#if i wanted romance id watch a romcom

[neonsbian]

everyone being mean to bai langs sister in the comments >:((

[notedchampagne]

if you're still looking for movie recs!! here's some i LOVE not sure how hidden some of them are but they ARE gems

Moonstruck (1987) - cher and nic cage are extremely italian and say some of the most bonkers lines ive ever heard. nic cage's "johnny has his hand! johnny has his bride!" monologue got kinda memed i think and it might make you think its a goofy movie which it is but its also a genuinely phenomenally constructed and really gorgeous and clever one.

Down with Love (2003) - hyperstylized, chic and campy faux-60s satirical battle of the sexes romcom with maybe the highest joke per minute ratio ive ever seen in a movie. every second of it is hilarious and SUCH a feast for the eyes, all around hysterically fun.

Ida (2013) - Polish black and white film about a nun and her aunt and their family history in the 60s. never graphic or violent but does deal with some pretty heavy topics (namely the holocaust and suicide). a lot more quiet and introspective but pretty short and sweet around 80 minutes

We Have a Pope (2011) - smart, funny, surprisingly melancholy italian comedy about a papal conclave. this one was an instant fav for me, its one of those movies that sort of opens with a thesis question and instead of resolving it just continues to wind it around and reflect in on itself in really cool, weird ways

Certified Copy (2010) - lush, gorgeous, disorienting romance about a french single mother and an english author in tuscany. kind of hard to explain without giving it away but it follows this theme of originals and copies and reflections of reflections. it exists on this like, razors edge of cynicism and sincerity and its SO visually stunning, like there were some shots that actually made my jaw drop

OOH certified copy and down with love definitely grabbed my interest but for the latter thats something id watch on my own time. you know for silly joyous things to see while im drawing.

i am still open for more movie recs but if anyone wants to see the type of stuff i already watched heres my letterboxd

[omegawolverine]

hi can u tell me what dinner in america is about? i wanna watch it but i wanna know what i’m signing up for!

omg hiii yes :3 im bad at explaining movies so bear with me here but like. okay so id say it falls in romcom territory, idk what the official genre is but it's definitely a funny romance so we're going with that. the main idea is that this guy simon is lowkey wanted by the police and he ends up hiding in this girl patty's house out of convenience bc they run into each other and she recognizes him from a class they had together in college (they're like 20). during this first night when he convinces her parents to let him stay by lying through his teeth he finds out that patty is a huge fan of the punk band he is a frontman of but she doesn't know it's him bc he wears a mask to every show and she's been sending him these love poems (amongst other things...u can find that out for urself) that he's saved literally every single one of bc he thinks she's like a lyrical genius and he's kinda infatuated just by that alone (and the other things inside them........lul)

one thing to note is that patty has some unnamed disability (or multiple bc it's kinda implied she might also have epilepsy and she's on 5 different meds), the popular theory is autism which i think checks out pretty well, so a lot of this movie features her getting called retard amongst other similar comments. i say this both as a warning but also bc it's pretty plot relevant as a huge part of the movie is simon basically helping her get back at people but also grow into herself and learn how to defend herself bc she kinda just let's people treat her like shit bc its her normal (even her parents infantalize her so ofc she thinks it's okay when everyone else treats her like she's stupid).

i don't wanna give too much else away but yeah long story short: fangirl accidentally meets her idol and he falls for her and she falls back before even knowing and they help each other grow yayyy! other general warnings are like homophobia i guess but when simon says dyke and fag it's like yeah he's def a fruitcake so whatever but other characters also do it so ya know! and also obvs the ableism and there's like sexual harassment in a couple scenes but it's like. akin to kurt and ram from heathers type weirdo shit, if that helps paint a picture. mostly the movie is just funny and cute tho! very heartwarming in the 2nd half imo <3 lmk if you watch it and what you think!!

[mandy4ever69420]

i would like to see the og version :D

man if yr sure. anyway i do love fanfiction i think it's fun but i am the weirdest person to be talking about fanfiction.

i find fanfiction to be a really fascinating medium TBH it can tell you a lot about people what they look for and write about. and one thing i learned watching shameless is that the general vibe of shameless is pretty much what i want out of a fanfic. like, watching it i remember specifically thinking "this is what i'd been literally looking for reading xyz" which is a little weird for shameless fanfiction, no? fanfic as a medium has its own genre conventions so most (not all) (i <3 conceptual fic) fanfictions intentionally or not make their stories slightly more like fanfiction than like the source material. normal. Funny enough, the fanfic that's most closely ever actually matched the tone of shameless to me was written for homestuck

the MAIN THING i want to say about. the way i read fanfiction. and the fact that i am a lunatic. is that like. i kind of became an expert for some reason in sniffing out people's political and social biases really fast. and i can sometimes spend more time psychoanalyzing an author than i do worrying about the story. this comes up a lot when the law ever gets involved but also just.. you can tell exactly where someone is on their "how to be gay" journey by how they write it. i think what people write as escapism can in general tell you more about what they consider normal/safe/acceptable than if they just tried to explain to you their beliefs (see: are there royals/rich people as protagonists? what is the time period being discussed?)

BUT wrt fanfiction's genre conventions id make note that most fanfiction is very much in the romcom niche. which is a super disrespected genre in film/published lit in the same way and for the same reasons fanfic gets dismissed a lot. erotica is also a very frequently dismissed and disrespected genre. not only are romances seen as frivolous, but sex as shameful or cheap. <-also relevant to the way that sex work is dismissed when ex. working in an amazon warehouse takes as much or more of a toll on someone's body.

1 thing i love to see is weird niche interests and jobs. lots of opportunities in a fully freeform zero interest groups/showrunners/advertisers genre to get someone explaining the intricacies of being a mail carrier or quality controlling machinery. it's always frustrating to me to see rock stars and secret agents when we have all the time in the world to get sunshine cleaning (2008) with it.

it's also a good format for more or less endless speculation development and character moments. which is what fanfiction was built for. in published work there has to be a ticking clock to keep the audience's (and network exec's) attention, but you can assume if someone looked something up, you already have their attention. that's not to say not going for a plot-heavy conflictful story, just that there's no need to build in a requirement end/goal. you have all the time in the world because you're not batting to get a new season. no shark jumping required. <- this is somewhere that shows like mr. robot and the bear really fuck up i think. if your end goal would finish your story, you can't make meaningful moves towards it without losing your renewal & your plot is sort of barred from going anywhere or doing anything, while also demanding that you try every time

unfortunately for a lot of fanfiction FOR ME though is that sometimes the "make things sweeter" impulse that comes with the genre (part of the genre) (not necessarily a writing flaw) tends to put me off a bit. it's a big part of what i love in shameless: when someone is in the hospital it's a bit more "waiting room filling out forms and trying not to look at other people crying" and less "patiently waiting by your bedside with roses". something about detailing the shitty terrible sides of situations that pop up a lot in romances really scratches a specific itch in my brain. this contradicts the romcom genre in some ways (though there are romcoms that do this sort of thing)

i also happen to love AUs. im literally like an AU guy. though for me one of the most important things to keep in mind is matching tone, i really dont like when things get changed in terms of what they FEEL like. into like, something that isn't weird and pathetic and fucked up. SAD!

i'm also unreasonably resentful of retcons/AUs to avoid a sad thing happening. i think stories are better when all the horrible shit absolutely happened and the ending is good anyway. it's a kinder way to look at trauma to me. the person who lived through the worst thing you can imagine can live in a happy story! i also just love to feel a little bit like i'm eating glass with fiction.

(also, specifically for shameless, i've noticed this intense impulse some people have to definitively characterize mickey as not a rape or hate crime survivor. it's an attempt to make a story "happier" that also happens to ignore how horrifying to me mickey sleeping with women in other contexts is. what happened with svetlana is in some ways a literalization of the kinds of social pressure that mickey was always under. best description i can think of is "how far away is the gun?" -- a lot of the "reasoning" for AUs as to why mickey wouldn't have been hate crimed comes across weirdly like victim blaming - i know that's not what people mean, but it's what you're saying when you say "if it weren't for ian, mickey never would've let his guard down like that" - his guard wasn't down, he made all the right choices wherever he could, and ian canonically blaming himself doesn't mean he was right about it. i also think the idea that mickey would otherwise be too smart or too tough to make the "mistake" of getting caught shows some messed up ideas about what people think of real world people who do survive hate crimes and abuse.)

fanfiction is very much the sort of thing that is for having a mental breakdown of the eating ice cream on the couch variety. obviously talking about fanfiction having romanticized tropes is like watching a mob movie and being like "whys there so many italians here" so i'm aware that's just genre.

