#just finished ep 32 and i’m !!!!!! | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ashwhowrites · 4 months ago

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Just found all your wonderful angst fics and honestly I feel like there is a distinct lack of HURTS SO GOOD angst out there. So I am DE-LIGH-TED to have found you. Thank you for your words and your writing. ❤️

But I have a request because of course I do! Eddie Munson!

So: angst: 30, 32 and then fluff: 16 and angry confessions 9 (except if I may be extra needy and request that we change the her in 30 to a them? Twins. One boy and the other authors choice.)

The idea: Eddie and reader started dating at Hawkins High and about a year or two after graduating someone from a label hears the band and wants an EP recorded in an actual studio! The band travels to the nearest studio.

When Eddie returns he tells reader that his dream is coming true the label is ready to sign them and they want them to start touring this year and opening for bigger bands to get their name out.

Reader overhears Eddie talking with the label guy. Eddie wants to bring reader on the tour and label guy shuts it down and says ‘end the relationship so you can actually enjoy the fame.’ He asks if Eddie is gonna marry reader and Eddie gets nervous and says idk, reader is hurt by that. Label guy asks if they have kids and Eddie is a little too enthusiastic in saying no and he doesn’t know if he wants kids. (Insecure about what kind of dad he’d be) and label guy tells Eddie this tour will make or beak his future and he needs no distractions. And a girl back home? Distracting.

Reader is then horrified that she’ll ruin Eddie’s dream. She breaks up with him before the tour, hiding the real reason. She wants him to have his dream even if it kills hers. Eddie leaves on tour mad and heartbroken.

Reader finds out she is pregnant after Eddie leaves. The band is supposed to come back to Hawkins after a few months on tour. Eddie promised he and reader would talk more about their relationship and reader will tell him then.

The band is insanely successful on tour. Eddie doesn’t come back. Doesn’t answer calls, letters. Reader stops trying after a year.

The twins are around five when Eddie, now a known rockstar, returns to his hometown. Meet-cute of adorable twins and Eddie occurs.

You ARE the father!

Eddie and reader talk/fight. But happy ending when all is said and done, back together and a family.

Sorry this is so long but ily and your writing❤️❤️❤️

I hope this is what you wanted and thank you for requesting! I hope you enjoy it 🫶🏻 I did only pick the two you resent, thank you for that! I feel like this fic is a bit all over the place but I think I included everything you asked 🤞🏻

I just sent that long request and I’m so sorry I didn’t see the no more than two limit on the prompt list link. Please feel free to shorten those to angst 30 and fluff 16 Thank you.

"There's not a single reason I can't think of for me to let you see her. You may be her father, but I'm her everything"

"I never thought I could miss someone this much"

"Baby you will not believe what just happened!" Eddie said as he came rushing out from the backroom. He was drenched in sweat, as he finished his set with the band.

"What?" Y/N asked, she pushed back his sweaty bangs and his hands landed on her hips

"This dude from some label liked our set! He wants us to visit his studio and perform a few songs. Then if he likes it, he'll sign us!" Y/N smiled as her boyfriend's eyes were bright with happiness. His smile was so huge and his voice was loud.

"That's amazing, oh my god!" She exclaimed, throwing her arms around him and pulling him into a hug. She didn't mind the sweat, she had been with Eddie for years and grew used to it.

The next day Y/N waited in their small apartment as Eddie attended the studio. She paced through their carpet as she stared at the door. She was so nervous for him, this could be his big break. And if he didn't get it, she wasn't sure how he would handle it.

She ran to the door as she heard the lock turn, giving him no time to walk into the house when she raced out all her questions. He smiled as her mouth ran until she almost lost breath, he leaned in and pecked her lips.

"Good?" he asked, a small chuckle leaving his lips

"Yeah, sorry," she said as she took in as much air as she could. She let him through the door and waited for him to speak. He closed the door and turned to her with a smirk.

"Well?" she asked, smacking his arm as she bounced on her feet

"Want to have sex with a newly signed rockstar?" he asked, opening his arms as he knew his girlfriend too well.

"OH MY GOD!" she screamed with excitement, throwing herself in his arms. She was practically jumping in his arms. He was damn excited too, and his heart felt full of how happy she was for him. He never would have made it without her.

"And! He wants us to tour next month, open for some other bands of his to get our name out there!"

Y/N pulled back to see his face but stayed in his arms.

"Next month? For how long?" she asked. She was happy this was going to happen for him, but she was sad at how fast he would be yanked from her.

"Just a few months, less than a year. But I promise I'm not leaving you behind, okay?" she smiled at his words, nodding as she softly placed her lips on his.

"Shall we celebrate Mr. Rockstar?" she whispered against his lips, teasing him as she bit his lower lip. "In the bedroom."

"I think I wanna celebrate right here," Eddie growled, wasting no time as he smashed his lips on hers and tasted her mouth with his tongue. He pressed her body against the door and was fast to unbuckle his jeans.

~~~

A few days passed when Nick, the label guy, showed up at their apartment. Y/N left Eddie with a kiss and headed to their bedroom as the band talked. The walls were thin so she could hear the conversation, but still wanted to feel as she gave them privacy.

They talked about the basics of everything and Y/N tried not to listen in too much. But once she heard the band leave and her name was brought up, she couldn't help but listen in.

"I want to do this tour, and I know the band wants it. But my girl is here, she and I haven't been separated in years. She is in full support and I want her to come with," Eddie explained. Y/N smiled at his words, her heart beaming with love.

"Does she have a ring on her finger?" Nick asked, Y/N couldn't see his face but he sounded annoyed.

"Well no but-"

"Are you going to put a ring on her finger anytime soon?"

Y/N held her breath as she waited for Eddie's response

Eddie stuttered as his throat felt dry, "Well..I..I don't know." he chuckled uncomfortably

Well that hurt, Y/N thought. They had been together for over three years and he had no time frame of when he wanted to get engaged? Was he even thinking of a ring?

"Got any kids with her?" Nick asked

"Hell no," Eddie laughed, "Pretty sure I don't even want any."

Y/N felt her heart snap into two. This whole time she thought they were dreaming of the same future. She wanted a ring and kids with Eddie, and it hurt like hell that he was on a different page.

"Son, you are about to go on a world tour. You are going to be in a different state every night. Let the girl go and enjoy the fame. This is your first and only chance to make something of yourself. You don't want distractions. She's a chick, and chicks bring drama. You pick Eddie."

Y/N blinked away tears as the front door slammed shut. She was quick to jump in bed when she heard Eddie begin walking to the room.

Y/N was up all night as she repeated Nick's words in her head. She couldn't make Eddie choose between his dream and her. She could feel how tense his body was as he slept, Nick's words weighing him down too.

She knew Eddie loved her too much to break up with her, and he wouldn't break his promise of not leaving her behind. But he needed to go, he needed this for his career. She loved him strong enough to let him go without her.

~~~

"Eddie? Can we talk?"

Eddie looked up from his guitar, brown eyes worried. "What's wrong?" He was quick to grab her hand and pull her between his legs. He sat on the bed and she stood before him, tears in her eyes.

"You know how we talked about me staying here while you go on tour?"

"Yeah, but only because of Nick. If I could have it my way, you'd be right there," he said with a smile as he softly rubbed her hand.

She hated how sweet he was, it was making this all much harder.

"I'm a little worried about us being separated that long," she said

"Trust me, I'm coming home to you and none of my feelings are going to change just because of the distance" he tried to reassure her. He knew Y/N was the love of his life and he'd never ruin what they had.

"What if things on the road change your beliefs? You know, what if..." She slowly trailed off.

"What if, what?" He asked, confused as he looked in her eyes for answers.

"What if you meet someone else? There's going to be a lot of girls throwing themselves at you"

"They can throw themselves at me as much as they want, they'd never make me forget about you. I love you and I'd never ruin what we have for a random girl on the road," he explained

"I don't know if I can believe you," she lied, "what if you get in trouble with drugs? And you can't stop and fall addicted? You have many addicts in your family and one weak moment, you might find a girl to make it feel better," she could see her words were starting to take effect on him. His eyes gloss over with anger, but that's what she needed. He didn't need her holding him back and being a distraction.

"Wow," he scoffed, standing up. "I haven't touched any other drug except weed my whole life. And you think I'm that stupid that I'd dive right into hard core shit just because I'm on tour? I can get the same shit down the block!" He argued.

"Have you ever been tempted?" She asked

"Fuck no, but you probably wouldn't believe that either," he said as he rolled his eyes. "I mean we've been together for years, I understand this is a big change for us, but why do you suddenly think I won't have any self control?"

Because I'm making all of this up so you'll leave pissed off and I won't be a distraction, she thought.

She was silent and Eddie felt himself growing angier by it.

"Because I won't be there!"

"Oh now the truth comes out. You don't think I can say no. You think a slutty girl will jump on my lap and you think I'll just love it and fuck her. Then she'll bring me to a party with hard drugs and before I know it I'm snorting drugs off her body." He laughed, but it had no humor behind it. She knew she was hurting him but that meant everything was working.

"If you really think that I would cheat on you, then maybe we weren't as strong as I thought" he added, his voice a little sad as he sat back down.

"I think it's best if we take a break while you're on tour. And you can do whatever you want on it, and we'll talk when you come back."

Eddie nodded at her words. He didn't agree with anything but he wasn't going to try to change her mind. She had this view of him and he couldn't fix it.

~~~

The first few weeks with Eddie gone was hell. Y/N cried every morning and every night. She was in so much pain and hated she couldn't reach for him. She wanted to call and tell him the truth, that everything was a lie and she did it so he could be happy. But the suffering was becoming too much and she just wanted to be with him again, in his arms and in his heart. She couldn't forget the broken look in his eye when he left, the loudness of the door as it slammed.

She found out she was pregnant, adding more guilt to her life. He was supposed to come home at the end of the month, and he promised before he left that they would talk about their relationship. He didn't want to give up on them and she believed that.

But then the end of the month came and she hadn't heard a word. Her calls went unanswered and his body never walked through the front door. She wanted to tell him she was pregnant when she saw him in person again but she wasn't sure went that would be. She didn't know if he was in town or where he ended up, all she knew was that he wasn't coming back to her right now. She kept calling and wrote letters to his management, but no response.

She waited and waited, maybe the tour added more dates. They were broken up so she didn't expect him to update her on everything but she wished he'd answer at least one call.

She called every day for a year, and never once did her phone ring back.

~~~

Five years passed and she gave up on Eddie, she gave up years ago when he refused to come back to her. She figured she caused too much pain and broke his heart so he moved on. The thought killed her but him being happy was all she wanted in life.

It turned out she was pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl. They reminded her of Eddie, some days it made her happy, and other days it killed her. They didn't know a life with a dad so she never spoke to them about it, and they never asked. To them just having mom was normal and she didn't want to disturb that. Because she honestly didn't think she'd ever see Eddie again.

"Christopher, you need to stop running!" Y/N scolded as she pushed Beverly on the swing set. The boy laughed as he ran faster, his curls bouncing with every step.

She groaned as she gave Beverly another push and then ran after him.

Once she caught him, she got them ready in the car. She loved her kids but damn they were so energetic, and she knew who they got it from.

They looked alike in ways, the same brown curly hair, Beverly's was longer. Same eyes and the same sass.

She sighed in relief when she pulled up to the house, ready to put them in a room and have time to herself. But her stomach turned when a black SUV was parked in the driveway.

"Momma, who's that?" Christopher asked, his curious eyes settled on the car. The windows were dark and they couldn't see in it.

"I don't know. I'll go check, stay here." She said, she got out of the car and walked over to the car. Before she could walk up to knock on the driver's window, the back door opened. She froze in her spot.

Eddie exited out of the car, hair tied up in a bun but a few curls loose on his forehead. He had many more tattoos, his arms covered in ink until it disappeared under his short sleeve. He wore sunglasses, which she was thankful for. She feared if she could see his eyes she'd melt in a puddle.

"Hi stranger, can we talk?"

His voice sent shivers down her spine. She's only heard it on the radio, either his songs or an interview. She never had the heart to turn it, always wondering if he was happy. If chasing him away was the right decision.

"I...I... Eddie...I" she stuttered, completely in shock as he stood in front of her. He was real, and he was here, after five long years. "I can't right now, but tonight? I can meet you somewhere." She said, her eyes looking back to her car and then to him.

He looked at her car and looked back, he couldn't see inside but he knew there was someone she didn't want him to see. He figured it was a new boyfriend or something, he couldn't help but look down at her hand. Relief in his stomach when he didn't see a ring. She must have not lived alone, he suspected since she didn't want him inside.

"Sure, had to get a new number so here," he said as he handed her a piece of paper. "Text me when and where and I'll be there."

She smiled as she took the piece of paper, hoping she was covering how much anxiety she had.

"You look incredible, by the way." He said as he got in the car. She watched as the door slammed and the car backed out of the driveway.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Steve asked. Steve was one of her best friends from high school and he knew the truth about everything. He was the godfather to her kids and he spoiled the crap out of them. But he was also her rock, she couldn't imagine doing everything on her own.

"It's just dinner, Steve," she said as she tore apart her closet.

"Just dinner?" He chuckled, "Then why did you take half an hour in the shower, and now tearing apart your closet for something sexy to wear?" He asked, a smirk on his face as she froze.

She coughed and yanked the dress off the hanger. "I don't know what you're talking about"

Steve laughed as her bathroom door closed. "I suppose I'll take the kids and leave!"

"I'll call you when I'm on my way to pick them up!" She said through the door

Y/N felt like she was going on a first date all over again. Her stomach was filled with butterflies, but all the fluttering made her feel like she was going to be sick.

She knew Eddie, but she didn't know this new version of him. She didn't know the Rockstar and the man with all the fame.

She wasn't sure why he wanted to talk. It has been five years and she accepted he'd never come back to her. But now he was but for what? Did he want to get back together? Even though they haven't talked in five years. Did he want to rub it in her face that he made it big without her? Thank her for being the reason he left in the first place?

She swallowed nervously as she walked into the small restaurant, the lights were dim creating a romantic atmosphere. Eddie was already at a table, sipping on a beer.

"Sorry, hope you weren't waiting long," she said as she took a seat.

He perked up in his seat, "No I just got here, you're fine." He said with a smile. She forgot how calm she felt near him, seeing his smile and eyes made all her anxiety melt away.

"I told you she would show up!" The young waiter said as he patted Eddie on the back. Eddie gave the waiter a side eye as his face blushed. "At least you only had to wait half an hour, a guy last night waited two full hours before he gave up." The waiter laughed.

Y/N and Eddie were quick to order another drink and send him on his way. Eddie wanted to smack his head against the table once he left.

"Thirty minutes? Thought you just got here," she teased, laughing softly.

"Little white lie," he chuckled

They laughed until it died in silence. They stared silently at each other, memorizing each other's faces.

"That's a beautiful dress," Eddie said. A nervous cough followed and he took a swig of his beer. She made him nervous, he felt like he was meeting her for the first time all over again. Everything he said or did tonight had to impress her. Almost like he had to win her over.

"Oh thank you," she said as she pushed down the material on her thighs. "You look good, and the new tattoos are incredible." She complimented, itching to push up his sleeve and see how far up the tattoos went. She wondered if he had any more in other places, and how many different women got to see them, feel them, and trace them. She used to trace his ink after sex all the time, and her stomach felt unsettled thinking about all the other women who touched his new ink before she had the chance. She never thought she'd share his body with anyone new, it was hers for life, at least it used to be.

"Thank you," he said. He was guilty of thinking the same thing she was. He wanted to reach over the table and run her fingers up and down his arm. He craved to feel her soft touch on his skin, tracing the shapes and planting wet kisses on his neck. He shivered at the memories that played through his head.

"How was, uh tour?" She asked. She knew bringing it up would make them uncomfortable, and she was right. The second tour left her lips, and both of their bodies went stiff.

"It was great," he said, unable to look in her eyes as he traced the top of his glass. "Touring for five years seems crazy now, but once I started I didn't want to stop."

She felt his words hit her like a blow, but he got his dream.

"I'm really glad it worked out and you guys got to tour for many more years." She meant it. Even though the space between them killed her, she couldn't have been more proud of him.

"Yeah, but I'm back in town for good. And I know when I left things weren't right between us. I don't know if you are seeing someone or anything, but I came back to you for a reason," he explained. He played with his rings, showing her he was just as nervous about this conversation as she was.

"What's the reason, Eddie?" She asked, but she had a good feeling about what he was going to say. And if he did say it, she was going to get pissed.

"I miss you and I miss us. I thought if I kept the tour going, I'd never have to face how shitty everything was without you."

