#like i made this for ME and it is so niche

[tohruies]

haico orchestra au moment where al haitham comes home to find me absolutely sozzled and sitting at the dining table licking both my cello rosin and his viola rosin and taking notes on the supposed differences in their tastes (there are no differences to their tastes)

[swaps55]

I had to get up off the mat and attend a conference today. I was dreading it. Woke up at 3:30 this morning with a knot in my stomach heavy enough to be a murder weapon, and now I had to talk to people who possibly voted against my existence and act like it was fine.

But a couple of things happened today.

I work in a fairly niche industry, and in the sessions I attended today, people were talking about solving problems.

In one session, the speaker talked about discovering an accessibility problem on their college campus. This university is in a remote area, and students without cars weren't enrolling because public transit to get there took four hours.

So a group of people sat down in a room to try and solve the problem, afraid they'd run into roadblocks with costs and infrastructure. To their delight, they realized that by moving a bus stop and adjusting bus schedules by 15 minutes, they could take that 4 hours down to 90 minutes.

This speaker was so excited about creating better access for students who needed it. They'd found a solution for people who wanted to learn but couldn't due to lack of transportation.

In another session, a panel of people talked about how they integrate art into public buildings, and how the public entity, building designer, builder, and artist worked together to create art that belonged to a community, and how all the challenges to making it happen were worth solving. The building they did their case study on was beautiful.

In a later session, a room full of higher education professionals who manage transportation on their campuses talked about the growing need for EV charging stations on campus. It's a surprising complex and complicated challenge in terms of energy supply, infrastructure, cost, planning, etc. There are no easy answers on how to do it.

A few made the observation that by providing chargers, they'd accidentally wound up in the energy business, where they didn't think universities should be.

"Yes we should," one of them said. He went on to remind us that yes, we could expect students and faculty could go home to charge their cars instead of doing it on campus. But those are also the worst time to plug into the grid. It's overloaded. Solar energy can't handle it, so it taps into fossil fuels. It's dirty energy. And he wasn't satisfied for making it someone else's problem. "We don't have to be in the energy business. But it's better for the environment if we are. It's better for the future. We should be in the energy business, because it's the right thing to do."

All day I was surrounded by people who put their professional energy into solving problems, not because it would make them rich, but because they were problems that needed to be solved, and they were the ones who took it upon themselves to solve them.

And...I felt better.

After the electric vehicle panel, I thanked the person who made a plea for the right thing to do, because I felt a little less despair after hearing it. He smiled at me and said, "Yesterday was rough. But 48 million people in this country stood up and did the right thing. That's a lot of people."

On a lot of days to come that might not feel like enough. But in your city, in your town, in your state, there are still people who are taking on challenges and standing up to do the right thing, for both the small things and the big things.

It's not going to be easy. But I'm going to be one of them.

[eirenical]

Like Father, Unlike Son (3168 words) by eirenical

Written for the @mysteriouslotuscasebookweek prompts "Role Reversal" (Day 2) and "Grief" (Day 4).

Rating: Explicit

Summary: In the wake of Shan Gudao's return, Li Lianhua is left broken and listless, nothing like his usual self. Fang Duobing is willing to do anything to bring him back, even if it means pretending, just for one night, to be someone he's not... someone he hopes he'll never become.

The yard was silent, the kind of silence that descends in the wake of a storm. Fang Duobing would have filled that space with noise, laughter, anything but this quiet stillness that Shan Gudao had left in his wake. But Li Lianhua stood barely two steps away, holding himself so very carefully, as though too large a breath might break every bone in his rib cage.

~Li Xiangyi is, indeed, a joke.~

Fang Duobing's first instinct had been to defend, to deny, to wipe those words from existence the moment Li Lianhua had spoken them. But Li Lianhua had been standing oh so carefully then, too, as though some part of him had already broken beyond repair, and a harsh word could wipe him from existence along with his words. Fang Duobing wondered, for the first time, if he was finally, truly, seeing Li Xiangyi before him—or what little was left of him after first his shixiong's death and then the battle at the Eastern Sea had taken everything from him. For the first time, he began to see what might have driven him to put himself away so thoroughly and become Li Lianhua. Faced with what he'd been faced with, Fang Duobing might have done the same.

Gently, he said, "He's gone. Why don't we go inside?"

Li Lianhua didn't answer, simply turned back the way they'd come from and took one shuffling step after another. At the threshold, he stumbled, foot catching on the raised doorway when he didn't lift it high enough. Fang Duobing caught him, gripping his arm above the elbow and pulling him close to keep him upright.

His body was shaking, a fine tremor that Fang Duobing hadn't been able to see but could feel now that they were pressed so close. "Li Lianhua?"

Continue Reading on AO3

Tags, detailed warnings, and notes below the cut.

