#interact with the world more. like. it doesn't have to be a lot. it doesn't have to be Creation. you can modify it to suit your needs

[arcane-ish]

Btw here's Amanda saying exactly same of the "sins of the fathers" line 2 years ago/in a post s1 AMA, not just in a post s2 interview (idle is Alex Ye, Leeloo is Amanda Overton)

In the end, people cannot control how they react. It can be as simple as "that character wears the same kind of a shirt as the kid who bullied me in school and so I will always perceive them as bad regardless of what the text of the show says or the intent of the writers was".

Imo the text of the show was clear on them not being bio brothers ("old friend", "you were my brother", "he was like a brother to you", Silco describing his revolutionaries gang as brothers and sisters against the world).

To me the statements of the writers suggest pretty firmly they had other metaphors (fathers, partners, bizarro reflections of each other). That doesn't mean that "kinda like brothers" wasn't part of those metaphors but it just clearly wasn't the only one and it was still clearly still "kinda like brothers" and not "literally, biologically brothers".

And as you said, they don't vibe like brothers so it's not even like they accidentally wrote them interacting like bio brothers.

I also don't think they were trying to brotherzone them. I just genuinely think for them, yes despite the importance they have for the vibe of the setting, they just don't have enough high priority. So I don't think writing either as shippy or non shippy was that much of a priority. (See how in season 2 Warwick's character clearly exists mainly as a setup/stepping stone for the story of the sisters, which is not a complaint, it's just their hierarchy of importance)

And why should they? Zaundads despite the in jokes is still a relatively minor ship and fans aren't exactly known to flock old dudes with significantly less screentime in a show of conventionally hot people.

Imo the writers were saying plenty about the relationship (ie different aspects of Zaun, on opposite sides but same goal,

I dunno, League canon is just so full of literal brothers but also pseudo brothers, I just never struck me as odd that "brother" is used as a replacement for "really close relationship", especially within the context of both revolution and something really gritty and physical like mining.

(to me it actually seems a lot more odd for people in an intellectual setting like with Jayce and Viktor to use that word with each other, especially since Silco's speech makes it clear that brothers and sisters is used more broadly)

As for people mistaking them for brothers... I dunno? Again the show I think with terms like "old friend" and "like a brother to you" is quite clear that it is not literal biological brothers. If people don't pay attention to the dialogue of supporting characters I can't help them? Like with my "a shirt like my bully", you cannot account for everybody's experience?

Maybe for some it's a kneejerk reaction of "old dudes being gay romantic is icky so I'm gonna throw myself into brothers despite what the text has always said"? Maybe for some it's some sort of cultural issue where they genuinely have never heard of any brothers in arms, revolutionary brotherhood, brothers and sisters in Christ stories/speeches/lyrics?

Maybe in some cultures and/or social classes it is more or less frequent that you call a friend a brother/a bro?

But your original question was how it came about. I gave my best take: they never thought of them as bio brothers, their main theme was sind of the fathers, they didn't think of them that deeply and they can't account for every weird reaction or misinterpretation people have to their text? (See the vastly different takes on "dirt under your nails" and that was on their premiere canon OTP)

So like wtf even was zaundads.

I mean from the perspective of the writers room. Because S1 vander and silco were actually genuinely very sibling coded. In a weird uncomfortably homoerotic vibes way, yes, but a proper effort was made in the writing to parallel them strongly with vi and jinx, and they kept calling each other ‘brother’ instead of having it be one line said to a different character (cough jayvik cough).

Then s2 does the brokeback mine jackets thing and it’s like ok sure whatever. Then you get to episode 7 and. They are 1000% a couple. Like they are DADS and clearly wifing each other up HARD. And I would say maybe it’s a case of animators going rogue if it were just stuff like silco running his horny ass fingertip along vander’s bra strap or whatever:

But it’s in the writing too! Having Benzo do the chronic third wheel ‘ugh’ when silco and vander do their gay lil heart eyes toast… that felt LOUD.

Like I really just don’t know what to make of a show that sibling codes two dudes so successfully in s1 that a large chunk of the audience thought they were biological brothers, then does THAT in s2. I mean I love zaundads and I love s2e7!!! But these writers…..

I’m not sure the shippers are the ones who get confused between romantic and brotherly vibes tbh 😅

[hexedwinchester]

What the later seasons of Supernatural are Missing?

It's no secret that as Supernatural added more seasons, the quality of the show deteriorated and the only reason it ran so long was because of Jared and Jensen. This dilution is attributed to a lot of reasons: Kripke's era coming to end, change of writers and show runners, poor writing on the part of new writers, focus of the story shifting from Sam and Dean to supporting cast. But here's something I don't see folks mentioning a lot and that is it lacked a good villain and not just that but rather a good villain with personal interest/vendetta with our boys. Let me explain..

Season 1 and 2: Though season 1 starts off with the boys looking for their father, the plots twists into Yellow Eyes chasing Sam down for personal reasons. He is invested in Sam, personally. That's what makes it beautiful

Season 3: Stakes are high as Dean is on the clock to walk the red carpet to Hell. While that's a major crux, Lilith who holds Dean's contract is also making the vendetta quite personal

Season 4: Sam is pumped on Demon blood being manipulated by Ruby to kill Lilith to stop the apocalypse with a side of getting some revenge for dragging Dean into Hell. See what I mean? Personal again. It's all about the boys

Season 5: it can't get any more personal than Lucifer and Michael twisting the guys to say yes to being their vessels. While the angels try everything to get a yes from Dean, let's put that aside for a minute and focus on Lucifer. His first interaction with Sam is in the form of his dead girlfriend. His obsession with his vessel is so fucked up, as if he knows Sam inside out, like he already has crawled under his skin. One look at Lucifer will tell you he only has eyes on the prize: The Great Sam Winchester. That's what made this season great!

Season 6: This is where it subtly starts to go downhill. While the Soulless Sam storyline holds interest, the whole find the purgatory feels like a side quest i'd be happy to skip because the prize is not our boys' journey. Frankly, I don't care a damn about the war between Heaven and Hell

Season 7: Probably in the top 5 of my least favourite seasons. Leviathans were lame with their world domination plan by buying real estate and their leader Dick Roman sucked. It seemed like a USA problem than Sam and Dean problem. The worst of it all? Borax kills them?! Say what?! Wut?! The oldest creatures with a weakness of cleaning agent?! What's next? Shedim are scared of hyaluronic acid? Let's squirt them with moisturizer!

Season 8: This was one of those seasons without a proper antagonist. And yes, the angel/demon tablet fiasco. Nothing against advance placement student Kevin but I didn't enjoy the prophet storyline. It would have been interesting if they made it personal to the boys. I loved the Trial Sam storyline and what would have made it better would be if instead of Kevin if Sam could translate the tablet after spending all those years in Hell, you know?

Season 9: Though Gadreel wasn't the main antagonist, his possession of Sam was good. I would have loved it if they extended the part when he doesn't get out of Sam, made it personal, something like Meg!Sam situation. On the other hand, I was happy with Metatron. He was sneaky, cruel and power hungry and it was personal after he got Kevin killed.

Season 10: Somebody jog my memory of what Season 10 was supposed to be other than Demon!Dean and Mark of Cain. I have already made a post on how Demon!Dean was not utilised to a full potential and i stand by it. And that's all I have to say about this season.

Season 11: Darkness and her personal connection to Dean. Now, see the idea sounded good in theory. But sadly, they never exploited this personal connection. It could have played so well but no, they made it about God and his sister. This season also provided a gateway to bring back Lucifer but...

Season 12: it brings us to the season I hate the most. We got Lucifer back but he was no longer obsessed with Sam? (Yawning!) We got BMoL but oh god they were nothing more than a bunch of snobs in suits or as Sam rightly said "accents in a pansuits". Like seriously, what could they do to him? Nothing, that's what. Then whole Lucifer's son plot was so weak, it makes the entire season difficult to watch.

Season 13: things get very blurry for me from this season onward, so bear with me if I don't get everything right. Probably second on the list of SPN seasons i hate. This is the AU plot right? It was interesting when they mentioned Michael lived in AU but oh god they should have made Michael obsessed with Dean. Stalking him, torturing Sam to get the yes. But nope, none of that.

Season 14: we get Michael!Dean but see it's missing that personal grudge. It feels like a random possession. They could have played this so well, perhaps given us the OG Lucifer vs Michael battle.

Season 15: God? The villain? Again one of those plots that sound amazing in theory but the success lies in the execution. At least, they made it personal so that was really great. What I don't like about this season is the finale. And no, I don't mean the whole who dies, who lives. Or the rebar. Or the safe life with blurry wife. I mean the epic showdown between God and the Winchester that we all were expecting. That storytelling was missing. I don't want punches, I want a freaking battle!

Simply saying, what do you think makes Joker or Moriarty or Lord Voldemort a good villain? It's not just their power. It's their obsession with the protagonist. You take them out, that's the end of it. (I'm looking at you, Sherlock, BBC show)

In conclusion, when the show stopped making the battles personal to the brother, stopped writing the hero's journey, skipped the storytelling element and wrote villain that weren't quite as obsessed with the brothers, that's when it started falling apart.

[starscream-is-my-wife]

I am constantly rotating your documentary au in my mind it's such a fun idea. Since Ratchet has been assumed to be a teen mom, are the humans also concluding Optimus is the teen dad? Or are they thinking its a "I'm not the step dad, I'm the dad that stepped up" sort of situation? I wonder what sort of further misunderstandings are going to happen with the one sided communication and the assumptions made about our delightful trio and Cybertronians as a whole.