"Do you remember when you promised me we'd talk about it when you came back? As in years ago? I was waiting for you. I was waiting like a god damn idiot. You miss me? Well, screw you." She spat, already planning to stand up but he was quick to grab her hand and pull her back down.

"I know! Okay, I know. I was pissed off when I left and hurt that you believed I would ever cheat on you. I was angry and each time I performed I got more angry. I was singing about a girl that didn't trust me to not fuck up without her there. It fucked with my head and I started to wish I hated you, and that broke my heart." He explained, "Then you'd call and all I wanted to do was answer and tell you how bad you fucked with my head. That this tour was supposed to be everything to me and I hated every second of it because all I could think about was if you were trusting me or not." Eddie ranted, trying his best to stay calm.

"If you were so mad at me that you wanted to hate me, why didn't you at least try to talk to me?"

"You broke up with me, I didn't want to talk to you. Is that so wrong of me?" Eddie asked

"I mean no, but at least one phone call would have been nice. Even if you told me to fuck off and never talk to you again, at least it would have told me where we stood. I waited for you to come home and you didn't bother to tell me you changed your mind. You talked about not changing, but you did change. You broke a promise, and you never break those." She argued, taking deep breaths as she felt the need to cry.

"I'm sorry that I never communicated. I was at these parties and girls were throwing themselves at me, just like you said. I didn't want any of them, never even blinked in their direction. I wanted to prove that I could be someone you could trust. And then I thought I shouldn't have to prove that to you because I've been loyal since the day we got together. What you said wasn't fair. I'm being as honest as I can. You broke my heart and I wanted to hurt you." He felt bad for saying it but he never told her how much pain she caused him.

"Everything you felt was valid. I did ask for a break and I put us in that situation. I'm really sorry for hurting you. But I can explain why," she sighed

"I didn't want to break up or anything. I wanted to stay together, no matter how long you would be gone. I love you, Eddie and that never changed. But I was scared that if you stayed with me, you'd regret it."

"Baby, why would I ever regret you?" His voice sounded sad. She sniffled back tears and continued.

"I overheard you and Nick talking. I was fine with staying back and letting you go alone. Nick didn't want distractions and that was fine. But Eddie asked about marriage and kids. He asked you what future you planned to have with me, and you didn't have an answer. You laughed at the idea and that hurt. I couldn't put myself through long distance, waiting for you to come home, when you weren't even sure if I was the one for life. I lied and made all of that shit up so you would want to leave me. And so you could go on the tour without our distance dragging you down. And I think I also did it to protect myself. Because if I waited for you and you came back with a change of heart, I wouldn't ever recover."

"I do want to marry you, I've always wanted that. He wanted a time frame and I panicked. I knew I'd marry you, but I had no idea how soon it would be. I know I waited long and you're completely valid to protect yourself. Putting a date on it scared me and I'm sorry that I didn't handle it well. And for the kids," Y/N felt her body stiffen. She felt like she was holding her breath, terrified of what he'd say. "I'm scared too. I don't know if I have what it takes to be a dad. You are perfect and always perfect at everything. I think I could be a good husband to you, but I don't think I'd keep up to be a good dad like you would be as a mom. I'm scared to fail you." He confessed, his eyes turning red as tears slipped down his cheek. The tip of his nose was red as more tears fell.

"What about now? It's been five years. Was all that time away enough for you to commit to me like that?" She asked

"I thought about you the whole time and once I got my head out of my ass I went straight to you. I haven't seen anyone, family or friends. I got off the plane and headed to you. I've been mad at you but realized that never took away any of my love for you. There was never a girl that could make me forget about you. I want you and I'd marry you right now at the courthouse if you asked me to." And he meant it.

"We both hurt each other, and both said things we didn't mean. We've matured and grown up a little more. I think we can start on a clean slate?" Y/N asked, reaching over to offer her hand

