#memories of a blue world
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Interview with artist Nathalie Karsenty, from Memories of a Blue World (2012)
#interview#nathalie karsenty#memories of a blue world#2010s#2012#daniel gouyette#caps#subtitles#les deux orphelines vampires extras#documentary
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Reaching through the looking glass
(Wonderland au)
#one piece#buggy#buggy the clown#my art#shuggy#implied bc the hand reaching out is young shanks'#the hand isnt exactly shanks. it's a manifestation of wl!shanks' obssession that's trying to drag buggy back to wl#it took this form in some sad attempt to jog buggy's memory#buggy in wonderland au#the butterfly is called a Common Blue#i think it fits buggy w the white fluff and orange and blue#wonderland has lots of butterflies and they're shanks' eyes and ears#for some reason they tend to morph into common blues when they're near buggy#but this is buggy while he was still in his world#:))))
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day 114/547 until joon returns cr. moajmjk00
#btsgif#btsedit#bts#kim namjoon#namjoon#*#*gifs#*knj#*bts#*547nj#memories of 2020#disc 4 t04#cyanjoon... i miss u#anyway remember when i used to max out saturation on cyan during that era good times#him saying the whole world looks blue to him bc of the glasses he's so fjskdksd
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Like I know it's self indulgence but it'd be so funny to see a full kardashian style Brucie Wayne, spoilt playboy prince of Gotham, local sunshine idiot on the front page every other week for darwinian levels of idiocy or billionaire levels of donations.
But he gets kidnapped or something and there's illusions or mind magics that make him think he's in the bat suit and then he gets dumped in the middle of a live world broadcast arena to fight some goons.
Like he doesn't think anything of it, batman's been kidnapped and forced into gladitorial arenas for sport many times before, maybe he always carries concealed weapons so he's still got like grapples and batarangs and stuff, but he's just going full doomslayer on these guys. No cowl. No suit. Just an open silk shirt and a pair of slacks. In full view of the world.
Tell you what, what about the whole justice league. Just a group of the motleyest people you've ever met. There's about as many famous people as there are absolute nobodies.
Several billionaires defer to the guy who writes articles on outdated lead in buildings and socio economic corruption. There's a renowned museum curator flying and uppercutting aliens so hard they get tossed across the room. There's a guy who spoke in science conferences about meta containment procedures running up the wall and delivering a roundhouse kick to three enemies at once. Bruce Wayne and Oliver Queen. Of all people. Two world famous idiot ceo celebrities. And they're back to back whaling on armoured alien henchmen like a well oiled team. A ten year old podcaster shooting lightning from his fingers and no one in the group bats an eye.
Just.... Insanity.
#To be honest I don't care if there's any fallout#Maybe it happens in a dream world or smth or maybe they reverse time or wipe memories or something#I just want the juxtaposition of batman in Brucie Wayne's skin#No society mask. Jaw jutted eyes sharp he's tossing goons around like it's nothing#The fangirls would go insane. His stockholders are cowering. Everyone who knows anything about him is blue screening#It's like a fever dream but he's so full of adrenaline he's panting condensation on the cold arena like a wolf#And people are having their whole worlds collapse#Superbat celebration kiss after they defeat everyone? Why not if you want#batman#dc comics#bruce wayne#brucie wayne#justice league#It'd be like idk if Taylor swift turned out to be... Idk there isn't an equivalent#Like if Elon musk turned out to be a paramedic on the side#Or a world class neurosurgeon#This is purely self indulgent but it'd be so funny.
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Thinking about Harry and all the animal parallels that follow him through the narrative. It's true that these animal parallels reflect the way that the brutality of individualist moralism strips him of humanity as someone who has fallen through the safety nets, and his agonised shout of 'I don't want to be this kind of animal anymore' can be interpreted as a direct admission of the RCM's dehumanisation of him as a disabled addict who is no longer as 'useful' as he once was. Gottlieb even directly tells him '[he] lost [his] human visage a while back.' Jean calls him 'the most dangerous animal of them all'. The rabid dog that needs to be put down, the black dog (also a common metaphor for chronic mental illness!) that Mollins shoots as it licks its wounds; the scared, hurt, frightened animal lashing out, chewing off it's own leg to escape the trap that it's caught in. The wild dog is all they can see.