The town is mostly thinking that Orion is around the same age by the way he acts sometimes, even if he's a bit scary, he has a young dad goofiness to him, especally compared to Ratchets grumpyness. Although since the two humans reporting on them are biased and are also young adults, there's probably different rumors about them to other crowds

There's people who thinks Bee was the child of only one of them and the other was like, a coworker or a family friend that got caught in the crash because of how unrelated he looks to the both of them, adoption was also a possibility but Angel and Truck King havent been seen together too much, and when they are only few see it, most people haven't seen them close to each other at all

Generally, everyone thinks that Bee is Ratchets kid and whether OP is biologicaly the dad is in the air, due to Bee and Ratchet seemingly being a lot closer (OP has just been taking up more dangerous construction jobs for a building so Bee hangs out with Ratchet more)

The ones most invested in the bots do think that they're a young family, with such a positive view on them they're also the most ballsy with talking to them, if someone was skeptical they try to avoid them

But after that last interaction with the guy flirting with Angel it definitely solidified that those two are involved at least, now that the 'Angel is a young mom' rumor has been floating around, the people who think that Truck King is not the bio father is wondering 'is there a deadbeat big yellow dad who wasn't treating her right and now good man Truck King has snatched her away? Or is Angel just unfaithful? It looked like Truck King was unaware of her fans and she even fought him so the guy could get away!' Of course nobody would ever bring this up to any of the bots... or their fans

Alot of information comes from Zekes mouth, the big rumors start here because while he doesn't say anything public with none of them there to respect the bots privacy, its also really hard to not tell your other friends about the robots who you get to hang out with as part as your job (park ranger) but now your friends have the perfect combo of vaugeness and details to go wild with rumors.

So while most of the town (at least the younger population) loves the drama, a part still wants some actual evidence that arent from some 19 year olds mouth, like the only seen evidence that the bots are a family before is that "It looks like a man, woman, and child robot"

Zeke also mostly reports on rumors that are notable (or at least he thinks are) so heres some crazy ones:

The robots are government spies that look like a cute family to get our guards down

The bots are actually a cursed family and we're normal people until they angered a wizard

The bots were sent by God as a test for something

The bots are escaped experiments from the Canadian government

Pete is a super villian creating these bots in his basement in preparation for world domination

The bots not only eat energy, but they also eat souls and are marinating us slowly

These damn bots are here stealing our jobs, we gotta deport them back to space before more come

[doublel27]

I heasitate to do anything that will give this incredibly toxic, bullying tantrum of a post more views, but I also don't think this is okay and people should say so.

It is not an essay, it is a lambasting of someone who disagrees not with just you, but the general discourse that exists around some shows in the BL world because there were over 8 different people's ideas referenced in that post and you focused on you and @lurkingshan. Spending the time to type in 30 tags in the actual post, and another 5 in the comments lambasting someone, offering to pass to anyone screenshots of DMs, utilzing different sizes of script for emphasis that is considered yelling in the written word, and encouraging others to discuss how toxic they are and then demand your boundaries are that they don't respond after flooding someone else's inbox is very rude and inappropriate. I want to applaud @technicallyverycowboy and @lugarn who I have never spoken to before for also calling it out.

I would like to start by saying it's very clear you're incredibly upset and chose to yell at a person who never mentioned you that you perceived as attacking you. Your feelings are okay and should be felt, this response is not. Particularly because there is a whole lot of projection and defensiveness in this post, both in acting like MBDL doesn't understand fandom ettiquite, being disingenous about MBDL's actions and claim to be entirely misread and misunderstood, but let's take a look at what you and lurkingshan actually said in that post, what you misrepresented and misunderstood, and what words were used that might have suggested you were acting as an authority and dismissing other perspectives.

While you value being tagged, when Maybe-Boys-Do-Love says not "everyone enjoys being tagged" could be referring to previous interactions MBDL has had with people who asked him not to (I know i've had that or have been asked to DM) or his own personal feelings of not wanting to be tagged. I don't know, you'd have to ask him rather than assume. You feel a way about what you refer to as vague posting, but not everyone feels the way that you do. Some people prefer to not have an @ shoved at them and prefer to see stuff that could be about them and just say that if someone cared about them enough to say something to their face they would, and move about their day. You are deeply upset by other's possbily vaguely referring to your thoughts on tumblr.com and that's a valid feeling. Bullying a person due to your big feelings however, is not acceptable, and the limited number of reblogs from a specific circle of people, shows exactly how unacceptable the overall community finds this stuff.

You can ask people to @ you in posts that refer to yours and link to them. That's how you feel. On your blog. And you don't have to like how other people act on their blog, but that's also THEIR blog. They can behave how they want, just like you do. Perhaps this whole post is the opposite of what someone would want to have happen to them, in the same way MBDL's was the opposite of what you wanted to have happen.

I want to be very clear that I have seen the post that @maybe-boys-do-love made and your response. Your response is still visible to me on the post and I have reblogged the version of the post on my blog where you responded to MBLD and where MBDL responded to you because I value the fullness of the discourse. I can still see it. Anyone who goes to my blog can still see it. I'm very mystified by the fact that you can't see your response when everyone else can, but I think it should be acknowledged publicly that your point about them deleting your response is a lie you could have fact-checked by asking someone outside of your circle. You have not edited this post to reflect that was a mistake on your part and was the crucx of you deciding to stop engaging in conversation with MBDL in the first place.

However, your quick nature to dismiss criticisms of your posts both above, and in other posts, as "you attacking their faves" or "other fans who only watch shows for shipping" is as dismissive and gaslighting as the work you accuse MBDL of. This Nov. 5 post of yours includes the following quote:

ULTIMATELY, Nihilistic: what we are dealing with regarding your concern, as fans and/or critics of Series Y shows, is a conflict of values, among critical fans like ourselves, other fans who only watch shows for romance and shipping, and the economic bottom lines of the studios/agencies themselves. Some of us just want narratively good scripts, like Bad Buddy or He's Coming To Me. Others are content with having a show end with their fave pairs confirmed together in the end, no matter the process of how they got there.

This dismissal of people who disagree with your definition of good writing and good scripts is the kind of historical conversation and tone from your posts that suggests that you are a critical consumer of content and others who have different opinions are not. Much like you accused MBDL of using "we" to deflect from his own opinion, your use of "us" and "others" repeatedly in that piece gives an us/them perspective. Other is a very othering word, when others is used as a pronoun. Us lets you know you're in the in group, with the taste makers, others lets you know you're not allowed.

From the post that you're concerned was vague-blogged on, which is part of a lager conversation of Spare Me Your Mercy, and Thai writing in general, you said the following:

It seems to me that the fantasies of the fans are worth more, as an investment by GMMTV and other studios in Thailand, than actual artistic material that focuses on queerness at this point. Capitalism and mainstreaming go very well hand-in-hand when there's money to be made, and this, to me, speaks loudly to the excellent points that Shan has made above about really great queer art being anathema to center- and conservative-mainstreams. We're getting less of really great queer art in Thailand, because the dampening of queerness in Thai shows might very well mean more bucks for the studios. Finally, a last point about capitalism that I'd like to make. I've been seeing a rising number of posts and comments taking Tumblr bloggers to task for being critical (like, objectively critical) of bad shows. Many folks don't want to read criticism of their fave shows and stars. I want to note that if one takes this position -- the capitalists have won again. If you're someone who's trying to prevent critical takes from being published, well, you got got by the capitalists -- the studios, the managers who want you to be so in love with your faves that you will ponder asking a writer to censor themselves from making a critical take. You might feel ownership of your blorbo, protective of your favorite star. Those critical takes may feel, to you, like a takedown of your fave.

Again this is highly dismissive and rejects any critism of your takes as people who are just into shipping or faves. Similar to your criticism of the use of the term we in MBDL's post, here you use the term "one" here is short for anyone or everyone. You're claming anyone who disagrees with YOUR version of good writing and good scripts has been "got" by capitalism. (To be fair, I still don't know what your definition of good writing and good scripts are, and I've read all of your posts, as well as Ben's and Shan's and Twig-Tea's. So far I've got a list of common Thai tropes and themes that you don't approve of, and a tonality that is bothersome to you. Which is fair that you don't like it, but you catagorize those as bad and others as good.) Some people enjoyed the shows you didn't, and that's fine. Some of it they thought the scripts were good. Some of it they thought they weren't but enjoyed it anyway. As you stated in the above post this is your opinion and your blog, which is fair. But dismissing people who disagree with you as being got by capitalism and saying things like "ownership of your blorbo" which is to say that that's the only reason someone might like something, or that the only thing that people can like is high art and good scripts is frankly rude. And it's not even like you live up to your own standard. As you stated in the November 5th post:

Now, out of even MORE transparency, I am watching the MESS that is Kidnap right now, and listen, it's NOT GOOD. I'm fucking not even writing about it anymore, I'm just reblogging the sessy gifs. I am watching it to support Ohm Pawat, and am hoping that this partnership with Leng Thanaphon will hopefully lead to better scripts.... somewhere. (Or at least, better scripts for Ohm at a place like One31 or Channel 3. I also hope Ohm keeps up his anti-branded pair stance, but if GMMTV forces him to pair permanently with Leng, it won't be a fucking surprise, and more on that below.)