Eddie smiled and shook it, a clean slate.

~~~

A few weeks passed since Eddie and Y/N talked. They agreed to just start as friends, and not jump into anything. Y/N wanted to get back together but she knew it would get complicated once her kids were involved.

She didn't have a plan to introduce them, and that backfired.

Eddie showed up unannounced at the house, he still had his key and he walked right in.

Y/N was giving Beverly a bath, music playing from the small speaker on the counter. Y/N laughed as Beverly blew bubbles around the room. Christopher was in his room, loudly banging trucks together. Everyone was unaware of Eddie walking through the house.

Eddie couldn't help but look at how much their home changed. It was clear children lived here, from the small plates, cups, and toys on the floor. The pictures on the wall caught his attention, his eyes glued to the photographs.

She had a family, she had two small kids. The beauty of all three of them took Eddie's breath away. She had a boy and girl on each side of her, and both kids had dark curly hair. He gulped, the kids looked identical to him.

Eddie heard laughing coming from the bathroom, and he followed the sound. He walked down that hallway a thousand times and never pictured he'd hear a little girl's laugh coming from it. He softly pushed the cracked door open.

His heart warmed at the sight, he knew Y/N would be a good mother but seeing it was something else. The way she smiled so big and the pure joy on her face, it killed Eddie to know how much he missed out.

Eddie coughed to get her attention

"Eddie?" she gasped in shock

"Can we talk?" He asked, his eyes looking to the small girl in the tub

"A clean slate and you didn't bother to tell me I had two fucking kids?" Eddie hissed, keeping his voice low as both kids were settled in the bedroom.

"A clean slate for us, my kids have nothing to do with you," Y/N fought back

"Nothing to do with me? I'm their father!"

"No, you're not! You helped me make them, sure. But your name is not on the birth certificate, they don't know you, and they don't have your last name. I'm sorry but there's not a single reason I can't think of for me to let you see them. You may be their father, but I'm their everything" Y/N said, trying to keep her emotions in check.

"That's not fair, I never got a chance," he argued

"You did! Do you think I called you for a whole year just because I was clingy? All you had to do was answer the fucking phone or better yet, showed up when you said you would." She spat, her voice filled with anger as she shoved past him.

He followed her into the bedroom, closing the door.

"You could have left a message!"

He stepped back when she pushed a finger against his chest and went head to head-with him.

"Listen, you don't get to make this my fault. I called, I tried, and I sure as hell did my fucking part" she hissed through her clenched teeth.

Eddie knew he was in the wrong so he backed down, he gently grabbed the finger on his chest and brought it down to her side. He held her hand and spoke softly,

"You're right. You tried and It's all on me that I never picked up. I understand why I don't have a place. But I'm here now, and I want to be here. I want to be a family."

Y/N turned her head away as she blinked away tears, she could feel her walls breaking down. He touched her cheek and turned her head to face him.

"I know you are their everything, but I want to help you. Let me be their dad, please," he begged, he slowly leaned in, "You've always been everything to me, and I want them to be everything to me too. We can be a family, I'm not going anywhere."

She cried as she leaned in as well, "I want to be a family too"

"Can I kiss you?" he whispered

She nodded and leaned in, she moaned as she felt his lips on hers again. His soft touch on her skin and the desperation of his kiss made her stomach flutter.

He pulled away slowly, his eyes locked on hers

"I never thought I could miss someone this much" he whispered before he leaned in again.

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findingtheshiny · 4 months ago

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I’m still behind on the wizard the witch and the wild one, but I just finished ep 32 and

I so badly want in this conversation with the witches for someone to bring up that maybe if they still had a witch of the wide sea maybe there wouldn’t have been a great ocean spirit trapped and exploited by a bunch of wizards with no one knowing until our trio walked into town. Maybe removing stations and dwindling the covens numbers is actually a terrible idea.

Just a wild thought

#wbn #wbn spoilers #wbn: www #wbn pod #worlds beyond number #wbn ep32

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the-conversation-pod · 6 months ago

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Going High-Low with Taiwan

And we're back! It’s been awhile since we checked in on Taiwan, and the latest offerings have really run the gamut in terms of quality. Ben, NiNi, and Shan sat down to discuss the state of Taiwanese BL via two recent shows, Anti Reset and Unknown.

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Welcome 00:01:15 - Intro 00:02:11 - Anti Reset and VBL 00:13:13 - Unknown the Series 00:20:16 Unknown: The Pseudo Incest Trope 00:27:53 Unknown: San Pang, Li Li, and Family in the Narrative 00:35:48 Unknown: The Ending Stumble 00:43:32 Unknown: Adapting the Da Ge Novel 00:46:15 Unknown: Final Thoughts and Ratings 00:51:53 - Whither Taiwanese BL?

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we��re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

00:01:15 - Intro

Ben

And we're back! This week we will be discussing the state of Taiwanese BL by highlighting two projects that recently finished for us.

NiNi

Shan is here with us. Say hi, Shan.

Shan

Hello people!

NiNi

Shan has to be here because y'all know I don't watch that much Taiwanese BL. [laughs]

Shan

And I watch it all.

Ben

We're going to be talking about the sci-fi BL Anti Reset and we're going to be talking about the Priest adaptation Unknown the series, based on Priest’s novel Da Ge.

NiNi

I am unfamiliar with Anti Reset. I did not watch it.

Ben

NiNi: it's a Taiwanese BL. I don't like it! [Shan laughs] I didn't watch it.

NiNi

I did watch Unknown and I have thoughts about that.

00:02:11 - Anti Reset and VBL

NiNi

Maybe Shan, you could dig in here before we let Ben get into the recap on Anti Reset.

Shan

Anti Reset is part of a recent series of Taiwanese BLs that came from a company called VBL. Stay By My Side, You Are Mine, VIP Only, and then Anti Reset. This was a connected series, all these stories happened in the same universe. The characters did cameos in each other's shows and they all aired in the same time slot one right after the other, over the last several months.

I was not particularly impressed with the quality of these shows and I thought that as the series went on, each show got a little bit worse. [laughs] By the time I was in VIP Only I had really lost interest in what these shows were doing. The stories were weak, the production values were low, they weren't really hitting the usual Taiwanese high watermarks for great casting, good couple chemistry, solid intimacy scenes… The things you can normally reliably count on Taiwan for, were not really showing up in these shows.

So I was, had kind of already lost my faith in this series when Anti Reset started. I think I got two episodes into it and I just decided to just stop watching. It was givin’ me a weird vibe. I was like, “You know what? I don't know what this show is doing and I don't think I wanna find out.”

That's where I think I should hand it off to Ben to talk more about what the show actually ended up doing.

Ben

Oh, man. Trying to describe the premise of this show inherently gives it more credit than it deserves. [Shan and Ben laugh] The premise of the show is that Chu Yi Ping is some sort of humanities professor at a local college. His arm gets injured from pulling his shoulder and his uncle, who runs a experimental tech company, decides that to give him some assistance while he's recovering, they're going to send an experimental house assistant android to his house, which appears in the shape of a really hot guy named Ever 9.

The show wants to go on to be this exploration about how misanthropy presents in people. How do you find humanity in artificial intelligences that are designed to befriend us? It wants to do this exploration of personhood—I don't think it does—and ends up fundamentally becoming a mail-order bride show that doesn't realize it is one. This show thinks it's doing deep analysis of AI personhood and romance, but it's not. It's just presenting things. It is kind of a mess and I ended up really not liking it.

NiNi

I'm a big sci-fi girl. I like these kinds of explorations of the human condition. It's what all the best sci-fi is about. So, basically what you're telling me is don't watch the show. [laughs]

Shan

Ben, I feel like when I was observing discourse about this show, it did seem like it was working for some people, and I'm curious if you have thoughts about what parts of the show maybe did work better than others.

Ben

I think that if you found the leads attractive and you enjoyed the chemistry that the leads were going for—ignoring literally any of the context about what was going on around their interactions—you could enjoy that. But I don't think the show does a great job of addressing its own context.

You've got this android living in your house who is doing your house chores and making your food for you, and otherwise taking care of you. So you basically have purchased a housewife. But then he decides he's in love with the housewife and wants to pursue the concept that the android has a personality and is capable of reciprocating his feelings and such. But they don't do a good job creating this crossover point where Ever 9 cares about Chu Yi Ping because of who Ever 9 is and not because of what Ever 9 was programmed to be.

The issue, too, with Chu Yi Ping is he's got this fundamental misanthropy that isn't really addressed or challenged. What is it about Ever 9 that allows him to not hate him the way he hates other people? The fact that Ever 9 is programmed to put up with all of his shit all the time? That's kinda weird, particularly because they went for a multi-year separation at the end, and I'm like, he didn't grow from this. He's just a sad little weirdo the whole time.

Shan

They did a multi-year separation between… a man and a robot?

Ben

They did.

NiNi

I was about to say— [all laugh]

Shan

I mean! I’m like, what? But, like—, Did—, How—, But—, I—

NiNi

Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I have another related question.

Ben

Please, go on. [Ben and Shan laugh]

NiNi

This is not a story about an AI achieving self-awareness or sentience or crossing the human-digital divide in some way.

Ben

It wants to be that. It really wants to be a story about Ever 9 exceeding his programming. They very much think there's, like, a Pinocchio thing going on with him.

Shan

He's still a robot.

NiNi

Even Pinocchio turned into a real boy at the end.

Shan

Right, this is what I don't understand.

NiNi

So what is the point, then? If nothing actually changes about Ever 9.

Ben

This is one of the fundamental questions I've been asking about BL lately. [all laugh] And here we are again.

Shan

What is the point? [laughs]

NiNi

This is the thing that people don't get about sci-fi a lot. Sci-fi is more philosophy than science. It's a lot more about humanity and the things that humanity does to each other and how humanity evolves than it is about the cool things that the science can do. And whenever I see sci-fi that does not understand that, you can tell.

Shan

I think—and I wonder how you feel about this, Ben—one of the tension points here may be trying to take a narrative like this and turn it into a straightforward romance between a person and an object. When I've seen stories with this conceit done well, the romance is maybe not the primary point, and it's more about, like NiNi is saying, the philosophical questions underpinning it. I think about something like Lars and the Real Girl, which is more about the nature of loneliness and the nature of grief and how a community can come together to support somebody in finding a way to be happy. But it's not about the actual romance between the person and the thing. It feels like maybe what's difficult here is they want to examine those things, but at the same time they just want this to be a standard BL where they're just executing romance tropes. Those things don't go together that well.

Ben

I agree. I feel like Chu Yi Ping’s misanthropy and disconnectedness from other people should have been the crux of the storytelling, and they were more focused on making the android say hyung and oppa instead.

NiNi

For me, if you're gonna do a robot story like this, maybe you actually put somebody else into the story who the main character then falls in love with. The main character is able to interact with the robot to actually, themselves, become a real boy. But somebody in the story has to become a real boy! [laughs] That's the whole—you know what I mean?

Shan

There's a kdrama that I really love called I'm Not a Robot. And that is pretty much how they handled that. There's a robot, there's a real girl. And in the end, the romance is with the real girl, not the robot. [laughs]

It just feels like they tried to do that sort of story, but also somehow make the robot the main person without having them actually achieve personhood, and that just doesn't really work.

NiNi

It's either that or take it dystopian. Take it in the opposite direction. But then I guess that's not a BL.

Shan

Right. So you can also take it in the real fucked up direction, but yeah, you have to commit and it sounds like they just tried to do it all in some kind of weird blend that didn't come together.

NiNi

So, I'm guessing this one's a chop, Ben.

Ben

Oh, it's 100% a chop. I think I ended up giving it a 5? This is a show that I do not recommend at all. If you just want to see pretty decently attractive Taiwanese actors kind of moon at each other a little bit and make out a little bit, by all means! Go in and have a great time. But that's what you're getting out of it, at most. It's not good sci-fi, and I don't like it. At all.

Shan

I'm feeling happy with my choices. I'm gonna not return and finish this one. I think I'm gonna let it lie. It sounds like it was the right choice to not finish it for me.

Ben

What did we get out of the VBL project? My only positive takeaway from it is, I'm really glad that they got some money together to continue making small budget Taiwanese BL. I don't want small budget Taiwanese BL to give up, but also, these were not the best offerings that we've gotten out of that.

Shan

They need some better scripts.

Ben

We gotta do better. I really did not want to be super harsh about VBL and a bunch of their projects but, they're kind of really frustrating in a lot of ways. Stay By My Side ends abruptly. You Are Mine does not do the boss-employee romance any real justice. VIP Only ended up being kinda boring and wasn't really satisfying in its conclusion. And this one just really did not understand the expectations of sci-fi storytelling.

When we looked at the descriptions of all these shows ahead of time, we were like, there's a lot of ways that they could fuck this up royally, but these would actually be pretty good, or at least interesting and compelling in some ways. But they weren't. There's some sort epilogue episode or some shit they're gonna be releasing?

Shan

A little special to try to sell merch, I think.

NiNi

I mean, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Shan

Yeaaaaah.

Ben

Not impressed, and we are moving on.

NiNi

You're not even gonna rate it?

Ben

Oh, I gave it a 5.

NiNi

5 for Anti Reset from The Conversation.

Ben

And the 5 is, the leads were actually pretty solid with each other.

NiNi

Wow, that is damning with the faintest of praise.

[all laugh]

Ben

It's not good, y’all.

00:13:13 - Unknown the Series

NiNi

Let's leave that behind and move on to something that all of us actually watched and I think liked a little bit more. Moving on to Unknown the series.

Ben, give us the rundown, what is Unknown the series about?

Ben

Unknown is a found family narrative that has to deal with the way these relationships change as people grow up. This brother and sister end up deciding to adopt a homeless kid who's in their neighborhood. Wei Qian is like a high schooler trying to take care of his little sister ‘cause their parents are dead, and they decide to also take care of this kid, Xiao Yuan. Xiao Yuan is appreciative of this and is glad to become a brother to this family. But as he grows and matures, he ends up developing deep affection for Wei Qian, and we spend the bulk of the story dealing with Xiao Yuan struggling with his feelings for Wei Qian, and how this impacts the community around them.

Beyond the three siblings, we have their neighbor San Pang, whose family has opted to never raise the rent on the Wei siblings to make sure that they have a place to stay. Wei Qian spends much of his adolescence when he's not in school working for the local gang: complications ensue as a result of this.

Shan, further thoughts?

Shan

Really, at its heart, this is a relationship change narrative. So, it's all about how this family decide to take each other as family and then as they grow up, some of the relationships start to shift and change, not only between Wei Qian and Wei Yuan, but also between Wei Li Li and San Pang. Wei Qian really takes his responsibilities as the older brother—but also the default patriarch of this family—very seriously. He is a caretaker, he is the person providing financially for the family. San Pang is his best friend, someone who's known him his whole life, who completely understands his devotion to his siblings and also loves them, as well, as an older brother figure.

There are some other characters in the mix. Qian and San Pang end up going into business with a third partner, named Lao Xiong. There's also the local gang—the lead gangster is called Le—and then there's Doctor Lin, played by our beloved Sam Lin, who's also in the mix as a side character who comes in and out of the story.

I don't know, NiNi, if you wanted to add anything about your overall impressions of what the story is tackling, the themes.

NiNi

I came into this one later than you guys did, so I was catching up on kind of a binge. And also the rhythms of Taiwanese BL and Taiwanese drama are a little harder for me, so it takes me a while to get into things emotionally. So I was doing a little bit of an uphill climb? I understood where the story was going and what they were trying to do. I didn't all the way feel it? There were points that I would hit, definitely a point at the end or near the end that I felt it, but going through the pockets of the story as it was happening, I didn't get the depth of feeling about this that I would get about a story. That's not necessarily to do with it being a Taiwanese story, ‘cause there's Taiwanese stories that I have that depth of feeling about. Just this one didn't hit me in the exact same way that I think it hit you guys.

Shan

I felt this story deeply. I was very emotionally connected to the characters, very, very invested in this story and really did love it. I have, unfortunately, some serious critiques [laughs] for the way that the story ended up, but really loved it along the way, was super invested. And part of that might come from my relative comfort with the tropes that were at play.

NiNi

It might be, because I'm an eldest sibling and I understand the feelings of responsibility and wanting to be somebody who takes care of your siblings and an example for them and to be strong for them and all of that. If there is any character that I really glommed onto, it was Wei Qian. But then what that left me with was a disconnect from some of his thought processes and actions later down in the story? There were things that I wanted to understand more that I didn't understand about the way that he was processing certain things. That's my thing. That's not a problem with the story, I think that's my reaction to the story.

Ben

I think in the early parts of the story I was really with everything that it was doing. I got Wei Qian’s whole deal fairly quickly. He's, like, 13 to 15 and his mom is dead. His dad is dead or not in the picture. And he's got a little sister that he has to take care of. And the neighbors are willing to help accommodate this but he's gotta get money some sort of way, so he ends up wrapped up with the local gang. I also got the way they would feel sympathy for another kid who's on the street struggling as well. I totally get them adopting someone else who seems like he's going through some shit the way they are too.

I got the way Yuan’s thankfulness about being saved from the street and the way Wei Qian was willing to sacrifice himself for Yuan, and I totally get that turning into a kind of devotion that shifts over time, and mingles with his latent queerness. I was able to follow Yuan down that route. And I liked the way the show treated all of those developments really seriously. From Wei Qian having some sort of sexual related trauma and being really resistant to advances from women… And I also got the way that that sort of blew up in their faces when Yuan's feelings became known to them.

I really enjoyed the early parts of the story. I think Ray Jiang directed this? Ray’s tendency to use longer shots of characters working in the space together worked really well for me here, and the actors had really good timing for me to get a strong sense of the dynamics between their characters. So I was really able to pull a lot of the expected emotional beats out of a lot of little things in this show early on.

00:20:16 Unknown: The Pseudo Incest Trope

Ben

I actually waited until like week six, I think, Shan, was when you told me it was time to start watching? I have deep qualms with the stepbrothers trope. I don't usually connect to it or enjoy it.

NiNi

I don't have an issue with the stepbrothers trope, but this didn't feel like stepbrothers to me. The relationship between Wei Qian and Yuan felt almost paternalistic, and that was, I think, deliberately something that Wei Qian did put that distance between them. I did not see how Wei Qian overcame that, he did it so deliberately and he reinforced it so deliberately over and over throughout the years, and I feel like the turn into romance didn't quite work for me?