But then there is a flipside to these parallels too; a kindness, a gentleness, almost a freedom in Harry’s animal parallels. He's strong like a 'goddamn ox,' like a bear ('I had to kill the bear to become the bear'). He's a harrier hawk, a name given to ensure his safety, raised up to the level of the aerostatics looking down over Revachol, 'soar[ing] on the wings of [his] spirit hawk.' He's a leopard ('its impossible to know where you end and the leopard begins'), discovering or rediscovering a love of softness and sensuality that he'd not known before via the leopard print leotard that 'speaks to the animal inside [him]' and touches on his relationship with his gender ('Yes, this is the type of animal I want to be.').
He's a 'seagull', a bird that will do 'whatever it takes to survive,' a 'bird of paradise' that tells a story of 'endurance- and adaptation' ('You! You and the seagull are just alike!'). He survives, despite everything, despite the grimness of the world around him. He endures. Even the sea monster comparison is oddly kind ('You've become a sea monster -- giant, hidden and... strangely tender at heart'). Even as a monster, he's still gentle; he still has so much love for this world that has wrung every last bit out of him. As if his tenderness is such an inherent part of him that no matter what monstrous face he wears, no matter what creature is there in his shadow, he cannot help but have some trace of it at his core. His tender soul 'quivering like jello.' The pain he feels is raw and animal but so is the love he feels. So is the hope and the fear and the wonder.
#every time i read the leopard scene i go feral over it i love him#guhhhh words are difficult and this is a mush but i hope you understand what I'm trying to say#disco elysium#harry du bois#long post#again apologies if this doesn't make sense#also the sea monster line is from him trying on the blue lens glasses lmao it sounds much deeper than that but i still love it so much#tender as in his still-aching heart and the raw wound of his memory loss but also tender in his love for the world#calling himself a monster but even still he can't erase the tender parts of himself#DE rambling
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this is a Moiraine Damodred and Nynaeve Al’Meara stan blog
#wheel of time#the wheel of time#moiraine damodred#moiraine sedai#nynaeve al'meara#nynaeve sedai#aes sedai#blue ajah#yellow ajah#robert jordan#the white tower#the eye of the world#a memory of light#my girls#wheel of time art#i love them#fantasy#high fantasy#reader#grunge#emo#90's grunge#alternative#aesthetic#for you#fypシ#wheel of time spoilers#wot book spoilers#WoT
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Who is it that you see reflected in those shades of yours?
#ghost trick#ghost trick spoilers#ghost trick sissel#ghost trick yomiel#( my art )#(wanted to draw a comparishment between how I personally draw / distinguish Sissle using Yomiel's appearance)#(The idea being that subconsciously Sissle's memories deep down influence him a little - hence the more pronounced fangs.#(His eyes being green are a result of his muddled memories between remembering his yellow to Yomiel's blue so he's stuck “in between”.#And I had the new idea that Sissle has “crows feet” to represent his whiskers that become visible during some emotions :>)#(Meanwhile I will forever love my habit to distinguish em with the red and blue in their shades based off of their ghost worlds uvu)#eye strain /#bright colors /#(just in case)#eye contact /
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paul by big thief (masterpiece, 2016)
˚ʚ♡ɞ˚ thank you @fionnagallagher and @shamelesscreencaps for the screencaps ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚
#sign.... i shouldve been studying#maybe one day ill learn how to edit videos and ill make a video version of this one#i tried to make all the memories extra warm and vibrant and sad heartbroken moments all blue/gray tones i hope you guys noticed it?#also while hes remembering the memories are all in descending order so s4 bar fight then s3 leaving ned beat up behind and then s1 <33#anyway theyre soulmates#john wells 2015 season 5 finale the hollywood reporter interview:#“[mickey leaving is sad] but it [also] may be an interesting time for Ian to discover how important Mickey was in his life”#"It’s that thing that often happens when you’re younger: you have a relationship that’s really difficult and passionate and messy and...#...then you go away from it and you discover the rest of the world and sometimes you come back to that first person anyway”.#shameless#shameless us#shamelessedit#gallavich#gallavichedit#ian gallagher#mickey milkovich#big thief#og.