ANYWAY TO MY OWN PERSONAL INSANE NICHE: DIALECT!

this is about fanfiction, AND gif and television captioning. people mix up mickey's working class white dialect with AAVE a LOT. working class and Black american dialects certainly interact a lot and have similarities, but they're not the same. also AAVE has a lot of complexities and nuances that speakers of other dialects definitely borrow from where something like standard american is lacking. i'm not an L1 speaker of AAVE but i do notice myself borrowing where a structure is just much, much clearer than anything else. al7ayaa hek

there are ways in which an lot of these mixups make sense. especially with gifmakers/captioners/authors who happen to be british. mickey DOES use double negatives (btw, this is a feature of many languages, including closely related german) occasionally (i think), and famously "you ain't window shopping" but i can't think of any occasion where he uses a construction like habitual "be" or a "you been a pain in the ass the whole time i known you" (made up example) he also doesn't exempt "have" from "where the hell have you been", he just reduces it to a single schwa sound.

when mickey says "doesn't mean i'm gonna wear a dress" it's absolutely true that he's not articulating the "s" and taken purely literally "don't" is closer to what you heard. culturally, however, "don't" has a different pronunciation than "doesn't" in a way unrelated to the "s". the biggest difference is in the vowel. so mickey's "doesn't" is "glottal stop-schwa-syllabic N-glottal stop" where as "don't" written in that same spot gramatically will read as "d-oʊ-glottal stop"

shameless netflix captioners do something similar with lip. he gets captioned as "aight" a lot when he doesn't articulate "lr" - technically, literally, closer to his actual utterance. but the connotations bring up a different pronunciation entirely. lip isn't white boy carl.

i think unfortunately in addition to being mistakes made by people with little understanding of or exposure to the details of AAVE these can often be based on people's assumptions about what a poor or "criminal" or "uneducated" accent sounds like, moreso than on actual observation of speech patterns. which is just like. a slightly subtler form of racism

anyway. since i'm on this topic i just want to mention that i'm fairly sure ian's speech changes in s10/11 to be more similar to mickey's. i haven't been taking very careful note of his speech patterns but i think it's cute.

[mejomonster]

So Im watching dangerous romance

Things it does right: feels grounded, dont know how to explain but its more like My Dear Loser or Moonlight Chicken in terms of feeling than say My School President or Theory of Love. Theres a grounded feel to the presentation, so while there's romance tropes they feel more like accentuating a "feels like slice of life" story rather than a heavy romcom vibe. (It is funny and angsty romance though!)

Lead actors work great together, they got to be in Never Let Me Go but this role lets Chimon showcase how solid he is in lead roles. Perth is well suited to this particular role and portraying it well. (I also recommend Chimon in The Gifted, the Gifted Graduation, and The Player, and My Dear Loser for more of a vibe like this show's).

The Only trope i hate is "knew each other in childhood before" which many a drama love using. This drama, unfortunately, also used it. But thankfully for me its 1 scene and so far the show isnt indicating they used to be friends or crushes. Just that they crossed paths once as kids and Kang showed kindness, so Sailom had reason to believe maybe Kang could again now. As far as me having to deal with this trope goes? The trope is at a minimum, its bareable. (Which btw... if a story IS childhood friends to logers im fine with the trope, i just hate how many like cdramas and taiwan dramas often introduce 2 seemingly strangers then flash back to some childhood scene where 1 of them actually got a crush years ago and recognizes their crush again as an adult... that trope is just NOT for me lol. Id rather either writing has to show me the childhood years of growing close - Bad Buddy, Theory of Love, Go Ahead do this - or else I want it to show people getting to know each other At the age of the story with No Shortcut excuse for why they should get together sooner - Not Me the Series, My Beautiful Man, She Likes to Cook and She Likes to Eat do this well. Cherry Magic is an example of long-term-acquaintances forming a relationship and that wlrks fine too, because its got story reasons of X years long spent together and starts the story with at least one party in the active process of building the relationship into more/getting feelings. I just... i hate the "knew each other once" trope 90% of the time because i feel like sometimes it leads to writers skipping a reason for characters to gradually grow close DURING the actual story. And so i tend to avoid it by default. This shows execution of it is, like i said, bearable as it doesnt seem to be leaning on it to cut writing the present development).

One of the Best bisexual love triangles ive seen in a while! I remember when Theory of Love did the bi love triangle and i was so happy to see 1 a clearly written bisexual in a bl romance drama (oh how far weve come), 2 a bisexual written with their romance story genuinely given care as in it was easy to see they liked both crushes sincerely 3 a fairly accurate portrayal as far as like bi college romance can go. Well Dangerous Romance goes for the tragic bi love triangle too! Kang is a teen, maybe he isnt even sure he likes guys yet. But its clear from the start he likes Pimfah is long time crush, his best friend, the friend he most aims to impress and show his kinder caring qualities to. He takes notice of Sailom, a boy who DOES try and succeed at challenges and who Kang is definitely jealous of: jealous Sailom doesnt have to buy success, is valued for his skillsets not his background, is visibly kind to others and succeeds from it (where Kang when he is nice to strangers is often interpreted as buying people/manipulating so hes given up on trying to be nice at all). Kang admires both Pimfah and Sailom for their genuine kindness, their genuine talent and efforts to work hard. Sailom isnt his best friend though, so he reacts hostile. He ends up liking Sailom longer term though for similar reasons to liking Pimfah. Sailom tolerates his bullshit even less, which ultimately makes Sailom even more appealing as someone who expects him to do well By His Own choice. Kang is loyal and kind and territorial with those he likes. He wants someones attention like Pimfah? He goes to do something brave and showy like hold a lizard. He wants to be alone with her, he tries to exclude Sailom (or others) so it can be a date with Pimfah. He subconciously likes Sailom? He also gets showy, insisting they play music. He also gets territorial, extremely upset to see Sailom close to other men and dragging Sailom off. Kang has a bad habit of not saying what he feels right away, so its good Sailom asks questions and demands complete answers. But Kang does wear his heart on his sleeve in terms of actions. Once he cares about someone hes incredibly generous and caring, once he has a crush his gaze follows them magnetically and he gets quite overtly clingy. No wonder Sailoms friends knew right away.

It works great as a bi love triangle for a few reasons. 1 Pimfah is not painted as the antagonist or girl who comes between them, the faen fatale trope. Shes just a best friend whos heart gets broken, just like Kang is a best friend who gets his heart broken, as is Sailom. She, reasonably, likes Sailom (shes Kangs best friend so it is fairly realistic shed also like Sailom like Kang does, and shes got a similar personality to Sailom). Kang reasonably likes Pimfah and its not a surprise to the audience (and his crush on Sailom is depicted similarly so Kangs attractions read as clearly bi - its no surprise to us who he likes and that both crushes are genuine). Sailom clearly likes Kang, clearly likes men, and as the 3 develop you notice he doesnt have any special feelings for Pimfah but thinks shes a nice person. I loved the episode all three of them got their heart broken. ToT Pimfah likes Sailom, crushing Kang (and fueling the fire that is his fears hes not good enough As His Own person outside of status TO be likable). Kang at the same time, knows Sailoms worth and why Pimfah would like him, feels Sailom IS better than himself (both Kangs self hatred and his own admiration of Sailom compounding), so Kang figures at least the 2 people he thinks are amazing deserve each other: Sailom is wonderful and deserves Pimfah more than Kang if Sailom is who she likes. So Kang is PISSED Sailom doesnt want her. The two best people Kang knows, how could Sailom reject her? How could Pimfah and Sailom, at least, not end up happy? Then Sailom confesses HE LIKES KANG. Kangs world is rearranging. Oh. The man he admires doesnt like the woman he admires (who doesnt like Kang), because the man he admires likes him. Woah. Kang couldve accepted the two people he views as "better" than him deserving each other. But Sailom liking him means suddenly Kang does feel Deserving of equal value again, confusion. And has to consider if he views Sailom romantically like he does Pimfah, or if the admiration is only platonic. Kang panics, says he only did his caring gestures out of guilt. But Kang does like Sailom, HAS liked Sailom and its been subconciously driving him over time, and so even with the lie "it was just guilt" he doesnt want to be apart from Sailom. So he still finds himself trying to help Sailom sick, trying to talk to him, qnd realizing hes just as jealous of Sailom with other people as he was with Pimfah liking another. So it clicks into place, he goes to talk to Sailom alone, kisses him. The next several hours are a mess until Kang can spit out his honest feelings and he and Sailom can talk about it. Meanwhile, Pimfahs heart break is very teen slice of life relatable, and shes not ever villainized as a character who "came between the main couple." Shes still Kangs best friend, their confession of different crushes just means theyve been giving each other space to process without both crying more (Kang over her rejecting him, Pimfah over Sailom rejecting her).

Its a very well handled love triangle. It propels all of their stories forward. It makes sense. (I finished ep 7, still have the rest to go).