November 4, 2024: At this point, I think I just need to accept the fact that my niche in this fandom is "fucked up and ill-advised sex that probably at least hints at Daohua somewhere in the background." 😅 Anyway, ever since I saw the scene where Shan Gudao reveals himself to Fang Duobing and Li Lianhua, I've wanted to write a fic where Li Lianhua turns to Fang Duobing for some very ill-advised comfort after that and lets himself pretend, just this once, that Fang Duobing is actually Shan Gudao. Brain decided today was the day? Enjoy? 😁👍👍

Fic Warnings: This is a little bit of a YMMV situation. The sex that happens in this fic is 100% consensual on both sides, but Fang Duobing is essentially role playing as his father and there is ZERO negotiation before that happens and, knowing Li Lianhua, they're not going to discuss it afterwards, either. Fang Duobing does have a little bit of a frantic moment where he's basically thinking "…this is kind of fucked up, isn't it? Maybe we should talk about it first? OK, never mind, lower brain just took over and made the decision for me." But he's still very much on board with what's going on and they both enjoy it in the end. But this is some VERY tangled relationship shit going on and if that squicks you, you might want to give this one a miss.

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: 莲花楼 | Mysterious Lotus Casebook (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fang Duobing/Li Lianhua | Li Xiangyi, Minor or Background Relationship(s) Characters: Fang Duobing, Li Lianhua | Li Xiangyi

Additional Tags: mentions of - Freeform, Di Feisheng/Li Lianhua | Li Xiangyi - Freeform, Di Feisheng/Fang Duobing/Li Lianhua | Li Xiangyi - Freeform, Past, Li Lianhua | Li Xiangyi/Shan Gudao - Freeform, Under-negotiated Kink, Light BDSM, Sexual Roleplay, Unrequited Love, Established Relationship, Episode Related, episode 32, Missing Scene, Trauma, Dealing with Trauma in Less Than Healthy Ways, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, ill-advised sex, Healing Sex, (...yes it's the same sex; make of that what you will XD), Mysterious Lotus Casebook Week 2024

[rhythmic-idealist]

I’ve found some of the most genuine care around me from my coworkers.

Maybe it’s that this is how I’ve always conducted friendships, that I never knew how to hang out outside of high school lunches either. But standing around after work is where we talk about our brains and childhoods and philosophy and hypothetical economic systems and fucking mortality and whatever else. There was a moment in time when I thought the first time I was gonna meet a coworkers kids was gonna be babysitting them for free because he was at the doctor a lot because maybe he had cancer. I’m just commenting bc I know the coworker relationship is sometimes talked about online as a universally annoying one - and there are some coworkers I do not enjoy the company of - but that’s where I’ve found some of the most warmth in my day to day outside of my partners. It’s also where I’ve found people who have made me feel miserable, don’t get me wrong, but it’s where some of my most meaningful relationships are. Nothing is WRONG with that.

There’s awkwardness. I’m very loud and some people are very quiet, and so I always feel unwanted, like an intrusion on their quiet. But I gave union advice to a coworker once and now he comes to me and asks me sometimes, and when he noticed I was taking Lyft home some days he offered to drive me home when I needed it. Are we still able to chat? Not much. One time I asked him “what artist is this [playing rn?]” as if particularly niche, and you could see the light die behind his eyes as he had to say “Kendrick” and I’m still recovering. But if one of us needs something I know we got us.

Recently we were worried one of us was going to be unfairly fired. Several of us were talking to each other and trying to strategize before the coworker who was at risk even had another shift scheduled.

And I had a coworker who seemed to hate my guts for months, and it’s not like he seeks me out to hang out now, but he’ll start an occasional respectful conversation with me because at a meeting with our union rep I said his name several times in a list of people I knew were being denied an earned promotions. (Context: People were doing all of the job duties of those promotions, without being acknowledge with the appropriate title and pay.) I didn’t say it because I liked him, I said it because we’re a union and because I did care about the guy’s livelihood.

This isn’t saying do what I do or enjoy what I enjoy socially or tick how I tick, this is just. Storytelling. Vague, anonymous storytelling.

Work is a place where I know when my coworker is expecting a new baby, and I know when my coworker took time off to attend a funeral, and I know when my coworker’s last name changes because they’ve gotten married, and I know when they’re out sick. We are so in each other’s lives. Corporate “we are a family” is in service of loyalty to the company and is bs. But being in community and solidarity with my coworkers as huge. I don’t know my next door neighbors very well. But my coworkers have me. I’ve got them.

i need everyone to know that community is what will save us all in every single way imaginable. you forming a bond with your neighbour or coworker might help them move house or feel less alone or have the courage to leave an unhealthy living environment. you helping a stranger might provide them with hope. in turn, being able to lean on your community in times of need will save you. your broader bonds with your community are the revolution we need. our society seeks to divide and separate us in so many ways but we are all so much more united in our struggles and joys than you are made to believe. we need to hold onto each other very tightly.

[vicariousresearcher]

part 1 part 2 part 3

the intro is boring as shit i know just power through

---------

Johnny who's just gotten released from the hospital with a half-ton bag of medications and months' worth of pre-scheduled appointments. Physiotherapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, he didn’t even realize there were so many damn therapies that didn’t have to do with talking about feelings. 

He has one of those too, much to his discomfort. Even asking Price couldn’t get him out of that. 