We're going to ignore that One31 is also owned by the same corporation as GMMTV here for a second, the money flows to the same overlord. We will also ignore that Jes Jespipat has stated that he wanted to leave Channel 3 for BOC, which his managment team, who is also owned by the same corporation as GMMTV and One31, because he felt BOC was full of like-minded people when it came to quality and production. Those are all easily serchable facts as is the fact that One31 and Channel 3 are mass market channels while GMMTV is a teen/ya market channel.

Those facts aside, I think it's really disingenous to suggest that you as a person are capable of distingishing between good writing and bad writing, because you a person with values, and then sometimes watch bad writing for your love of Ohm Pawat, (and who are we kidding, we all tuned in to Kidnap originally because Ohm Pawat had been returned to us). But the idea that you are capable of this thought, and actively choosing, and the way you stated above that anyone who rebutts your takes "got got by the capitalists" (bold is yours, see above and the post) if they tuned into a show for their faves that you didn't like, or thought was bad, that means they weren't doing the same kind of thinking you did around Kidnap. Or that the only way to distinguish what is good and what isn't is your way.

And the worst part of all of this is, lurkingshan and you, misrepresented the article that interviewed the screen writer, Lux and Sammon, and even @benkaben's essay for your own agenda in the post you're referring to. The exact stuff you're accusing MBDL of doing.

Benkaben's initial post that's also linked in lurnkingshan's post, focuses on the fact that there's a comment in the interview that conflates Shipping, Romance, Fanservice with NC scenes and suggests that it makes a work less serious. For those of you who won't link through to the original article, here's benkaben's words:

And hey, you don't need NC scenes for that! No, sexual intimacy is not the only thing that "proves" a romance exist. I mean heck, you could even go all the way around and have all the NC scenes in the world and still present a story where the characters aren't in love with each other, because sex ≠ romance. Absolutely. But also I'm, really tired™, of this idea that any kind of sex portrayed in media is only going to "taint" the final composition. As If sex and love stories were some dirty stain that automatically made the work lesser: Less serious, less formal, less dramatic. I don't agree with the idea that you have to sacrifice intimacy in order to be taken seriously. I don't agree with the idea that sex is by default, just fanservice and therefore it's portrayal subtracts automatically from the story.

The quote that Benkaben is referring to from the original translation is as follows, just in case you're wondering: (I am not fluent in thai and am trusting the translator understood the majority of what was said)

“Sammon's novels are primarily BL and include numerous love scenes. However, we deliberately chose not to present it as a BL story. While the characters are two men in love, we approached it with a dark drama style. The characters are gay, but we don’t offer fan service in every episode or include NC (explicit) scenes. This has been the plan from the beginning. Our decision to omit NC scenes wasn’t influenced by censorship, airtime, or the actors. It’s because the themes we are addressing are heavy and serious. NC scenes would detract from the story’s focus, which is the dark drama and euthanasia. Some fans of the novel might be disappointed, but we believe there’s other enjoyment to be found in the series, even without NC scenes.

The screenwriter states very clearly and explicitly that this was not censorship, airtime or the actors. It was not for the audience or what you can do on Thai television or giving in to the conservatives as lurkingshan argued. Lux said because the themes they were focusing on were heavy and serious, she felt fanserivce and sex detracted from the concept of euthenasia and dark drama.

In fact, I am going to pull out and highlight this line again:

The characters are gay, but we don’t offer fan service in every episode or include NC (explicit) scenes. This has been the plan from the beginning.

In this way, the screenwriter of Spare Me Your Mercy agrees with your main complaint about Thai BL in general that you spent a solid time going in on, that shows are focused on fan service over storytelling. The decision to remove the NC scenes and anything very romatnic, in the directors view, was to comply with your argument of removing fanservice in favor of storytelling.

Additionally, in this post, which prompted lurkingshan's post, you stated:

And — I believe it was also disingenuous to the two previously adapted Sammon stories of Manner of Death and Triage as well, as both of those dramas were able to hold both mystery and romantic storylines to excellent ends, with wonderful touches of intimacy along the way (MaxTul couch scene, my beloved).

Meanwhile, in the translated interview, that @slayerkitty posted Lux did discuss Sammon's thoughts:

When we spoke with the original author, she was also very supportive of this shift because she also wants to highlight the theme of euthanasia. While she herself is a Sao Y and a writer of BL novels, she understands the adaptation’s focus.

And I was honestly very confused by your post this week adding fan service is the downfall and the cause of censorship (which the director of Spare Me Your Mercy said it was not as stated above), because the director of Spare Me Your Mercy ultimately agreed that shows deserve to have a good script and not be beholden to fanservice. You disagree that his script is good. But that's his argument here.

I was even deeper horrified by this line in lurkingshan's post, which ties back to a previous post of yours:

I appreciated her clarity that despite the show receiving strong ratings and finding popularity with the mainstream domestic audience, that doesn't actually make it a success as a piece of narrative storytelling. And if anything, its popularity underlines why it was a failure as a queer narrative, in particular.

The overwhelming Western paternalism here that suggests that if something is popular in conservative countries and not in the greater queer world means it's a failure as a queer story...That's the statement there: It's popularity underlines why it was a faiulre as a queer narrative.

I think a lot about Casey McQuiston's work, a queer author in America who was raised in some of the most conservative parts of this country. Their work, specifically I Kissed Shara Wheeler is a love letter to queer folx who grew up in conservative communties who LOVE the communties they were raised in, even if that community couldn't fully love them back. I think a lot about all of the boy loves that were turned into bromances in Korea to make the bottom line so that something like Love in the Big City could get made. I think a lot about the amount of money and capital and power it takes to get a story made that a country doesn't want to get told: Saint mortgaged his house to open an entirely QL production house and make the first major GL in Thailand because no one would finance it, The author and director of Meet Me at the Blossom also put her house, and frankly her freedom, on the line to make that show. Because while we'd like to separate the art from capitalist structures, as long as we are living in a captialist world, we are going to have to find ways to both work within the system and resist it. There's a lot of jokes made about how to keep the serious tone of The Eclipse in it's serious true art vibe of telling a very serious story about the deadly nature of the closet and internalized homophobia, that Vice Versa had to have Lay's rain from the sky, because someone had to bring in the money to the company from advertisments to have The Eclipse have the cleaner vibe.

To quote the post by lurkingshan again:

High quality, well-executed, honest and authentic queer art is more likely to be protested than celebrated in places where real queer people are not safe to live free lives.

What makes queer art high-quality, well-executed, honest and authentic? What makes a place safe to live free lives?

In the US? Pose was a beautiful love letter to the Black and latinx trans community, looking at the history of Ballroom in the US in the 1980s. It was succesful in this country, as much of Ryan Murphy's work is. However, it is not safe for the Black and latinx trans communtiy to live in the United States of America. We've got the anti-trans legislation tracker and the HRC had identified 36 murders of Trans and Non-Binary people as of November 30th 2024, disproportionately Black trans women. They acknowldge this is an incomplete account due to: many deaths often go unreported or misreported, or misgendering of victims leads to delays in their identification. This does not even get into the systematic ways in which the queer community as a whole, but the Black queer community in general, is prevented from accessing key resources like housing and jobs with a livable wage.

The US is not a safe country for queer people to live free lives, not as a whole. I live in a Blue state, and am queer and a married to my queer partner. We are not fully out. We are not fully realized as queer humans. Very few queer people in this world live fully out, fully realized lives, due to colonialism and Imperialism. And that's what your argument largely fails to do, is account for the overlay of Western ideals onto non-Western media.

You state loudly that you want good Asian art, like Asian art should be a monolith. It is not for people who are not Thai to decide what good Thai art is, which is why you and lurkingshan do with quotes like this:

I appreciated her clarity that despite the show receiving strong ratings and finding popularity with the mainstream domestic audience, that doesn't actually make it a success as a piece of narrative storytelling. And if anything, its popularity underlines why it was a failure as a queer narrative, in particular.

This is, in my opinion, but you'd have to ask MBDL because he's not allowed to reply to this without violating your wishes, what he was responding to by the following:

"I just wanted to create a post that made people whose queer tastes diverge from others feel welcome to their own preferences and appreciate that there’s not a single stance in the queer BL fandom about what qualifies as good and/or queer work."

People like MBDL and @le-trash-prince, who are also queer, enjoyed the allegorical queer storytelling of Spare Me Your Mercy. The three gay men who you referenced above did not. That's...fine. that's the whole point of MBDL's message, queer people are not a monolith that all agree.

The people of Thailand, overall, enjoyed Spare Me Your Mercy. There is no way to poll what straight or queer Thai people specifically thought, but it's a key piece of the puzzle that Thai people enjoyed this show. Because that's the base audience. That's who they made it for.

But when you say, and I quote this post again: We're getting less of really great queer art in Thailand, because the dampening of queerness in Thai shows might very well mean more bucks for the studios.

You have decided that Thai shows are not great queer art any longer, and that they are dampening queerness off of the critisms of We Are and Perfect 10 Liners, that have been prevalent from your circle. I'll link this one @twig-tea wrote and another one @bengiyo wrote specifically, which comment on shows created by a queer Thai man, and the writing decisions for Spare Me Your Mercy, which were made using an argument you yourself use to suggest that shows shouldn't engage with imagined couples and fan-service. And while these are your opinions, you also, as I have quoted above, stated that:

Finally, a last point about capitalism that I'd like to make. I've been seeing a rising number of posts and comments taking Tumblr bloggers to task for being critical (like, objectively critical) of bad shows. Many folks don't want to read criticism of their fave shows and stars. I want to note that if one takes this position -- the capitalists have won again. If you're someone who's trying to prevent critical takes from being published, well, you got got by the capitalists -- the studios, the managers who want you to be so in love with your faves that you will ponder asking a writer to censor themselves from making a critical take.