Ben

Why do you think the stepbrothers taboo doesn't normally bother you the way it might for other people?

NiNi

It depends on how long they've been raised together. A lot of times when we're getting these stepbrothers trope stories, they're new stepbrothers or they haven't been stepbrothers for very long, or they were close to adults when their parents got together. And so it's… doesn't feel like a sibling relationship to me.

Ben

Shan, you've watched a lot of dramas.

Shan

Sure have.

Ben

What's your read of the stepbrother stuff?

Shan

I wanted to talk about accurate categorization here, because this is not actually a stepbrothers trope. The stepbrothers trope is very popular in yaoi manga, and consequently in BL. But Unknown is more, I think, accurately categorized as a pseudo incest story. And that goes beyond BL. That is actually quite popular [laughs] in Asian dramas more broadly, and also shows up quite a lot in het romance. And it's more about people who are coming together in some kind of family arrangement, and then the point of the trope is that the relationship changes over time and we follow that relationship change.

There's this impression, I think, that people like it mostly because, “Ooh, it's so titillating. It's so taboo.” For folks who enjoy the pseudo incest trope—and I count myself one of them, I've watched a lot of these kinds of dramas—the appeal of it is that a relationship change narrative is really interesting. It's a lot of deep emotional stuff when you are talking about someone who's really important to you in one specific way, and then trying to transform that relationship to have them be important to you in a different way. That can feel really risky and really dangerous, to put at threat the relationship that you already have for the relationship that you now want. That is not a dynamic that is exclusive to the pseudo incest trope!

NiNi

It feels like an extension of friends to lovers.

Shan

Exactly.

NiNi

A higher risk, higher degree of difficulty friends to lovers.

Shan

Exactly right, NiNi. I also love the friend to lovers trope. I also like enemies to lovers, which is maybe not as deep, but still revolves around that relationship change. I think for a lot of people, that's the appeal. It's a higher stakes version of the friends to lovers trope.

I think Unknown did a fantastic job with this trope… for the first three quarters of its story. Unfortunately, where it fell down was in the most important part, which is that relationship turn. We followed Yuan through his relationship turn. We saw his feelings for Qian change over time. We saw him try his best to cope with them alone. We saw when he could no longer do that and the feelings poured out of him and that caused a huge rupture. We saw him take time away. We saw his devotion stay strong through a separation and through many years apart. We saw him come back as an adult and decide to pursue the relationship he wanted because he was so certain that he still wanted it. We saw that whole process for Yuan.

Where the show really dropped the ball is that we didn't see that same deep process happen for Wei Qian. We saw it start, we saw him learn about his younger brother's feelings for him and have an initial response of shock and anger and some revulsion. We saw him push Yuan away. We saw him miss him terribly and regret pushing him away. We saw him start to change the way he saw him when he came back as an adult, and start to get more comfortable with seeking him out as a partner instead of as a younger brother. And then we just saw an abrupt flipped switch, where suddenly he was comfortable not only being in a romance, but in a sexual relationship. And I think that's where they really dropped the ball, is in that transition at the end. And unfortunately, that was the most important part of the story. [laughs] So it's a pretty shitty place to drop the ball, show!

But, this show did so many of my favorite things—found family, intergenerational family trauma, a serious relationship change narrative. These are like three of my most favorite things in drama. The characters were struggling through poverty, that's another big thing that I love to see depicted well in drama, and the show took it seriously. This show, it felt like, was almost made in a lab to, like, hook me in the heart. And I still have a lot of warm feelings about it and love it, even though it kind of let me down in the end.

But I'm curious, Ben, to hear you reflect, because I know versions of this trope have caused trouble for you before. I feel like you did better with this than you maybe thought you would, Ben.

Ben

So as someone who has had slurs thrown at him with real intent, I am particularly sensitive to narratives that wanna play with taboo that reflects some of the worst disingenuous presumptions about how queer people behave. I don't always enjoy these sort of narratives where they wanna deal with family members coming of age and developing feelings for each other and then wanting to pursue them. I often struggle with stepsibling relationships in particular because their parents had a romance. I don't usually enjoy the discord that the stepbrothers relationship is introducing to the genuine attempt by their parents to blend their families.

I don't think this show prickled that because they're more akin to orphans than stepsiblings. I'm less perturbed by orphans who use familial terms to establish closeness and present themselves as a unit to other people, wanting to change that down the road. Also, a smart thing the show did was they used three actors to play Yuan to reflect his growth and change over time, which was a very good choice for this kind of story.

00:27:53 Unknown: San Pang, Li Li, and Family in the Narrative

Shan

The other piece of this trope—the pseudo incest trope—that adds a layer, is that the taboo associated with incest does become part of the story. The external community and their other loved ones become an important part of the decision-making around the relationship change. You're gonna see other people being uncomfortable with the change in the relationship, so it adds this layer of complexity.

Here, the most important and main stand-in for that, we have San Pang, who has been raised alongside them as their neighbor, who also sees himself as an older brother to Yuan and Li Li, who is the first person to catch on to Yuan’s feelings. He is the one who puts it together and sees the way Yuan’s feelings are changing, and he's the one who tells Qian. In the wake of his coming out to Qian—admitting that he is gay, but not saying who he likes—San Pang is the one who says, “I'm pretty sure you're the person he likes, bro,” and he tries to interfere. He goes to Yuan on his own and he says,”I am seeing this. I want you to understand that it's not something you can pursue. You're going to put so much stress on your brother if you let him find out.”

There are some great scenes between San Pang and Yuan where they have really important conversations about why it's quote unquote wrong for him to feel this way about Qian, why San Pang feels so uncomfortable with it. He tries to intervene. It doesn't work, and then San Pang’s the one who helps Qian come up with a plan to send Yuan abroad. He was a very important part of that storyline.

He also is a very important part of the storyline when Yuan comes back as an adult, because he, in those intervening years, has gone through his own journey of his changing feelings for somebody that he also considered a quasi-sibling, and has maybe mellowed out a little bit about what it would mean for the two of them to be together. He sees that the feelings are still there, sees how miserable Qian was when Yuan was gone, and he kind of changes his tune and says, “Maybe I was wrong to try to get in the way of this. Maybe this is the thing that will make you, my best friend in the world who I love, happy, and maybe that's right.” He was such a crucial character in this narrative and I just really loved the way the show used his character as a stand-in for what you would normally see happen with parents in a drama like this.

NiNi

He just wanted to protect everybody. He wants to protect them individually, he wants to protect their family unit. It's very sweet.

Ben

He's like the big cousin who also doesn't know what to do. Wei Qian is stuck with this role, having to care for his sister and the brother that they adopted. That takes a huge amount of personal fortitude to choose to do all of that. San Pang clearly sees this from a young age, and he's always trying to help the best he can. But he's just as young as them and it’s not like he brings any special knowledge to the table. He has these instincts that are grounded in the expected orthodoxy of a family unit, and he's trying to help them replicate that, because he earnestly believes that maybe these things can help them.

Like, he recognizes that Wei Qian is alone with this huge responsibility he's carrying, and reasonably decides that maybe if he gets a partner who can appreciate that, the mental load on Wei Qian would be better. And as far as he knows, Wei Qian likes girls, so he tries to find women who might be interested in him. That doesn't go well. It's the same thing with always showing up at the clinic when Wei Qian gets the shit beat out of him with the gangster stuff. And even with Yuan, Yuan's feelings come up and he tries to help them, and even when they suggest sending Yuan away, they just wanted him to get some room from Wei Qian to maybe feel something for someone else. Yuan being gay was not their biggest concern. Yuan having feelings for Wei Qian was their primary concern.

I joked, when he came back sassier and even gayer, that he clearly found his people [laughs] while was in New York.

Shan

[laughs] Mmhmm.

Ben

And I ended up really loving San Pang for that. Despite his reticence about Wei Qian, he ends up developing feelings for Li Li, and I think it's because they had those big fights where he was forced to reckon with the nature of these taboos and the orthodoxy they enforce, and whether or not they applied here or not. I feel like San Pang ending up in a relationship with Li Li is intentional by the narrative to draw that line and say, “If this is okay, why not this?”

Shan

We should talk more about Li Li. One of the things I do credit this show with is caring about the whole family as a unit, and not only about the romance. Her involvement in the story and her relationship with her brothers was just a really important aspect to drive that point home.

I loved Li Li as a character. She's the little sister that everybody takes care of, including Yuan. She's the one who let him in. When he first followed Wei Qian home, she claimed him as her brother first and brought him into the family. She has a very close but also very different relationship with each of her brothers. And we saw how those bonds held and shifted over time. And when their relationship changed and they decided to be together romantically, Li Li accepted it.

I think she always knew that their relationship was different. What was interesting, I think, and such a good choice, is that she never seemed to feel threatened by that. She was comfortable and secure, knowing that they both loved her. Even though their relationship could maybe sometimes crowd her out.

Ben

I really liked that moment in episode 11. We got this little breakdown from her about how nobody cares about Qian. She started to really process, as an adult now, that Wei Qian hid a lot of his suffering from them.

I actually really like that Li Li got to do teenage rebellion. It says a lot about how effectively Wei Qian did his role as provider that she got to be a bratty teen.

NiNi

I feel like as a family story this hits me more than as a romance. Wei Qian’s relationship with both Yuan and Li Li feels parental more than sibling. Li Li and Yuan feel like siblings.

Shan

One of the interesting choices that I really appreciate in the story—in the early stages—is that while Wei Qian, I think, was trying to be a parental figure to both of them, Yuan never really accepted that, even when he was younger. And we saw that theme repeat throughout the show of Yuan saying, “You don't have to do it alone. I'm here to help you.” He always, always, always wanted to be a partner to Wei Qian.

NiNi

That is true, but this is coming from Yuan’s side. I absolutely see how Yuan made sure, maybe not even consciously, he wanted it to be clear where the boundaries were and the boundary was that, “We are family, we love each other, but you are not my parent, you are not my brother, you are somebody that I am partnered with. We are doing this together in this way.” Yuan always made that distinction. Wei Qian [laughs] is my problem here.

00:35:48 Unknown: The Ending Stumble

Shan

We should get into where the show stumbled hard, because that's what it all comes down to, right? This big stumble in episode 11.

NiNi

Yeah, it just kind of sits over everything and it sits over my entire perception of the story now. I feel like I can't even think of the rest of the story without thinking about how it didn't take me where it needed to go at the end. Yuan comes back to Taiwan and it feels like for Wei Qian, maybe some things have changed, but he's doing a lot to not let this thing happen. And it doesn't feel like a thing that he's fighting against—’cause if it felt like something that he was fighting against, I feel like I could buy it. If it's something that his heart really desires, but his brain is telling him he can't do, like, that works, right? But it doesn't feel like that.

I don't get where he got shaken. Like, I got the emotional shake. When Yuan gets kidnapped, ‘cause that's a thing that happens, you feel that fear that he had in that moment that he would lose Yuan. I understood why in that moment he would accept that he maybe had these emotions, these feelings that he needed to interrogate for Yuan, and they were churning him up inside, and they got broken out by this thing that happened that shook him. The emotional turn, totally believed. The turn where that goes romantic and sexual, that's the part that—it didn't carry me there.

Shan

I do agree with that last bit of what you said. I don't see it the same way as you in terms of not seeing the arc of his feelings starting to change. I think that was very clearly the arc of episodes 7 through 10 for Qian. During their separation, we saw how not functional, frankly, he was without Yuan around. He survived, he got through every day, but he was deeply unhappy. Everybody in his life could see it. He was regretful, he was missing him all the time. And punishing himself and withholding himself from talking to Yuan.

When Yuan came back, he started to interact with him differently. We saw the way that his physical awareness of him was different. We saw him start to seek him out more. We did see him start letting him in on some adult problem solving like he wouldn't have before. He still had his walls up, of course, he was still trying to consciously deny that he was willing to change their relationship in that way. But I do think the show took us through and showed us some very clear moments where his feelings were starting to shift and he was still fighting it. And then, of course, the kidnapping incident really shook him up.

I think where the failure for me happened was in the moment where this suddenly turned into a sexual desire that we hadn't seen build, at all. And so that is the missing piece for me. They needed a couple more beats in the story there, between him coming to this emotional realization of his desire to keep Yuan next to him forever, and for that to then build into a sexual attraction that he was comfortable acting on. And I think that latter part is where they really dropped the ball. They have him literally say, “I'm not ready yet. I haven't figured out what I'm comfortable with yet.” And then like, literally two minutes later, he's like, “Fuck it, never mind.” And they're just going to town on each other.

That didn't work for me at all. It was a very strange choice. It was a mistake. The show just really fumbled, and it sucks because they fumbled at the most important part of the story after building it so beautifully for ten weeks to just drop the ball that hard. It's a little bit baffling to me?

Ben

Episode 10 ends at the huge emotional turn for Wei Qian. And it was really frustrating for the show to conflate the emotional turn and the sexual turn and try and follow that immediately with the sex in the next episode. That was not the right choice. If the show had done the emotional turn and then spent at least half the episode dealing with this building sexual tension, that would have been interesting.

The show was obsessed with staying on Yuan's perspective the whole time. It would have been totally fine if Yuan was crackling with sexual energy at the knowledge that Wei Qian had finally hit the emotional turn. But instead they really wanted to have reward sex and then focus on this stupid health scare plot. The problem is, the sex scene isn't good because there's no arc to it. Yuan has been ready to fuck this man for ten years and Wei Qian hasn't been ready to fuck anyone for, like, 15 years.

They brought up this whole notion that part of Wei Qian's closed-off nature about sex is because his mom possibly abused him. And I just really did not enjoy the show rushing into this sudden sexual comfortability with Wei Qian after showing us that he did not have a good relationship with sex, and I feel like that needed to be resolved before those two were going to be able to have that sort of moment. As a result, the sex scene doesn't create much of an emotional arc, and the show knows this too, because they fucking fill it with stupid Yuan flashbacks. This should be about the change in Wei Qian, not the culmination of Yuan's feelings.

Wei Qian's reticence about sex is not handled by the story, whether it be discovering queerness in himself or processing the sexual trauma from his mom or getting over whatever blocks about the kid you see as your brother wants to be with you. That part of it was missing when they had set up for it with the end of episode 10, where Wei Qian let down whatever big emotional barrier was between, “I need to protect Yuan,” versus, “I don't wanna be without Yuan.” They were prepped for it, totally, to go into that next area. And then they just didn't, and decided to make it about Wei Qian having a blood clot.

NiNi

All the pieces were actually there, they're just in the wrong order. There's a scene after the fact where they're doing this dating SIM game or whatever at work and Wei Qian is having these flashbacks to the sex scene. Why did they not let him have that moment as a fantasy moment before—

Shan

Yes!

NiNi

—rather than a flashback moment after?

Ben

That's what I also thought at the time. But you know how angry I get on this podcast [Ben and Shan laugh] about having to mentally rejigger the show [NiNi laughs] to make it fucking work. I will not!

Shan

Besties! That's what they do in the book! That is exactly what they do in the book! [laughs]

Ben

That's so fuckin’ aggravating. [laughs] I’m so fucking mad!

Shan

It’s so aggravating! All the things we're saying they should have done, they fucking did in the book! And I don't [claps hands together] know why the show didn't do it. I'm so mad!

Ben

She clappin’, yo, she mad.

[all laugh]

00:43:32 Unknown: Adapting the Da Ge Novel

Shan

We haven't talked too much yet about the novel, but I do wanna talk a little bit about some of the adaptation choices that were made here. This show is an adaptation of the novel Da Ge by Priest, who is a very well known danmei author. Other live action adaptations of her books include Word of Honor, Guardian, Justice in the Dark... several others, a lot of them have now been shelved or didn't get to finish airing because of the ban in China. So, it was extremely exciting for fans of her works to see a Taiwanese production take up an adaptation of one of her books, because we know that we're not gonna get good adaptations of danmei anymore out of China, because they are banning queer content and censoring it all to hell—even more than other countries.

They made a lot of really smart adaptation choices in the way that they structured the show. The book is a lot more complex, in the way that most Priest novels are. There's a lot more characters, the plots are far more intricate, there's a lot more going on. There's an additional member of the family in the book. There's another best friend in the building. There are, like, three different gangs [laughs] instead of one. There's this whole corporate real estate plot that's tied to Wei Qian's work. It's a lot more complex.

The show did, I think, a fantastic job of making choices to streamline the story, to make it simple enough to fit into a 12 episode arc while still retaining the core themes and the core relationships. And it also did some really great work around the cultural pieces. Mainland China has a lot more deep homophobia, fatphobia, some real weirdness around the way, in media, that sex and gay sex in particular get discussed, and this show really smoothed all of that out.

Where they really blew it on the adaptation is at this end arc. You see all these aspects of Wei Qian's emotional journey that we are lamenting the show missed. I don't really understand why the show decided to ignore that material in favor of doing what it did instead. A lot of the stuff in the final arc was not in the book at all. If you are someone who loved this story and is disappointed in the ending, I just can't recommend highly enough that you read that book.

Ben

That's the theme of this episode. [laughs] If you enjoyed these shows, go do something else.

Shan

[laughs] Do something else! No, but do watch Unknown. I do love this show. I don't wanna say that you shouldn’t watch it, but you should go read the book too, ‘cause it'll fill in some pieces that we're missing here.

00:46:15 Unknown: Final Thoughts and Ratings

Ben

I totally get NiNi maybe not being super connected to what was goin’ on, and if they had not fucked up episode 11, it just would have been an interesting conversation about, where does this gap form? But now we're bogged down in the fact that it's easy to point to the lack of payoff. I watched episode 12 this morning before we're recording this session. And I was like, “Okay, I guess this is fine.” [Shan laugh] This is meant to feel like, almost, epilogue. And I enjoyed the big family hand hold. But I really feel like they really failed at the final steps of the “Yuan and Wei Qian are now a couple” turn, which is really annoying because there were so many things that it did great.