Now he’s been freshly moved into his new flat. A nice place that his Ma picked out. A garage, basement, and even a fenced-in backyard.

  "Your discharge is paying for all of this, can you believe it?" His ma coos as they sit out on the back porch.

Johnny hummed in acknowledgment, peppermint wafting up out of his cup to almost tempt him to try and take a sip. It tasted like shit but there was no other tea in the house. 

“When's the nurse c-c…arriving?” Johnny asked, trying his best not to seem too eager. About as subtle as a bull in a china shop but his mother was never one to notice things like that. Mind already bouncing off to the next thing.

“Wednesday the text said I tink? Oh did you see the ramp that your friend Simon put into the garage, such a nice boy. Say do you reckon….."

…….. Maybe you were being impulsive but you accepted the position. You left your job at the hospital and moved towns over to be flatmates with a patient. But it was awfully hard to regret your decision when the pay was so good and you didn’t have to pay for boarding. And maybe there was some conniving part of you that wanted to spite your now ex after he cut things off claiming that you were cheating on him. 

So here you were with half your apartment in a storage unit and the other in the back of your car. Unpacking your clothes just after you finished a lengthy conversation with Johnny and Mrs. MacTavish. Or well, more so the latter. It’s kind of impressive how far that woman can go with a single question.

The whole time Johnny is just sitting there watching you. At first, it was weird because ‘dude youre the one who wanted me here can you not act like i’m an alien’ then you stop to consider that maybe he doesn’t even want you here. That this might be just another case of the family being overly attached with no regard for the patient's feelings. Part of you feels bad now at the idea of him being the one truly forced into this situation. 

Maybe this won’t be too bad of a job, you try to reason with yourself as your stomach twists in discomfort at the idea of living alone with a stranger. You can’t be too different from Johnny since your favourite scent is in the candle on the coffee table. The niche reality TV show you're obsessed with is playing in the evening. And he must like peppermint tea too since it’s one of the few things in the pantry. 

…….

Johnny is doing everything possible to seem normal about his nurse. Who has to stay quiet as he watches you interact so perfectly with his mother because if he opens his mouth he will ask you to marry him.

He is sweating at the idea of having you within reach at all times, your attention only ever on him. No other call bells or charting or lunch breaks to keep you occupied.

Johnny who has picked up journaling at the recommendation of his therapist to try and organize his feelings and memories from the coma. It’s not even like he's trying to focus on you but when he tries to think back to the coma all he can remember is you. Your hands, your voice, your warmth.

Lists of everything you’ve ever told him to fill the pages. Your favourite shop that has such a good deal on hair conditioner, the spinning candle on your fifth birthday cake that made you scream, the butter chicken recipe you can never get right even with your friend hanging over your shoulder. 

Johnny who has to try his hardest to stay quiet when you tell him about your first time skiing because he knows the end of the story. He knows how you cried and your mother fell off the lift coming off because you told him. So many little snippets of yourself you’ve already exposed during the two years he was under your care thinking he wasn’t listening. 

But he was and oh he will use it in every way possible to lure you in. He sees how uncomfortable you are even just sitting on the same couch as him but that's okay! You just need some time. 

In the meantime, he will just keep lying. Saying that your favourite flower seeds were just on sale when you spotted them on the table. Shrugging when you ask if he is sure about you taking the room at the back of the house because you mentioned hating the sound of the road. Asking his mum to help him make some roasted garlic butter because suddenly he actually cares about that. (You mentioned it at least a dozen times after your neighbour gave you some.)

[clarkgriffon]

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY! (MARCH 8, 2024)

[waitmyturtles]

Hello hello! I really appreciate the civil discourse we're having about this topic in the reblogs and comments, and want to respond to a few points that have been made.

Very quickly before that, I also want to reiterate a point that I made in my first post, which is that this dialogue very much indicates that us fans of Thai BL (and fans of anything, anywhere!) bring in our various values of what we enjoy, and that our personal experiences of fandom and/or criticism highlights the conflicts of values that we have towards how we perceive and regard the media we're consuming. This is it right now, the manifestation of this conflict, and I think the writing and engagement we're doing is a lot of fun.

Going backwards on @invisiblegarters's response, I would like to respectfully disagree with the point that GMMTV is not a place to go to for high-quality drama media.

Bad Buddy, He's Coming To Me, Dark Blue Kiss, Theory of Love, 3 Will Be Free, A Tale of Thousand Stars, Moonlight Chicken! THE SHOWS, BABY! I love all of these incredible shows, and GMMTV MADE these incredible shows.

These are some of the best shows out there in this genre. They are, historically and genre-wise, many of the most important shows of this young genre. GMMTV has banked its reputation in large part on being a studio that CAN produce high-quality narrative media. I couldn't stop snapping away at photos of the awards Bad Buddy won when I visited the GMMTV building in Bangkok this summer.