[casualhedonists]

i'm the one that asked u about ur favourite movies and i am so delighted to know you're a movie buff! you can tell with how lovingly you describe them and you have EPIC taste truly!!! are you on that movie app/site letterboxd? if so, drop the user RN bestie (if not, GET ON IT RN BESTIE)

ima slip in a couple recommendations rq (hopefully you've seen, but if you haven't, i reckon you might like) such as

'tick, tick... BOOM!' directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda (musical-biopic, Jonathan Larson, lots of catchy songs in it)

'Babylon' directed by Damien Chazelle (controversial, love letter to cinema, massive shit on Hollywood, beautifully made and incredible score)

'bones and all' directed by Luca Guadagnino (cannibal romance, outcasts, stoic and freaky movie)

the 'Before' trilogy directed by Richard Linklater (young ethan hawke, romance, beautiful beautiful score, essentially observing two people fall in love and talk for an hour and a half or something, incredible trilogy - my personal favourite is 'before sunset')

'When Harry Met Sally...' directed by Rob Reiner (classic rom-com, friends to lovers, unbelievably charming. i mean i would be surprised if you havent seen this one especially but just incase lmao)

'Sanctuary' directed by Zachary Wigon (dominatrix, freaky and sexy, cute score, interesting and really well made. not anything INCREDIBLE but definitely worth the look)

ANYWAYS sorry for taking up a lot of space in your inbox, would love to read some of ur thoughts on these, or just generally would love to see you post more about cinema if you're down!

i hope you're well and taking care of yourself! sending so so much love from (likely) across the world <3333

you’re the cutest nonnie hope you know that <3333

(i’m not on letterboxd a travesty i KNOW) i rlly do need to get around to that at some point bc wow

also!! you have incredible taste, these recs are 11/10

oh my god i fucking LOVE tick tick boom. like. i waited for months for it to come out and watched it w my family the day it came out and they all watched me ugly cry the whole time. it was such a moment in time. honestly i was so nervous i wouldn’t like it bc of how much i adore rent but lin manuel miranda was the only person id trust to do jonathan larson’s story justice and BOY did he exceed expectations. if we’re talking musical biopics, god i LOVED rocketman and bohemian rhapsody when they came out. that was such a good year for movies.

i also adore when harry met sally. god i just. romcoms. yknow?? strangely though despite my film buff status i didn’t watch it until like a year ago, it had been on my list for ages and def did not disappoint. i love the classic romcoms too, pretty woman, notting hill, love actually (did i mention the holiday in my original post?? pls tell me i did i could write essays abt that movie) like i shit you not i have a full spotify playlist with movie scores and i constantly say im like miles (jack black’s character) from the holiday bc he’s a composer and score buff (im only the latter lmao but still)

i’ve been wanting to watch babylon for the LONGEST time now you e def given me an excuse to get around to it!! and my friend has told me about bones and all saying it’s incredible (she and i have like this cannibalism inside joke it’s hard to explain without sounding weird lmaoo) and it’s also on the list!! and the before trilogy sounds right up my alley and i’m v curious to check out sanctuary also!!

i’m trying to think of other movies to suggest hmmm it depends on your tastes like my top five are def inspiring/heart wrenching but also comfort romance/ romcoms but i love all diff types of movies. like space movies as a category, the martian and interstellar as my top two for example. (also basically anything w jessica chastain in it i will watch bc im in love w her) and okay i also love the classics like the truman show, dead poets society, also horror movies too like the original scream is def my favorite horror film bc its hilarious, and i also (not in a toxic film bro way) rlly do like tarantino. like. inglorious basterds my beloved and also reservoir dogs, so good.

okay i think i’ve talked way too much abt movies for one post im wrapping it up now!! hope you’re well nonnie and sending tons of love back <333

[theprideful]

i want aromantic rep. i'm so sick of characters with no chemistry hooking up at random. i am going to explode

[shinelikethunder]

So what is with Hannibal. I mean, I know the basic concept of the series, but what is compelling about it. I ask you this as someone whose tastes are very similar to yours. I also ask you this as someone who has always been morbidly fascinated with cannibalism, but like... survival cannibalism, not "this dude is one sick fuck" cannibalism

Oh god. Uh. How do I even begin to explain what is with Hannibal. The closest analogy I can come up with is “in musical theater terms, take the id appeal of The Phantom of the Opera but make the execution even more Sweeney Todd than any production of Sweeney Todd that’s ever been staged.” That doesn’t do it justice though. It is so many things and all of them are ridiculous:

“Let’s take a series of iconic psychological-thriller novels and adapt them into... a 3-season-long pretentious art film that’s initially forced to masquerade as a network-TV crime procedural!” Which is ludicrous enough. But on top of that, halfway through first season, the “retelling” has already shown its hand as fanfiction: they don’t have the rights to all the source material? Fine, then they will mix, match, remix, embroider, recontextualize, and allude to whatever they want to--it’s a freeform improvisation that’s based in loving, respecting, wanting more of, and also fixing (and occasionally roasting) the canon.

The pretentious art film’s aesthetic goal, which it is utterly relentless about, is to take you on a ride that obliterates the boundaries between hungry, horrified, and horny. Everything is beautiful, especially things that shouldn’t be. Everything looks disturbingly appetizing, even things that aren’t food. Everything is weirdly sexy and alluring. All of this is accomplished without flinching from how horrific the subject matter is. And it’s all intercut with characters having Deep and Thematically Relevant Conversations that sound like a bunch of vampires smoking weed and talking about their feelings. It’s just... a hell of a headspace to get drawn into.

Highly stylized yet unexpectedly earnest and heartfelt meditations on mortality, trauma, and every human’s relationship with their own potential for darkness? The more any particular character looks purely like a victim and a poor wounded bird to others, the more complicated their actual relationship to their own agency and what they've done to survive. There’s a beautiful, thoughtful, heartbreaking subplot about a marriage between two strong and dignified people when one of them falls terminally ill--and it plays out in tandem with Grand Guignol bullshit about, like, an aging serial killer who commemorates his own life’s legacy by digging up all his corpses and hacking them together into a totem pole. It’s batshit. It shouldn’t work, and yet.

It’s so incredibly fucking funny. If you’re into humor of the pitch-black and/or gallows variety. The entire show is a comedy anchored in the dramatic irony of “none of these very serious characters know they’re on a show about Hannibal ‘The Cannibal’ Lecter, Notorious Serial Killer Whose Dinner Parties You Should Avoid At All Costs.”

The central relationship is... I don’t even know how to put it. It’s operating in the same “gothic horror and/or romance” territory as, say, most vampire fiction--locating and exploring and ultimately wallowing in the part of the psyche that finds darkness alluring. But it’s very eclectic in what it pulls into that dreamscape, and it manages to sustain an incredible amount of ambivalence between allure and acknowledgement of how awful everything that’s going on really is--between giving in and trying to maintain control over your darkness. And it’s a show where “giving in” means not just acceptance but participation--it’s about falling in love with the monster, but also about people identifying with and potentially becoming monsters themselves.

And also, like, unexpected bonding between weird, fucked-up, lonely people who are used to being looked at but not used to being seen and understood and accepted. And constant power struggles between people who will never settle into a stable dynamic where either of them comes out on top. And weird relationships to vulnerability. And games of manipulation that leave room for, even celebrate, the inherent non-deterministic and unpredictable nature of even the people you know the best.  And, you know, problematic murder queers who appreciate the intimacy of a good stab wound.

If you want to try it out: Watch the first 2 episodes for essential setup/context and to get a feel for how the show works. (And whether the way it does gore and horror is going to be too much. The case-of-the-week in episode 2 is... uh, it’s A Lot.) If you want to continue, awesome! If you want to keep sampling before you commit, here’s a few recs:

Peak dark-comedy romcom episode, minimal spoilers, minimal additional context needed: 1x08 Fromage, aka the human cello.

(Runner-up: 1x07 Sorbet, which is a bit structurally odd and less representative of how the show rolls, but still a fun time.)

Peak “that’s it that’s the show” episode, if you don’t mind spoilers through mid-s2 and are OK rolling with lack of context: 2x08 Su-zakana, aka the nightmare turducken.

Peak id-fic episode, spoilery as fuck and probably akin to an acid trip without context: 3x06 Dolce, in which everyone bleeds real pretty and marinates in Yearning up to their eyeballs, except the murder lesbians, who are the only ones sensible enough to just fuck already

(Runner-up: 2x10 Naka-choko, aka Relationship Status: Both “In Cahoots With” and “It’s A Trap”, aka peak inappropriately horny episode.)

[ceabu]

Gamkar au anon >:3 OK so. The au is multi fucking layered but I'll start at the gamkar. Karkat has to run like hell from the drones, realistically leaving his lusus but I don't like the idea of him dying so he's fine just Not Here. He comes across gamzee's place and hides there bc he thinks it's abandoned. The drones come knocking & karkat thinks he's screwed until gamzee answers the door & is like No I haven't seen any suspicious activity officers I was busy being stoned outta my gourd :o) karkat realizes he was saved by the stoner & gamzee isn't as lonely anymore so there's no harm in staying right? Mutually beneficial scenario, except they're both on eggshells around each other terrified that the other will change their mind. 1/? Need to go afk for a sec

ok im back where was i. gamzee n karkat tiptoeing around like cats trying to get acclimated to each other. gamzee ends up watching a romcom bc the cover looked cool & karkat very much pretends like hes not interested but watches from the kitchen. they start developing a genuine friendship & start trusting each other more, and eventually gamzee gains the social safety net (& concern/responsibility of his friend) to wean himself off sopor (2/?)