I want to be clear, that MBDL writing a statement about how there are many ways to depict and appreciate queer stories is not saying you can't be critical. It's saying that there are alternative views. People saying if you hate GMMTV, maybe don't watch, are saying you seem to be miserable watching this, you can stop any time.

The thing people are rejecting in your critiques are not that you did not like something, that's fine. It is the sweeping statements that there is a right and a good way to make queer art, and everything else shouldn't be engaged with because it's ruining the genre or selling out to capitalist interests (as stated in the above linked Spare Me Your Mercy post by lurkingshan and yourself, and We Are posts twig-tea and bengiyo). Your words across all of these posts, and this one directed at MBDL are about policing other peoples actions and putting your values onto them. That is the core of toxic fandom. Expecting everyone to engage with it exactly the way you want to.

I'm of the opinion that what's good for queer Thai television is not for foriegn audiences to decide, ultimately. That's for queer Thai people to decide. And some of them may not want to make the greatest queer Thai television, some people may want to make fun queer Thai television, or silly queer Television. And that's also a wonderful thing.

Which is at the core of the argument that Dr. Thomas Baudinette started. Dr. Thomas Baudinette stated the following:

He does not state fully what those anti-social practices are. Are some of them likely toxic shipping, yes. But there's also toxic solo stans. (I do take Dr. Thomas Baudinette with a grain of salt because I also know he's a white academic speaking about a community he's not actually fully part of, and I would like to learn more about what Thai and Japanese and Korean fans think.) But his wording suggests that Thai fans are being influenced by fans of other markets: in your post you discuss the TayGun kiss of it all and there's this quote:

In this case, I would like to note that while we see GMMTV reducing blatant queer perspectives and frameworks from their shows, and promoting friend-ships or bro-ships, in the case of High School Frenemy and the SkyNani branded pair, we see GMMTV's (and Thai BL's) rise continue to grow in certain Asian countries (like China, Malaysia, and Indonesia, among others) that do not allow for public displays of queerness, among other restrictions. GMMTV does not hold branded pair fan meetings in these countries, and yet, these countries are some of the channel's biggest markets for its queer shows and pairs. As well, these countries (I am part-Malaysian myself) do not have public programs of sex education. Thus, if I am to assume that the majority fan bases of these shows are young folks in countries that do not offer robust sex education, then these young folks (of any gender) might not be inclined to join in and participate in conversations about queer equality. We, thus, get the outcry that occurred after Tay and Gun smooched. God forbid fantasies were to have been destroyed because two real-life people kissed. Two men, kissing, outside of the context of their branded pairs and outside the context of a drama. Some people have never been to the club before.

To the first part, GMMTV is not reducing their blatant queer perspectives in their shows. That is factually untrue. They've added more QLs (which at GMMTV are always romances) and queer strands in their non-BLs. In fact, the number of queer shows in 2019 was 3 (2 QL and 3 Will Be Free). The number of shows with QL in 2024 was 12 plus queer themes in an aditional 3 shows. That is an increase of 5 times more queer content in 2024 than in 2019. (source: MyDramaList - filtered for GMM25 and then removing anything not produced through GMMTV). This does not touch on how many of the writers and directors for GMMTV are queer people under the age of 40 sharing their perspectives. Now you don't have to like those queer perspectives but they're not getting less queer. In fact, for the 2025 wave, which did not show a reduction in queer perspectives, but in fact showed a proposed total of 15 BLs, 2 GLs, 1 het (oh Nanon's never coming back), 1 mixed stories with some VERY explicitly queer sections, 1 SkyNani bromance, with 4 BL still outstanding, 1 GL set to air in two weeks, and 6 outstanding non-BLs from the 2024 Up and Above announcements. Second, You conflate the lack of acess to public programs of sexual education to a lack of inclination to join and participate in discussions around queer equity. You then use the word Thus to show causation from lack of access to public programs of sex education and repression of queer people to people having meltdowns over TayGun kissing. Lack of education is not why fans don't have boundaries and can't accept their fantasy bubble being broken. I promise you, Taylor Swift fans yelling at her ex boyfriends over her songs are not doing so because of lack of education about sexual ethics. It's about ownership, which is the heart of the anti-capitalist message you espouse. We allow fans worldwide, not just in specific Asian countries to behave badly becaues they've bought a product of a brand.

The concept of toxic fans is not new nor singular to Thai BL media. @chaos0pikachu has one of my favorite rundowns ever on how the tin hats existed in bandom (and GLEE) before Thai BL was ever a thing. I didn't survive Glee and the loss of Chris Colfer as an actor for us to pretend that the people who do this kind of toxic shit for us to pretend that CPs are the cause. I certainly didn't watch Once Upon A Time fans tweet @ Colin O'Donoghue they hoped his pregnant wife would just die so he could be free to be with Jennifer Morrison for us to pretend this is a BL problem. I definitely didn't watch people harrass Rafael Silva and Ronen Rubenstein out of posting their friendship as a gay and a bi man acting together because the assumption was they were having an affiar behind Ronen's partner's back for us to pretend this was a Thai BL problem due to CPs. I did not watch a bunch of people use interviews promoting the show and the fact that they kiss well to say that Jacob Anderson and Sam Reid are having an affair for us to pretend CPs make this problem.

This problem exists with or without branded pairings, but is entirely tied to idol culture and the objectification of celebrity brand and the intrenchment in being a "Stan" and we've completely lost the plot, Eminem. I still think about regularly Katy Perry asking Stevie Nicks who her rivals were, and Stevie Nicks saying she didn't have rivals but contemporaries. Modern fan culture, globally, in the social media era is set up for rivals: the Swifties, the Bey-Hive, the Katy-Cats, the Barbs, Army etc. Fan culture is like this, and without fans participating in the isolation and ignoring of these people they will continue to harrass and attack people, because as Wicked reminds us, the best way to unite people is to give them a common enemy.

I don't know if you watched the disaster that was Korean netizens sending funeral wreaths to be set up in front of SM building for the member of RII7E who tried to return after fans stalked him to catch him engaging in inappropriate behavior and dug up a middle school girlfriend, which was allowed by the company. I do believe some of this is what he's referring to by anti-social behavior. One of the most horrifying acts of behavior against a GMMTV artist was someone getting into Fluke Nattanon's car and refusing to get out. Like...that's the scariest shit. That shit should be handled. That had nothing to do with shipping culture, and everything to do with a company not enforcing boundaries.

Any time and I mean any time, a person feels that they have the right to objectify a person and control them, that is both NEVER okay and is also NEVER the fault of the person who is being treated that way. No amount of branded pairing is responsible for toxic fans who don't have boundaries. Should the companies do something about them, yes, and that's what Dr. Baudinette is referring to.

To quote @wen-kexing-apologist's essay on objectification of Asian men which you linked in the post on Spare Me Your Mercy:

We all need to, but white Westerners especially, be extremely careful and introspective with the ways we are engaging with queer Asian media

And I take this very seriously. I think it applies not just to the objectification and commodification of the actors, as wen-kexing-apologist wrote about, but also applies to the infantilization and removal of agency of the writers, directors, actors and audiences in Asian countries who are engaging in the process of making and enjoying queer Asian art, suggesting they are not active participants in the process. It is not for interfans to talk over Thai writers, directors, actors and fans of what is and is not true for them and their country's work around queer Thai art.

The long and the short of it, is if you're going to post opinions as facts and undercut anyone who disagrees with you: on what is and what isn't good Asian media, what is and isn't good Thai media, what is and is not queer media, and how people should measure it, and other queer people say out loud: we don't have to all measure queer media the same way and we can have different opinions, and this is your response...I honestly wish you peace.

Clearing The Air On This Wack-Ass Event Of Toxic Fandom That My Brown Ass Was Recently Dragged Into

(*References and endnotes are posted in the comments.)

This past weekend, I was unwittingly brought into an event of toxic fandom instigated by @maybe-boys-do-love. The following is an account of that event, and a rebuttal to misrepresentations that he made in his posts.

1) Chronology of Events and Clarification of Communication, Connections, and Blocks

Late last week, @lurkingshan posted a thought piece about separating art and commerce in discussions of queer shows, and talked, in part, about Spare Me Your Mercy and the show's ratings popularity in Thailand as compared to its narrative shortcomings. The piece also talks about the artistic success, versus the public outcry, of the South Korean queer show, Love In The Big City. I, and a few others, reblogged the post with thought pieces of our own. (If you are interested in following along, reading the second link is a necessity.)

Tumblr user @maybe-boys-do-love subsequently posted, separately on his blog, a reaction post to Shan's post and my reblog of her post (1). His reaction contained misreads and dangerous misrepresentations of Shan's and my writing.

Shan and @maybe-boys-do-love had previously mutually blocked each other (2). Therefore, @maybe-boys-do-love went around the block to react to Shan's post.

He did not make clear to his audience that he was reacting to Shan's post. He wrote his reaction post without citing or linking to Shan's post, and did not tag me as well, thus removing both myself and Shan from a discourse that we had instigated, and prevented his audience from knowing or understanding his reference point for his reaction.

Mutuals reached out to me with @maybe-boys-do-love's piece, having previously read Shan's and my posts.

