#just doesn't work

[houseofbreadpakoda]

BITCH.

PLEASE.

BE.

DISCIPLINED.

PERSEVERE.

EVERY.

DAY.

PLEASE.

[nelson-riddle-me-this]

working on my Sunday In New York (1963) playlist and while I have issues with that movie I do also have great affection for it and this is shaping up to be a real good playlist

[heretherebedork]

I feel like recently, K-Bls are distinctly developing their own flavor, compared to the predominant Thai, Japanese, and even Chinese Bls. While Japanese Bls, usually are the ones that come closest to depicting queer experiences in real life, compared to the simplistic use of tropes that define the genre of BL as in Thai ones; K-Bls seem to be carving out their own niche. It's distinctly low on heat (almost similar to the censored versions of Chinese ones), but instead, delving more on understanding and dissecting human emotions and interactions. They have a sort of indie feel, case in point, Blueming, Our Dating Sim, A Shoulder to Cry On, and now The Eighth Sense (honorable mention to Strongberry for propagating this style in the first place). While Thai Bls are becoming more and more explicit, with the heat quotient shooting up higher with every drama, K-Bls seem to be flowing in the other direction, but at the same time compensating for the lack of skinship and much shorter run time, with really engaging plots and direction and acting (which isn't a surprise given how good their entertainment industry is). Additionally what is surprising me in a good way is how pleasantly queer-coded K-Bls have recently been, trying to portray almost honest queer experiences, yet, in a way that doesn't deter the usual BL audience from shunning them for being too realistic/ boring. K-Bls have a lot to improve though, but I do think, I like the route they are taking.

It's definitely a different style, though I would not argue that Japan is doing the most authentic queer experiences. From what I've seen, Japan tends towards highly stylized shows that often only brush on any bigger issues and play with tropes brilliantly but not with lived experiences/

You know who I think did the most realistic queer experiences while still playing with BL?

The Philippines. Their first few forays, those first shows in 2020 and into 2021 were walking that line amazingly while playing with all different kinds of tropes.

But anyway.

I am enjoying the way KBL is playing with tropes, BL, and queer experiences but I've also enjoyed a lot of the ways Thailand has done it as well and I think some Thai shows (Moonlight Chicken) have done more realistic and detailed deceptions than most K-BL has been doing.

Now, at least part of this is that I don't tend to notice style so much as I notice plot and character. Which is why I looked at your listen of K-BLs and have them all in very different categories in my head and was surprised to see A Shoulder to Cry On in the same breath as Our Dating Sim because those shows are just... so hugely different to me. Like, so different.

I am glad they're going more realistic but I also worry because the more realistic shows go the more depressing, open or bittersweet endings tend to get and that's not what I'm looking for. The Eighth Sense is a big question mark to me.

And, honestly, some K-BLs are improving and some aren't. Because as the volume increases, so does the range. It's the same as Thai BLs. The more you make, the more will be good but also the more will just... be.

I mean, Korea has definitely gone the opposite of growing physical affection and it doesn't bother me... but then they make All the Liquors and I groan audibly because that show was a waste of... everything.

But anyway.

While many Thai BLs are simplistic that's also the nature of there being that many of them. Thai BLs are constant and everywhere and you're going to get a lot of shows that don't live up while the gems you get can be quickly buried.

I am fascinated by the grouping of Thai, Chinese and Japanese BLs though. Thailand produced so many different BLs and styles and have their own set of tropes that have created many tropes we see all over now. China is entirely censored and the older stuff tended to be much darker than what we see now and the fantasies are, again, censored even if they are enjoyable and use many different tropes and end up with very different vibes. And Japan ends towards live action yaoi with their own specific tropes, visuals and taste.... they're just as different from each other as Korea is from them as well.

Every country... no, every production house and sometimes even director has their own specific creation and expectations and yes you can group them by country (@absolutebl is better at that than me) but I don't think grouping Thai, Chinese and Japanese BLs into one clump and Korea into another area is... not how I would do it.

Korea is creating their own genre of BL just as Thailand did and just as Japan did and just as Taiwan has done and just as Vietnam is slowly working out. Yes, Korea is evolving fast... but so is Thailand, at least some aspects of Thai shows.

