that hours per week stayed the same, but my anxiety levels at work skyrocketed. And most of the time, after getting home, I basically had enough energy to check some stuff online but I mostly needed to decompress by doing something familiar, which I’ve been doing by replaying FFX and FFX2, and my brain mostly hasn’t had room for anything new. Which is a shame for all the plans I had to watch tons of new media! I had a long list of things I wanted to check out and I haven’t really watched any of it.

I did get a chance to watch a few new things (as always, tbh, any recs of mine are basically ‘you will like this thing, if this is the kind of thing you like’):

The Old Guard: Really enjoyed this movie. It’s been out for a while now, but if you haven’t had a chance to watch it, it was a fun, easy watch that also made me think some interesting philosophical questions about life. A good time! It’s honestly the only movie I watched during the 2020 pandemic period, unless I get around to watching anything else in the next couple of days.

MXTX’s Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System: I love love this story. I’ve watched the donghua (looking forward to S2!) and read the translation by BC Novels, and the story just has so many things that make my heart go ‘yes!’: it’s funny, with a charming PoV character who both doesn’t take himself too seriously and also seriously misunderstands himself in a lot of ways -- very relatable. It’s dramatic AF, with romantic lead Luo Binghe at the heart of a lot of that drama. It’s clever and I love the way the premise is used for both humor and pathos.

Tone-wise, it reminds me of works like Galaxy Quest or Northanger Abbey. Honestly, that light tone helps in some of the later chapters, which have content that is actually very dark and very heartbreaking if taken seriously, but because of the momentum of the story and the tone of the narrative, I didn’t feel like I got lost or bogged down in the darkness.

And I love the relationship between Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe a whole heck of a lot. I think the way it’s structured is clever and sweet and sad and makes for an interesting story. There is an element of an unintentional romantic obsession that SQQ created by the way he flipped between kind and cruel (against his will, which is what makes it forgivable for the audience, imo, because SQQ wanted to always be kind, though not always for the most selfless of reasons) and how LBH had to try to mentally justify/rationalize how the same man could act in such completely opposing ways. And the narrative symmetry between how SQQ thinks of LBH as the center of the universe because he’s the OP Protagonist (!) but LBH thinks of SQQ as the one that everything revolves around and how that’s narratively true because, of course, in the story that we’re reading, SQQ is the protagonist and LBH is his love interest.

I also actually really appreciated the bad sex near the end of the novel -- sex-to-save-the-world is a trope that can easily get romanticized but here it’s (literally) painful and ugly instead, as all of LBH’s trauma pairs with the influence of Xin Mo on his mind. Even through the translation, it definitely feels like bad sex written well, rather than badly-written sex that is supposed to be good, if you know what I mean. Sex can be an important narrative tool in stories and I feel like MXTX uses it very effectively here.

I think I burnt through the entire translation in just a few days. I’ve been reading a lot of fanfic afterwards and I think my favorite so far is I Wish You Were My Husband by Feynite. It’s an AU but it keeps the same kind of vibe as the original story.

Bridgerton: Goodness, so enjoyable! Julia Quinn is not My Most Favorite of the various romance writers that I read but she was one of the first writers that really got me back into reading romance and it was delightful to see her world on screen. I don’t picture people when I’m reading novels; I have to have a visual first and then I can carry that into the reading, so it was nice to be able to assign faces to some of these characters that I’m already very fond of. Simon and Daphne had a nice amount of chemistry and I loved the Bridgerton family relationships.

I hope they get to cover all the romances in the series and continue to do some updating as well -- I generally liked the changes they made to Simon and Daphne’s romance (a few I wasn’t as into but could see why they’d done it -- mostly For The Drama). And I really loved what they did with Simon and Lady Danbury’s relationship. It took me some time to tell the three older Bridgerton brothers apart but that’s pretty much canon, lol. Anyway, I was invested enough in it all that I stayed up all night on Christmas eve to watch it all and I had no regrets afterward.