I DMed @maybe-boys-do-love to note to him that I had seen his post, and that I preferred to be tagged directly in discourse. I wrote that I would write today's post as a means of correcting the incorrect assumptions he made about my opinions. I also checked with @lurkingshan to make her aware of the post and ask if she wanted to be included in a response. Shan stated that she had already blocked @maybe-boys-do-love for previous instances where he indirectly vague-posted about her and misrepresented her writing, and that she had no interest in responding, but was fine with me doing so.

I then publicly reblogged @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post with a clarifying note, sharing the link to Shan's original post and my reblog of our original SMYM discourse. I noted publicly that his reaction post contained misreads and inaccuracies that I will be clarifying today.

@maybe-boys-do-love deleted my reblog. I do not see my original reblog of his reaction post in his reblog notes. Mutuals confirmed, from their blogs, that they also cannot see my original reblog of his reaction post.

I requested to him by DM that he reinstate my reblog. He did not. He reblogged my reblog from my own blog (sorry, y'all) with a response to me and a general defense of his original reaction post.

He denied in DMs that he had deleted my reblog. I stated that I didn't believe him, and requested for our DM conversation to end (3).

2) Toxic Fandom and Expectations of Personal Accountability in Public Forums

Before I get into the nitty-gritty of responding to @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post, I want to take a quick second to talk about toxic fandom and accountability, because it's been a topic bubbling up particularly in the world of the fandom of Asian, and specifically Thai, QLs. My public and private conversations with @maybe-boys-do-love about this reaction incident, prior to this post's publication, have been filled with a kind of noxious disingenuousness and deceit that has given me the damn creeps.

I've had tussles with other bloggers before about our disagreements of the art and economics of Asian QLs. The discourse has been almost always so much fun, often argumentative, sometimes gritty, sometimes passive aggressive, and sometimes parasocial involving the celebrities and creators of these shows.

I have always kept discourse respectful, and I pride myself with integrity on responding to any point that has been shot my way. I have been blocked for my takes, and I have encouraged others to block me if my takes are not to their liking, and they attack me for them. I encourage folks who don't like my takes to curate their Tumblr experiences, and take agency for what they agree with and want to read.

If I rant about someone's potential faves -- someone's fave shows or couples -- I put trigger warnings on those posts (here and here are two examples, and the most immediate link above also has a TW), knowing there's a lot of sensitivity out there over content. I trust the judgement of readers to read those trigger warnings and to skedaddle.

In other words, I take full responsibility and accountability for my writing, and I expect my readers to engage with me in good faith in return. I'm proud of the critical posts I've made over the last two and a half years here on Tumblr, especially my exploration of the history of the Thai BL genre through my Old GMMTV Challenge project.

I posted recently that the Asian QL scholar, Dr. Thomas Baudinette, believes that the number one threat to the growth of the Thai BL industry is toxic fandom and the prioritization of problematic markets.

It's funny that I posted that a few days before this incident happened. The specific elements of toxic behavior as demonstrated by @maybe-boys-do-love, as stated above, are that he

a) subverted blocks to read and respond to Shan's post without citing her, b) he did not clarify for his audience what he was reacting to, thus rendering untruthful his real intentions in writing his post, and c) his actual reaction post contained misreads and misinterpretations of Shan's and my analysis.

I'd like to name some elements of toxic behavior and fandom that occurred in the public communication I had with @maybe-boys-do-love to highlight them in order to emphasize the disrespectful nature of this incident.

In his reblog of my clarification post to his original reaction post, @maybe-boys-do-love writes,

"I also want to respect that not everyone wants to get involved in a back-and-forth on here."

Because of previous DMs, reblogs, tags, and comments on and of my work that @maybe-boys-do-love has made, I know that he is very familiar with my blog and my writing. We have previously communicated publicly and privately. I do not know why he would make an assumption that I would not have wanted to be tagged in his original reaction post, reacting inaccurately to points I made in my Spare Me Your Mercy post, considering that he and I have a public history of prior engagement. 

This assumption (remember the adage about assuming…) makes so little sense to me that I can only conclude he is coming from a stance of a disingenuous and untruthful defense.

More concerning, @maybe-boys-do-love follows with:

"I just wanted to create a post that made people whose queer tastes diverge from others feel welcome to their own preferences and appreciate that there’s not a single stance in the queer BL fandom about what qualifies as good and/or queer work."

Again, as @maybe-boys-do-love is familiar with my blog, I do not know why he would assume that my work is insular so as to not welcome different perspectives and discourse on my opinions -- as he and I had actually engaged, in the past, on our opinions of other content, and that there is overwhelming proof on my blog that I love engaging in discourse with others.

The statement that "there's not a single stance in the queer BL fandom" about my work is disingenuous, disrespectful, and toxic.

If it's not clear in the most obvious way -- and it may not be clear to some -- I am a personal blogger, posting my opinions and analysis, on a personal blog. My blog isn't Encyclopedia fucking Brittanica.

@maybe-boys-do-love indicates in his reblog that his mutuals helped him get around his and Shan's blocks. 

He also identifies as a "flaming gay guy" to characterize his position for his love of Spare Me Your Mercy, leading him to go around the blocks to comment on Shan's original post.

"Friends of mine shared the post with me knowing the love I, as a flaming gay guy, had for Spare Me Your Mercy."

I want to note that in the context of this characterization, I myself reached out to three gay male friends (one Asian friend, and two white friends married to each other). (There's nothing that IRL people love more than an Internet beef.) These three individuals range on the flaming spectrum, and assured me that @maybe-boys-do-love's position does not count as spoken monolithically for the gay male community (4).

Which leads me to my last point (for now) about toxic fandom. As iterated above: these Tumblr blogs we write on are personal blogs, homes to personal opinions, created by individuals.

The danger of trying to leverage group-think or group-speak to validate toxic opinions and toxic engagement with others is high within fandom discourse. I see it all the time on X in BL shipper circles. Maybe @maybe-boys-do-love's friends were too cowardly to write reaction posts of their own, and asked their friend to write one on their behalf. If that's the case, @maybe-boys-do-love can show us the receipts. But I'm guessing that didn't happen.

Within group and family therapy arenas, and human relations and business environments, counseling often focuses on "I-speak" -- the practice of using the "I" pronoun to claim accountability for facts, opinions, recounting of details, and so on. Using the "we" pronoun to justify a position -- without identifying who your "we" is -- weakens a stance, and at the same time, creates panic and fear within a group or community. It's a tactic often used in gaslighting or supremacist situations to generate collective fear over incorrect facts and threats.

This tactic is useless in a scenario like this, when there is ample published proof that @maybe-boys-do-love published a misrepresentative reaction post that did not link to the original source, deceiving his audience; he subsequently tried to monolithically speak for others, and to leverage and claim community to justify his doing so. It's wrong, it's disingenuous, and it's toxic.

I wouldn't want this guy speaking for me, and I hope readers of this post wouldn't want him to, either.

3) Responding to Misrepresented Points in MBDL's Reaction Post

Note: Much of @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post reacted to points that @lurkingshan made about Spare Me Your Mercy and the Asian QL genre. I have consulted with Shan on my responses and she has approved them.

My entire rebuttal is long. An abridged version is below, and the entire rebuttal is linked here at this private link.

I want to start my response to misrepresented points in @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post by highlighting the most noxious misread he made. He writes,

"and just a friendly reminder that a simple BL romcom is equally as queer of a story as a story about HIV."

Much of @maybe-boys-do-love's reaction post seemed magically conjured out of his ass to assume or imply that certain points were made by @lurkingshan when they were most certainly not.

NOT ONCE IN @lurkingshan's POST WAS LOVE IN THE BIG CITY DESCRIBED AS A "STORY ABOUT HIV." IN FACT, HIV WAS NEVER MENTIONED AT ALL, BY ANYONE, IN THE ORIGINAL POST, OR ANY OF THE REBLOGS AND ADDITIONS.

That was a heinous and noxious misread and reduction of @lurkingshan's post, wholly inaccurate and misrepresentative of the tone and content of Shan's original writing, and more revealing about him and his perspectives about the shows, than anyone he was pretending to fight.

And nowhere in @lurkingshan's original post did she claim that a BL romcom was not as "equally as queer" as any other story.

I want to respond specifically to an analysis of capitalism and markets that I made in my reblog of Shan's post, that @maybe-boys-do-love then reacted to.

"just a reminder, if we wanna talk about capitalism, that the whole idea of a work being better or worse, queerer or less queer, more valuable or less valuable based on it’s reception in numbers (either higher or lower) is not something Marx and Engels would be into, since they ascribed to exchange value over use value. The labor put into the work is where it’s at—and all of these shows had plentiful hours of (queer) labor put into them! But not everyone who talks about the wrongs of capitalism on here is actually interested in the finer details of how capitalism operates, the full political and economic realities of the companies making these shows, nor the individuals who are forced to fight for change within capitalism’s global structure."

This was such a convoluted, random, and inaccurate reaction to my post that I had to send it to a family member who is an actual professional economist (again, remember, IRL people love internet beefs) (5). He assured me that Karl Marx and Fredreich Engels would NOT have wanted to get tangled up in this beef.

But, anyway. I'm not a communist, and when I speak about capitalism and the markets to which Asian QL content is marketed to, I'm not analyzing the quantity of labor put into these shows that needs to be exchanged on the various Asian markets in order for the shows to be made. That's a very specific sightline into production budgets that maybe tingles @maybe-boys-do-love's brain. I think he was just trying to sound smart.

I want to be clear that he reacted to nothing I wrote in my post. This was a made-up stream of something that only established how he watches and judges shows.