[inkskinned]

please i love you i'm begging you bring back suspension of disbelief bring back trusting the audience like. i cannot handle any more dialogue that sounds like a legal document. "hello, i am here to talk to you about the incident from a few minutes ago, because i feel you might be unwell, and i am invested in your personal wellbeing." "thank you, i am unwell because the incident was hurtful to me due to my childhood, which was bad." I CANT!!!!

do you know how many people are mad that authors use "growled" as a word for "said"? it's just poetics! they do not literally mean "growled," it's just a common replacement for "said with force but in a low tone." it's normal! do you hear me!! help me i love you please let me out of here!!!

[trekkerac]

he's like a faulty lightbulb

[glitter-stained]

Batkids play a game called "Never have you ever" where Duke gazes into their timelines in the multiverse and tells them two made-up things and one that happened in an else-word and they have to guess which is real

[bet-on-me-13]

Bruce owes Danny money. He does Not want to pay up.

So! Danny had to run away from Amity Park when his parents discovered his Powers. But every time he tried to stay in a single place in America, they somehow managed to find him.

Turns out, they were working with the GIW to track him using the GIW's resources and the Fenton's Genius to find him everywhere he ran to. Eventually, Danny figured he had had enough and ran to Europe where the GIW had no Jurisdiction.

After wandering for a while, Danny was found and recruited by the League of Assasins. He was powerful, skilled, and connected to the Lazarus Pits, so they approached him with a job offer.

They would hide him from the Fentons, who had began to search for him in Europe independently, and in return he would work for them as an Assasin.

Considering his situation, Danny agreed.

He began training to be an Assasin, supplementing his Ghost Abilities with the abilities of an Assasin to become even more Stealthy.

While training under the League, Danny met another recruit simply known as Bruce. They trained together for years, even going on a few missions together gathering intel, and using disguises to hid in plain sight.

On one of these missions, Danny lent Bruce some money with the promise to get paid back when they returned to the League. That same night, Bruce left the League of Assasins and never came back.

...

Bruce was sitting in the Batcave going over a case with Tim, Jason was off to the side cleaning his Guns, and Dick and Cass were holding an acrobatics competition in their Obstacle Course, with Damien, Steph, and Duke cheering them on.

Suddenly an Eldritch Emerald Light sprang to life in the center of the Batcave, and everybody dropped what they were doing and sprang to action.

Slowly, a glowing green figure emerged from the Light. He appeared Eldritch in Nature, as if he existed in multiple layers of reality at once and looking at him gave them minor headaches. Then, the figure spoke up.

"BRUCE. ITS BEEN 15 YEARS. YOU STILL OWE ME 16 DOLLARS."

Recognizing Danny, Bruce took a moment to compose himself before responding.

"Fuck Off."

[reasonsforhope]

Literally begging anyone who can vote in US elections to vote, and to vote against Trump. Which means voting for Harris, not abstaining or voting third party.

My family actually did move here from an authoritarian country, where voting literally didn't matter, they literally did throw out your vote, and they literally did assassinate citizens who spoke out against them.

We would all very much like to keep living in a country where those things are not the case!

You know, the same things that Trump and his stooges have openly said they want to do. And two of the main propaganda lines for why people in the US shouldn't vote, which is a lie.

Voting matters. The parties are not the same.

And make sure to vote in down-ballot races!!!

And like. The fact that voting matters in the US is a very real reason for hope. It is something you should genuinely appreciate. We can make a difference.

And a lot of people risked their lives or even died to earn that right, and it's a right not everyone has.

[soapcloth]

Catching Soap taking pics of you in an airport terminal...

You try to ignore it. Maybe he was taking a picture of the airport in general, maybe it was a selfie- either way, you’re not about to confront a man that looks like bootcamp and protein powder incarnate in the case that he is.

Once boarded, you find yourself beside a kind-looking older woman that lets you have the window seat, the prior incident readily forgotten as you settle in. A flight attendant crouches beside her, but you pay it no mind, too busy prepping your in-flight comforts to watch on while the woman gathers her belongings and vacates the seat.

You lean back, waiting for take-off.

"-here you are, Sergeant- once again, we're deeply sorry about the seating mix-up with your partner- a-and thank you for your service, we hope you'll continue to fly with us."

That snaps you out of your thoughts.

Looking up, you find the man from earlier staring down at you with a pleased grin. After a beat, his head swings back around to the flight attendant.