In the very final episode, there's this really great sequence when we learn that Li Li is pregnant and they have the reaction in the hallway and everybody's coming out of different doors that you don't expect.

Shan

That is the funniest scene.

Ben

Every time Wei Qian wanted to kill San Pang? [Shan laughs] Some of the best scenes in this show. Like, fucking Yuan sitting on the couch eatin’ his tomatoes, he was enjoying the chaos. We got this other woman who might be with Wei Qian, “I can take care of my brother.”

[Ben and Shan laugh]

Shan

He's like, “Don't you worry about it.” I did love those moments of Yuan being like, “Oh, I'm not the family problem now, ha!” [laughs] He's just like sitting back and enjoying it.

Even at the end, I was frustrated with the last two episodes, but I still had a lot of affection for these characters and this family. This isn't an ending that completely ruined the show, for me.

Ben

Shan has a bat she holds called coulda been a 10 that she bashes sh—

Shan

Yes! [laughs]

Ben

—bashes shows with.

Shan

Goddammit! One of the pieces of my frustration here is that this was on track to possibly be the best Taiwanese BL ever made.

NiNi

Okay, so ratings. Shan, let's have you go first. What do you rate Unknown?

Shan

I gave it a 9. I had to take out my coulda been a 10 bat.

I think that the narrative and the character work was so strong through the first 10 episodes that I can't take it lower than that. It's sticking with me. It's been a while since I finished the show, and I still think about it every single day. I think about these characters all the time, and that's not gonna go away just because the last couple episodes were a little bit disappointing for me.

NiNi

Ben, how about you?

Ben

Because I am in the business of recommending things—it's my whole shtick—this is an 8.5. It sits between “BL fans should watch this” and “People who like romance should watch this,” for me. I can't give it a 9 because I feel really strongly about the episode 11/12 caveats. But I don't wanna pretend that I didn't think that this cast did a really great job capturing the nuances of their dynamics. And even if they're let down a little bit by some of the direction and writing choices towards the end, I think that the family portion of this is so good, genuinely. So I do think this show is worth watching for people who enjoy the kinds of narratives the show wants to play with. We just need to understand that it stumbles at the end.

NiNi?

NiNi

I'm having a hard time with this one because in my head this isn't a BL. If I had to put it into a category in my head, it would get slotted near to something like a Moonlight Chicken or 180 D. But it doesn't have the queer bona fides that either of those have. It feels like a family drama that had a romance in it that happened to be this kid falling in love with somebody who is taking care of him. But the idea of it being a central romance, I just didn't buy. So it was a difficult one for me to rate in terms of how I felt about it as a romance.

In the end, I ended up at an 8 for the show. I think as a family drama, it's excellent. As a family drama, I would probably give it a 9.5 and as a romance, I would probably give it a 7, and so I wind up somewhere in the middle, which for me is an 8. I feel like it's a solid 8 show.

Ben

It's an 8.5 from The Conversation, recommended with specific reservations!

NiNi

You gotta get that .5 in. It's fine.

Shan

We gotta get it in. We gotta—

Ben

That's just how math works!

Shan

—gotta get it in.

NiNi

I know, I'm allowing you to have math. It was a good show.

Ben

It could have been an excellent show, but hmph!

Shan

So close to being one of my all time favorite dramas. It's fine, I'm just gonna go cry about it.

Ben

You were mad about it, because Shan wasn't even buggin’ me on a Saturday, like, “Go watch this show, Ben. Go watch it right now. Wake up, gay boy! Go watch the show so I can talk.”

[Ben and NiNi laugh]

Shan

Ben knew I didn't like the final episodes ‘cause I was not asking him if he watched them yet. [laugh] I was like, I don't wanna talk about it!

00:51:53 - Whither Taiwanese BL?

NiNi

I want us to talk a little bit about where Taiwanese BL is and what's been happening with it lately and whether it is making the leap in the same ways that other countries appear to be making the leap lately. Whatever that leap is for them.

I feel in some ways like Taiwanese BL has been a bit stagnant.

Ben

Taiwan is a super small country and… politically, they have been a little distracted for a few years! They're not in a position to do a ton more with BL right now. I don't think that we're gonna see a huge sudden surge from Taiwan. The best thing about Unknown is that Taiwan is not out of the game altogether, ‘cause I was real worried! The HIStory franchise is in ruins, and we hadn't really seen something of this production caliber in a while.

Shan

I'm with you, Ben. Honestly, when Unknown started airing, I was like, “Oh, thank God, Taiwan can still do it.” I have always been a fan of Taiwanese BLs, which might feel a little bit discordant because [laughs] I am someone who cares a lot about writing and storytelling and story is usually, honestly, the weakest part of Taiwanese BL. They usually don't have good writing. But, what I've always connected to in Taiwanese BLs is, I feel like they have a really good handle on relationship dynamics. They're really good at building characters that connect well with each other emotionally, physically—they've always done really good physical intimacy work in their shows, they usually cast really well for chemistry—and so usually in Taiwanese BLs, it's the characters and the character dynamics that hook me, more than the story.

So I was really excited to see the high quality Taiwanese production that I knew had a good story underpinning it. I hope to see more. I personally had a great time with Kiseki: Dear To Me, but it is not exactly high art. [laughs] And this run of VBL shows was so bad that I was really losing faith. I had made a commitment that I was going to at least try watching every single Taiwanese BL that comes out. I'm still sticking with that, but I was starting to flag a little bit because some of these shows were so bad.

So I was so thrilled to see that they still were doing productions of this caliber. And Unknown has been quite successful and got them a lot of positive attention, and so I'm hopeful that they'll be able to continue putting together productions like this, drawing actors of the caliber that they got for this show. I'm more hopeful because this show happened than I was certainly at the end of the year.

Ben

I will say the way that the Taiwanese actors talk about the work remains one of my favorite things. I be deep in these cast interviews, seein’ what they have to say about this work, and these Taiwanese boys have really nuanced and complex feelings about the work they're doing playing queer characters. I feel the respect and sometimes the duty they feel to get it right in the way they talk about their characters and the work they're doing. That's why I remain very friendly to… even [laughs] some of the jankiest Taiwanese BLs. These boys take playing queerness seriously. It's really warming for me to know that these guys understand that they're portraying queer people and that queer people will be affected by their portrayals.

NiNi

I think I just don't have the connection to Taiwanese drama. I'm coming at this from kdrama, through jdrama, through Thai drama. Taiwan’s the last place that I landed, and I think that I just haven't made the leap yet in terms of style and rhythms and all those other things. Mostly because I don't get to see a lot of it, there is not much. And I think that that definitely impacts how I feel about Taiwanese drama and Taiwanese BL. There are some I love—you know, I'm a staunch lover of HIStory 2: Right or Wrong. You know how I feel about Make Our Days Count. You know how I feel about We Best Love. But none of those, except maybe Right or Wrong, as Shan pointed out, has really stellar writing.

Ben

Why would you mention Make Our Days Count? I'm so mad all of a sudden! [laughs]

Shan

No! Don't go there, Ben. Earmuffs!

NiNi

We're never gonna get out of a Taiwanese BL conversation without it coming up. It just [laughs] isn’t gonna happen.

Ben

[volume raising] Wanna talk about endings for Taiwanese—

Shan

No!

Ben

—BLs?! [laughs]

Shan

No, we do not! Stop. Pause. NiNi, continue your point.

NiNi

What have I done? [laughs]

Yeah, I agree with Shan that the writing isn't great, and that's maybe one of the reasons that I haven't latched on to Taiwanese BL in the way that I have to others, because I am also a writing person. I can get behind a story for other reasons, and I have. I've gotten behind stories that were not written well because there was some other element of them that really grabbed me, and that's what has happened to me in the Taiwanese BLs that I have liked. But just generally, I don't gravitate in this direction, and there hasn't really been anything yet that makes me wanna gravitate more in this direction?

I recognise the strength of character development. I recognise the fantastic acting in a lotta instances, some of these guys are amazing actors. I just, it hasn't moved me in the kind of ways that I've been moved from other things. And it kinda makes me sad in some ways. I'm still looking for that Taiwanese BL that's gonna grab me by the throat. I haven't found that one yet. I'll keep looking.

Shan

It's hard, too, ‘cause like Ben said, it's such a small industry. We don't get that many Taiwanese BLs and we certainly don't get that many of quality. But, I've always really loved the approach to BL that Taiwan brings.

Ben

I really feel like when they make BL, somebody in the room is asking how gay people might feel about some of the choices they're making.

Shan

I'm gonna keep showing up for Taiwanese BL. I'm gonna keep watching them. I really hope that we get to see more productions of this caliber. I hope that we get to see them working from strong source material, so that the storytelling can really live up to what the casts are bringing. I'm excited to see what comes out next.

NiNi

Ray Jiang can stay, though, I like his directorial style. He keeps doing stuff and he hits on something that really pops? I feel like that's the one that's gonna grab me. If I wasn't terrified of what Lin Pei Yu was capable of after Kiseki. If I could get Lin Pei Yu at her best plus Ray Jiang at his best, with basically any of the actors I've ever seen in Taiwanese BL, maybe we'll get something that will grab me by the throat.

Anyway, that is going to wrap us up on… what's the name of this episode?

Shan

Have we decided yet? Hmm.

Ben

The State of Taiwan, Taiwanese BL episode, whatever.

NiNi

Okay. That is going to wrap us up on our Taiwan episode. We out!

Thank you for being here, Shan. Say bye to the people.

Shan

Thank you for having me. Bye, people!

NiNi

Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace.

#ben and nini's conversations #anti reset #unknown the series #podcast #the conversation #taiwanese bl #on art #lgbtq #bl series #summer series #summer 2024 #Spotify

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rei-does-stuff · 3 months ago

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Long post rambling abt my SaH continuation au

Might not make tooooo much sense but I’m trying

Ok!!

So, it continues where ep 32 left off, bam in the gas chamber WHOOOOOOO I love child murder!! And it mainly Geum’s mental state during it, how he’s going back at forth between saving bam and keeping his cover, he manages it (how idk yet shhhhh) and he gets Bam and co out of the gas chambers and hides them under the tunnel system of the Wolf Den where people won’t find them

Geum expects to be able to calm down from this, but he can’t, for some reason his heart keeps racing and he can’t focus and he seems to be hearing something, or someone but it’s too faint for him to really make out yet

He ignores it though, it’s PROBABLY nothing right???

Bamsaegi and co wake up and are found by other FH scouts that came as backup, even though Bam doesn’t really wanna leave yet since he hasn’t even really seen Geum yet, but alas he has no choice but to go back home and come back later

For Geum, things go around the same as usual,

The wolves have a new plan!!! They realize that the Flower Hill soldiers are on fucking crack and are willing to die for just about anything and aren’t afraid of them, so they’re using a lil sci-fi…ish machine to use people’s fears against them and what better way to test it out is throw Geum right into the machine!! Aren’t they sooooo nice?

Now the wolves can’t see Geum’s fear, but they can see his reaction so Geum still has to be careful during this. They wanna see Geum overcome whatever it is hes afraid of (if he’s even afraid of anything) so he can fight against flower hill better and also to see how strong the machine even is (and to perhaps see if he’s really a spy according to Vixen!)

Geum goes in, but it’s weird, it’s nothing nightmarish or even scary its honestly pretty nice, a night open field, lots of flowers, reminds him of home. He can even hear someone humming, who is that anyways? He gets closer and sees a squirrel, is it Jul? There’s no way he’s afraid of Jul. Bam? No, he’s not really scary either, even if he was afraid of losing him it’s not something that would stall him really, but it’s neither of those things. It’s…Him. Him before he was a soldier.

Geum is OBVIOUSLY confused, why is he seeing HIMSELF in something that’s supposed to be his biggest fear, it disturbs him, especially since the other Geum keeps trying to talk to him! He’s so nice?? The complete opposite of him! Was this really how he was?? Why was this his biggest fear??

“Who…What are you?!”

“I’m you! Silly! Finally you start talking! I was worried you went deaf or something!”

“You aren’t me! You’re nothing like me!”

“Well not anymore! You’re a soldier now! Funny how people can change so quickly. It hasn’t even been that long and you can’t even recognize yourself.”

“What the hell…?? Is this thing broken this can’t be my biggest fear this-this is…!”

“Are you okay? You don’t look so good…”

Geum with all the questions racing through his head and the machine being very taxing, passes out before he can finish the test so has to be taken to the infirmary

He has a splitting headache when he woke up, Vixen was near him, asking what happened in there. Geum lies and says he doesn’t remember. Vixen is suspicious but just tells him to relax for a bit and that he can finish the test when he’s recovered, making a comment about how she was pleasantly surprised that he was afraid of something.

Geum hates waiting. He hates staring at the ceiling but these damn mice nurses won’t let him leave until he’s “perfectly healed” or whatever!! It’s late, he hears that faint noise in his head again, familiar but he still can’t quite make it out. He falls asleep.

Midnight, or later, he wakes up, it’s like his body jolts awake and moves on its own, he’s so dizzy but he can’t stop, no one seems to be stopping him either for some reason, he’s outside, none of the nurses even tried to stop him this time. He’s on a flower patch and kinda just…Falls on it. “I remember you giving me a bouquet in a place like this!” A familiar voice said, this time it was so clear. It was Goseumdochi!

Geumsaegi feels like hes going insane, he KNOWS goseumdochi is dead but he can hear him and he can see him! He’s RIGHT THERE! But he can’t touch him, it’s like he’s a ghost! He asks questions, a million of them, but with no answers, Goseum just stares at him and smiles.

And thus begins Geum’s slowly breaking! Varies things happen but two things remain consistent, he keeps going into the fear machine (and failing) and he keeps seeing Goseumdochi and failing to talk to him.

For the first arc of the story this is a constant and it eventually ends with him beating the machine by just…Killing the other version of him. After which Goseum finally starts to answer him.

This leads into Geum eventually questioning things about Flower Hill and himself,

But he isn’t the only character going through a revelation, part 1 Juldarami!!!!! Where is he anyways?

Jul was of course, recovering from the bullet he took. But now he’s fully recovered and ready to help and find Geum. And by GOD he is worried because the commanders, NO ONE, has heard anything from him. Radio silence.

Jul is determined to get to the bottom of it. He goes undercover with his only mission being finding Geum. One problem though, Geum is avoiding him HARD. Everytime Jul gets close Geum runs 20 feet away, so basically it’s a game of cat and mouse with Jul losing his MIND trying to find Geum, and eventually listing the help of…Bamsaegi!!!!

Bamsaegi feels absolutely awful for what’s happening and thinks it’s his fault, so he helps Jul try to find Geum whilst learning about the world outside Flower Hill as he goes undercover and getting particularly close with Huin (which causes him to defect later on!)

Through this both of them learn that Geum…Isn’t exactly the greatest, idolization isn’t a fun thing when the person sucks BALLS.

That’s basically the gist of it, few more things tho,

Throughout this Vixen is doing her own plot to overthrow Commander Wolf and eventually does so Geum has to deal with that during his whole crisis,

Mul!!!! I haven’t exactly finished his whole thing but here’s basically what I have so far!

Mulmangcho is still trying to get Geum exposed as the spy, and he’s getting desperate now that Geum has basically ousted his former position. So he needs to reset things, find himself, BEAT any fear he has so he can crush that squirrel and rip that beautiful fluffy tail of his! So he goes into the fear machine when no one is looking,

His fear is…Weird. It’s a maze with seemingly no exit. Every door leads to another door and those door lead to 39 revolving exit doors that lead him back where he started! It’s frustrating! He hates it! And he’s raging HARD!

He keeps hearing something, like someone is laughing at him. He keeps following and following, until he sees…Geum.

Well great his biggest fear is Geum WHAT A SURPRISE! This thing must be Einstein! Except Geum is…Weird, he isn’t talking, he’s just kinda…Standing there, Mul takes a step forward, he takes a step back, he keeps moving, Geum keeps moving, he runs, Geum runs, but to where?

Mul keeps following Geum, he seems to be getting farther in the Maze than he did before, in the background he can hear glimpses of his life but he isn’t really focusing on that. Geum is leading him to an exit! He’s almost done—And his brother pulls him out of it before he can finish.

Great.

Still, he didn’t understand, he wasn’t scared or nervous throughout the entire thing, so why was that his biggest fear?

(I’m thinking it can lead to Geum and Mul slowly understanding each other!)

It all ends with Geum quitting the military tho and seeing that the commanders SUCK so fun!!!

That’s basically everything, I hope to turn this into a fic or comic of some sort eventually <333

#rei says stuff #squirrel and hedgehog #geumsaegi #bamsaegi #juldarami #lt vixen #lieutenant vixen #officer yeou #mulmangcho #long post #thank you to kosmic for letting me ramble to yhem abt yhis

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simslegacy5083 · 9 months ago

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NSB (Straud Legacy) Gen 9 Ep 32: Beau's Burger

Beau left the nightclub after his fight with Luigi cursing under his breath. Who would have guessed that plumhole was so strong!? Now his wrist complained bitterly whenever he bent it at any angle, and Beau couldn’t afford problems like that, in multiple ways for multiple reasons.

He hadn’t had a chance to grab a bite to eat at the club and now he was starving on top of everything else. Considering his nearly empty fridge at home he turned towards the first burger joint he saw. Greasy fast food wouldn’t fix his hand, but it beat scrounging up scraps back at his place.

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

He arrived and spun out of his costume, with its tight gloves that were pinching his swollen wrist. Heading up to the register he ordered his favorite deluxe burger combo from the pretty cashier. He even added a mint chocolate milkshake, figuring he could hold it against his forearm to numb the pain.

When he heard “Order Up!” Beau eagerly grabbed his tray only to almost spill his shake when he had to drop it back down on the counter. His injured wrist had felt like it was ripping in half when he used it. He let loose with a string of forbidden words, startling the other sim.

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

He started to ask her to bag his meal up so he could carry it home one handed and suffer in private, but she surprised him by grabbing the tray herself.

She called over her shoulder: “Taking my break, be back in 15” as she strode around the counter to the foggy eyed Beau. He could only give her a weak thankful smile as she led the way to a table by the window saying, “This is my favorite spot, it’s got a can’t miss view of the laundromat”.

He sat down where she placed his tray and took a bite of his burger, looking up with surprise as she slid in across from him. “Thank you…?” he said as he squinted at her name badge. “Breanne”, she replied, “and you’re welcome. Waving at his arm she continued “if you don’t mind me asking, what happened here?”

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Beau grumbled, gingerly making a fist and releasing it, wincing at the pain. “An old enemy heard me tell his friend that I didn’t like their stupid Star Wars costume. His Highness took exception to my honesty and picked a fight. He got lucky and I got hurt. Happy Spooky Day to me I guess.”

Breanne nodded along, tucking a stray strand of hair back into her cap and looking up at him from under her bangs as she replied: “Sounds like you picked the wrong Jedi to tussle with. I admit Star Wars isn’t my cup of tea either, but sometimes you gotta let the fans have their day.”

He swallowed his impulse to correct her about Luigi’s costume along with a gulp of his shake. Her statement was true where it mattered. If he was honest, he’d mostly been looking for an excuse to put the boot to his royal pain in the ass, but unfortunately, he’d been the one that had gotten his butt kicked.