But because I used the word "capitalism" in my post to talk about how GMMTV and other studios are addressing queerness and queer perspectives in their shows, @maybe-boys-do-love found reason to take issue with my writing, and to assume an air of intellectualism to establish a false sense of superiority -- by posting drivel.

All responses can be found at this link.

4) Conclusion and a Public Request to Respect Boundaries

As I wrote above: I wrote this post to make a public record of rebuttal against misinterpretations made about my writing by @maybe-boys-do-love.

I will publicly request that @maybe-boys-do-love do not contact me again. Do not reblog, tag, or comment on my posts.

If I have to block @maybe-boys-do-love, I will. However, I want the ability to read any further reaction he might have to this rebuttal, especially if he continues to besmirch my writing inaccurately and disingenuously.

As he demonstrated that he could not respect Shan's boundaries prior to this incident, I will say publicly now:

RESPECT MY BOUNDARIES.

And I want to thank the many mutuals who reached out to me during this incident to offer your support, and to notify me that this public incident of misrepresentation was taking place.

[hiding-under-the-willow]

Could I ask for any and all info you have about ghosts!Gem?

(i'm so normal about her i promise)

I kind of imagine Gem coming from a high class family with just like a shit ton of brothers and some incredibly lenient parents. So she grows up a little rough, rowdy, and snarky. Her family does a lot of hunting, and so they own a lot of different hunting estates in different areas, including the property that she would later go on to haunt and Etho would go on to buy much later down the line. She's one of the best shots in the family, much to the jealousy of her brothers'. She dies in the 1890s in a hunting accident when one of her brothers shoots her in the back. Whether or not this was purely a true accident or a malicious act of some kind is up for debate. The property ends up essentially abandoned after that. I very much was thinking about Dorian Grey when I was brainstorming about her, hence the time period and hunting accident death and the uncertainty of the circumstances.

I imagine her being a little entitled and full of herself, but also easy to befriend. I imagine this is how she manages to win over Helsknight. He's an asshole but she manages to match and exceed his asshole energy so perfectly that he has to respect her, by the time she's living in the little cabin with him and starts actually being nice he's just in too deep to even register what's happened or when the change occured. What can I say maybe the confidence isn't unearned on her part.

I think after spending almost 100 years alone with Helsknight, who can be kind of dreary even after she manages to soften him a bit, she probably gets a little weird and obsessive about other people who come onto the property. Very much an embrace of change as opposed to Hels' stubborn clinging to the past. She'll just follow people around and talk to them and commentate on their actions, knowing full well they can't hear her. She's delighted when Cub dies and she finally has someone to bother besides Helsknight. She's equally delighted when Etho comes back able to see them, a delight that Etho is not fond of. She eventually wins him over the same way she did Hels, the queen of worming her way into people's good graces without them noticing. She also, maybe, gets a little bit too attached to the idea that people who have near death experiences involving ghosts end up being able to see them, especially after Grian and Joel come around and they realize the same thing had happened to Grian.

So, y’know, maybe she puts a little too much effort into playing cat and mouse with Joel, putting those old hunting skills to good use trying to find a way to /almost/ kill him so he could also see them and she could give him some of her much needed comentary on his perceived skills or lack thereof. She drags Hels into it a lot of the time since he has an ability to interact with the living world that she doesn't, and so honestly the fact that most of her plans fail is probably owed less to her skill as a hunter, or Joel's complete ability to walk out of dangerous situations unscathed and unbothered like a looney toons character, and more so to Hels own hesitance to be responsible for another near death experience on the property.

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

not a desert technically but I just visited the dunes in Monterey and gleefully trampled on some ice plant and I feel like you might enjoy that. if you wanna talk about the kinds of vegetation that grow in sandy soil or something I invite you to 👀

(also you're doing it! you're surviving! you'll get through that doctorate!)

ok ready this is my most important soapbox of all because soils in the desert are very special and have such cool organisms you don't find in these arrangements outside of drylands...

first lookee here. wauw beautiful utah

ok now look closer

no closer closer closer

CLOSER CLOSER CLOSER

WOW is that MOSS? you are thinking. the answer is YES. but doesn't moss like lots of water you are thinking??? WELL USUALLY. BUT in the desert you will notice that things like grasses and shrubs have lots of space between them unlike in more temperate climates-vegetation cover is not truly continuous. And there's less leaf litter than in forests obscuring the dirt. Which means all that soil is just sitting out in the open with nothing to protect it from being blown away by those harsh desert winds... except of course for our friends the BIOLOGICAL SOIL CRUSTS. also known as crypotbiotic soils, cryptogrammic soils, and biocrusts (for short).

These are communities of mosses, lichens, cyanobacteria (aka blue green algae--yes, those are usually Wet too, but ironically so so common in deserts), and the tens of thousands of surface and subsurface microbes that are associated with them. It's easy to forget just how many organisms are living in one single scoop of soil, especially because science can barely identify 1% of these microbes. Like of JUST the ones we have enough info to classify enough to count in my own master's dataset left me with over 25,000 unique taxonomic units I had to manage. don't worry about what that means just know it was very annoying and makes statistics a headache. anyway you find them all over the southwest US states as well as in other deserts around the world (spain, australia, sooo many in china, incredible ones in the succulent karoo in south africa/namibia, plenty in argentina etc etc), if you know where to look...

anyway OUR HEROS THE BIOCRUST aren't just there to look pretty (though you will can see from photos they also do this :) ), but are a vital component to the dryland ecosystem! They literally hold the soil surface together to prevent erosion, they influence hydrology in terms of rainfall runoff + infiltration, they impact how seeds germinate, they contribute to nutrient cycling and what plant-available compounds are held at the soil surface... like i feel like Tumblr in general has been made aware of how fungi & root networks interact in large scale systems like forests, but that is also happening on a more microscopic level in deserts! just in the top couple centimeters soooo much is happening. Cyanobacteria in particular are tiny organisms that produce little nets of sugars woven in the soil to climb around on and protect themselves, and if you crumble a little bit of soil from the surface you can see how the little spiderweb strings literally hold together the sand particles.

Now that you're Aware of biocrusts, when you look at larger scale landscape photos taken in un-trampled areas of desert, you will notice them as darker patches and textures on the lighter soil:

Yep there's these tiny little communities all over, that many people never learn to see. And now what I said before about mosses & cyanobacteria usually preferring wet environments--they have in fact adapted to life in the desert in ways that means they're dormant for most of the year. They live in stasis until the rainy season hits (or in some cases, winter moisture from a snow layer--many will photosynthesize through a few inches of snow since it's clear/white), and then burst into color and life. Many patches of biocrust will look utterly lifeless and dried out at first and then become vibrant and swell up within a few minutes of being exposed to moisture. Lichens, while more vibrant even when dry, will also mostly only grow/reproduce while wet. And biocrusts come in all sorts of colors, shapes, and preferred microhabitats!

anyway this post is long enough already so i'll be quick. while beautiful and important as you can imagine these are FRAGILE. if they get trampled too much, by humans or cows or cars, that's it. you're back to bare soil that can blow away whenever it wants.

I was lucky to get to participate in a 2x/year survey of one of the very few places in Utah to NEVER have cattle grazing or development, a remote area the entrance is kept secret to inside Canyonlands National Park, where you can see just how dense and lush biocrusts once could be in the US southwest:

ah... glorious. what special little guys. this is why if you visit many of the national parks in Utah you will see signs & stickers around with slogans like "Don't Bust The Crust" and "Tiptoe Through The Crypto" and etc. so heed that advice but DO stop and kneel down and get a better look at them!

[serpentface]

Faiza performing the Kagnoma Odo (pretty literally 'lion dance'), a weapons dance and one of the more important ritual duties of Odonii priestesses. A relatively new addition to this traditional dance involves the musket as the primary weapon, which is fired mid-twirl into the ground at the climax of the dance. Faiza is experiencing an 'oh fuck' moment because her shot is more than ideally diagonal, but she’s being so cool with it.

This is a wholly ceremonial performance at the onset of the pilgrimage, performed in full regalia and lion skin (of the small, semi-domesticated strain) but no armor. It’s also distinctly a display of political allegiance between the powerful and beloved Odonii priesthood (and its loyal military) with the increasingly reviled and destabilized imperial family, with Faiza prominently wearing a bracelet of the royal serpent, which was gifted (along with the musket) by the usoma Stavis Amanti himself (Usoma is the Wardi word for king, which has been retained in the context of emperors).

The Kagnoma Odo is the ultimate demonstration of the Odonii as an embodiment of the Lion Face of God and living vessel of military might and sovereignty, demonstrating her fitness and proficiency with weapons and as a spiritual unifier for soldiers. It is accompanied by drumming and occurs in stages, running through the three keymost weapons used in war- the spear, the sword, and the musket. The musket is of the most significance, given the weapon has developed a particular esteem as the ultimate embodiment of might and superiority. Assistants (almost always other priestesses, occasionally high ranking soldiers) load and prime the musket to be fired at the climax of the dance, where it is shot into the ground as the priestess leaps out of range of the shot. The firing signals the end of the dance and the rite itself.

While not the utmost exemplar of trigger discipline, only fully inducted and senior (and therefore very thoroughly trained) Odonii are permitted to perform the dance, and injuries during actual performances are quite rare (though are known to occur during training, more than a few Odonii have burns and wounds on their feet).

The most important renditions of this dance are performed upon declarations of war and before battles (in this case, generally done in full armor along with the lion pelt). It is also done during some trainings (while a dance, it is carefully choreographed to include naturalistic maneuvers of the weapons involved and helps soldiers limber up and learn to move their weapons). It is regarded as an impressive and motivating sight and a morale booster, and, seen at a distance, potentially intimidating to enemies.