I started watching S2 of TharnType but then my work schedule changed and I was working on Fridays and (see above) I just didn’t have the energy to watch anything after work. I might wait and binge the rest of the series once it’s all out, now that it’s gone this long without me being caught up.

I do think I’ll take a break from Critical Role for a while, after it comes back. I’ve just come to an unfortunate place where the show literally cannot win with me re: the romances, as I’m annoyed when they happen but also, perversely, annoyed when they get ignored because my brain goes “they gutted beaujester for this limited amount of inferior romance? At least commit to giving an adequate amount of the romances that I dislike!”. And so it becomes a vicious circle. Good sign that it’s time to take a break. My unhappiness with one part of the show is overshadowing everything else and maybe some time away will change that. Or maybe I just need to pick it up again with campaign 3. I guess I’ll see how it goes. I also admit that I’d hate to pick up the show again only to have Lucien get killed off in a few episodes.

I want to try to watch some more shows in 2021, and maybe I’ll have time, if I’m freeing up several hours every Thursday.

I want to watch Heaven Official’s Blessing and I’ve had a translation of the novel on my phone for the entire year and I really do want to read it as well. I’d like to watch Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo’s new shows (The Wolf & The Legend of Fei) as the gifsets I’ve seen have been interesting and enjoyable, and there are a bunch of shows that I’d gotten recommendations about after watching TharnType that I still want to check out too. Plus, I have the new Stormlight Archives book and I want to read that as well. So, there’s quite a list.

It’s still probably gonna be quite stressful at work for a while, at least until I’ve had a chance to get the vaccine, but at least I am going back to Thursdays & Fridays as my days off at the start of the year, so I’m looking forward to that. I’m also hoping to get back to my detailed rewatch of The Untamed, because that was so much fun but I did not have enough brain this year to do any more of it.

[miau222]

My dearest, Supernatural fandom: (Yes, that was a Hamilton Reference.)