@lurkingshan recently responded to an anonymous ask questioning why she watches and critically engages with GMMTV shows, and her response covers about every point I agree with in terms of why watching GMMTV shows is an VERY important action for ALL of us fans of Thai BL. GMMTV is the largest producer of Thai Series Y dramas, bottom line. With the premiere of SOTUS in 2016, GMMTV gave birth to the branded pair model, one that I indicate in my original post as being a major economic boon for the studio. Let me emphasize that this decision and economic revelation for GMMTV has clearly had impact across the ENTIRE genre, with other studios like Wabi Sabi, Dee Hup, Domundi, One31, Be On Cloud, TV Thunder, Kongthup, and countless other studios engaging in the same branded pair practice for a lot of their Thai BL drama media.

@lurkingshan also notes how very important it is for fans to engage with media at (healthy) levels of fandom AND critical engagement. It's incredible to think that Series Y is only a 10-year-old genre. It's a baby genre! And in Thailand, it's a very niche genre, compared to much more mainstream lakorns and other dramas. (I'll be writing soon about the impact of The Miracle of Teddy Bear as the first queer Thai primetime lakorn, and how Miracle's ratings, while low for a primetime lakorn, still far outperformed any one GMMTV drama, including Bad Buddy, which are seen in Thailand as still quite niche and small-market.)

I mention the age of the genre, because we are seeing SO MUCH experimentation, to this day, in this field. We're seeing, outside of Series Y, that queer themes can be popular in non-Series Y, primetime, mainstream dramas in Thailand and internationally, like 2022's Khun Chai. Series Y is also attracting mainstream talent back INTO its niche genre, which we recently saw with lakorn actor Jes Jespipat joining the cast of 4 Minutes.

Series Y has had a lot of impact ACROSS Thailand's media landscape, artistically and economically, and that is just very indicative of both the soft AND the hard power this genre has. Because of GMMTV's largesse and presence in this field, it's absolutely critical that both fans AND media offer critical engagement of the growth and success of this genre vis à vis engagement with individual shows, to demarcate the importance of this genre in the spaces of mainstream and queer media both.

I appreciate your point, @invisiblegarters, about being on the fence in predicting THK's narrative, artistic success as a cohesive drama. I myself am not planning on watching THK, because I literally still have PTSD from what I perceived to be the disingenuous narrative failures of Only Friends. Jojo Tichakorn shared in interviews during the course of the airing of Only Friends that the series was being edited as the show was airing, in part informed by fan discourse on social media. I myself will therefore not make assumptions about the narrative success of THK right now, as it very well may change during its airing.

@quaintrelle17, thanks for your comment! I will absolutely take any drama seriously, from romcoms, to mysteries, to family dramas, all of 'em.

Am I watching Kidnap for half-naked Ohm Pawat, as @invisiblegarters noted in the Kidnap trailer? Totally -- I hold myself totally, totally accountable to this. Do I also take seriously that Kidnap is a narrative failure, having long lost on various important points that could have been wound into a much more interesting plot than what we're currently watching? Absolutely. I take it very seriously, because narrative mediocrity is something that happens, a lot, in all kinds of art, and we're seeing mediocre, narrative failures trending at GMMTV at the moment. (I recall the excitement of the premiere of My Love Mix-Up Thailand here on Tumblr, only to see a trickle of engagement by the show's end.)

Remember, again, GMMTV is the biggest producer of Series Y in Thailand. They're tastemakers, and they're an economic powerhouse in the genre. GMMTV has signed a good chunk of the Studio Wabi Sabi guys -- that's how powerful the studio is. To create a trend on promoting shows that are narratively questionable is an important artistic AND business decision that GMMTV makes based against the risks and calculations that the studio is balancing regarding making money off of these shows that will eventually premiere anyway.

Again, here's a conflict of values. Some fans don't mind narrative inconsistencies, and others do mind it, and have critical thoughts on it. @invisiblegarters values complex characters, as stated in their reblog, and I value narratively cohesive scripts. We disagree -- and that is totally okay, wonderfully okay, for what each of us values, and decides to comment on publicly.

For those of us reading and engaging in this thread: have there been GMMTV shows that you yourself have been disappointed by? Think about why that is! And it's wonderful and great to critically engage about it, if you decide to go that route.

@firstkanaphans, thanks for your comment! I'm so in love with the Thai Series Y genre that I've devoted an entire historical viewing project to it, my Old GMMTV Challenge. Completing this syllabus is also a confirmation of my very obvious love for romantic shows. I love romance dramas, especially when they are narratively cohesive and successful.

@firstkanaphans, I don't know Jojo Tichakorn personally or parasocially, so I'm not sure what insults him or not. However, from the tone of your comment, I'd like to highlight an important point of artistic production and critical engagement of that art: when artists produce art, there is an important public engagement to that art that artists need to be aware of and prepared for.

Jojo Tichakorn is active on social media, as many of us are aware of, and he'll often retweet reaction videos to his shows. In other words: he is well aware that there is criticism of his shows. He's responded to negative tweets about Only Friends in the past, most recently in light of Only Friends winning awards, and fans on Twitter being critical about it.

There is an entire, gigantic body of scholarship about the intermingling of artists producing art, and the subsequent creation of that art producing criticism. (The very basic linked Wikipedia article notes the economic tension between artist and critic regarding promotion of art, which is highly relevant to this conversation we are having.)