A special variant of this dance is performed as means of fully incarnating the Odomache, which is done in full nudity with the body covered in the blood of the freshly sacrificed lion and cloaked in its raw pelt (the lion has become the corpse of Odomache in the moment of death, as part of its recreation of God's sacrifice). Her public, full nude appearance once (and only once) in this act is what allows the Lion Face of God to incarnate within her. Those in attendance see the spiritually vulnerable, naked human body obscured with the sanctified and deified blood and cloaked in the sanctified and deified skin. It is a merger of the contradictions of mortality and divinity, the boundaries between the two indistinct in flickering firelight and the flash of musketfire. She is witnessed by her people, dangling in between humanity and divinity and leading them in dance, and and is thus transformed.

[illustrationismyhaven]

I agree with this wholeheartedly. I really think retconning the books and everything was the nail in the coffin.

I'm going to be using the books as an example because they are my favorite bits of Bendy content, possibly even more so than the games themselves.

Not only are they very well written (despite varying pacing in certain parts but that's just my opinion and doesn't bother me much) but they give us a good look into the world outside of the Machine. We learn more about the horrible things going on behind the scenes, about the characters relationships and interactions, and we learn more about the main antagonist himself, the Ink Demon. Just going on a quick Ink Demon tidbit, cause I love him to bits, but the first book (dctl) laid out his motivations almost perfectly. In Ink Machine, it was kind of hard to peice together what the Ink Demon's motivations were, especially if you didn't catch Tom or Joey's Audio logs. In Dctl it is set up to show us what, why and how he is the way he is. Dctl shows us more about Inky but also Boris as well. Not only does the story of Buddy/Boris show us how they found out a human soul is needed for a perfect recreation, but also shows the way it works when both the minds of the cartoon and human are tangled together, until one takes over entirely, like Buddy/Boris, or they stay fighting like Alice/Susie.

Then in TLO, we learn about how even if there's not a cartoon vessel, the ink can still infect someone, turning them into Lost One's. How they affect their emotions, making them aggressive and attacking anything, cowering in fear, or living in a pool of their own shame to the point they don't even bother moving anymore. There's more information about Tom and his relationship to the Machine.

I haven't re-read FtB yet, so I apologize if any details are incorrect.

I think FtB is kind of the weakest in the series, writing wise at least. This is mostly where the pacing issue was biggest for me, as well as the way some characters were written. That being said, it had a lot of stuff that was very important to the story. The glasses, for example, explain how Wilson was able to alter the Ink world in Dark Revival, how he was able to traverse between the Machine and Archgate Studios.

It is clear that the books are written with so much care for the world and characters. Each character has a moment to shine and I love that. I also get that same feeling of wonder and whimsy that the first game had. There's a lot answered, while we still have questions in the end. You're left wanting more. Retconning the books was one of the biggest mistakes TheMeatly and Mike could have made. I'm really glad a lot of us have chosen to still consider the books canon, because really, without them so much starts to fall apart.

I feel like Bendy as a franchise has lost a lot of it's whimsy over the years. Back then, batim had such an interesting and fun aesthetic, chapter 3 and 4 especially almost felt like a Tim Burton stopmotion film in some ways. We used to have merch of playsets and toy axes, shirts with fun ideas and jokes behind them. Hell, even the characters themselves - the batim ink demon design, how the jds employees were all treated by the devs, the ways they acted and spoke too. The game focused more on the spiritual while still featuring mechanical, steampunk-esque environments and themes in moderation.

Nowadays, our merch is bland, overpriced and low quality with nothing but "mature"/trendy designs. No creativity like we used to have and much fewer toys only of batdr characters so far. The ink demon was given a new design and the old one is made fun of for looking too "goofy" by the devs now and has a redesign (likely going to look nothing like him) waiting to be revealed already. Old characters are barely featured in game anymore and the new direction focuses on the sci-fi and mechanical themes while almost entirely scrapping the spiritual and religious ones. Hell, even the environment is more realistic and the stories are being made "darker" according to the devs.

Back then, Bendy used to have this whimsical charm. Sure, it wasn't too scary at least for me, but if given the chance it could've balanced the slightly unserious and silly ideas with the horror meant to scare you well. It just feels like the devs, especially Mike are ashamed of their original creation and are pushing the idea of "maturity" way too hard into the series in an attempt to leave it all behind. I like the idea of having serious and important stories and themes in Bendy !! I like the idea of being mature with the series, but to truly be mature it should know when it can be and should be sillier. To be mature is to know when to be serious and when to be fun, and Bendy as a series is acting like a teenager trying to look more grown up instead.

I wish we could go back to the days before batdr or at least bring them back.

[dykedvonte]

I like to think in the P.E au that Anya and Curly specifically get haunted hard by Jimmy's weird reality crossing guilt manifested.

It's targeting them because Jimmy's guilt grows more around them. The idea of him acting and playing nice despite what he did. It's like a buffet that allows it to pick from their plates.

Anya sees this stagnant version of her, blood from her mouth, clutching her stomach with a bottle of pills in her other hand. She's talking about not being heard, a pixel, relief from a burden. She tries to ask a question and it's never the right one. She's not understanding but in a way, she's getting that this version of her is in pain. She tries to help, extends a hand and asks how she can help, stop it. She stares and there's utter despair and disappointment in her eyes.

What did you do?

Curly sees this burnt mangled thing. But he can't call it that. Even with no skin and chipping teeth, covered in sullied bandages and smelling of death overdue, he can see his face. He can recognized that eye, he stares at it a lot in the mirror, usually a second one is attached but he digresses. They are just watching, staring and unmoving. He asks himself what happened, how can he help and his own retched mangled voice comes out from a empty maw.

I told you.

They have no idea what it really means. They don't know who to tell. Flashes of a life they don't know or maybe a future they haven't lived yet. Perhaps they treat it as their own minds trying to tell them something. They bare that burden themselves and that alone makes it heavier. Plumper. More appetizing to the guilt causing it.

Tragically that guilt is not their own.

[spotaus]

Thinking about Orchid and her connection to my take on Gender (because this was meant to be about her and the Crew but it just devolved into a character analysis kinda??? More trauma-dumping maybe???) This is very much an oc/personal rant so feel free to ignore it 🫡

So, Orchid started off as a character I didn't really think much of (hear me out this is going to be relevant) because I wanted to add a 'girl' character but didn't know what to *do* with her, y'know? She was always going to be the strongest one there, she had the odds stacked in her favor with her parents. She was always going to be the gloomy side-character to match Reset's energy. But I think she's gone through every stage of Generic Woman I could possibly find.

At first she was angry and abrasive (think Fell!Sans) where every other word was a curse and she was likely to throw the first punch then laugh as she kicks her enemy while they're down. This was when Reset was a cartoonishly self-centered villain whose goal was simply to prove others wrong. Then Orchid became a sort of sisterly figure. This was short-lived, but she was the one comforting people who Reset would torment, but would ultimately follow his orders, because at this point he was actually a danger and sadistic. And then there was the phase where the story mellowed out and she became the token Goth Girl who, yes she was strong, but was heavy on the 'whatever' energy. Then there was her Era of deep self-loathing and anxiety about her worth that held her back and made her a much more timid and meek character who would only lash out on occasion.

Now, Orchid is the best of those iterations I've written yet. She's calm, level-headed, and a natural leader. Her father raised those traits into her. But she's very reactive, and can be silly, and when she's comfortable it's likely that air of importance transforms into something more comfortable and familiar. She laughs loudly and grins wide, she likes loud video-games but loves to read in the quiet. She's extremely disciplined, and normally no one can get through her tough exterior besides her best friend, Reset. She does what she does for her own enjoyment, sure, but she's thought of every angle and makes her choice to help Reset and control the others with her whole chest. She still worries she won't live up to her invisible expectations, and that and her loyalty are her two driving forces.

I know that Orchid is important to me because she's the longest-running female oc I've had. I have a rough relationship with womanhood/girlhood and I know looking back that Orchid recieved every ounce of my distaste for being a woman that I could shovel into her. That never made her less of a character, she was actually always one of my favorites, and rarely was she a 'punching bag oc'. I just... projected onto her a lot. And she's a good sign of how I've learned who I am. I've decided that my own femininity is something I could live without. I'd rather not associate myself with it, and I'd like to leave it in my past, focusing on a future where I'm not tied down with any gender roles or expectations. That won't happen, but I've come to terms with it myself. Orchid though? I figured out through her that I don't have to hate women characters. My own distaste for my circumstances doesn't mean I have to push it onto my characters (on God I've never expressed anything rude to actual people, that'd be rude as hell and uncalled for, but I have a bad habit of disliking fictional women in media). So, Orchid is a well-roubded character finally. She has motivations abd goals and a *lot* more depth than I ever expected her to. She's happy with being a woman, she's content. She's not treated differently for it in unfair ways by those she cares about, so she doesn't mind it. She likes to wear pretty outfits and lets Reset add bows to her ribbons. She doesn't let being a woman hold her back in the slightest.

So, yeah. Orchid is one of my babies. If I ever leave this Fandom behind for good, she's one that's coming with (Ichor, Orchid, and Pretender all have human designs I can use elsewhere lol-) but in the meantime I'll just rotate her around in my brain for a while longer.