(cont) he eventually does but realizes hes SUPER mentally screwed over both from a lifetime of ostracization from the church that was supposed  to be his familly and a lifetime of drug usage. he starts trying to fix some of the more pressing gaps, but it's not something that's wholly fixable. for the most part his friends are understanding, and don't see him any less for it. meanwhile, karkat's still traumatized! gamzee's adapted to help accomodate some of karkats issues, but still. (3/?)

(cont.) ok so a quick break for AU Lore. my whole theory as to why the church is Like That is because non-mutated psychic abilities are always attempting to be used, even on the troll that has them, and most trolls w fear-inducing chucklevoodoos have anxiety attacks 24/7. i specify non-mutated because karkat also has psychics. ive got this whole Explanation for how but the tldr is he's got "stagnant" psychics & is an empath with no ability to Use it. the empath bit is also a mutation btw(4/?)

(cont) last one unless you actively want more. but even tho both of them are anxious as hell, when gamzee (originally accidentally) uses voodoos on karkat theyre just. quickly overpowered by karkat's hella psychic buildup, and it ends up creating a feedback loop of "yo dude calm down we're both fine" and ofc it starts out as Just Lending A Bro In Need A Hand but eventually they cant really do anything but acknowledge yea thats pale as hell and maybe we have fallen ass backwards into Romance(5/?)

oH!!! OH I LOVE THIS!!!!! whoa whoa anon uve got all this already figured out!! id love to read more yeah yeah!!!

[cathrynemoon]

Rules: Tag people you want to know better. Tagged by @knightotoc! 

favourite color(s): growing up, it was pink! then in my teens i rebelled against pink and decided i liked black and i ended up with lots of black clothes that i later found boring. i still love pink and black, other than those colours i think my faves are warm, gold and earth tones. :)

currently reading: the pandemic has really killed my ability to read books, but i recently started reading Echoes of Love by Rosie Rushton. it’s a modern adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, my favourite of her books. i borrowed the ebook from my local library through the Libby app, it’s been a lifesaver for me this pandemic! i’m only two chapters in and still trying to get used to Anne Elliot being a teenager in this adaptation. 

last song: one of the theme songs from the Chinese drama Goodbye My Princess has been playing on repeat for daysssss since i finished the series. it’s called 愛殘 (spoilers for the drama in the link) which means broken love and it’s a haunting, tragic love song, perfect for this tragic romance drama. the drama really hit a lot of the right id spots for me and i’m still feeling the high from it.

sweet, savory, or spicy: i don’t really have a sweet tooth, so savory and/or spicy for me!

last movie: i had to check my Netflix history for this. before i started binging Goodbye My Princess, the last movie i saw was Look for a Star, a Hong Kong romcom starring Andy Lau and Shu Qi. she’s a regular girl in Macau working two jobs to survive and he’s the CEO of a huge company. you know how this story will go! XD i grew up watching Hong Kong movies and dramas, so this was a nostalgia rewatch for me. Andy Lau is so handsome and Shu Qi is so gorgeous!

currently working on: not really working on anything right now. i have some ideas for gifsets, but haven’t started on them. i’ve also been feeling the itch to try writing fanfic again. we’ll see how that goes!

tagging @welsharcher, @wordsmithie-tells-stories and @maydenfang but no pressure!

[lizacstuff]

SCK episode 46 asks!

Hi folks, below the read more you'll find a smattering of asks about this week's episode as well as a few spoilers for 47.

Good asks this week:

(under the cut)

Anonymous asked: this may be superficial of me, but why are they dressing Serkan in such ugly tops? they finally brought Eda's hair back but now this

BWAH! You're not wrong. You know what I'm wondering, if they've put him in some of those outfits because they are showing his suburban dad side? It's kind of a subtle nod to him embracing father hood and a different way of life? He's now all about running around the yard after his daughter and not about what he looks like when he's being SERKAN BOLAT, FAMOUS BUSINESS MAN and WORLD'S BEST ARCHITECT.

Also, Eda's hair, thank goodness they let that go once the flashbacks were over and we didn't need something to distinguish between then and now! Those curly bangs were not it.

Anonymous asked: They built up the Edser chemistry soooooo well throughout the episode... for that ending? Who decided to cut it there?! The scene was BEAUTIFUL I’m actually upset lol. are not we going to see any more? I’m not asking for a sex scene, I wanted to see THE moment they decided to get back together (the tattoo line doesn’t do it for me) - a few words, tears as they embrace, him walking through the door as she closes it, one passionate kiss, something! But it doesn’t feel like a cliffhanger that continues next week. I’ll be so underwhelmed when they cut to the morning after and we have to infer that they got back together overnight *sigh* if they were allowed 1 kiss only, id rather it have been here instead of ep 2

We do deserve to see how they reconcile, that should be one of the biggest moments of the season after 7 episodes of build up to it.

90% of final scenes in this show have continued uninterrupted the next week. To me there's no reason to think the next episode won't pick up right where this one left off. Crossing fingers!

Anonymous asked: It just hit me that Serkan is the “Kiraz” for Kemal - but Kemal actually missed his child’s whole 35 years 😬 this is an interesting turn of events. Also that line Serkan said about how fathers should love their child’s mother and how he didn’t have that with his own parents....but his real dad does love Aydan, more than she deserves haha.

Oh so true! Kemal really does love his mother more than she deserves! How he puts up with her, I don't know.

The parallel between Serkan/Kemal and Kiraz/Serkan is strong and I hope it gives Serkan some perspective when he starts grappling with this knowledge. I'm sure it's going to be very disconcerting for him, because while he expected to never see his father again, Alptekin is still his father. He's still the man who raised him and formed him into the man he is. Serkan still runs the company he founded and bears his name.

I don't expect any of that to change, but hopefully he can forge a separate relationship with Kemal that might fill some emotional holes that he has and bring him some peace.

None of that even contemplates how Kemal will feel, thankfully Aydan didn't willfully hide the truth from him. How awful to realize you lost 35 years.

We aren't there yet, but I wonder at what age with Kiraz learn the truth, that her dad is not an astronaut, that her parents went through hell with with cancer and plane crashes, and that her father didn't know of her existence until right before they met?

Just something to think about.

Anonymous asked: i'm so happy for hanker, don't get me wrong, and i'm also so happy we get "together" edser for so many episodes until the end, but i'm already tired of the constant "hanker improvising" comments i know i will be seeing. not that they don't improvise in some scenes, but i just know that every romantic edser scene is gonna be analyzed to hell bc ppl want to look for hanker in them. like there's no possible way that ayse, the writer ppl hate the most, could write any romantic scenes.. nope no way!

Yes, this is one of my pet peeves, I can't stand the "Edser left the chat" and all the "that's Hanker, not Edser" type conversation. it's so invasive and most of all disrespectful to not only the writers, but Hande and Kerem and all the work they pour into bringing Eda and Serkan to life.

One of the things in fandom that sets my teeth on edge is when folks take some interpretation of the character by the actor and then decide because it wasn't "scripted" (pro tip the vast majority of physical movements the actors make are "unscripted") that it must just be the actors themselves and have nothing to do with the characters. What an embarrassing and naïve assertion. Actors literal job is to take what's on the page and then translate that. So, no, OF COURSE, every look and touch is not scripted. The actors interpret how their characters would think and feel, and what they would do in given moments and then do those things.

Eda is not touching Serkan's arm just because Hande can't hold herself back from touching Kerem. Puh-lease, they are professionals. Grow up.

However, having said all that, I do think there was one scene that seemed to be very improvised this episode. The bean scene in the grocery store did feel like them just eFFing around. LOL.

andhewonherheart asked: @andhewonherheart: SCK promo department is best and worst all at the same time, cause giving away the last (cliffhanger) scene in fragman is just cruel. But based on the next week’s fragman thing happens that we we think happens *wink*

Hee! So true. The thing I'm grateful for is that in season 2 not one fragman has made me dread the episode, I think there was at least one fragman an episode from 29-37 that was hella upsetting.

As far as I'm concerned these fragmans are doing there job, making me want to watch.

I am really excited for Serkan planning how he's going to ask Eda to marry him, I wonder what Kiraz's reaction is going to be. So far she's been their very own cupid!

Anonymous asked: I didn't find it surprising that Serkan removed his tattoo as soon as Eda left. His logic is always out of sight out of mind though it doesn't work. He did the same when he broke up with her when he found out about the death of her parents. He removed all of her belongings. But their memories are too strong and enough for him to continue to remember her.

Truth! Will he ever learn that it's never going to work? He'll never be able to erase Eda, she has left an indelible mark on his soul. Let's hope he's never faced with that situation again! From here on out, he and Eda are together, a unit, and will live a long life together and in love.

Anyone have any guesses where Eda's tattoo is? Will we find out or will it remain between the characters.