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Beau’s tablemate was exactly his type, and he suddenly realized that he might salvage something out of the evening after all. He turned the focus of the conversation by asking after her own preference for Spooky Day attire.

She lit up, giving an oddly fascinating explanation of her candle making side hustle and her wish to make a giant, scented and glowing, costume some year. They spent the next few minutes happily chatting about their hobbies and interests. Learning he was on the University E-Sports team she glanced down again at his aching wrist. “So, you’re headed to the clinic to patch up your mousing hand as soon as you finish our fine cuisine”?

Beau laughed bitterly. “I wish. Sadly, I’m not really rolling in simoleons.” He went on to say he’d be fine, he just needed some ice, a good night’s sleep, and worst case he knew his dad had a wrist brace lying around the house somewhere. As he said the words, he silently hoped they were true.

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She frowned at that but didn’t comment. Rising instead she said “Welp, break times over for me, back to the grind! Good luck with everything kid”.

Before she could walk away Beau forced himself to push past his anxiety and take a chance on being rejected. He blurted out “Hey, can I get your number? Take you out somewhere with an even better view of the laundromat?”

Breanne made his whole week by pointing back at him with a smile as she said “come back tomorrow with a wrist brace, and its yours”. He didn’t know why she’d been so nice, but she was right. Barring a miracle, he’d need his dad’s brace (and painkillers…) to get through his next e-sports practice!

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View The Full Story of My Not So Berry Challenge Here

#sims 4 #sims 4 challenge #sims 4 legacy #sims4 #sims 4 nsb #sims 4 not so berry #sims4nsbstraud #sims 4 let's play #sims 4 gameplay #sims 4 lets play

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andoqin · 1 year ago

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List of dramas that I am watching or want to watch, just for personal record reasons:

Cdramas:

The ingenious one (36/36): this drama has blown me away so far with its incredibly nuanced and sharp writing, its love stories between all the major couples and the absolutely magnificent cinematography. FINISHED verdict: HIGHLIGHT drama of the year for me so far. Smart, engaging, complicated, peak romance of all sorts, just what the doctor ordered tbh (overly long review can be found in my tags). 9.5

Chang Feng Du (40/40): I did not realise how close to the end I was. This drama is very pleasant and I adore our mains, but sadly except for a few highlights (the early beating gjs put on himself, the destruction of the gu family and the aftermath, the battle for wangdu) the writing hasn’t been able to keep the narrative tension up which is sad. FINSHED verdict: Very pretty and engaging in the beginning kinda loses me in the second half and then fizzles out emotionally, doesn't crash and burn but doesn't exactly stick the landing either 6.5

Gone with the rain (10/30): adore the gremlin4gremlin couple and from the spoilers I’ve seen not gonna adore much else

An ancient love song (1/16): incredible first episode and with only 30 min per ep and 16 eps in total this is gonna be a short fun ride I hope ( with lots of angst and tears naturally).

Here we meet again (18/32): started this for Wu Qian playing to type and Zhang BinBin being pretty but oh boy I’m struggling I just don’t care about the conflicts and in s surprising twist, I like the flashbacks to high school much much more, which is very funny if you think about the fact that the reason I started liking wu qian in the first place was because of her show stealing performance in the flashbacks of My Sunshine. I’ve been promised kisses in the near future so I’m gonna hold out till then but this might end up another drop.

Hidden Love (5/25): this one promises to be v sweet and kinda short but oh my god I have so many dramas on my plate rn so this might end up the first drop.

Till the end of the moon (22/40): I think I watched ep 1 when it started but then I got busy and now I am just staring at gifsets and crying, it’s definitely on the list to watch tho.

Heroes (6?/38): I started this a while ago, was really into it and then got busy… dammit. I might just rewatch the beginning so I can remember most of the set up for sure but man the visuals on this were so good, aaaa liu yuning.

Blood of youth (0/40): the last 12 months really have spoiled us with interesting looking wuxia dramas and this one is definitely on the list, I have been gifbaited once again.

Ray of light (0/30): usually hs dramas are something I avoid, but because I will not be watching the longest promise, for reasons, and bc @storge is a gifmaking temptress, this has made it on the list.

The legend of anle (0/39): Lmao trust YOUKU to screw up the release with bad subs only 1 ep even for vips and no released schedule… but at least I can put this on the backburner for now. Lmao should have known not to trust a youku dilreba drama, the tl has soundingly spoken and I'm gonna avoid this.

Ancient Detective (0/24): I was recced this by a friend when I mentioned my love for wuxia dramas, and since it’s almost shockingly short for a cdrama it’s on the list. EDIT: this got @purplehanfus seal of approval so it is def going up the list and since it's complete I'll probably at least watch it before the ongoing ones.

Butterflied love (0/22): see I barely made this post and already forgot about the screencap that got me started on writing it, the screencapa look great, but the drama is on mango, so who knows when I’ll truly be able to watch this

When I fly towards you (0/24): Well, I wasn't interested bc modern youth drama, but then I heard it described as "updated It Started with a Kiss" and... I'm weak? ISWAK was pretty much my crack gateway into asian dramas and while IDK if i could rewatch it today, something in me will always love this kind of story. Maybe it's like a quick palate cleanser in between since apparently eps are only about 30 mins.

Mysterious Lotus Casebook(0/40): CHENG YIIIII, in a possibly bromantic role? Or maybe het romance, I'll take it all. Plus I've already seen he's bleeding copious amounts as per his contract, so that's most of the checklist done.

Lost You Forever (0/??): because nature abhors a vacuum I apparently must have?? A minimum to watch pile and this actually and genuinely looks good??? A Yang Zi drama in 2023??? The mind boggles. Anyway I've been reading the recaps with delight, and am def going to watch this when part two airs in a couple of months but until then I have a thankful reprieve...

Kdramas:

See you in my 19th life (4/12): since kdramas release so slowly this is on the backburner but it does have some great gifsets that keep enticing meee

King the land (2/16): I am watching this for junho but it is kinda hard bc I have so much else on my plate and while I don’t mind a classic romcom type story I feel I need a bit more of an emotional hook

Story of the nine-tailed 1938 (0/16): so so many gorgeous and hilarious gifsets so little time. I loved season one so so much and the fact that this focuses on the brotherly relationship?? Extremely smart writing decisions were made!

The red sleeve (0/16): I blame @dangermousie for this she keeps reblogging angsts junho on my dash and I am but god’s weakest warrior.

Love tractor (0/8): gay himbo farmboy falls in love?? You bet this is on the list

Lady durian (0/?): ok this is only on the list for crack reasons but, daughter in law is in love with mother in law and both women are like 40+ truly kdramas have entered a new era and I kinda wanna be here for that

EDIT: Revenant (0/12): Kim Tae Ri in a spooky drama? POSSIBLY POSSESSED KIM TAE RI??? how could i forget to put her on this list, plus it was written by the Kingdom writer and I adore that drama plus it's only 12 eps which is smart in this case so... let's hope i get to it at some point D:

My dearest (2/20): I checked this out because it's got pretty much everything going for it from a production standpoint and boy did the first two eps deliver. This has got 2 seasons though so I'll probably wait until the second season is airing, since it won't be too long till season 2 or so the internet tells me.

My lovely liar (0/16): minhyun learned to act and I wanna see it happen!!

Jdramas:

Our dining table (2/10): ok this category is gonna be a bit shorter bc I haven’t watched too much drama recently but omg the gifs for this I am just crying thinking about it they look so cute??

Jack o‘frost (0/6): people have recced it and it’s short so here it is.

Utsukushii kare s2 (0/4): Season 1 was an unexpected delight so I hope s2 works just as well.

She loves to cook and she loves to eat (0/10): the manga for this is amazing (and hungry making) so I hope this adaptation holds up.

Ok this list is in no way exhaustive (well except for me being exhausted just trying toward this down) and probably subject to change ( I haven’t even looked at thaidramas or twdramas I gotta stop for now) but hopefully this will keep me on the ball and maybe I can add to it whenever a new tempting gifset crosses my dash…

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autisticbokutoenthusiast · 11 months ago

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tracking nuthphop through music: ep 4 and 5

*warning that songs and timestamps may not be 100% accurate, i tried by best tho. also i tried to descirbe the emotions of some of the songs but im not great at naming emotions so sorry in advance*

Ep 4

first nuthphop scene where phop is streaming.

- (kenji-ooyy 2:00) at the beginning of ep 4 their first contact is nuth private messaging phop while he’s live, the music is digital and in my sleepy state i’ll describe it as uptempo rock guitars with a lil hip hop influence. it’s exciting and sits closer to dark than light.

-(couldnt find the track 2:50) we then change to just nuth and phop messaging and the music is this like quick pulsating suspense synth and kick drum that to me sounds a bit like a beating heart.

- (couldnt find the track 3:20) then it switches to a 4 on the floor disco edm type sound.

- (machine vs machine - dream cave 3:50) when nuths payment comes through we go to dark and heavy synth sounds to me it almost sounds like a battle scene.

- (inverted - hampus naeselius 5:03) when nuth gets blocked we go back to quick pulse beats that sound like it’s misc digital percussion with some haunting higher pitched synths pulsing in and out

Phop agreeing to film with nuth

- (32:23 drifting emotions howard harper-barnes) this song starts right after the keen and phop moment where they have to stop because keen refused to wear a condom, it plays during phops narration about sex work and ends when he checks a message from nuth [the "im so sad you blocked me" one]

- (34:26 ambivalent thoughts- magnus ringblom) their messaging convo is silent until nuth sends a deposit and phop starts seriously considering meeting up with him again. it’s a sentimental piano ballad.

Nuth on the phone with mystery guy (i suspect jason lee) aka my beloved invisible hand scene

- (couldn’t find the track 37:57) it’s silent as the camera zooms in on nuth looking at his bank account. then at his trophy/plaque. when he makes the decision to call to ask to sell drugs [for daddy jason lee??] again theirs a heartbeat like bass drum and various reverbed and echoy percussion sounds that come in and out

- (39:11 cry- johannes bornlôf) another sad piano song. this plays as nuth finishes the phone call. i think it’s interesting that we get sad piano ballads for the phop/nuthphop/nuth scenes because they don’t [typically] repeat songs despite choosing ones that sound very similar…

the filming

- (couldn’t find the track 48:22) phop arrives at the filming location to a hip hop drum beat.

- (colds- guß 48:50) this sorta upbeat while still being lowkey electro instrumental plays when nuth tells phop to relax and they begin to set up

- (49:25 feelin ma self- push n glide) during the test lines this more uptempo and confident beat plays, specifically when nuths camera changes from just filming phop to filming him is a sexual way? idk how i want to explain it but yeah the song changes when the camera nuth is holding changes the way it views phop. [sidenote hihats in this one lowkey hit, idk what the gun shot sounds doing here tho].

- (50:22 kenji- ooyy) then we have an upbeat synth and electric guitar based hip hop beat when nuth says he’ll start revealing the acts he wants phop to do and what he’ll pay for them. This is the same song they play during our very first nuthphop moment so its like full circle for them in terms of their journey this ep (i think this may represent the fact that they begin and end with nuth paying phop to perform on camera for him) [side note the beat drops when nuth says he’ll wear a condom]

- i will also mention a trap beat plays at the end of the ep but it plays over all the characters so i’m not really counting it as a nuthphop song

ep 5

nuth and phop are chilling high on the bacony with nuth teasing and recording phop.

- (30:35 kobicha- arden forest) a sad? low piano solo plays while nuth watches fondly as phop tries to lick his own elbow.

- (31:24 yoiyami- sayuri hayashi egnell) a different piano solo (brighter and a bit pluckier) plays as phop begins reading nuths new script. this song continues playing through the “people like us can’t make porn that gets seen as art or wins awards, ours only gets seen as obscene” scene. it stops when nuth starts looking sad and phop changes the subject to having to leave and go to work.

- (32:50 ambivalent thoughts- magnus ringblom) this is the song that played last ep when nuth asked phop to consider filming with him and sends a deposit. this starts playing as nuth carries phop out on his back and then as hes shaving him. it stops abruptly with a high pitched noise when phop refers to nuth as his client and nuth points out he can only pay with drugs and not cash. there’s not music playing as nuth asks phop not to leave him to go work.

- (34:15 scared of water - kikoru) this eerie string piece plays as nuth stares down at phop with the shaving blade in his hand, it continues throughout them kissing and the pan down to nants necklace on the floor

artsy nuthphop scene

- (45:40 yoiyami- sayuri hayashi egnell) [notice this played earlier] it begins during the convo where aob rejects puen and then carries into the scene where the camera is all shaky and nuth and phop are under a purplish spotlight in a room that is dark. as nuth says “im hallucinating i can hear his voice” phop suddenly appears next to him and says “im physically here” and the music stops abruptly. i will say because of where it played earlier in the ep this song feels like it represents nuths hopeless feelings.

- (46:49 i can’t find this song for shit yall im sorry like it’s making me insane i cannot find this fucking song) phop says “i miss you” and nuth says “me or the drugs?” when phop says “both” a new song starts and plays while they have sex it’s upbeat and with strings and digital percussion and have lyrics that give like love against the odds vibes or like love at the end of the world. this is while they have sex and theres also random shots of a field of grain? and cowboys hugging?

- (49:08 incomplete- gavin luke) after they wake up and are staring at eachother a new piano song plays it’s kinda sad not in a i’m sad way but in a feeling lowkey CALM calm is the word but also light

- (50:00 last level part 2- hey son) this song plays briefly when phop picks up and shows nuth the N necklace. and nuth has a flashback.

- (50:40 hope will prevail- ecobel) this piano part that leads into like edm ish lowkey beats plays when phop asks it he can keep the necklace to remind him of nuth. the beat drops when they kiss.

this was really interesting imo. like how in ep 4 they begin and end the ep with the same song, how when they're being honest about emotions and feelings they get piano ballads but they have different flavours, etc. im excited to do the next eps

ep 6

#playboyy the series #playboyy meta #nuthphop #nuth playboyy #phop playboyy

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sammysdewysensitiveeyes · 11 months ago

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@ratsandfashion

Because you expressed some interest, here is my guide to watching Dark Shadows on Amazon Prime, specifically the episodes featuring Roger Collins, rich asshole and hilariously bad father. This only covers up to Ep. 365, as I am nowhere near finished watching the series.

First off, please know that you are under no obligation to actually watch any of this, or to enjoy it if you do try watching it. Dark Shadows is a ridiculous show, the early episodes are all dripping with dark, moody shots and a creepy, forlorn atmosphere to the point of feeling like a parody. Tim Burton only wishes he were as goth as Dark Shadows. The show is also a low-budget, daily soap opera, which means plots get constantly rehashed and dragged out forever, and most scenes get only one take. You will see characters fumble their lines just about every episode, and some hilarious prop disasters. Nevertheless, it’s a fun and interesting show for those of us who are fans, they go absolutely buckwild with the supernatural, and I think there are some genuinely good actors. (And also some really bad ones.)

Dark Shadows on Amazon Prime has been divided into “Dark Shadows,” which starts with vampire Barnabas’s first appearance around Episode 210 (because that’s the part everyone wants to see) and runs until the end of the series, and “Dark Shadows: The Beginning,” which starts the series from the actual beginning, and runs up until Barnabas. Dark Shadows: The Beginning is honestly less interesting before characters like Barnabas and Julia Hoffman and Angelique show up to stir shit, but Roger has a greater role in Dark Shadows: The Beginning. He’s a terrible father and a selfish cad with a shady past, and ex-con Burke Devlin is there on a revenge plot against him. Much of the main pre-Barnabas storyline is about Roger’s past crimes, Burke and Roger, and later Roger’s estranged wife Laura. Louis Edmonds, who plays Roger, gives the character some charisma and witty charm, and is especially good at correcting his line fumbles and landing on his feet when a scene goes awry.

Dark Shadows: The Beginning

Btw, there are some spoilers in here, if you care about that. Given that I’ve already been posting spoilers on my blog, I’m guessing you don’t.

Ep. 1 – Roger’s very first appearance is a close-up of him pouring himself a drink. Get used to this, it’s his signature move. He snarks at his sister Elizabeth, who is brooding out the window, calls his son David a “monster,” and says that Liz is making a mistake by hiring governess Vicky. He is a delightful, witty asshole with limited power. Elizabeth is clearly the one calling the shots at Collinwood, and she is only letting Roger stay at Collinwood for the sake of David.

Ep. 2-5, 7, 9, 12-13 – Roger spends much of these episodes freaking out over Burke Devlin’s return, while trying to pretend that he is not freaking out, harassing artist/drunk Sam Evans (who shares a dark secret with Roger concerning Burke’s past). Sam is clearly wracked with guilt, Roger only wants to save his own skin. He believes Vicky is potentially in league with Burke, or that she’ll at least let something slip that will get the family (meaning Roger himself) into trouble. He alternates between interrogating Vicky and turning on the charm. He avoids being an actual father as much as possible, and actively wants to send his son away. Ideally far, far away from him. We also get the history that Roger left town under mysterious circumstances, and that Liz has been sending him money every month on the basis that he never come back.

Ep. 15, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26, 28, 30, 31, 32, 36 – Roger gets into a car accident when his brakes fail, and is “nearly killed,” although he winds up with a bandage on his forehead and his arm in a sling. Roger was on his way to meet Burke Devlin in town, and Vicky saw Burke snooping around Roger’s car shortly before the accident, so Roger immediately assumes that Burke tried to kill him and spends several episodes trying to prove it while dragging Vicky in as a witness. Turns out it was David tampering with Roger’s brakes, and Roger reacts like a loving, concerned parent – by yelling at David and saying horrible things to/about him. Roger also suggests that David might be Burke’s bio son rather than his, since Roger’s wife Laura was originally dating Burke. In Ep. 36, Roger literally says something to David like, “Is the devil afraid of the shadows he lives in?” Father of the year, and also an absolute drama queen, like every other Collins. Liz covers the whole thing up by having loyal family handyman Matthew Morgan take the blame and claim it was a problem of negligent maintenance.

Ep. 37, 39, 40, 41, 45, 46, 47, 50, 51, 54-56, 59, 62, 65, 66, 68, 71, 74-76, 78, 80, 82, 83, 86-89, 93, 95-97, 100-106 The plot of Burke Devlin’s revenge, and Roger’s past crimes continues. Burke makes moves against the family business, Roger continues to harass Sam Evans about their shared secret, and harass Vicky about her supposed “snooping” and anytime she so much as speaks to Burke. Things heat up when plant manager Bill Malloy calls a meeting between Burke, Sam and Roger, ready to throw Roger under the bus to spare Liz from Burke’s revenge plot – but Bill is murdered before he can arrive at the meeting. The show then spends a loooong time casting suspicion on Roger, Burke and Sam as suspects, including a drawn-out storyline about some extra special unique pen that Burke gave to Carolyn and then Roger took from Carolyn to give back to Burke, and that Vicky finds near the site of Bill’s murder. You would not believe how many episodes this show spends on the pen. Roger is either a vaguely sinister figure, or a savior for Vicky depending on which way the story is leaning and new revelations about who had the pen last. (Turns out that murderer is a completely different character.) Ep. 41 has Roger flippantly admitting to Liz that he frittered away his inheritance money, but he “enjoyed himself doing it,” which I think is a defining moment for him. Liz is all about family legacy and responsibility and has a strong, determined personality, Roger doesn’t give a fuck, and will happily live off his sister’s money. (Not very Shaw of him, I know. I think Liz is the one that Sebastian might actually respect.) Ep. 87 has Roger find Vicky after David locked her in a room in the closed-off west wing of the house, but first he spends a few minutes fucking with her because he is once again trying to drive her away from Collinwood, and it is hilarious, it’s like a grown man doing middle school pranks.