If I'm right, she's been with me for nearly 5-6 years and I went through a *lot* with her as an outlet. So, she's kinda just like an old stuffed animal. A lil ripped, matted fur, maybe a stain or two, but there's a story there and that makes it important beyond belief.

[spicedfink]

Break down of Lemongrab (or something):

Lemongrab has similarities to PB the way her made up family members (Uncle Gumbald, Aunt Lolly and Cousin Chicle) did but he struggles unlike them. I think PB was trying to make an intelligent candy person and used part of Neddy to make him and when Lemongrab didn't act the way she had hoped she assumed his needs matched up with Neddy's

PB thought Lemongrab needed space, she felt she had failed him because he didn't find comfort in things she thought should be comforting and she couldn't understand him.

PB gave up on making intelligent candy people after Lemongrab because it seemed any candy person who wasn't dumb downed was going to be miserable no matter what

Also parallels can be drawn to Goliad - where Goliad was just doing what she was taught, when she was reprimanded and told she misunderstood/was wrong Goliad decided her way is best and that she must be right (driven by the mixed messages and contradicting information she received). PB deals with her by putting her into a standstill against her new brother

PB, Uncle Gumbald and Lemongrab all have a need for control, it takes different forms and reaches different degrees but the key difference is their motivations: PB wants love, Gumbald wants power and Lemongrab wants order. Though unlike Gumblad the other two have further motivations: PB feels she wants to protect people and Lemongrab wants to understand/be understood by people (there isn't enough time with Goliad to understand her motivations/desires even though she's also shown to be controlling)

Lemongrab was hurt when PB sent him away to live in a castle away from the rest of the Candy Kingdom, she saw him as a failure so he made a point to strictly follow rules - but no matter what he did he was told he was doing it wrong. He bent himself as much as he could just to still be called inflexible and unreasonable. Others couldn't see how much effort he put forward and thus he was treated as if he wasn't trying when he put himself into physical distress just trying to play along with PB's candy ways. So he became resentful

Since Lemongrab 1 was seeking connection with someone who wasn't even there (PB) the joy he felt towards the lemon people was short lived as apposed to Lemongrab 2 who was happy with being connected to the lemon people

The reason the lemon people are different from the Lemongrabs is because they don't have access to the exact ingredients

PB does care for Lemongrab on some level but she has no idea how to express it (and perhaps even fears that if she does he'll see her as weak and try to take her out like Uncle Gumbald did)

While Lemongrab sees PB as a mother figure I don't think PB sees herself as his mother, she created him sure but she assigns roles to her creations that don't always reflect that status

PB disliked whenever Lemongrab acted like her because of her own trauma with Gumbald which leads to some of Lemongrab's confusion (such as when she criticized him for watching her people sleep despite having cameras not just in her citizens homes but also cross boundaries by spying on other kingdoms)

Lemongrab 3 being a mix of the first two felt a struggle against himself, he ignored his conflict by focusing on order because order makes sense. He makes his kingdom into somewhat of a factory as he used rules, order and logic as a distraction from the overwhelming thoughts and feelings he had - similarly to how Lemongrab 1 did before him

When Lemongrab 3 is shown himself via Mathew's vision he is able to finally understand how he is himself, not just PB's creation. It's the first time he really saw himself and that allowed him to accept it (reading him as neurodivergent this could be aligned with getting a diagnoses)

After seeing himself and finding nothing wrong with him Lemongrab 3 starts to feel comfortable exploring more aspects of life instead of just being static and self contained the way Lg1 and Lg2 were (this also reflects how he's no longer letting PB dictate his life)

That exploring new things and actually living his life is what leads to him making a dating profile and meeting LSP (I'm honestly so confused on what the Adventure Time version of dating apps/online dating is since they don't explain if it was via tech or paper or magic or what but LSP does say "on your profile")

Either way Lemongrab is more calm about exploring new things but he also needs order so he is extremally put off by something seemingly small: food on a blanket. (As someone who's cried about a cup being in the "wrong place" I can relate to this intense feeling from something not being done "correctly")

Despite the discomfort and the fact they seemingly only started the date he still tells LSP that it had been nice

LSP thinks he's running away because he can't face his own feelings because she doesn't actually know him yet, they continue going on dates and LSP finds that Lemongrab says what he means. He would have told her if he disliked her without hesitation. LSP is so used to people ignoring her, placating her or lecturing her that she didn't expect someone to communicate in a way she could understand/wasn't condescending towards her

LSP is also pretty straight forward, she isn't great at hiding intention and she clearly states what she's thinking so after she realized she doesn't have to guess what Lemongrab is thinking they actually are able to communicate better then most couples in Ooo

Though LSP and Lemongrab wouldn't have worked out if they met before, they both needed to grow as people - neither of them were actually ready for a relationship before that point. Lemongrab needed to accept and become comfortable being himself/his own person while LSP needed to find out she didn't need to choose weather she wanted to love herself or others, that those things aren't mutually exclusive (if they interacted before it would have turned into the nastiest fight in all of the history of Ooo)

To summarize the 3 versions: Lemongrab 1 longs for PB's approval, he's aggressive and overwhelmed easily and is unable to handle the world being unfair. He is unwilling to take responsibility for himself/his actions and sees himself only as Princess Bubblegum's creation Lemongrab 2 doesn't care about PB's approval, he was made to make Lemongrab happy and he is Lemongrab. After making the lemon people and later Lemongrab 1's abuse he takes on the world view of people need to sacrifice themselves for the survival/greater good of others Lemongrab 3 is able to acknowledge being wrong easier then the other Lemongrabs since he has their residual (if not fully intact) memories. When he sees himself as not just the two before him he's able to start healing. He is now living for himself while realizing the impact he has on others, allowing him to not just be the calmest Lemongrab but the happiest. Unlike the other two he doesn't feel he has to fulfil a purpose

[cosmicredcadet]

I always find it interesting that homosexual coded main characters don't really get shipped with every single side character of the opposite gender. And people get told off for shipping lesbian coded characters with men or gay coded characters with women by the rest of the fandom. But it's always aroace coded main characters getting shipped with every single side character that exists. And aroace fans getting told to "not generalise the entire aspec community" and "let people ship whomever they want!! It's just fiction!!!" as if we don't deserve to see characters living happy lives not being in relationships. And my biggest pet peeve is the trope of an aroace coded character "growing up and maturing" by... getting in a romantic/sexual relationship. Really shows what these people think about non-partnering aspec people irl. It's not just about fictional characters but they'll never admit it 🤷

I will say that there are some idiots out there who do ship gay characters with the opposite sex because they believe in people being able to ship whatever they want (which can lead to some disturbing places but I digress) But those kinds of ships do get a lot more push back and the same people who get after people for changing characters from gay to straight do not have the same energy when it happens to aro /aroace characters.

These same people are the ones calling for representation and how we treat characters identities in fiction does reflect how we view those identities in the real world EXCEPT when it comes to aspec characters. Suddenly then it's "fiction doesn't effect reality!!!" there's some double standards happening and it's beyond frustrating that no one seems to even notice and get mad at us for pointing it out.

Not to mention it's incredibly funny to hear them cry "Don't generalize the community" while they generalize the community by acting like every aro/ace/aroace person can date and have sex - which like you said ignored the existence of non-partnering identities and I'd like to add it also erases repulsed identities.

None of these people actually care about the aspecs who date or have sex. they don't actually care how those identities work or those experiences at all. they're using them as a get out of jail free card. a loop hole. a "I can't be homophobic because I have a gay best friend" card. They don't care about QPRs and how those relationships can be experience in wildly different ways. All they care about is if they get to have two characters kiss without having to genuinely look at themselves and their biases and possibly have the revelation that they might hold bigoted beliefs about aspec people.

And at this point I'd rather them admit that they don't actually care about aspec identities or experiences instead of tying themselves into knots to try and prove "I'm not aphobic!!!!" because they actively tried to find a loop hole to make it so that they could feel superior and in the right for being able to erase an entire identity of people.

[mantisgodsdomain]

We ought to write more Pokemon fic some time. We want to recreate the Pokemon Manners/Human Manners cheat sheet that we made a few years ago we think that this site would like the Sliding Scale Of Politeness When Greeting A New Pokemon You've Never Met Before.

[starscreamingg]

Looking back on Detroit become human in the wake of the ai craze is like. The most morbidly funny thing to me One of these days I have to write something on how the story of that game just gets HORRIFYING when you view it through a (more) modern lens. Man

[griffsursparker]

my dad's gonna be in town next weekend. the same weekend i'm going to this music thing hosted by the local trans group. my dad does not know i'm not cis. i have invited him to the music thing. this should be interesting

[gnomewithalaptop]

Respectfully, op, I understand where you're coming from, but I disagree. Reposting with @snailier-than-thou 's tags because they phrased it way better than I could:

"Name a hobby outside of MEDIA CONSUMPTION" is the worst kind of post. It's squarely in that ever-growing genre of post where the point on its face is ideologically meaningless and entirely reliant on an audience's biased negative reaction to a certain popular online buzzword (in this case, "consuming media"). Define "media". Define "consumption". Are reading books, watching movies, and playing video games all inherently inferior hobbies for dumb babies? What about going to an art gallery? What about going to see a play? What makes those "different", if you instinctually answer "Noooo that's not the same!"? Where does creating art, or "media", fall into this equation? Why does your insistence on feeling in some way intellectually and/or morally superior than the peons who use TikTok always fall back on the idea that the only worthwhile, "real" hobbies require a certain level of physical, mental, and/or social ability and reinforce the glorification of manual labor? Why will we never Fucking be free?