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Nothing is stronger than the bond between a girl and a piece of media they brushed off 10 years ago that they now realized is the greatest thing ever made
#In this context 'girl' refers to everyone this has happened to#I've already told the story about how I watched half of the first ep of khr and turned it off cuz I thought tsuna annoying#I did it with mairuma too I saw it coming out and just ignored it cuz I thought the concept was generic#And only picked it up when the manga was updating#Fukimono I read like up to when they go to the yokai world and never got to it till I got super sick actual YEARS afterwards#Sad to say but blue exorcist technically counts cuz I read 5 chapters ans stopped but it's cuz I got busy its not cuz I STOPPED liking aoex#I never stop liking blue exorcist this is for life#Jeweler richard anime I got to ep 6 and was convinced for a while it was mid and yeah the anime is but the manga/LN is amazing#I did this with a ton of vocaloid artists too#Let's not bury the lead (I say as bury the lead)#This post is actually cuz I've been binge reading yohaji#I have vague memories of looking at it so fucking long ago and thinking the first chapter was vulgar but once u get passed that hump wow#It's so good#I'm gonna make a separate post about hmmgm#Tell me what yall did this to thanks#Khr#Hitman reborn#Mairuma#mairimashita! iruma kun#fukigen na mononokean#fukimono#blue exorcist#ao no exorcist#Jeweler richard#yohaji#Fuck what's the full yohaji title#Oh well
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KEY MY NOTES: ENG LYRICS
FRAGMEM IS FINALLY HAPPY FOR ONCE??!?!?!??!?!?!
KURODE Always reaching out, far far away Until this desire dies out CIELOMORT, KLARKSTELLA Opening the door to something changing KURODE The key is always in the heart
KURODE On a note I don't know anything about yet I write out about this day CIELOMORT Someday the future will be a blank slate I'll let you take the right steps
KLARKSTELLA It's not about the surface, looks don't matter You don't have to fit in if you don't want to KURODE So that I can be more than I am right now
ALL A stage (world) that no one has ever seen before The image (imagination) that will eventually overtake us CIELOMORT Keep on drawing, until you can grab it KURODE I'll let this throbbing take care of me
ALL The deeply rooted inferiority tearing you apart A longing that sounds faint and far away KLARKSTELLA Creating a signpost which looks like a nightmare ALL Together in this chest, a memory
CIELOMORT The sound of raindrops piercing through stone You say it as if you'll get it KLARKSTELLA If you could have the best sound that makes you lively KURODE No matter how absurd or buggy it is I can't help but love this world
KURODE Always reaching out, far far away Until my wish comes true CIELOMORT, KLARKSTELLA Like noticing the scent of bellflowers KURODE The key is always in the heart
ALL Even with the clumsiness under neither shade nor sunlight Sometimes we let go of our weakness CIELOMORT, KURODE Let me protect all of them if you need me to
ALL The tears that overflow from your face along with your usual broken smile KLARKSTELLA So you could be yourself CIELOMORT This chest, this memory KLARKSTELLA Sincerely, forever KURODE I'll make it echo all around Together, a melody
#THIS SONG IS SO CUTE FOR ONCE IM GONNA FUCKING EXPLODE#KURODE I LOVE YOU.....#IS HIS NOTES LIKE. NOTES TO HIMSELF TO DO BETTER. FROM EITHER HIMSELF OR BLUE BOUQUET#KUROKLARK CRUMBS I WIN#btw about the (world) and (imagination)#the kanji in the vid says those but they sing “stage” and “image”#fragaria memories#fragmem#fragaria memories translation#fragaria memories tl#blue bouquet#cielomort#kurode#klarkstella#>> quincy translates
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Summer 2024 Lagniappe (A Minisode)
AND WE'RE BACK!
Summer didn’t give us a lot to say, but we ALWAYS got something to say. Ben, NiNi and Shan talk a highlight of the season, Twig reports from the field, and we award summer’s Girl Who Tried.
Timestamps
The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.