What would jazz music be without critic Nat Hentoff and his seminal books, including Jazz Is? I don't want to imagine it. I learned about jazz through Hentoff's critical writing about the genre and the artists producing jazz art at its finest. While the art itself is intoxicating, Hentoff's own reverence and criticism for the art, and the producers of that art, are now seen as also historically important to the genre itself.

I ain't comparing myself to Nat Hentoff. But there are critics I've read for most of my life -- Hilton Als, Anthony Lane, Pauline Kael, A.O. Scott and Mahnola Dargis, Michiko Kakutani -- that give me as much joy for their reflections on art as the art itself. Hilton Als is an utter legend in his own right, an incredibly important figure in New York theater criticism, and his reflections on New York during and after the AIDS crisis are must-reads for any of us interested in global queer media.

I will assume Jojo Tichakorn is a sophisticated enough man to know that his art is subject to criticism vis à vis fans and paid writers both; and he's well aware, as indicated in his own social media postings, to react to that feedback by editing his shows extremely close to their airing. In other words, there is a tension between the artist creating art, and letting that art go to the public for a reception of feedback, a tense cycle that he's aware of. He is a grown man, and I would not assume his being insulted for a process of artistic reception that he himself is subjecting himself to by producing art.

And we, as fans, should hold OURSELVES responsible, for the effect that critical takes on our beloved shows might have on US -- which I believe is a process we're witnessing on this thread.

Finally, I wanted to give big ups to @my-rose-tinted-glasses's tags, because as I wrote in my rewatch review of The Eclipse for my OGMMTVC, I do not bemoan artists needing to make coin. If producing dramas that are economically successful, but are not entirely artistically cohesive, still makes a bottom line for these artists, then so be it. If this is work the artists need to do that studios will buy, in order to make a living, then that's an economic reality that all of us fans have to live by, no matter the artistic outcome of a specific piece itself.

I think I covered everything, whew! I'm glad to engage on this, and to discuss, critically, this young genre of dramas.

Hey,

I'm not 100% sure how this works. Also this is more of an opinion than a question. I just feel the need to brain dump. You are under no obligation to reply. 😁

I fear that First and Khaotung are being wasted at/by GMMTV. They're both stellar actors and seem to have the sensibilities to tackle more serious material.

I feel like coming off Not Me, the themes in The Eclipse kinda went over my head. My fear was and still is that I didn't understand all the nuances. And that's why I felt like the show was lacking. Also I think the very first preview set it up as an entirely different show (more supernaturalmystery/thriller) in my head, so there was a disconnect there as well.

Their next project was Moonlight Chicken where both of them shined as actors but negligibly as a BL pairing. Having said that, they seem to be on very solid ground in the BL fandom - I am referring to their fan meets.

Only Friends was a masterclass of acting as far as FirstKhaotung were concerned (i was all about Ray and Sand), but I think the overall reputation as show that fell flat on its face overshadowed or at least took away (for me) from the gravity of FK.

And now we're here. With The Heart Killers and I am very wary of how Ota all going down. I see that the final trailer got over million views and I'm happy for them, but based on I think the absolute travesty that was OF, my expectations for this show are on the ground.

I really want more of an insight into how projects are picked up and distributed inside GMMTV (if you ha e any, I'm dying to know). I feel like they would benefit greatly from being on a show like PS I Hate You or something like Peaceful Property.

It feels like they're backsliding in terms of material given. Which I am sure is a) not their fault and b) me possibly being weird and dramatic in the wee hours of the morning. But I wanted to get it off my chest and I was reading your previous reviews when I felt, and then gave into the impulse to write to you.

Also I'm a MaxTul girly too and somehow, you made me want to give Make it Right another chance.

Have a great week ahead and keep up the absolutely exceptional work! ❤️

NIHILISTIC! It's great to hear from you! And thank you for the compliments!

TW for girlies out there who are not Nihilistic: this post will contain criticisms of The Heart Killers trailer. Read at your peril, delicate hearts!

I'll go backwards to save the biggest stuff for last. If you write anything about Make It Right, please tag me! @bengiyo and I always give a little DJ air horn to each other when we've nabbed another one into the broader cultural reconsideration of this AMAZING show. MaxTul, man. Nobody beats them! (Okay, almost, Tul admits he wasn't the strongest actor, but. We'll let it slide, dahling!) Chemistry, humor, pride representation, everything, they're great. I yelped when I saw them in Triage!

Okay, so you are a FirstKhao girlie, and you're worried about what The Heart Killers bodes. (Out of transparency, I have The Heart Killers tag filtered because of Only Friends PTSD. I'm gonna filter my own post!) For you, Nihilistic, I just watched the trailer for it.

I will get to all your questions about the GMMTV model in a moment.

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

To focus specifically on THK for a sec: the THK trailer evoked a lot of what's gone utterly wrong in Kidnap for me. I think writing Thai BL/Series Y scripts to be different, fresh, and innovative, is just going to be really fucking hard, especially for stories featuring branded pairs that MUST end up together in the end. Because we, the viewers, KNOW that they MUST end up together in the end, what kind of mystery and conflict can a script convincingly evoke to keep us, the viewers, engaged and interested in the drama?