Anonymous asked: I've seen some people say that Edser are getting married now way too fast and to that I just have to laugh lol. First there were complaints we don't have happy Edser and now when we do, of course there's something else. These two have had a rollercoaster of a year when they first met and a five year separation.. they've been through the dating phase, the engaged phase.. of course they'll head straight to the altar! It's not like Eda's plane proposal and that first wedding wasn't rushed either!

I'm on team head straight to the alter! No more waiting. They've had terrible luck, so they just need to tie the knot and make sure there are no easy outs.

As for people who think it's too fast, they don't even know the storyline yet, I swear there are folks who complain just because that's their personality and they're never satisfied.

Anonymous asked: From some of the spoilers of BTS pics, and the fragman we got, I was just reflecting on this season and Turk romcom dizis in general and I just wanted to say how LUCKY we are to see Edser married (again, from spoilers) and with a kid on screen for more than just 10 minute at the end of the finale. Like, it is really rare and as much as people have nitpicked on this season in general, I feel like watching these last episodes have been such a breeze after the last arc of S1.

Oh agreed, I think these episodes have been very enjoyable. The writers are giving me exactly what I want from this show. Comedy, UST, romance with a little light angst thrown in now and again. I would rewatch this season a dozen times before even thinking about watching anything from the 30s.

We are very lucky that we've got to see them as parents, and actually forming their family. We've gotten so much domestic goodness so far and we still have a ways to go. I'm very appreciative of this season and that Ayse came back, got rid of the constant ridiculous melodrama for melodrama's-sake and is telling a very human story about family and love persevering.

Anonymous asked: the last scene gave me chills for some reason. you could actually see eda fighting her head and her heart and deciding to take the step (metaphorically and physically!) towards him for good. i wanna SUE whoever decided to end it the ep there though.. it was actually cruel. also looking at the next frag.. it makes my heart soft that in the flashbacks we see serkan pushing off their wedding bc of his fears and now he can't propose and get married fast enough.. can't believe we're really getting it

I know, it's almost surreal at this point. Since we're near the end we know it's for real and won't be ruined by psychos or awful family members or terminal illness. I just hope that they give us an emotional scene when they get married, whether its just them or the whole cast is there as guests, after everything they've (we've) been through we need to see them both feeling that moment and reveling in it.

FYI - I'm out of town next weekend, so I may be slower than usual in replying to asks and in posting gifs of 47, but I'll get to it all eventually!

[stoppingby]

Any Reylo fic recs?

i’ve actually wanted to do a big fic rec for a while, so this is the perfect opportunity! 

i’ve gathered a list of classic tropes and tried to pick one or two favorites for each! this is by no means a comprehensive list, and if you guys like this, i would be happy to do another edition later on! these are all mostly fluffy as that’s what i usually prefer, but as with most reylo fics there is a lot of explicit content, so please mind the ratings!

without further ado, i present...

stoppingby’s first reylo fic rec: tropey favorites!

Arranged marriage? And Closer Still Is Never Enough - lovefrompluto (15K, E). sweet, tender & caring prince ben. rey is special, and he knows that. reminds me why i love fanfic - watching them fall in love a million different ways.

Best friends-to-lovers? i’ve been in love with you for ages (and i can’t seem to get it right) - akosmia (10K, T). when who you want is right under your nose, and not only can they give you everything you want, they want to. ben cares for rey without hope or agenda. 

Bleed Me Dry, I Don’t Mind - AttackoftheDarkCurses (12K, E). best friends to lovers from two perspectives. a little growing up together, a little university AU. they slip into love without even realizing.

Canonverse? chase all your cares away - LovesBitca8 (4K, E). ben defects to the resistance. rey loves his smile and is determined to get one out of him. 

Coffee shop? maybe i just wanna be yours - akosmia (13K, T). ben compulsively offers favors to rey’s friends. in return, they meddle. it’s a 5+1 (i am obsessed with those as you will come to find out).

Emotional hurt/comfort? thrilled by the still of your hand - akosmia (9K, T). canondivergent. ben is touch starved after… everything. rey helps. i cried multiple times, and i loved it.

Serotonin and Dopamine - pontmercy44 (28K, E). this is so unique. very realistic in the way that it shows the work that goes into a relationship. i won’t give away too much, but mental heath issues are integral to the plot, so be forewarned. 

Enemies-to-lovers? Left Handed Kisses - Ever-so-reylo (18K, E). a reylo classic. assistant district attorney vs criminal defense lawyer. hatefucking turns into something more.

Epistolary (including forms of communication)? Hanging on the Telephone - jeeno2 (11K, E). rey gets a sext from a wrong number. sure, she should ignore it and move on. but where’s the fun in that?

our love was meant to be (my love came back to me)  - BensCalligraphySet (3K, T). in this life, ben finds letters in a bottle from someone who seemed to know him in a previous one. the galaxy gives them another chance. 

Fake dating? Let Me Dream, Let Me Stay - Melusine11 (38K, E). rey backs herself into a lie and asks her coworker kylo to pretend to be her boyfriend at rose and finn’s wedding. they roadtrip, they share a bed, they eat at a punny restaurant. so much fun!

Roommates? Closer to Fine - jeeno2 (15K, E). pregnant rey needs a roommate and moves in with medical student ben. there’s a lot to be scared about, but they’re not alone. 

Someone You Love(d) - AttackoftheDarkCurses (39K, E). rey and prince!ben are college roommates. they end up spending break together with leia, han, breha, and padme. they claim to hate each other and misunderstandings ensue. so many tropes i can’t even list them. 

Flower shop/tattoo parlor? alderaan places - nymja (5K, T). a classic take on a classic trope. it’s valentine’s day!

Friends with benefits? Making Love Out of Nothing At All - LoveofEscapism (4K, E). ben will do anything rey asks. so hot, but full of emotion. 

Two to Tango - crossingwinter (6K, E). i love this one. absolutely nails the heart wrenching emotion of knowing you’ve made a mistake in the moment before you fix it.

Funny? First Order IT, Can I Get Your User ID? - krossartist (14K, T). witty banter and childish name calling with a small touch of hurt/comfort. adorable!

Harry Potter AU? the water smells like you - shruggyben (3K, G). every ship needs an HP ‘verse amortentia fic! feat. professor leia organa.

High school? The Buddy List - violethoure666 (23K, E). since reading it a few weeks ago, this has quickly become one of my favorites! if you miss the aughts this one's for you! AIM messenger drives the story. 

Medieval/Royalty? Tangled, but Unbroken - AttackoftheDarkCurses (20K, M). growing up together, star-crossed lovers, alderaanian hair braiding - what more could you want? my fave tag on this: uncle luke is a reylo.

Neighbors? Flux & Solder - angharabbit (23K, E). another one of my all time favorites. new neighbors ben and rey help each other with trauma. feels like a rainy day from the thunder through the rainbow. make sure you read the tags before reading this incredible work!

Office romance? Minus 1 - Ever-so-reylo (5K, E). rey sends a text to the wrong office IM number. rey doesn’t know who she’s texting, but friendship and… more develops.

keep calm and let HR handle it - hi_raeth (11K, T). another 5+1! ben is the CEO and rey is the HR director. coworkers to confidantes to lovers. super sweet.

Oneshot? spring will come again - prncesselene (8K, M). over the course of a year, rey’s life changes completely as she renovates padme amidala’s old greenhouse. 

Only one bed? under thy own life’s key - galvanator (23K, E). sexy with great emotional depth, but it’s the sequel trilogy gang that makes this stand out in the trope! makes me wish we got a post-TROS everyone-lives sitcom.

Romcom-inspired? if you’re ready comic get it - violethoure666 (28K, E). if You’ve Got Mail was with tumblr mutuals and a comic book store. 

We Never Met - KyloTrashForever (3K, E). that scene in When Harry Met Sally where the older couple talks about meeting in the elevator. what happens when two people who are constantly just missing each other finally meet?

Slow burn? My Heart Always Belonged To You - JGoose13 (52K, E). Persuasion AU! reylo + jane austen = magic. 

Soulmates? wholly to be a fool - bigfootsflannel (9K, T). when your soulmate confesses their love, their words appear on your arm. ben makes a drunken confession.

Stuck/stranded together? a place to go - delia-pavorum (52K, E). rey and ben go looking for solitude in luke’s cabin. they don’t get off on the best foot before getting snowed in. sickfic (which i think there is far too little of in reylo fanfic)! beautiful and warm.

University/college? Sociology of Sexuality - Celia_and (4K, E). ben is that just-playing-devil’s-advocate kid in class that we all have to put up with. y’all this is so hot. if this happened in my real life, i think i would never recover.

Work-in-progress? flesh stays no farther reason - galvanator (20K, E). i drop EVERYTHING when this updates! ben and rey are from completely different circumstances, but that doesn’t stop a hookup from turning into something more. i feel like this fic gets their dynamic so right, and i am anxiously awaiting the conclusion in two chapters!