00:00:00 - Welcome 00:01:15 - Introduction 00:02:21 - Twig’s Dispatch 00:14:24 - Spotlight: Tadaima, Okaeri 00:20:34 - Girl, You Tried 00:27:08 - Celebrating 50 Episodes
The Conversation Transcripts!
Thanks to the continued efforts of @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 Introduction and Summer Season Recap
Ben
And we're back. We have reached the end of the summer season. It is hot as hell and hurricane season is active, but we at least still have our shows to watch.
Shan
Wow, what a way to set the mood.
NiNi
That is [laughs] one way to start, for sure. [NiNi and Shan laugh]
Ben
Girl, I’m stressed! [laughs]
NiNi
I feel you. I feel you. I feel you. We are here. The summer has been… it's been a lot.
Let's just dive right into what we came here to discuss. Shan is here. Say hi, Shan.
Shan
Hi!
NiNi
We're going to talk a few things that we didn't talk through this season. Twig’s gonna come in and leave us her dispatch, and then we're gonna round it up and award the Girl, You Tried. There are a lot of girls who tried this season. [laughs]
00:02:20 Twig’s Dispatch
DISPATCH! Thank you for having me back. [music]
While folks were lamenting having nothing to watch this quarter, I was as busy as ever!
In the skip section: Sadly, Korea really dominated this category last season, starting with Blossom Campus. Honestly, this was the biggest disappointment this season for me. This was my–the Korean independent team Strongberry, who I normally love—they released a full length Kdrama that, I don’t understand how it went so wrong. The story is about a university transfer student who works at the library and ends up in a few interactions with a taekwondo major and they fall for each other. It was boring, the story didn’t really flow, the chemistry was flat.The only good thing I can say for it is that when they do kiss, they kiss well. But it was not worth watching to get there.This was the least queer Strongberry has ever felt, and to add insult to injury it ends on a cliffhanger. This is a pass from me, friends.
Love is Like a Cat. Mew of the newly public MewTul relationship stars in this hybrid Thai/Korean production that did not manage to retain the good qualities of either country. It is bad. And not even in a fun way. The premise is a famous Thai actor is blackmailed into doing a Korean reality series in which he has to work in a dog cafe, despite being afraid of dogs. That sounds like it would be cute and fun, and somehow it was neither. Poor acting, cinematography, chemistry, story, everything was mid. Also, content warning for animal death—way to alienate your target audience.
Gray Shelter was a Korean short series that barely felt like BL? Honestly, it was trying to walk a trauma narrative and BL line and I don’t think it did that successfully. The romance felt rushed and the trauma part felt like it was being sad for the sake of sad rather than having anything to actually say about trauma. Also had another cliffhanger ending. Not my fav.
Moving away from Korea, Lady Boy Friends is a show that has a high barrier to enjoyment, so judge for yourself. It’s a remake from 2015 and the premise is an ensemble show in an all boys high school in which a good percentage of the cast are actually trans girls in an all boys school. There is a lot of infighting amongst the trans women, they are extremely catty and mean and clique-y to each other. That part I honestly found kind of fun, and I did enjoy them banding together against a common enemy. Unfortunately that common enemy is another trans girl who is looked down on for transitioning “late” which calls her authenticity into question. This show also has sexual assault played as comedy which is honestly the main reason why it’s in this section; there was also a gay couple who got the bulk of the focus in the last few episodes, and while that storyline will likely be the most appealing to this audience, I didn’t particularly like that the trans characters got short shrift in their own show, so. I didn’t fully love it.
Kiseki Chapter 2. This was a production by 9NAA. They have a history of not paying and exploiting their actors, and they’ve done it too many times, so I didn’t watch this one. Pay your actors and hire intimacy coaches and then I’ll talk about your shows.
The last one in this section is actually a GL Thai channel that I wanted to shout out. It’s just not to my taste, but I don’t like gatekeeping GL ‘cause there’s so little of it and it’s so hard to find. So, if you’re a fan of the melodrama and older, toxic relationship type tropes, give these guys a try. Last quarter they put out “Friend with Benefits the series” and “Sea [as in S-E-A] you soon”, and my favorite of the three was “You Are My Star the series” which I enjoyed because it retread a lot of BL tropes so I watched it and played, sort of, spot the BL parallels. JPC Media Channel on YouTube.