A few of us Ohm girlies were excited that Kidnap could have had non-romantic plot points (CRIME!!!) to drive concurrently with a romance plot. There are Series Y that have done this BEAUTIFULLY, particularly Sammon's stories of Manner of Death and Triage.

I'm sorry to say that I didn't get that from the THK trailer, and that THK smells a lot like Kidnap to me. The trailer itself is giving an indication that the "jobs" these guys have as double agents are going to be compromised due to them falling in love. And after the debacle that was Jojo Tichakorn's Only Friends -- a show premised on the exploration of mean, icky, really horny humans, a great place to start an interesting show! -- knowing that THK will HAVE to end up in a romantic place, with FK and JoongDunk being in memorable and memeable entwinements... that's a lot to ask of a show that already isn't making sense by drive, emotion, and tone in its trailer alone. What matters more to these characters? Their work, or their need to be in monogamous relationships? Seems like the latter to me by way of the trailer, which makes me wonder what the point of the plot is. (Joong's chest, probably.) (Gahddayum.)

(I haven't watched the latest episode of Jack & Joker, btw, but I understand that THIS WEEK's episode is ALSO going through something similar, with dead-end and uncommitted plot points all to get to a kiss. Oy.)

To summarize these points and to touch at your question about how GMMTV chooses scripts: GMMTV has an economic model to sell in giving happy endings to their branded pairs, which I wrote about at length in my Old GMMTV Challenge rewatch of The Eclipse. No matter where a script goes, the ending must be memorable and monogamous to satisfy the retweeting hunger of the branded pairs' fandoms, in order for GMMTV's artists to increase online engagement and to maintain earned media values to sell products.

The wonderful @flowerbeasblog noted to me recently that Tha Sataporn, the CEO of GMMTV, said in an interview that as the productions of Series Y in Thailand continues to increase, there is a greater need for more scriptwriting talent across this niche genre, creating competition for more excellent writing. (By comparison, in the States, when streaming services like Netflix and Hulu starting commissioning more original series just about a decade ago, the demand for scriptwriters and excellent writing also went up by incredible scale -- only to come crashing down recently with pandemic and strike-related losses in revenue.) GMMTV's recently announced script competition, Y Find, updated itself last week with a notice that the company would need more time to sift through scripts to judge. In other words: the demand for creative plots is so high at this company that they are literally fielding entries from the general public.

At the same time, Tha Sataporn has been blunt in indicating that "good shows" are not the priority of his GMMTV, and that talent, management, and engagement are his indicators of success. So, economically -- as long as a show hits that happy ending, and gets the girlies excited online with commentary and purchasing power, then the studio has won, in GMMTV's eyes.

ULTIMATELY, Nihilistic: what we are dealing with regarding your concern, as fans and/or critics of Series Y shows, is a conflict of values, among critical fans like ourselves, other fans who only watch shows for romance and shipping, and the economic bottom lines of the studios/agencies themselves. Some of us just want narratively good scripts, like Bad Buddy or He's Coming To Me. Others are content with having a show end with their fave pairs confirmed together in the end, no matter the process of how they got there. Those are different values we hold in watching shows. I appreciate that while you're a fan of the FK branded pair, that you want stronger scripts for them. I do, too, but that's not a value that every fan -- and GMMTV itself -- holds. And I believe that's why we've been seeing more and more mediocre scripts from that studio in particular.

I actually want to note maybe something positive about FirstKhao. Other than The Eclipse, it seems like they haven't been locked into high school or university settings. Only Friends, Moonlight Chicken -- these are shows that show First's and Khao's characters as young adults, and THK is going there, too. I hope they can avoid the university settings as they continue to work.

Is stellar acting wasted at GMMTV? Oh, yes. Besides First and Khao, who I truly think are good actors, we have Gun Atthaphan, Nanon Korapat, and Ohm Pawat -- these three guys are on my list of the best Thai actors out there who have done BL, and they haven't had great scripts in years. (Gun, arguably, has had the best pickings of decent shows recently in Cooking Crush and The Trainee, but they weren't high art; and Nanon's Dirty Laundry was the last Jojo script I was truly impressed by.) All three of these guys were in MOVIES at one point. Those ambitions, on behalf of these actors by GMMTV, seem to have gone by the wayside in preference for a huge economic push to boost branded pair-based series insteads, with their plot holes and guaranteed romances.

I hope the genre's tide turns for the sake of quality scripts, especially at GMMTV, but my hopes are low for this agency at the moment. My joy in Thai shows recently has been in watching past shows for my OGMMTVC. I've been on a lakorn kick lately, having watched The Miracle of Teddy Bear and I'm looking forward to watching Khun Chai soon. Other agencies and studios, like One31 and Channel 3, are breathing down GMMTV's neck and producing more interesting shows, sometimes with branded pairs and sometimes not. Triage only came out two years ago, and that show's trilogy (along with Manner of Death) will end with this year's airing of Spare Me Your Mercy, starring the very likely one-time pair of Tor Thanabob and JJ (Jaylerr) Krissanapoom, two gigantic artists in Thailand who are circling BACK towards the much smaller genre of Series Y for SMYM's sake. I have VERY high hopes and expectations for that show -- and that show is well out of the purview of GMMTV.