My comfort fic? bloom (you fill my lungs with sweetness, you fill my head with you) - akosmia (12K, T). i’ve read this again and again and i don’t plan on stopping. blind bestselling author ben solo needs a scribe. rey gets the job. there is cooking, there is domesticity, there are overwhelming emotions. my go-to. 

as i’ve said before, akosmia (@kylorensx) is my all time favorite fanfic author. the fact that we are mutuals blows my mind daily. please please go read all of her stuff. you won’t regret it!

[ourmrsreynolds]

You know why I’ll die mad about how Alcott sunk Jo/Laurie? because it represents a type of ship that’s almost never valorized. I want the dynamic where they’re like “you’re the #1 most important person in my life …. and also I want to rail you” instead of the “yr important”/“i’m into you” revelations occurring simultaneously.

This is why Pride & Prejudice doesn’t do it for me, and why I have a soft spot for Mansfield Park which admittedly is a bore-and-a-half but counterpoint: it also features the only Austen hero whom the narrative refers to by his first name. It’s Edmund, just plain Edmund, because he was Fanny’s friend before he was her love interest. So, Mansfield Park is Friends to Lovers. Pride & Prejudice is the paradigmic Enemies to Lovers ship and as good as it is, it’s not for me. I’ve read it 3 times and watched the movie twice, and I say again: It’s not for me. There’s a difference between enjoying something because the execution is flawless, and enjoying it because it strikes some deep chord within your id. Little Women could have been both.

Theodore “I have loved you from the moment I clapped eyes on you” Laurence has loved Jo March since before he knew what romantic love was, and that’s my jam. Sexual tension overlaid on a foundation of “they were always super close”? Sign me the fuck up. 

Maybe for most people this typology is not all that relevant; most people happily ship, say, Drarry and Stucky at the same time. But not me. I’m the dumbass who spent spent all of Atlas Shrugged rooting for the protagonist to get with her childhood BFF instead of one of her other suitors. Yes, Atlas Shrugged as in The Libertarian Bible. 

There’s this idea that the childhood sweethearts trope needs to be sUBvERteD but I say to you: bitch where?? Name me one iconic childhood romance; I’ll wait. When I set myself this question it took me forty-five seconds to come up with Anne of Green Gables, and it’s literally my favorite trope of all time. Twilight, The Hunger Games, The Mortal Instruments. Do you see the pattern here? It’s not exactly a hegemonic trope ok? It doesn’t need to be subverted. Plus, you can’t even put Alcott in the same bucket since she notoriously didn’t plan her romantic endgame from the outset; she sunk our ship to SUBVERT READER EXPECTATIONS. Which I’d say worked out about as well as Game of Thrones did.

It comes to me that in romcoms where childhood sweethearts is endgame (13 Going on 30, Sweet Home Alabama, Always Be My Maybe) there’s this second act separation where the leads go their separate ways after adolescence and then they RECONNECT. Which is exactly what Jo’s stint in NYC and Laurie’s Continental Tour could have accomplished. Imagine that reunion scene!!

I just think it’s a shame that “romantic” is so often defined as “hostility/antagonism that gives way to grudging respect that grows into something ~more” when what I really want is “ride-or-die partnerships that grow into something ~more.” You end up in the same place but the starting points are radically different.

[antinomyelin]

26-32!

I assume that means through illly 

26. do you believe in soulmates?

Id like to think I do. 

27. denim jackets leather jackets or bomber jackets?

definitely leather for me, i think they all look nice on certain people but im a leather jacket person

28. What's your sign?

Sagittarius babeyyy

29. are you single?

single and happy lol

30. do you prefer to charm or be charmed?

I like to charm but I get tired. I want to be spoiled too. I have to like, already like you otherwise if im just randomly getting charmed I feel like running away

31. guitar or piano?

this question is killing me. can I pick both? if not im gonna have to go with guitar but it really depends. 

32. favorite romcom (or any romantic movie)?

help i dont watch movies... im wracking my brain around it. Can I pick The Mummy. i pick brendan fraisers the mummy. romance <3

[mikkock]

Uhm??????? Unacceptable?? Please tell me more about your OCs in that last art? I demand it? I want a full report on my desk before morning? Cite your sources please?

Oh no,, you’re asking,,, about my own faves,,, sorry to everyone, but I guess im never going to shut up ever now. (i already don’t shut up ever, what have u done, im now going to speak so much that society will collapse AT LEAST)

But for real. I enjoy pretending I don’t have faves, I love all my kids the same, buT WE ALL KNO THAT’S A LIE, those two my fave bitches (they snatched that title from the last two faves, rip to them, and they also snatched, n I must really make that clear, the title of “the bitches with the most AUs from the previous previous faves. Their power.)

SO. Get ready for a ride, table of content: them, their respective character, their story, and the pLETHORA OF ALTERNATE STORIES I GAVE THEM because i must yell about all the versions of my kids i have (non-exhaustive cause its that serious bro, but ill take extra time for the universe depicted in that art just for u bby). (tbh if clamp is allowed to sprinkle their fave gays in all their universes so am i, except they aint secondary characters there, every story is just theirs. love that concept.)(itll be so long you’re getting a whole novel even if i have to post it in two posts)

So~ Em twos. Dari n Wei-wei as I call em, or Dumbass n Egg if you wanna get friendly.

They’re my proudest instance of “oops i made a squad of characters, and two of them just accidentally were so perfectly compatible and complementary oh no I guess they’re in love now.” And then they became my favourite. Cause I guess their potential was too much (jk its bc they hot)

cuties.

I spent ten minutes wondering which to introduce first cause dang son, I want to talk bout them both so much shefjgfdg

First, as I technically designed him first (like ten minutes before the other), my man weiwei. if u ever saw my art its impossible that you havent seen him at least once. cause i’m legit always drawing him. cause im in love bro.

Demonstration : here are my computer scribbled weiweis of 2020 so far (with a few daris there n there they’re a package deal), that i could find, and they do not include all the paper sketches that i’m too lazy to take pics of. (i just been drawing him with so much hair these days that’s illegal, his brand is baldness)

But anyway, he’s CHEN Chia-Wei, he’s 21, he’s Taiwanese n I love him. Two very important facets of his character when you meet him: he doesn’t talk, and is absolutely, in every single dimension, built to make you fall head over heels for him.

He’s (in the “canon” storyline if i may call it that since it’s def not my most developed one but oh well) an art student, mostly paints but is also great at photography and videography (his vibe is busy hectic pieces with strong bold colours, lots of harsh edges, and very people focused).

Aside from that, he’s also super into fashion, and because he’s part of the rich boy squad (the “im broke so im giving half my characters wealth in compensation) he Can and Does exhibit some quite funky fits when he feels like it. (maybe a reason I draw him a lot, since my fave thing is pretty boys in weird ass clothes)(and then i also draw him in just casual shit cuz tittiful men in plain white tees you know. there’s just something about it.)

Small compilation of outfits. ft me and my band handwriting roasting outfits that id also kill to own but ok u know.

He digs music. (i make playlists for my OCs and i gotta say, his is the best one, i spent so many hours researching it, “arranging” it etc n its still a work in progress but dude. she got many moods my fave part is when it suddenly turns into so many cheesy ballads also she’s enormous cause im as wordy in playlists as I am in writing.) listens to a lot, n also he can play piano n guitar. cause you know. heartthrobs got to win your heart with a song (and if he’s alone he can even mumble some songs, who knows maybe even sing em softly, definitly a sight to stumble on accidentally). Big main artists that have his vibes are Hello Nico, No Party for Cao Dong, n Circa Waves’s “what’s it like over there” album.

He does a lot of sports. He ain’t fit through magic, rip to him. He’s got a serious routine, and it’s a time he likes to use alone, cause nothing like running at the break of dawn, alone with your thoughts, which you can just easily forget through the exhaustion of a workout session afterwards.

he also eats. A lot. Food is just good, bro. (the canon story is def happening some place europe aka his biggest struggle is how expensive food is here. outrageous.)

He secretly loves super cheesy movies. the dramatic romcoms??? the cute shows that are just so cute and worriless?? anything involving soulmates??? yeh dude. he watches it, he reads it, he listens to it, and he may cry about it, but no one will know. That’s the one true guilty pleasure. (and he definitly has a collection of romance dvds, books n manhuas in his old room back at the family home. where no one can see it. perks of studying abroad. no one can see ur hoarding of material that clashes your image. “yes i watch edgy experimental things haha yes i love those smart people movies of course wow the philosophy…” and then immediatly goes to watch the trashiest predictable but oh so sweet dramas all night)

While he doesn’t speak (as in with the mouth) he can communicate in a bunch of language, due to having moved around quite a bit. On top of his native mandarin and hokkien, he’s fluent in English, so he can use those to write, and is also fluent in TSL, and pretty good in HKSL (and from that, other close-in-syntax sign languages). So he doesn’t have trouble getting around, but then he is also overall quiet in public (with close friends and over text though, that’s another story, that’s where he gets chattier, and also where you may get more of his true personality). Also, he can speak with his sister. That’s pretty cool bro.