Ep. 112, 114, 119, 125, 126, 127 – The Bill Malloy murder plot is resolved when handyman Matthew Morgan admits to the crime, so Roger is off the hook. But Matthew also holds Vicky hostage due to her knowledge of his crime, first briefly at his cottage, then for several days in a secret room at the Old House. Poor Vicky can’t catch a break! Roger is callously unconcerned when Vicky disappears, nursing a grudge for her getting him arrested over the whole pen debacle. David, who has been sneaking food to Matthew and is convinced that he is innocent, eventually discovers Vicky, but it still takes him forever to finally tell an adult about it. Roger, as usual, doesn’t believe David and dismisses him completely, but thankfully Burke Devlin, who is getting set up as a romantic interest for Vicky and being written more heroically, gets off his ass to do something and drags Roger along with him. The two set aside their differences to head out to the Old House with guns to rescue Vicky. They still would have been too late, but the ghosts of the Old House actually do something useful and scare Matthew to death.

Ep. 128-132, 134-140, 146, 147, 149-154, 156-158, 160, 161, 163, 165, 167, 169-171, 178, 182, 183, 187, 188, 191, 192 – The next big plot arc on the show is the return of Laura Collins, Roger’s estranged wife and David’s mother, who first shows up during the Matthew Morgan arc as a mystery woman hanging out at the diner. Laura wants a divorce and full custody of David, and Roger is only too eager to give her both those things, but Elizabeth, who actually gives a shit about David, objects. Laura has spent time in a mental hospital, and she was away for most of David’s life, so he barely remembers her. David also has a weird fear response to seeing Laura, which is natural for a kid meeting a parent that’s been gone so long, but in the context of the show turns out to be something supernatural. Laura is also the former girlfriend of Burke Devlin, so there is a lot of drama back and forth between them, and Roger comes to suspect that they are both plotting against him. In Ep. 139 Roger catches Burke meeting Laura on Collinwood grounds, holds a gun on him, and hilariously insists that he could kill Burke and get away with it because Burke is trespassing. Roger, buddy, that’s not how the law works, even in the gun-crazy US. There’s also drama about Sam Evans feeling compelled to paint a picture of Laura surrounded by fire, and suspicions about a burned body that was found in Laura’s old apartment. Laura’s behavior becomes more and more sinister, Elizabeth winds up comatose in the hospital from a mystery illness, and Vicky investigates Laura’s past with the help of bland boyfriend Frank Garner (he’ll just disappear from the show) and intensely boring character/terrible actor Dr. Guthrie. Eventually they realize that Laura is a legendary phoenix, who has “died” in fire and resurrected herself many times over the centuries (and this before Jean Grey ever did it), and who wants to take David with her this time. Roger is his usual shitty self most of the time, condescendingly dismissing everyone’s concerns and delighted at the chance to get rid of David. Finally, even Roger gets onboard the “Save David” train, especially after he sees an actual supernatural occurrence (a book opening by itself) that he can’t explain away, in Ep. 182. Laura eventually lures David to a fishing shack to burn them both alive, David is saved by Vicky, the real MVP of this arc. Afterwards, in Ep. 192, Roger at least attempts to show some concern and affection for David. Roger also shows some real emotion and concern when Elizabeth collapses, although he later insists that Liz is just “being dramatic” over not getting her own way.

As an aside – Roger spends a lot of these episodes in a fancy-dandy rich guy outfit that reminds me a lot of one St. John Allerdyce in his early appearances. And Shaw himself, of course.

Ep. 193, 194, 196-198, 200, 201, 204 – The next big plot arc on the show is the appearance of con man Jason McGuire, who is there to blackmail Elizabeth over skeletons in her closet (or rather under the basement floor). Liz has been reclusive and secretive this whole series, and this arc will explain at least some of her actions. And we’ve already had two arcs about Roger’s shady past, it’s Liz’s turn! Jason also brings his sidekick, petty criminal Willie Loomis who will play the very important role of unleashing vampire Barnabas from his coffin and onto the show. Barnabas will become insanely popular and dominate the show, gradually edging out characters like Roger and Liz, although they still stick around and get occasional storylines. Roger is just kind of there for much of these arcs – there’s a plot line about Sam Evans demanding old paintings back from him, but it doesn’t really go anywhere. Roger does express concern and frustration over Liz basically letting Jason walk all over her, and offers his help as her brother. In Ep. 242, for example, he seems genuinely concerned and supportive. Ep. 200-201 are also important for Roger, as Sam and Burke confront him and he finally admits the truth of the crime he committed years ago (killing someone in a drunk hit-and-run, blaming Burke). Burke is satisfied with Roger’s admission of guilt, and finally drops his revenge plot – this both wraps up that storyline, and lets Burke shift from antagonist into Vicky’s love interest. Despite not having as much to do, Roger is hilarious when he does show up, very much the “drink in one hand, witty comment” rich guy snob, again reminding me of early Pyro and well-written Sebastian.

Dark Shadows

After all that, you have finally made it to the main Dark Shadows collection, starting with Ep. 210.

Ep. 214, 219, 240-242, 249, 252, 264, 268, 272, 273, 277, 280, 281, 313, 330, 331, 334, 339, 354, 357, 362, 365 – Vampire Barnabas Collins has come to town, introducing himself as their distant cousin from England, a descendant of the original Barnabas, and bearing a remarkable resemblance to his portrait on the wall. Barnabas fixes up the Old House to live in, takes on Willie as a servant despite everyone’s objections (Willie was so shitty everyone was ready to run him out of town), and seems like a perfect gentleman, if a bit strange and mysterious. Of course, Barnabas has bitten Willie and placed him in thrall, and bites then kidnaps waitress Maggie Evans, and tries to brainwash her into becoming his bride. Meanwhile, Jason McGuire continues to blackmail Liz, attempts to force her into marriage, and Liz finally breaks down and reveals her own deep dark secret – she killed her husband. Except it turns out she really didn’t, Jason just let her think she did. There’s a great sequence of Roger and Burke chasing Jason through the woods with guns as he flees in Ep. 272, and him having a heart-to-heart talk with Liz in 273.

The Barnabas plot continues, as Maggie escapes, loses her memory, gets committed. This brings in Dr. Julia Hoffman, who quickly figures out that Barnabas is a vampire, and offers an experiment to cure his condition, while hypnotizing Maggie into forgetting everything and helping Barnabas cover his crimes. Julia, like Willie, will become one of Barnabas’s main sidekicks/enablers. Throughout this, Roger continues to be a witty rich guy who always has a drink in one hand, and a bad father, although more caring and less openly hostile to his son. David starts to learn things about Barnabas (not to mention hanging out with Barnabas’s dead sister Sarah) and Roger and Liz discuss sending him away, as they think he has become delusional. (David is actually completely right in everything he says.) Ep. 354 introduces a lawyer who is representing an employee of the Collins family cannery who is apparently suing due to a workplace injury, and whom Roger has been ignoring for some time. Good to see Roger cares about his employees as much as Sebastian does!

In Ep. 365, Vicky Winters is transported to 1795 during a séance, where she will stay until Ep. 461. This entire arc is all in the past, there is no back-and-forth, and Roger’s actor plays Joshua Collins, the stern, cruel businessman with bushy sideburns who is even more Shaw than Roger himself. Shortly after Vicky’s return, Roger will abruptly marry Cassandra, who is Barnabas’s nemesis Angelique in a bad wig, and her control over Roger will be his main story arc for awhile. But I haven’t gotten there yet.

If you have read this much, I am impressed. This “guide” was fun to write, and helped me appreciate Roger, a character that I never paid much attention to when I first watched the show. He’s become one of my favorites now.

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boysplanetrecaps · 2 years ago

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Boys Planet Recap, Episode 7 part 3 - Rush Hour

This recap will cover the Rush Hour rehearsal and performance from Ep 7! People have said they were looking forward to my thoughts on this, so I thought I’d go ahead and put this part up by itself rather than paired with another team. Here we go!

Huta introduces the next song and out comes team Rush Hour.

Left to right: Ma Jing Xiang, Hiroto, Takuto, Ricky, and Oh Sungmin

I’ll remind you that our commuters are:

Trainee name (rank) Star Level test /Challenge 1 /age final star level

Ricky (12) Kick It - G /Back Door - G /18 ⭐⭐

Takuto (15) Instead Of... /Danger - G /15 ⭐

Hiroto (21) Conduct Zero /Very Nice - G /20 ⭐⭐

Ma Jing Xiang (32) Reveal /Very Nice - G /19 🚫

Oh Sung Min (34) Bloom Bloom /Love Me Right - K /21 ⭐⭐⭐

They introduce themselves as “Awesome Hour.” There is clearly a very loud cheer after Ricky introduces himself, but it is also very clearly cut off by the editing. Ma Jing Xiang’s intro is actually cut off a split second before he finishes saying his name, and the conspiracy theorist in me says they cut off his cheer, too. They pan the audience and we see signs for Ricky, Oh Sung Min, Ma Jing Xiang, and Hiroto -- I think I see more signs for MJX than for anyone else, but that’s just what I see.

Huta asks Sungmin, “Did you have any difficulties leading the team?”

There’s a long pause. In the judging room on the space station, vocal judge Onestar says “This team was all over the place.” Solji says, “They should work as a team,” and I’m already on edge.

I’ll remind you that when we first saw this team rehearsing in episode 6, there was already some bullshit going on. Takuto was having a hard time with the choreo, which happens. But Oh Sungmin was insisting that everyone stay together while Takuto practiced the same line over and over, and the editing tried to make it seem like both Ma Jing Xiang and Ricky were both selfish jerks for wanting to work ahead a bit. I’m not convinced, but we heard from Sungmin and Hiroto talking about how they need better teamwork.

We get a flashback to the song selection day, to something we didn’t see the first time, and find out that as Ricky approached the Rush Hour team, the sign fell down.

This whole moment is such a multi-layered metaphor for the way this show works. MNET is trying to present this as if Ricky is a bad luck omen, or as if the sign falling off the wall is symbolic of the troubles the team would have. And yet, the truth is that the signs were poorly applied to the wall, because MNET is cheap and shitty and lazy, and the sign falling had nothing whatsoever to do with these trainees. So the metaphor here isn’t that Ricky is a bad luck omen; the metaphor is that the sign is cheap the way that MNET is cheap. The metaphor is that MNET blaming the trainees for their own sign falling down symbolizes the way they for trainees to do emotionally difficult things and then blame them for their emotional response. The metaphor is that MNET blaming a set design failure on a Chinese trainee is symbolic of how they blame everything on Chinese trainees. The metaphor is that MNET sucks as bad as this set sucks.

(I put the preceding in its own post because I felt so passionate about it. Anyway.)

I think the bigger news is how happy MJX is to see Ricky.

Aww! We barely know either of these trainees, so I had no idea that they were friendly. He’s so happy! It’s so cute. (Me in the future knows that this will turn out to be important later, too, though when I screen capped this I had no idea.)

So, we cut to a day or two later. The trainees are in a rehearsal room. MJX is practicing the dance while listening to headphones. Ricky has an idea for a new thing they could do with the choreo, and suggests it to Hiroto. I think Hiroto has a hard time understanding him, and Oh Sungmin isn’t there, and Takuto isn’t helpful, so Ricky tries to ask MJX to help him demonstrate his idea.

MJX basically refuses even to take out his headphones at first, and then when pushed to it, says that they don’t have enough time, and it’s more important to practice the choreography than it is to make changes to it.

Ricky interviews that he didn’t understand MJX’s perspective, because at that point it was D-6 and in Ricky’s view, they DID have time to make changes. MJX then interviews that they didn’t have time, because in his view, they didn’t. Then Oh Sungmin interview that he finds them both inconsiderate.

Sigh. This is like one of those “Am I the asshole?” posts on reddit, and I want to vote, “NAH” -- no assholes here.

Ricky is a strong dancer and has a lot of cool ideas, and besides, part of what the trainees are demonstrating in this battle is their choreography skills. The upcoming elimination probably isn’t that scary to him --- he knows he has a solid fan base and is likely to make it, so he’s not stressed out. He knows intellectually that MJX and Sungmin aren’t in that position, but it’s probably too much for him to stay constantly focused on. Also, he probably assumes that if their team wins the position battle, the extra votes will help save them too, so he’d better make their performance as cool as possible! He just wants to share what he’s good at with his teammates, like a gift… Why shouldn’t they utilize his skills, if he has them?

Meanwhile, from MJX’s perspective, changing the choreography all the time is making a difficult situation even worse. He’s not a strong dancer, and I assume he’s terrified of being scolded by the psychopath dance teachers. He also, presumably, doesn’t want to put on a bad performance that gets mocked online. And of course, he doesn’t want to go home, but he’s ranked 32 and things don’t look good for him. He probably resents Ricky a little bit, subconsciously -- Ricky is a good dancer, Ricky is super popular, Ricky speaks Korean better than he does (though MJX speaks it decently), and Ricky is ALWAYS trying to change the choreo. MJX is stressed out and ready to snap, and Ricky is just piling on more stress. Yeah, the level to which he’s angry isn’t great. But it’s understandable, if you get me. He’s scared, and fear often can manifest as anger.

Meanwhile, what Sungmin sees is bickering and time-wasting while he’s trying to lead. Chinese culture is really different from his, and even their normal interactions probably seem brash and rude to him -- not saying that he’s racist, just saying that it’s hard to NOT view people through the lens of what you’re used to in your own culture. Also, Sungmin is already so stressed out trying to get Takuto on track with the dance, and meanwhile he himself is actually the lowest ranked on the team and probably scared of going home. He’s down to his last nerve, and they’re getting on it.

Yes, it would be great if they could say to themselves and each other, “Wow, the stress is getting to me. I’m sorry. Let’s try to find a compromise.” I think a leader like formerly blue-haired Park Hanbin or Mr. Sexy Kim Jiwoong could, each in his own way, resolve this -- Hanbin by keeping control from the first minute, and Jiwoong by using his emotional intelligence to get everyone talking honestly about how they’re feeling and encouraging compromise. (Though Jiwoong would haaaaaaaaaaate being in this situation.)

But Oh Sungmin isn’t quite up to the challenge, and it’s a lot to ask from these stressed out teenagers that they exert that kind of control over their emotional responses. We see Sungmin trying to smooth things over by reminding them of their common goal. But things have already gone too far, and they need a bigger intervention than that.

That night, Takuto -- who has a little set of plushie letters spelling his name in English, and has his official red and white pjs still on his bed -- is getting pretty upset.

Remember, he’s 15 -- to him, having the hyungs all fighting probably feels like when your mom and dad fight. They’re also taller than him, and he doesn’t understand their language very well. And meanwhile, the dancing is already really really difficult for him. He’s got to be near collapse.

The next day, MJX is still really prickly and difficult to work with again. He won’t budge an inch, even when Sungmin tries to offer a compromise. There’s a bit in the choreo where Ricky is supposed to playfully push MJX out of the way, and MJX is saying that he “knows” that Ricky will push him really hard later on -- something he can’t know, because it’s in the future. In other words, he’s irrational. It’s not easy to watch.

The formerly blue-hared Park Hanbin, who has been sharing a rehearsal room with them (why can’t each team have its own room???) has noticed, and interviews, “The Rush Hour team can’t communicate with each other. To be honest, I don’t think they’re willing to do it.”

I think Hanbin is on to something there. I mean, maybe I’m wrong, but I theorize that for MJX, it’s easier to stay angry, because while you’re angry, you have a shield up. As long as he’s blaming Ricky for making things difficult, he’s not thinking as much about how poor his own skills are. Sitting down and having a talk, a real talk, would involve admitting how scared he is and how sad he is and how envious he probably is. It’s not something he really wants to do. Angry is safe. Don’t get me wrong - he’s acting like a complete jerk. It’s just that I can understand why and empathize with him anyway, because I’ve been in his shoes. I think we all have.

Takuto starts to cry out of frustration and probably hopelessness, and Sungmin tries to comfort him (Sungmin speaks a bit of Japanese to him, which is sweet). MJX doesn’t acknowledge what’s going on -- he just wants to keep going. Oh Sungmin tries to have an actual group conversation, but MJX says, “Sungmin-hyung, You don’t have to explain, we just have to practice.” He’s quite close to Sungmin as he says it, and tensions feel high. Hiroto tries to say that if they don’t resolve the situation, it’ll keep happening, but MJX isn’t listening. He’s found an emotional level to be on that feels safe and he’s going to stay there. Finally, Sungmin has to walk away to calm down. I noticed that MJX immediately pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket and begins practicing his rap the second that Sungmin is just a few steps away. You can feel the anxiety vibrating out of MJX, but that doesn’t help Sungmin, who is hiding in a stairwell and trying not to cry.

Time passes, and now it’s day D-1 -- dress rehearsal. What have the the boys been doing for three days? We’re left to assume that they’ve been in this exact same tense state the whole time, and if so, that’s awful. I guess they’ve just been running rehearsals with MJX in this emotional state the whole time.

They perform their dress rehearsal -- we don’t see much of it -- and when they’re done, the judges say, “it’s not fun because you’re not having fun.” Presumably they’d have other feedback, but we don’t hear any of it. The storyline isn’t about whether Hiroto is pronouncing Korean correctly or not, or whether Ricky wrote a fun rap or not, or whether Takuto did the dance well or not, or whether Oh Sungmin looks cute up on stage or not. It’s about how MJX is a jerk, and so the only feedback we hear is the feedback that pertains to that.

That night, they have a meeting in the dorm room. (We can see that a few of them are wearing their official pajamas.) Oh Sungmin says, “I left my group (T01) to be here, and I feel like my life is in danger -- if I don’t make it here, I can’t be an idol.” I don’t know if that’s true, Sungmin -- you’re signed to WakeOne. But anyway.

Hiroto says, in essence, “Me too, this is my third shot, and I feel like it’s my last chance.” And MNET isn’t doing you any favors, either, Hiroto-kun. Ganbatte kudasai, Hiroto-kun!

MJX says, “I don’t want this to prevent us from giving a good performance, either. I’ll trust everyone and keep going.” I still feel tension radiating from him, but I can see he’s trying to take it down a notch.

Ricky says, “I’m so, so, sorry.”

It’s interesting that we don’t see MJX apologize -- I feel like he would have? He’d have to, right? But MNET doesn’t show it.

MJX and Ricky give each other an awkward hug, which seems to be initiated more by MJX than by Ricky, and there’s some awkward laughter. MJX interviews that they said what they needed to say to one another -- it's easier for him to forgive the others than I think it is for them to forgive him, I think. Also, I think he and Ricky really are friends, so their arguing, while uncomfortable to everyone else, probably felt "safe" to them -- they knew they'd make up sooner or later.

The meeting probably helped, but I think it was like shoving stuff into drawers and saying you've cleaned. Just like how you have to get all the junk out from under your bed if you're really, really going to clean, I think they needed to have a real knock-down drag out FIGHT, with full on yelling even, if necessary, get it all out, and then talk it out. But I think they were all kind of scared to go there, and sometimes it's easier to just make up than it is to talk it out.

Anyway.

It’s D-day, and they huddle backstage. Sungmin says, “it doesn’t matter what our process was -- we just need to have fun. I love you all.” Ricky says, “I love you all” too, and they do a “hana-dul-set, FIGHTING!”

So, that brings us to the performance. And before we get there, I’ll just say my final thoughts on all of this squabbling. As I said above, no one here is an irredeemable asshole. This is a group of extremely stressed out young men. They’re put in a situation in which they are competing with each other constantly, and yet are expected to get along with each other perfectly. They’re supposed to put on a team performance, and yet they will be ranked afterward, with the best team member winning extra points. It must be so stressful and draining. I know I couldn't do it!