I think what you're smelling about the THK trailer is right, Nihilistic -- to me, the trailer isn't cohesive, and jumps already to its forgone conclusion of a romantic end. Unfortunately, for those of us familiar with Jojo Tichakorn's work, we know that if he was given more leeway, he'd likely come up with something more interesting. But now that he has to work with branded pairs -- who are shipped in the eyes of their fan beholders -- he's got a lot less room to be creative and interesting, which ultimately stifles the otherwise excellent acting we'd see from these young men.

[hinamie]

spiraling

[vynnyal]

I've been having a delightful time stumbling over my emojis being used in random servers, so here's more

[ghost-proofbaby]

can y'all please come into my humble abode and imagine something with me i don't yet have the wits to write a full fledged fic out of (yet)?

so, everyone knows how when you get a tattoo, part of the healing process is the itchy phase, right? and for obvious reasons, you can't scratch it. favored method, in my experience and fellow tatted friends, is to just give it a good old slap.

perfect. so now, with this in mind, can you imagine having gotten a large hip/ass piece, and how mortifying it would be to smack your own ass to soothe that itch? and it's just plain painful. you want your new ink to heal properly - it's gorgeous and you put a lot of time, pain, and money into that damn thing - but it just sucks.

enter best friend eddie.

he loves your new ink. thinks it's fucking sick. nearly creamed his damn pants when he found out you were doing a hip/ass tatt (because how can he ask to see it without being weird? how can he react to that without being weird when he's spent the last several years with the world's most pathetic crush on you?) at first, it's fine. you show him the tattoo in a totally friendly, totally platonic way. he hypes you up, he calls you 'the most metal person he knows'. flourishes you with all the compliments and looks at you with starry eyes out of sheer awe at the way he's managed to snag a person into his life who is just so. damn. cool.

but the days pass by, that new ink begins to heal, and it fucking itches.

when you first proposition him, you're even more embarrassed than he is. stumbling over all your words, the request coming out contorted every wrong way. you don't want to make things weird, but is it really that weird for a friend to help a friend? it is really that weird to ask your best friend to smack your tattoo to help with that itch you can't even really properly reach?

it's just friends helping friends.

and that's the mantra you both repeat to yourselves - as you request the embarrassing favor of him, as he agrees almost too eagerly, as you find yourself face-planted in your bed wondering how deeply you can bury down your shame as he tries to make jokes to make it all a bit less awkward.

it's just friends helping friends, until eddie's hand lands down on your ass with a resounding smack, and that first little whimper escapes your lips.

[fictionadventurer]

@library-bandit

My favorite nonfiction reads from this year are:

Religious (which always feels like a separate category): St. Thomas Aquinas by G.K. Chesterton. I feel like we always hear about Aquinas' philosophy, but never about the man. Chesterton portrays him in a way that makes him seem lovable and layered, but most of all, real.

Other nonfiction: The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown, about the 1936 Olympic gold-medal rowing team. I was deeply invested in these boys. I've still only read the Young Reader's edition (since it was the one I could get without a library waiting list), and even in abridged form I love it. (It's now easier to get the full version, but I can't bring myself to read it when I know the whole story and read it so recently).

Overall, some of my favorites include:

Nicholas and Alexandra by Robert K. Massie: A biography of Czar Nicholas II and his wife that reads likes a novel. The people and their world are so vivid and I think about it constantly.

These Beautiful Bones and The Catholic Table by Emily Stimpson Chapman: The first introduced me to Theology of the Body in a beautiful way. The second is almost a comfort read--part an explanation of a Catholic understanding of food, part memoir about her struggle with an eating disorder, part recipe book, but overall a celebration of the goodness of food and community.

The Story of a Soul by St. Therese of Lisieux: The autobiography of a saint who I find intensely relatable that also has enough theological insight to make her a Doctor of the Church. A lot of beauty here.

The Food Explorer by Daniel Stone: A history of the FDA employee who traveled the world in the early 1900s finding crops to introduce to American agriculture. The story intersects with so many major historical events and figures, so even beyond the food it's a fascinating look at the time period.

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff: More of a story than an informational text, but still nonfiction! It's a collection of letters between a New York writer and the London bookshop she orders books from across several decades, starting just after WWII. It's hilarious and heartwarming and full of the love of books.

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin: Made me obsessed with Lincoln's Cabinet. The love of history as the story of real, relatable people comes through on every page. (I've only read the abridged version, but can't bring myself to read the full version thanks to Seward's language. It still had too much of an impact on me to leave it off this list).

Bringing It to the Table by Wendell Berry: A collection of essays exploring the state of modern agriculture and man's relationship to his environment. I found it riveting and fascinating.