I was going to say he’s a very “hides his true colours under a shell” type of character but you know, for an egg character, that’s pretty ironic. We love poetic cinema.

He presents himself as a very laid back, chill detached dude, going with the flow and all that great stuff, and masterfully mixes just the right doses of mysterious, flirty and calm to just go around vibing. But ain’t that jUST THE MILLENIAL’S ILLNESS, those dANG KIDS, going around, gettin relationships but never intimacy 👏😢 (there’s more to it dont leave)

First of all, before you see the Drama, the Turmoil, the first thing you notice when you really do befriend him is that he’s c h i l d i s h, he gets sulky when things dont go following the plan, he gets whiny n jealous for not getting attention , he gets competitive over stupid challenges, and way too playful if you start teasing, and when he gets flustered too…you think you get cool stoic dude but actually you get a dude who’s reacting to things with way too much intensity, and boi i thought u were gon be mature what’s that why have you been pouting for three days over losing a bet come on- That’s mostly coming up when he interacts with his sister, but the closest you are to him to more of it you get to see.

He’s also an affectionate dude actually. Like physically. As in you’ll get spontaneous hugs. He’s come nap on your shoulder. That’s a perk of befriending him if you ask me.

Also he tries to look so cool, so tough haha. He’s actually a lil sensitiv boi. he gets fluffy, he gets flustered, he heart eyes. you turn around and he’s gazing at ya as if you were the whole universe. he gets a mini crisis for holding hands with his crush. ya know. he’s secretly a softie.

nerd.

Then in the “what he doesn’t show” (my fave part), where you stock all the anxieties, all the trauma… Obviously there’s a lot of anxiety here (selective muteness being a symptom of it, he hides the other ones very well) mostly fear of inadequacy, of abandonement and of loneliness. mmmmmmmaybe that’s why he was v reticent to continue pursuing that one guy he was into when he realised he was just a tad too into him oh no is that some,, like?? some lovey-love?? cant have that im afraid of gettin heartbroken bro. Aint that sad for a someone who’s one true goal is just findin someone to love and to be with forever, the struggles of yearnin for a soulmate when there’s nothing you fear more than getting attached to a person and letting them see you and your flaws.., delicious.

Now tho (because its so alone speaking about a character on their own and i just wanna get to the part where i can speak bout em together and how they bring out bits of each others ya kno, the good kush….), Dari…

He’s pretty, i must say, and got the funniest hair to draw, and comes from the most opposite background to weiwei’s.

Darian Andriev PARVANOV, also 21, comes from the remote Bulgarian countryside, but i still love him (this makes it sound as if i wouldnt normally love someone from the bulgarian countryside. its not what i meant. by default ud remind me of my son so you’d start being liked if u came from the bulgarian countryside) Now for the first instance of “wow, the complementarity”. The first thing i thought making Dari was that he looked too cool, and that he obviously was a dumbass, and mostly that he was physically unable to shut up. (o fuck he’s me)

best picture i could find of him. He’s got the dilemma of “wow he looked so pretty n cool until he opened his mouth” 

He’s ALSO an art student (cause they were initially created for the purpose of filling the gap of “i have ocs in every field except the one i sorta know that’s so stupid”), painting major (def vibes differently than weiwei though, he’s doing those soft pretty landscapes n flowers, everything real pretty and peaceful, we got some impressionism nerd in here folks). 

He was/is a real country boy, farm family, he helped tend the fields, he worked in plantations for pocket money, he knows how to take care of cattle and chicken and goats and all the cool babies you can take care of, he can tell whether the soil is good or not, he can drive a tractor, and doesnt fear dirt.

but then also he’s kind of a neat freak, he hates getting paint on himself, so the duality of man, dirt ok but paint? disgostin. his spaces are real neat and spotless, he likes cleaning (its relaxing) and does it nearly too often.

his dumbassery comes from lack of common sense and impulsiveness, aside from that he’s actually what you’d call “mad smart”, dude had em good grades, he can memorise pages upon pages of the most trivial information, he has an accumulation of knowledge beyond limits, and is good at problem solving. so he can recite all the words of the F letter of the dictionnary, but would also put a curling iron in his mouth to see if it would curl his tongue. (side note, he does have a problem with heat n fire, most his “oopsie how i wound up hurting myself on acccident” story involve burning -that stove was just too tempting…)

while he doesnt feel very attached to his home country, he does feel strongly for his family. he’d do anything for his mum (and actually does everything to make her proud already, that’s his one main goal), and he’s ready to sacrifice a lot for her (as in, spend years working non-stop a really uncomfortable job so his mother wouldnt have to pay a cent of his expenses even though she said she could by doing some sacrifices herself,and then being ready to come back as soon as needed if anything happened, and potentially drop his career and dream n go back to the farm life to provide for mama)(also he still does hold onto some parts of his home country’s traditions, and does sometimes feel homesick but more in a ‘i left the most beautiful landscapes n the city feels cramped and claustrophobic and i dont know people and i dont feel in the right place cuz im a forreigner with a thicc accent who doesnt master the language of this place and straight up have different body language communicators due to cultural difference oh lord i wanna be home where a nod means no and a head shake is yes i keep misunderstanding everything”)

if you want background noise he’s the perfect pal to call over, he’s just so chatty, he got hours and hours of non stop speech ready for you. you can shut him up once you’re done listening with the offering of food. works everytime.

he’s definitly not shy. neither in terms of talking to people, nor when it comes to making decisions. he’s quite bold, and rarely hesitates to go towards something he wants. he’s direct in his approach to most everything.

he likes partying. mostly the socialising part, talkin to people is just fun ya feel. and being in the crowd, doing whatever, pressure free? ya can dance n enjoy yourself, and people wont notice? yeah that’s nice. but doesnt do it super often cause broke bitches aint got the party time n budget. 

he likes arm. (just an excuse for me to drop this thing here cuz i like it)

While he’s an overall bubbly looking character, with a cheery loud personnality, he does carry some youth trauma that has him more reticent to engage in happiness, he comes from what you could call “not the wokest background” and he may have fallen victim of it : he’s kind of a flashy noticeable character, both physically and in his personnality, and doesnt exactly matches the expectations of dudes in the area he comes from (delicate, emotional and sweet guy? that doesnt exist bro). He went through it, and it has definitly had some impact on his confidence in many aspects. But he’s 100% the type of guy to put on the fake happy front because if feeling bad is sad, making the people you care about sad for you too is Unacceptable Right??? relying on friends?? what???

But then what are we supposed to be doing with such charming characters huh,,, 

Make them fall in love obviously.

Their story obviously has to do with falling in love and workin a relationship cause if I dont write romance i literally die, but I make the center pivot of all of it communication, and barriers in communications. Most obvious being them coming from wildly different cultures, having different native languages, and also the ways you adapt to muteness (what i love most bout that part is even then they fucked up given the easiest quickest small body language things to communicate are head nods n then i managed to make one come from the one country that reverses those like iconic how do they even understand each other -through a lot of work and love bro) but also on more “introspective” points, how to say things that you are even afraid to think about, how to open up and share your burdens and trauma with someone, how to say words you’ve been convinced you weren’t allowed to, the inner turmoil of communication in short. And then also communication through art, and through alternative unusual ways. If i were snobbish i could call it something like “a thinkpieces on how humans overcome obstacles in communication, and adapt, all for the sake of pursuing love” but fact is its mostly boys being in love n learning how to speak, figuratively and also quite literally. And also its me having fun with making characters evolve from each other, be able to influence each other for the better, helping each other be more comfortable with themselves and express the true things of their personnality, and discover new aspects. I just wanna write intense and soulful love bro.

So in less concept and more facts, weiwei meets dari, dari being his puppy self just immediatly strikes a conversation and weiwei gets interested cause “oho nice pretty boy? very good. i want some of that”. they get closer because you cant fight off the Power of friendship (and also the power of “what your friend is bestie with my friend?? guess we hanging out”) and then friendship and interest turns into pining, held back by respective dread of what romance with the other would mean (as in “romance?? cant have that we cant feel” and “with him?? cant do that, convince yourself he’s just a friend immediatly what would the family think”) but eventually they do have to just crash into one another cause that’s just the gravitational pull bro, its physics bro. and from then on its all unlearning destructive behaviours, bettering oneself with the help of the other, and getting over trauma to finally live ur best life. and gettin fckin married bro they’re both cheeseballs theyll wanna wed

BUT MAKING EM FALL IN LOVE ONCE ISNT ENOUGH time to make 3894853 alternate universes about em.

Lets speak bout my fave of those for a hot second.