"Dinnae worry 'bout tha'- just glad it got sorted."

He tosses his carry-on overhead, arms bulging with the movement before he plops himself down into the seat beside you, an exasperated grunt passing his lips. He lifts the seperating arm rest, thick legs spreading out so your thighs touch.

"-um?"

He clicks his tongue and jerks his knee into yours. "Saw ye' looking at me in the terminal, would be a shame t'leave ye' be, aye?"

[sunderwight]

What if the peak lords concluded that the most likely answer to the mystery of Shen Qingqiu's behavior is not that he's possessed now (because they checked and all the tests came out negative), but that he must have actually been possessed before?

No one thought to check him before, after all. They just figured he was an asshole. But then he suffers a qi deviation, almost dies, but comes back nicer. Only slightly lacking in context for his own past behavior and lifestyle, too.

It fits remarkably well, doesn't it? All this time the real Shen Qingqiu must have been trying to free himself from a demonic spirit that took possession of him in his youth! It was the demon who was the asshole, dragging his poor host to brothels, alienating his sect siblings so that they wouldn't investigate him too closely, abusing his disciples and probably weakening the sect from within as part of some nefarious plot!

But then the real Shen Qingqiu finally managed to beat back the demon himself, even being gracious enough not to point out what happened to his martial siblings and so save the sect's face. What a guy.

[queeniewithabeanie]

The Dreamcatcher

Dpxdc Prompt #26

All vigilantes get bad dreams. Of the ones they couldn't save, the criminals that got away, even of their fellow heroes dying. When you take up the cape you are practically signing an agreement for nightmares to haunt your sleep.

It's apart of the job, no matter how terrible.

One night after a long patrol, when the Bats were all dreading sleep, it was Steph that brought it up.

"We should get dreamcatchers. Hang em up on our doors, they'd help."

No one responded immediately, every single one of them knew that was a pipedream, including Steph.

"If it makes you feel better, go for it Steph." Dick finally obliged, after a too-long awkward silence.

When the intricate dreamcatchers appeared on the doors to their bedrooms a week later no one took them down. They all had ways to cope and if Steph giving all of them dreamcatchers gave her comfort who were they to deny it? Plus it was nice to have a bit of hope, no matter how fragile.

They didn't expect the dreamcatchers to actually work.

Danny had been dragged, beaten, and broken beyond repair by the GIW. He barely escaped their clutches with his half-life still intact and ran off to the closest city he could find, Gotham.

He built a life there, and slowly but surely the threat of the GIW only appeared as a background thought of his waking mind. It was a different story, however, when he was asleep.

They still hurt him every night, only difference was they weren't there to document it and look at him like guinea pig.

So Danny, like the problem-solver he was, made his own solution. After a few too many close calls with Nocturn he had found a way to infuse dreamcatchers with just enough ectoplasm to make them actually work. If they could repel an ancient ghost what was a few bad nightmares? He didn't have money to spare to buy one so he made his own and hung it up by his door.

He started sleeping better, with no nightmares of his own to haunt him, but that didn't mean his nights stopped being interrupted by screams. Not his own, no, apparently living in a city with so much crime and grime could lead to it's own traumatic experiences.

His neighbor's daughter had been kidnapped and trafficked, only recently brought back into his custody. She was 5 and Danny's heart broke every time he woke up to her shrieking.

So he made her a dreamcatcher too.

And then she told some of her friends who had also been hurt by someone, because who in Gotham hadn't, and they requested some dreamcatchers from him as well.

Word spread and soon Danny had a suitably profitable business on his hands.

He didn't charge much, most of his clientele could barely afford food, but he still needed to eat too.

Then the vigilante Spoiler came up to him and asked if he did custom orders.

Danny could see the hope behind the white eyes of her domino, desperation from years of built of pain and suffering.

"No usually, no, but if it's for the heroes of Gotham I can make an exception."

[oliveroctavius]

In Plagiarism and You(Tube), Hbomb says "If you consider something so obscure you can get away with stealing it, you do not respect it." Save that line for the next time someone tries to tell you that Roy Lichtenstein brought respect to comics as art.

It's since been pointed out that while Lichtenstein did copy one of Russ Heath's drawings of an airplane getting hit, the painting depicted above was actually copied off Irv Norvick, because Lichtenstein did this so many times to so many comic artists.