This is going to be a long letter, and probably no one will take the time to read it, but I really need to do this. I warn you from the start, if you still think destiel can be cannon, I would recommend not reading this, please understand that this is some kind of closure for me, I'm not trying to provocate drama or to impose my opinion over anyone. I can't recall how much time it has passed since I discovered Supernatural, but I remember how. I had just joined the Doctor who fandom and there were another two series that were mentioned a lot, there were crossovers and other things like that, I decided to check them out, I loved (and still love) Doctor who, and I thought that that two other series had to be amazing if they were placed alongside it. Now, you probably know what series I am talking about, Sherlock and Supernatural. I liked Sherlock, but never quite entered the fandom or became a real fangirl, sometimes I looked at fanart or read a crossover fanfic that includes it, but I never became passionate about it. (unlike my mom, that loves it with all her heart.) But Supernatural was a whole different story. I remember not really watching the first episode, I was doing homework at the time and had to re watch it later. The first episode didn't pick my interest either, I didn't dislike it, I just didn't start loving it from the beginning. I started loving it in the second episode. Yes I know, I didn't take that much time, shut up, it actually was because the day I watched it I had finished watching my favorite youtuber at the moment play "until dawn"… and well… wendigos. (If you're curious, the YouTuber was JuegaGerman, his videos are in Spanish but if any of you are interested, it's a pretty cool channel.) From that moment I started to become attached to the characters, and honestly I loved Dean and Sam a lot, and I kind of developed a Crush on Jo Harvelle (until she DIED). The story amazed me, it was a fantastic universe, full of creatures that were so complex and incredible that it was impossible not to love it. Now, I would be lying if I said that I didn't know about Castiel or Destiel since before I started watching the series, and that I wasn't super excited to see what all the hype was about. Once I reached season 4 and Castiel finally appeared, he quickly became one of my favorite characters, not only in the series, but in any media I have consumed. And I started Shipping him with Dean. I mean come on it was pretty clear that they at least liked each other, and the sexual tension, and the stares, it was undeniable. Even though I knew that it wasn't canon yet (I got tumblr and spoiled 99% of the series to myself) every season I thought "this time they are going to be cannon", I continued like this 'till I catched up, and like, a month after, the eleventh season aired, no all this stuff didn't happen in a month, I am a slow watcher and have school, sue me. (Meanwhile, my mother went through 4 different phases of liking and disliking the ship From "Dean is too good for Cass" to "Cass is too good for Dean" to "No, Dean is mine" She finally settled in kind of shipping them. I think. Well she recognizes that the story would lead there. Is that Shipping? This parenthesis is too long omc.) I actually started to get tired on season... I think seventh? The plot seemed repetitive and the characters appeared to be stuck, no character development. But I kept watching. Want to guess why? Destiel. I was desperate for representation and I thought maybe they were going to give it to me. It sure looked like it. On season nine I started to doubt if it was queerbaiting. On season ten I was already very tired of it. On season eleventh I got my hopes up, it got a little better, and there were a lot of destiel scenes. My hopes sank at the end of the season, I decided I would watch the next season on non official websites, at least until they stopped the queerbaiting. But here is where it all changed. I was going to wait until the season actually ended to watch it, I prefer to do that so I don't have to wait if there are cliffhangers. But I still spoiled every episode for myself by going into tumblr and reading everything that had happened. Because I'm an impatient idiot. So you can imagine my happiness when I saw the infamous "I love you". I saw gifsets, I watched videos of the scene without editing, I fangirled, thinking that maybe it would be canon. Maybe they could be together. Maybe my heroes could be in love. Maybe they could be like me. But then I calmed down and started to think, and I realized that the scene was made so they could deny it. They could say it wasn't specifically for Dean. They could say that friends could also say 'I Love you'. They could deny it in a thousand ways. A while later, everyone was talking about now Jensen said that it wasn't real. For various reasons this is ridiculous, you can't just say something isn't happening even if it is and it suddenly disappears. But that was the moment I said enough. Enough, I would not waste my time in this series, Enough, I would not give my money to them, or even the satisfaction of someone watching the series. Just, enough. But I loved this fandom, so I decided to stay in it, to continue reading fanfic and admiring fanart. To continue enjoying this community. But again, I have to say enough. And this is why: I entered another fandom, one that doesn't fight that much and when they do they usually apologize (of course there's a couple of assholes, but they are not that many) one that respects every opinion, most of the community actually ships like... Everyone with everyone, they are very open to every possibility. Most important, a fandom that is happy, and nice, and peaceful. That encourages creativity and diversity. Where no one is judged. This fandom is the Hamilton fandom. Now, this is a fandom that fangirls over people that died 200 years ago and ships founding fathers. And is one of the healthiest fandoms that I have ever seen. How? Well, after analyzing it for a while, I discovered that it was very simple, it is: -Because they don't get treated as crazy idiots. -Because their opinions are actually appreciated. -Because when they have a theory or a ship, no matter how crazy it is, they are respected. -Because they are treated as equals by the people involved in the play. Compare that to how the Supernatural fandom is treated. How it is: - Used as an object. -Treated as a bunch of crazy people. -Their theories are ridiculed and dismissed as hormonal teenagers fantasies. And that reflects into the fandoms. So this is it. This is me saying goodbye, I know no one will care because my maximum interaction was telling you to stop fighting. (Though I actually started a fanfic on wattpad, I am Canceling it) But I want you to know this, and to make you think about this, and maybe I won't change your mind, but that's alright, everyone has different opinions. I loved this fandom with all my heart, and I don't regret joining it, but it's time to let go, cause it has been sinking me and making me feel like crap, and after joining a fandom that inspires me to be a better person, I can't let this one hold me down. Understand it's the only way to rise up. (Yes another Hamilton reference to close up, I'm not even sorry.) (What I'm sorry is for any grammatical errors, English is not my mother tongue.)