First of all, the one of the art that brought this ask, guess i could call it “Pretty Tribes” AU, bunch of tribes live and do their things, having nature and energy powers. Dari n Weiwei’s tribes are bros, the latter’s powers needing them to move around to get energy from different places, enabling them different abilities. So basically they get to hang at the other’s place while the regenerate energy from there, and in exchange they help them out with various tasks (dari’s tribe is a rly farmer oriented one, with plant magic, while weiwei’s got more poyvalent powers, and have very good healers notably, so it comes in handy). The two boys were born a few months apart in their respective tribes, so naturally, anything the two clans meet, they’re put together to play and all, and from that they became besties, and each time they meet, after the gaps of time separating the two groups, they feel more and more of a little something else~ story is themed round growing up, friendship between clans, their traditions and cultures, and pretty boys in pretty clothes in pretty landscapes interacting with nature.

The superpower AU, i fuckin love it bro. Its an old one, made for other characters, but i just love it so much that i had to inject my faves in it. Its got a grimy ugly setting, bad government, propaganda, and fights between super-people (heavily mediatised for entertainment and reinforcing the idea that “look at these evil villains thank god us the good government protects you from them”), with a side of bad ethics in science. In all that, those two have the role of “those two young enemy warrior and villain, they were so powerful and fought so hard”, public figures, legendary and admired by both sides, everyone followed their fights, til one day they presumably died in one of their showdowns. (haha sike they actually found themselves talking for 5 seconds and realised they lived in a society, n built a plan to run away). The main characters get to find they’re alive because one of em had history with super-warrior-golden-boy and go to seek their help to overthrow the Big Bads. (stealing them from their nice gay cottage hermit life smh so rude)

Mermaids. I like those. Sailor weiwei sees merman dari, they both save each other in different occasions, they grow fascinated with each other, they’re at sea, water romance. Amazing. AU made half cuz i just like water n fish. and shirtless sailors.

(i couldnt find art of it in five minutes so have a link to that lil animatic piece i made of it once)

Indie band AU, where i was listening to songs that vibe so well with those two in general n then my brain was like “what if they’re the ones playing”. They’re (along with the rest of the art squad) a nice little alternative rock band, doing their thing, then one of their songs blows up, and they get quite the attention, to the dismay of dari who wrote that song in a moment of “oh no im so in love with my bandmate but i cant tell him what if i ruin everything we have going on ill just have to love from afar and deal with that” and now has way too many people interested in who he wrote it about and theorising from his every move when performing it (a mix of music, secret crushes and social media) (ft a picture of neither of them but its the least ugly art i found of this AU cuz its old and instruments are the bane of my existence)(also kelana is so pretty i gotta flaunt her around)

in kind of the same vibe, as in we’re in a music world overexposed to social media, i also integrated em to an AU i did for fun, “boyband AU” as its called aka idol based band system cuz you kno, i got a hobby, lets apply it. Band boy Dari and bodyguard Weiwei got a thing going on, but can’t really act on it in any way, because they’d just destroy the whole band if it ever came public. Featuring annoying bandmates, catchy pop songs and people making fanaccounts of that one hot Mr.Bodyguard cause dang he hot.

(all the art of this one so ugly im sorry)

SPY AU, one of my fave brand. They spies, they get assigned on the same mission, they work real nice with each other. spies hot. fights. strategy. i just like the concept. Gays taking down the worst traffics imaginable??? I love that song.(i actually have so much on this cause s p i e s are fuckin great)

Fashion. U kNOW i have an AU for fashion. Supermodel and his private stylist, trying to maintain the line of professionalism. And failing to do so. Lets make out in unpractical designer clothes.

Have an highschool AU for a bunch of characters, injected them as “spinoff”, start chatting online being art buddies, fall in love without meeting (ft. all the iconics of internet friendship like knowing tiny details of their personnalities but not the fact that they have a sister or “waIT ur a GUY i thought u were a girl wow wild good news for my gay ass”)

n those are my faves as far as i remember, i got a fuckton of small other ones that arent fleshed out enough, or some that are more of a guilty pleasure universe, and some that are more like “projects that i can expend on as soon as i run out of daydream material” (like u kno those hospital drama shows with super innacurate medicine n shit like idk scrubs or whatever, yeh i want some of that but im keeping it for later)

[akitohru]

I know literally nothing about kdramas, what are some good starter shows?

well, what kind of shows do you like? romantic comedies, melodramas, crime, horror, fantasy, historical, slice of life, action? for now, i’ll recommend some shows that i like across genres! :)

her private life: a cute romcom about a chief curator of an art museum who secretly has a fansite for an idol (fansite managers go to a lot of events and take pictures of their favorite idol, posting them on twitter/their personal websites for other fans and organize fan events for said idol.) she ends up having to fake date the art museum director after certain rumors come out! a very fluffy and mostly simple show. 

oh my ghost/oh my ghostess: a fantasy romcom with thriller elements. a woman who can see ghosts ends up getting possessed by a ghost who wishes to resolve her grudge of never getting to sleep with anyone. she goes after the mc's boss, a famous chef who the mc has a crush on. as time goes on, the ghost begins to discover that her grudge isn't as simple as it seems, having more to do with her untimely death than she thought.

signal: a fantasy crime thriller. a criminal profiler finds a walkie-talkie that transcends time, letting him communicate with a detective from 1989. together, they help each other solve cold cases and prevent some crimes from taking place in the first place. there is one strange thing though, the detective from 1986 has been missing for 15 years and the detective the mc works under has been searching for him ever since. what happened to him?

healer: an action romance. the male lead works as an illegal night courier who works under the alias healer. he is known to be the best in his field, having many people wanting to catch him and put him behind bars one day. the female lead is a reporter from a second-rate tabloid news website who is interested in healer and ends up being targeted by him on the order of a client who wishes to get information on her birth parents. the client, a famous journalist at a major broadcast station, seeks to uncover the truth concerning a decades-old incident involving five friends who ran an illegal pro-democracy broadcasting station. this is my favorite drama!

crash landing on you: a romcom with melodrama and action elements. it's a recent drama that has attracted a lot of attention and has gotten many people into kdramas. i personally liked it, but the subject matter is a bit controversial. due to a storm that occurs while she is paragliding, a south korean heiress accidentally crash lands in north korea. there, she comes across a north korean solider who helps her hide and tries to get her back home. the romance is sweet and the story keeps you interested, but some of plot points are far-fetched (as you can tell by the premise lol) and there are plot holes too. my advice is just don't take it too seriously. there is a reason it's so popular.

just between lovers: a romance melodrama about two people who were in the same shopping mall collapse when they were younger and are both traumatized by the incident. in the present, the female leads works as someone who makes architecture models and the male lead works different manual labor jobs. one day, it is announced that there will be a new construction project taking place at the accident site. the two end up involved with the construction project and get to know each other. as time goes on, they slowly begin to come together and heal. a very sweet, sad, and real drama. probably my favorite drama after healer.

the reply/answer me series: in this series, there are three shows: reply 1997, reply 1994, and reply 1988. you can watch them in any order and don’t have to watch all of them to get the full story. sometimes, characters from the other ones will make cameos, but they aren’t important to the story. they are all coming of age romcoms. reply 1997 is about a group of friends in high school, reply 1994 is about a group of people who become friends in college after living in the same share house, and reply 1988 is about another group of friends in high school that live in the same neighborhood and have all known each other from a young age. they are generally funny shows, but they all also discuss the topic of growing up and have some other pretty relatable, tear-jerking topics. the characters and the relationships between them are mostly really well-written and developed. my personal favorite is reply 1988. i love reply 1997, but i don't have any real strong feelings for 1994. it isn't bad, but, when compared to the other two, it's not very outstanding.

age of youth/hello my twenties: a slice of life with mystery elements. it’s about a group of college-aged girls who live in the same share house. the show discusses many relatable topics and also has mysteries that keep you hooked. one of my top favorites!

welcome to waikiki: a comedy drama with romance elements. it is about a group of friends who live in the same guesthouse whose lives change when a single mother and her baby end up living with them. a very fun and sometimes sweet show!

come and hug me: a romance melodrama that is also a crime thriller. the female lead's parents were brutally murdered by a serial killer who is the father of the male lead. they were each other's first loves and were ripped apart due to this incident. later on, they reunite, the female lead a rookie actress and the male lead a detective. they are both still very much in love with each other but also still suffering from the incident. this show discusses the topics of: is evilness inherited or a choice and do children deserve to suffer for their parents' mistakes? it is a very sweet, sad, healing, and thrilling drama.

my id is gangnam beauty: a coming of age romance. the female lead undergoes plastic surgery after years of ridicule and bullying. now in college, she's still self-conscious but is generally treated well. though, there are still some people who ridicule her for obviously having had plastic surgery done. there, she meets the male lead who she knew back in middle school. he is popular but uninterested in his popularity. they slowly get to know each other and develop feelings for each other. although the premise of the show may seem shallow, it is not. it discusses beauty standards in depth and is very tasteful about it. the male lead is respectful and very sweet despite his stoic nature.

i didn't mention where to watch these because where you can watch them depends on your region, but you can find kdramas on these websites/streaming platforms: netflix, viki, hulu, (us hulu doesn't have many though.) viu, kocowa, dramacool, dramanice, myasiantv. (watch out for viruses and pop-ups on the last three though. i recommend getting a pop-up blocker and adblock.)