In Lichtenstein's defense, he was doing this in a time when comic artists frequently weren't even credited in the issues themselves. In his condemnation, he never even tried to check, nor has he made any move to pay or credit any of the comic artists who recognized their own work later on. Rather than elevating the "low art" of comics, he was widening the gap of financial success and respect even further.

The Hbomberguy of this story is art historian David Barsalou, who has now spent decades tracking down the original art and the names of the original artists used in Lichtenstein's most famous output. Here's the flickr gallery for the Deconstructing Roy Lichtenstein project. Frequently copied were Tony Abruzzo, Ted Galindo, Mike Sekowsky, Joe Kubert, Jerry Grandenetti, and dozens more Golden Age artists who aren't very well known in comics circles, let alone art history books. Many of them died in poverty. That's something that the Hero Initiative, mentioned in Russ Heath's comic above, aims to prevent.

Also, Lichtenstein didn't even paint Ben-Day dots. That's a specific thing.

[qoldenskies]

i think its so funny when people take the way donnie acts at face value even though its a horrible lie because he's a horrible liar, while understanding leo is bullshitting very well despite him actually being GOOD at bullshitting. many such cases

[go-learn-esperanto]

I see so many people starting to use Threads as a way to escape Twitter and yes, it's owned by Facebook's CEO and giving Facebook the monopoly of social media is bad but I think we should also talk about the fact that, you know, Threads isn't avalibe in the EU for privacy reasons????? That should be concerning to EVERYONE

[bet-on-me-13]

Danny commits to the Bit a bit too hard...

So! For the first few weeks after his accident, whenever Danny would try to help the people of Amity Park, he would be treated as a Villain.

No matter if he had just defeated the Big Bad of the Week or saved a Cat from a tree, everybody in town only saw him as a Monster or Villain to he feared and hunted down. Danny was really getting sick of trying to get them on his side, until Sam made a suggestion.

"Why not just...play into it?" She said, barely looking up from painting her nails.

It was just an offhand suggestion, but it stuck with Danny. Why shouldn't he lean into it? The people of Amity Park already saw Ghosts as Evil, and they already assumed he was in cahoots with the Ghosts attacking the town. Why shouldn't he just...play into it?

So he does just that.

From that day on, whenever Phantom was spotted he would dramatically monologue about his Evil Plans, or claim that another Rogues attack on the City was his own act of terror.

Box Ghost destroys the towns Warehouses? It was on his orders.

Ember mind controls masses of Teenagers? All part of his Plans somehow.

Every Adult in Town is kidnapped by Young Blood? Danny gave them over to a friend as a Gift.

He crafts an identity for himself as the most Vile and Horrible Ghost that has ever attacked the City, using his own infamy to cement his legend even more firmly. The town only sees a Monsterous Villain, who has eveded capture near effortlessly for months on end, who constantly attacks their City and gets away with it.

Of course he still needs an excuse for how his plans keep getting stopped, and he gets it when his girlfriend Valerie becomes the Red Huntress. Before that, he just claimed infighting or the Fentons getting lucky, but Valerie becoming the Town's Hero meant he had a plausible excuse for how he kept getting "Foiled".

Val was suspicious, because she was not as involved as Phantom painted her to be, but in the end she had no proof of him faking his defeats. And she couldn't come up with any explanations for why he would do that in the first place. I mean, who would fake being a Supervillain? It had to he something else.

This did come back to bite him a while later, when the Justice League decided that enough was enough, and dispatched Justice League Dark to recruit Red Huntress and help Deal with him.

Coincidentally, that was the same day Pariah Dark attacked the Mortal Realm and sucked Amity Park into the Ghost Zone.

And honestly? Danny had spent over a Year proclaiming himself as a Villain who commanded Ghosts to attack the Human Realm, and he had heard about the Right of Conquest being Absolute in the Ghost Zone, so why not make it official? Why not overthrow the Ghost King, become the Ghost King, and cement his identity as a Villain while also forbidding Ghosts from entering the Human Realm without his permission?

He may have gotten a bit carried away and forgotten that the Villain thing was a disguise...but hey! He was still preventing Ghost Attacks! ...mostly. That's got to count for something right?

He may have let the Bit run a bit too far...

...

Check the tags for more context!

[forgettable-au]

FORGETTABLE-AU (page 82-85)

THAT LAZYBONES!!

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