Did MNET “evil edit” MJX? Well, yes and no. I mean, he did do those things, just as Lee Da Eul really did treat his team like they were his underlings. Those are things that happened. MNET “evil edited” them by… showing that. However, MNET created a situation in which power dynamics would be all out of whack, in which constant competition leaves everyone scared and constant rehearsal leaves everyone physically exhausted, and in which constant berating from psychopath judges leave everyone traumatized. In other words, my earlier statement holds: MNET makes trainees do emotionally difficult things and then blames them for their emotional response.

So, what’s the solution? Well, for starters, I think it would be good if MNET gave the boys a few more days to rehearse, which would lead to decreased stress AND better performances. That’s win win! I think they need to provide more access to translators -- they could start by installing google translate in those tablets the boys have. I also think that it wouldn’t hurt to have some sort of guidance available from the staff -- counselors, mediators, something like that. Even just a sort of “dorm mother” who is there to look after especially the younger members -- if there was someone watching over the 15 years olds, there would be less pressure on the 18 year olds. And the upper management really has to reconsider what is acceptable and what isn’t acceptable when it comes to the judges’ behavior. I have friends who do theater, and they tell me that being a sociopathic asshole is “normal” from dance teachers, but it shouldn’t be.

Ultimately, though, a show like this is going to do this. Any real pressure on MNET to improve conditions will probably have to come from the Korean population, not from us Global fans. I console myself in knowing that I’ll support these trainees on their stages to come.

The performance

If you’re curious as to what they actually say in their raps, I found these lyrics. Lyrics that were in English and didn’t need translation are in green. Note that the first line of Ricky’s rap was already in the original song.

Ricky:

Yo I’ve been walking on the street yo From UN Village to Hangangjin Station, Ladies know my name, Mr. young and rich ya, Pop champagne take a chill, feel my feel, everyone get out of the way

MJX:

People ask me to look at my reflection in the cold mirror from a few years ago, Man in the mirror, now it shines, my natural flow, You gotta get some to the top, child you’re doing well

Sungmin

Now I’m feeling like a funky boy dance like this, Everyone follow me, look carefully, even if I rap. I’ll go to a higher place than others

Takuto:

Even if I’m not confident, the star protects me, it’s dark to me, there’s no future, I’m still very young, still I’m worried about the challenge, so I’m going to watch Toyonaga Takuto.

(much later in the song)

Hiroto:

I’m a homebody, but on stage, I show and prove, Once you see me, you can’t forget me, We living live in busy planet, Sooner or later we’ll be filling up in our name

My Take

I wish I’d thought to watch the performance on Youtube before I watched all the behind-the-scenes stuff, because I’m sure it colored my view. But really, I think it came out ok. The song and general choreo style are both so high energy that even a remotely decent performance of it will be fun to watch. I don’t think I would have picked up on their backstage tension just by watching this.

MJX is bubbly and fun on stage, and did a surprisingly decent job at both rapping and dancing compared to what we’ve seen in the past from him. I think he may have actually been the best rapper on the team, which is a wild statement to make, but, yeah, I think so. He looked like he was having fun, too.

Oh Sungmin’s rap was surprisingly basic for a native speaker, but I actually liked his flow despite that, and despite the fact that he is a vocalist, not a rapper. He was ranked pretty low and probably got pushed out of the song he wanted. He has a lot of charm on stage -- this might be the first time that I’ve really seen what he can do on stage this way, because he was so overshadowed in Love Me Right.

Speaking of first times, I think this is the first time I really got it why people like Ricky so much. He looked a lot more comfortable on this stage than I’ve seen him in the past, and he owned that center position even when he was on the side of the stage. Also, he’s really a master of looking super serious and then dropping a smile that catches you by surprise. I still think he’s a bit stiff, but it’s hard to do choreography in time with others when you’re taller than them. Also, he makes that microphone disappear into the sub-ether after he uses it. I’ve watched that part like 10 times and I can’t figure out where he puts it! That’s some stage trickery right there. No matter whether he makes it to the top 9 or not, the Yuehua group that will debut out of this show will be stacked!

Hiroto’s a cutie pie. His rapping wasn’t anything to write home about, but I think his Korean is still pretty shaky and it must be tough. His little dance solo at about 1:53 was a lot of fun and perfectly in line with the feeling of the song -- I wonder if he choreographed it?

I know Takuto is trying his best, but his dancing is weak it looks almost half-hearted, and throws off the syncing for the group as a whole. You can see some of the adjustments the team made for him -- they gave him a microphone to hold while he rapped, to give him something to do with his hands (it was pretty funny when he held the mic out while he said the last word and it was super obvious the mic wasn’t on). They also gave him a little mini dance solo in which he did the main repeating dance move, just by himself. They also let him do his one big move, that back flip he also did in his star level test, and he landed it much better this time than he did the first time. I really hope he doesn’t pass through this next elimination round, since it is clear to me at least that there are more deserving trainees here, but I’ve come around to liking him. He’s a genuine, hard working, well-intentioned kid, and while he is obviously not ready to debut, who knows, in a few years he might be.

The editing

There’s a lot of focus on how handsome Ricky and MJX are, and how cute Takuto is. Predictably, Sungmin and Hiroto are largely neglected. We see Takuto’s flip several times, but there’s no focus on Hiroto’s dance break, for example.

Afterward, the judges talk about how the team didn’t look like they were having fun on stage, and I really think that their opinion was colored by knowing the back story. They also say that they think Hiroto has had bad luck -- which, yeah, I don’t know if it’s luck exactly that happened to Hiroto.

The voting

Ricky takes the win with 745 votes, and we see a real genuine smile from him, not a stage smirk, and it’s very charming.

Oh Sungmin can’t quite bring himself to smile about it, though -- he worked so hard and is probably not going to see much reward for it. But you’re WakeOne, lovey! You’ll redebut with Kim TaeRae and Park Hanbin and Anthonny and Haruto and it’ll be ok… I hope.

We find out that Takuto came in last with 569 votes. That’s a decent tally, though, for him. He interviews, in Korean, that he was a little bit sad, but satisfied because he did everything he could. He’s learned an insane amount in a short period of time and really defied my first impression of him.

In an interview, Oh Sungmin responds to a question that must have been something like, “how did it feel to perform together?”

He says, “It just felt like were performing together. A lot of things happened, but I’m glad we’re done with it.” After a brief pause he adds, “I think we did well.”

Yeah, there’s still a lot of resentment there. Really, I feel bad for everyone on this team. This was just sort of a clusterfuck.

And that's it for this recap! I'll pick up later with my thoughts on Limousine and whatever song is after that!

#Ricky #Takuto #Hiroto #Ma Jing Xiang #Oh Sungmin #Oh Sung Min #t01 #to1 jermone #boys planet #boys planet recap #boysplanet999 #boysplanet #boys planet 999 #rush hour

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eigwayne · 2 years ago

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CR ep 32 Livebloggin’ while I wait for a new batch of daikon pickles to soak! I wasn’t going to bother but then I remembered how people seem to enjoy seeing newbies get into shows, and frankly I won’t remember half of what I thought if I don’t write it down, lol~

Anyways:

Piiiiiike! They needed a cleric so bad for this adventure, even if it’s just mechanically. Thank goodness Ashley could Skype in for a session. She does seem to be bolstering their morale, too. They’re all more willing to take chances and fight the good fight with her around.

I am very proud of Sam for remembering to ask BEFORE firing the spell if Scanlan would hit Pike with his thunderbolt. Slightly less amused that he had to immediately ruin the mood with the thundercock thing, but I guess he wouldn’t be Scanlan if he didn’t add inappropriate jokes wherever possible.

(PS, if you ever play 2e, gentle readers, see if your DM allows Spellcraft and/or Tactics of Magic non-weapon proficiencies. They are used to reflect your magical training and you can ToM in particular can be used to assist your spell targeting to avoid your melee members. We almost never had friendly fire because of this, and let me tell you, seeing these players hit each other with spells and shit so often make me miss Tactics of Magic something awful.)

Yes! And they’re fighting the giants! And helping civilians! Ashley may be a bit indecisive at times but Pike has such a great effect on the party.

It’s much easier to strategize when you’re not the one playing, and frankly I’m not sure if I’m thinking as a player or a DM who would want to lighten the party’s magical payload, but personally, I would check for any magic items to bolster my character. This is a good opportunity to use items that you’ve been hoarding.

And Scanlan uses a wand right when I finish correcting typos in that paragraph! Smart boy~

This ep is, so far, much less painful for my DM brain to watch so far, lol.

#Currently Watching

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caltropspress · 8 days ago

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RAPS + CRAFTS #36: Bryson the Alien

1. Introduce yourself. Past projects? Current projects?

Peace y’all. It’s Bryson the Alien. I’m a rapper/producer based in Portland, Oregon since 2015. I was born and raised in Toledo, Ohio. Past projects to check out: Hail Mary [2016], Juenethia [2019], BTA World 64 [2021], Casual Abductions (w/ U.A.P.) [2022], The Great Adventures Of… [2022], Pen, Wand, or Laser Gun? [2022] & Sun God [2023] (w/ Deep Thought), KUMA [2023] and Norman [2023]. I also have a slew of EP’s that dropped in between album cycles over the years so consider those side quests… I’m currently rolling out a tape that will be entirely produced by Blu called IN SPACE…

2. Where do you write? Do you have a routine time you write? Do you discipline yourself, or just let the words come when they will? Do you typically write on a daily basis?

Typically I prefer to write in my home/studio. If I’m on the road or out of town, and there’s records needing my pen, I’ll take time to piece together bars while in motion. No better inspiration than being out in the world observing and participating. My favorite time to write is when the Sun isn’t out — so either before dawn breaks or late in the thick of night. The beats/production is what inspires me to write the most. If there are no beats on the docket to write to and/or I’m not currently producing something to rap on, then I’m doing everything but writing. I find that my pen is the strongest when I’m able to step away for a bit and live life — then lock in heavy when a record presents itself to me.

3. What’s your medium—pen and paper, laptop, on your phone? Or do you compose a verse in your head and keep it there until it’s time to record?

I use the Notepad app to write now. My first tape Hail Mary [2016] was the last time I wrote the lyrics down on paper prior to laying the vocals. I go through too many songs and I'm always on-the-go, so it has been (way) easier to just keep it on a phone or device than carrying around paper or notebooks. In certain instances, I have (and will) compose lines in my head that eventually make their way to the record. It’s definitely a fun challenge to compose a verse strictly from memory and I’m not above doing that more in the future.

4. Do you write in bars, or is it more disorganized than that?

Nine times out of ten, my writing forms around the structure of the song already in place. However long that verse spot is — 8, 12, 16, 32 bars, etc. — that’s typically what I’ll bring to the table. A notable exception would be if the song is being produced/cooked up in real time, in the studio, and I’m able to alter or influence the structure. The production inspires the bars so much for me that it’s difficult to just write bars for the sake of writing because the lyrics (can) hit way differently depending on how they land on any given beat.

5. How long into writing a verse or a song do you know it’s not working out the way you had in mind? Do you trash the material forever, or do you keep the discarded material to be reworked later?

I can tell pretty immediately if a verse and/or song I’m working on is a dud. If I’m not progressively getting more excited and ultimately reaching that “flow state” where the creation feels organic and seamlessly comes together, then I’m definitely going the wrong way. It’s a difference between working on something that will clearly take more than a session to finish but you’re digging it rather than something you’re not feeling (at all) and are going through the motions to finish it just to finish it, for whatever reason. I’m really bad at reworking previous material and putting it elsewhere. To me, it feels like I’m wasting my time and could be putting fresh energy into making something new.

6. Have you engaged with any other type of writing, whether presently or in the past? Fiction? Poetry? Playwriting? If so, how has that mode influenced your songwriting?

I have certainly read my fair share of fiction, poetry and playwriting in life, but I haven’t spent any time writing in any of those mediums — especially not for the purpose of it being published and distributed. However, I would say that my music is inspired by those mediums and I would really love to dive into them more in the future. My songwriting would only benefit from engaging with other mediums of writing (more).

7. How much editing do you do after initially writing a verse/song? Do you labor over verses, working on them over a long period of time, or do you start and finish a piece in a quick burst?

I’ll edit a verse/song all the way up until recording it. I, for sure, will rehearse the verse for days/weeks leading up to actually tracking the vocals. For the most part, if I feel the verse/song has strong potential, then I’ll rap it for close friends/collaborators to make sure it’s not a fluke. Seeing someone react (or not) to the bars is all the confirmation I need.

8. Do you write to a beat, or do you adjust and tweak lyrics to fit a beat?

As previously stated, I prefer to write to a beat. Rarely will I tweak previously written material to fit some other beat — the verse would have to be crazy. I have constructed a beat around an already recorded verse and that song became “Shawn Michaels.”

9. What dictates the direction of your lyrics? Are you led by an idea or topic you have in mind beforehand? Is it stream-of-consciousness? Is what you come up with determined by the constraint of the rhymes?

I’d say it’s a mix of all of those things. Typically, I already come into the session with things on my mind (naturally) on account of what happened that day so far, or how my week/month/year has been playing out. I love using the production as a canvas to paint where I am at holistically at that moment, if possible. Other times, it’s more fitting to challenge myself and run with a concept or weave a narrative. If the song already has a title that sparks inspiration, I’ll definitely try and run with it, or if there’s a sample of some sort being used, I’ll attempt to match that energy. I’m big on concepts and direction when working on music because it helps me channel the creativity and not get lost in the sauce with a hundred different ideas which can slow (or even kill) the momentum when cooking up.

10. Do you like to experiment with different forms and rhyme schemes, or do you keep your bars free and flexible?

I’m a big advocate for developing forms and rhyme schemes when writing. I look at rapping like a jazz player playing their instrument… we’re all playing with the same notes (language, slang, references) but how we convey that in rap is (or should be) unique to the individual. I love just putting the instrumental on loop and seeing where things go initially and when the verse starts forming I can key in on how to expand on the initial schemes crafted.

11. What’s a verse you’re particularly proud of, one where you met the vision for what you desire to do with your lyrics?

I have a song called “New York” [2016] where I paint the picture of someone visiting New York on music business, falling for a girl they meet at an art gallery, and that blossoms into a relationship. The sample saying "New York," me describing the character’s day-to-day while there, and the interlacing of NY hip-hop references throughout the song makes this one of my proudest, most well executed verse(s), top-to-bottom.`

12. Can you pick a favorite bar of yours and describe the genesis of it?

“Late nite in the forest stirring the pot / No Martial (Marshall) Law, Forest Law / but shoutout my pops / Heavy in the rock scene but eye never went pop! / Eye see the shade as eye light up the spot”

— from “00VII” from SUPER SECRET (EP) [2018] When I initially heard the beat, the high-pitch strings and hard drums gave me a sinister (spooky) vibe off top. The idea immediately hit me to start that verse off with setting the scene (tone) by giving that visual of being in the forest late at night stirring a cauldron. I also love how I was able to throw in a Tekken reference, a De La Soul reference and that third eye scheme in there.

I feel like these first couple lines give the listener a profound view into who I am. It also serves as a temperature check to see if the listener is hip to the references I used.

13. Do you feel strongly one way or another about punch-ins? Will you whittle a bar down in order to account for breath control, or are you comfortable punching-in so you don’t have to sacrifice any words?

My intention when making songs is to only write and record songs that I am able to perform live (with NO backing vocal tracks), so whenever I punch in (which is super rare) it’s just to enunciate a bar better. Sometimes, when tracking vocals, the verse I laid sounds fire (to me), but there might be just one or two lines that I want to improve and not throw away an otherwise great take.

14. What non-hiphop material do you turn to for inspiration? What non-music has influenced your work recently?

VIDEO GAMES, COMIC BOOKS AND FOOD. The big three for me.

15. Writers are often saddled with self-doubt. Do you struggle to like your own shit, or does it all sound dope to you?

Up until I dropped my first tape, Hail Mary [2016], there was a four-year period [2012-2016] leading up to that where I was still finding who I was as an artist and how I wanted to present myself to the world. That time period was filled with much self-doubt and confusion — it was my “dark night of the soul,” as some would say. Kanye, DOOM, Lupe, Blu, The Cool Kids, and Charles Hamilton were some of the contemporary acts at the time that gave me the confidence to just do me and know that a fanbase would develop and gravitate towards me just for being me, eventually.

Everything I (Bryson the Alien) have available for folks to listen to and purchase I stand on it being high-quality. 100% satisfaction - money back guaranteed.

16. Audiologists can explain why so many people cringe when they hear their recorded voice played back to them. For MCs, the voice is crucial to how the writing is communicated to the audience. Are you satisfied with your voice? Does your rapper-voice match your regular voice, or do you affect it on the mic? Do you routinely rely on any mixing techniques (pitch adjustments, reverb, double-tracking, echo, etc.) to affect how your voice sounds on record?

I haven’t met a person who does like hearing their own bare voice on a playback - haha. I’ve grown to accept my voice and even love it over time through making music, performing, and finding a tone palette that works for me. I, for sure, affect my voice hella on records too in all types of ways as well as when I perform live, so that helps me detach in a sense from having any expectations in that regard.

17. Who’s a rapper you listen to with such a distinguishable style that you need to resist the urge to imitate them?

No one now but every aspiring artist, whether they admit it or not, finds their style by imitating their favorite acts and as they grow they evolve into their own (hopefully).

18. Do you have an agenda as an artist? Are there overarching concerns you want to communicate to the listener?

When I first came onto the scene with my debut, I had all sorts of lofty aspirations and ideas I wanted to communicate in my music. As I’ve grown and navigated this industry the past few years, I’ve come to accept that folks will gravitate to you on their own time or never — there’s no way to speed up what’s meant for you, it’s only a matter of time.

If anything, I feel my responsibility now as an artist is to stay true to myself/my sound and continue to challenge myself and to make sure the music is available in whatever format it needs to be for the listener (tapes, CDs, vinyl, streaming, etc.).

I wish everyone peace, wisdom, and understanding on their artistic journey. Inshallah.

RAPS + CRAFTS is a series of questions posed to rappers about their craft and process. It is designed to give respect and credit to their engagement with the art of songwriting. The format is inspired, in part, by Rob McLennan’s 12 or 20 interview series.

Photo credit: Bryson the Alien

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