The most niche nonfiction book I've ever read was probably:

The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson: The story of a guy who stole hundreds of bird specimens from a natural history museum to get feathers for his hobby of making historically-accurate Victorian fishing ties. As you can imagine, it's a wild ride through niche topics, while also touching upon lots of broader historical issues like the history of fashion and conservation.

I'm not looking to add to my reading list, but I love people talking about books, and I love hearing about the wide variety of nonfiction books on subjects I'd never even considered, so let's start a chat.

Tell me about your favorite nonfiction book you've read lately (or in general), and/or tell me about the nonfiction book you've read that has the weirdest/most niche subject.

[delta-piscium]

was captivated by screenshots of iwtv characters with their hand up and pointer finger out, and knew that finger had to waggle and so i made them waggle

here are my children,

[reineydraws]

so there's this post that talks about how people call jason's curved knife a kris but it's not a kris 'cuz why would he have a southeast asian knife? and op's tags say if you're gonna give him an 'exotic' weapon at least make him malay or something. a later reblog adds a filipino kris as an example, and then i was like, 'omg, jason in a barong tho.' SO i tried designing a bat-barong inspired by his hood logo, for a filipino jason haha. and now here we are! 😊✨️🇵🇭

[thingsiwannareblog]

In high school I wanted to write a book about this, and these resources were EXACTLY what I was looking for! It was going to be a series of essays by various scholars, exploring all the things that vampires tend to be metaphors of: sex, death, disease, addiction, queerness, the Other, etc. etc. and why exploring these topics through a fantastical lens was helpful for certain time periods and so on! It was going to be titled “Thirst: What Vampires Mean and Why They Matter.”

It was going to be the third book in a series of four. The whole thing was actually constructed the same way as a multi-movement symphony in the Classical music canon:

Sonata-Allegro first movement (vampire novel 1, which would be an epistolary novel with portions in many different and modern formats - if Dracula has newspaper clippings and phonograph transcripts, then mine would have captures of websites, fictitious research papers and lab reports, and archived IRC conversations!)

a Theme and Variations movement (vampire short stories compilation, each sharing a nominal theme but progressing over the course of the book towards more and more twisty and indirect takes on the theme, just like a musical theme and variations)

a “Slow Movement” (the scholarly analysis I described above, also including a semi scientific explanation for how the vampires in the novels worked!)

and then the Finale, which would be another Sonata-Allegro and therefore the sequel to the first vampire novel!

The whole work would collectively be titled “A Symphony in Crimson” and was very very edgy and sophisticated and cool and surely the greatest thing ever! (Remember, I was in high school and also pretty damn pretentious!)

I actually did a substantial amount of research - literary for the essays, plus reading as much as I could about the origins of the myth and its evolution over time, scholarly work about Dracula and Varney and Carmilla all of them - and bio lit-review for the sciency vampire mechanics of the novels (how would super strength work? What would an obligate sanguivore’s metabolism be like? What could explain the aversion to sunlight and running water? What would the transmission mechanism be? I got so in-depth that it was to the point where I had identified certain phenotype traits that I suspected would correlate with someone as having a stronger resistance to the vampire retrovirus!). For like a year or more, I would stay at the school library for hours doing reading and research after my classes were done because that was my main hobby. …And definitely NOT because I was procrastinating and avoiding all my classes, extracurriculars, and studying for standardized tests, nope…

Actually writing is, of course, substantially harder. I got as far as nine plot summaries (including the two novels and several of the short stories) and one or two incredibly rough and bad chapters of novel 1.

And then something terrible happened. Something that shook me to my core and made me abandon my project entirely;

Twilight got big.

I was FAR too much of a hipster/contrarian/gatekeeper/snob to stand it! Vampires, my nerdy and niche and counter-cultural special interest, were suddenly mainstream! Just mere months ago I had been openly mocked for my fascination with them, and then suddenly they over saturated the pop culture zeitgeist to the point where it was “basic” of me to like them!

I was FURIOUS and devastated and swore off my magnum-opus-to-be… and DEFINITELY wasn’t secretly relieved because it was turning out that writing was way, WAY harder than geeking out in a library and hoarding books and articles.

Anyways, I still think about the whole thing sometimes. For one thing, I’ve realized how immature it was of me to abandon vampires as an interest just because they were suddenly popular. Twilight ain’t fine literature, but a lot of my objections to it were actually internalized misogyny rearing its ugly head (“it’s GIRLY and STUPID and TRIVIAL, and I don’t like it because I’m NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS!”). In the end, it’s an okay book series, and Stephanie Meyer *actually wrote and published* four books (in that series alone), which is more than I can say now and probably more than I ever will be able to say.

only if you feel like sharing - ive been thinking about vampires in lit/media recently and considering how there are sometimes parallels with media representation of addiction.. do you by any chance have any recommended resources related to this (or addiction rep in media in general)?

I'm going to be honest, I'm mostly a casual enjoyer of literature/media/etc. I tend to just point at various books/shows/movies and go "bitch me too". so I don't really know where to point you in regards to real actual resources. I will, however, point you in the direction of my beloved mutual @annabelle--cane... they Know and Understand this shit better than anyone else I know

[cormancatacombs]

[franken-shits]

Thinking about punk herstory again...