Now onto the shows that you might actually want to consider. There were a few genre BLs this season that were varying degrees of hit or miss so I’ve grouped them together. I love genre stories, so I don’t want to be too harsh on shows that push the boundaries of the BL genre, but all of these had at least one fatal flaw that makes me not able to recommend them without caveats.
Memory in the Letter is a Thai BL sci-fi/fantasy in which a student falls in love with a stranger in the mirror. This is a short series that had real high highs and low lows for me, including some of the best chemistry across a pane of glass I’ve ever seen. But also, the ending was so poorly handled that I had to call poor Ben to watch with me just so that I’d have someone to share my psychic damage with. Without spoiling anything, this show involves an age gap with actors not age-appropriately cast to hide the fact that the age gap is so large? It also doesn’t treat the age gap seriously or engage with the very serious problems that it raises in its own plot, and I found that very frustrating. So. Make your own choices on that one.
1000 Years Old the series. This show is a Thai vampire show that spends the first three quarters being an extremely low stakes series in which a vampire owns a pork blood soup stand and a glorious umbrella collection, and is in love with a man obsessed with searching for alien life. It is exactly as silly as it sounds. But then the last few episodes everything turns into intense melodrama, and I’m going to spoil this because I don’t know how not to: We find out that the vampire stays friendly with another vampire who murdered his human lover across multiple lifetimes. I was vibing and then I was really not.
Two Worlds is another Thai series, and a MaxNat vehicle. The premise of this one is as it says on the tin: There are two parallel universes connected by a glowing body of water. Our protagonist loses his love interest and travels to the parallel universe accidentally while grieving, to realize he has the chance to save his boyfriend’s doppelganger in this new world. While he does that, he finds himself falling for someone else instead. This series is a relatively slow burn show. Whoever made this show, they did the most bewilderingly good job of undercutting every dramatic moment so that it had no stakes or impact that I’ve ever seen. This show was almost impressively boring considering how much was happening at any given moment. I liked that it seemed to be saying people weren’t interchangeable, but then in the end the show undermined its own message. Watching this show was informative for learning about pacing and how narrative tension works or doesn’t in shows.
Last in this section is The Spirealm. This is a chinese danmei adaptation that we almost didn’t get because of censorship; it was heavily adapted so that rather than magic, the core of the unnatural happenings are a Virtual Reality video game in which our leads have to puzzle through dangerous mysteries to figure out the secrets of each level. It’s fun in an “oh this does feel like a video game” kinda way, and I enjoyed puzzling through the mysteries alongside the leads. But the mysteries drag on too long and they’re repetitive, and the ending of the book is actually really undermined from the adaptation choices. Also, if you’re watching for romance subtext, this is a VERY tame story even for censored cdrama. They barely touch, the shipping moments are few and far between in a long series. So, be forewarned.
Moving away from the supernatural and back to more standard QL fare, A Secretly Love. This felt like a very old-school Thai series, a feeling that was helped by the horrifically bad subtitles; about an engineering student who has been in love with this senior for years and watched him fail miserably at romance over and over. This heavily relies on the viewer enjoying the lead pining over someone who treats him badly for most of the series. So, in order to enjoy this, you have to find someone showing affection by being grumpy, rude, jealous, and demanding cute. No judgment, just giving you the information you need to no. Worth watching if you’re nostalgic for 2020s Thai BL.
Please Teach Me This is a vertical-format microseries from Korea about an aspiring idol trying to attend college that you have to grind through ads in order to watch. Honestly the series was fine, very middle-of-the-road KBL, but the microseries format and the barriers to watching make it not worth sitting through, in my opinion.
Blank the Series is a Thai GL is in the same universe as GAP, so if you miss Sam and Mon the characters, they do appear, though portrayed by different actresses. The main couple in this story have a 16-year age gap and the romance starts when the younger one is in high school, though due to plot reasons she’s of age. I know that’s a barrier for some, so I wanted to mention it off the jump, especially because she acts young. That’s the part that I actually struggled with most. This story is very lakorn-like in terms of it being very high melodrama; it also, especially in part two, gets quite sexy. The height difference is also really something. It’s in two parts and both are complete, it does have a happy ending with a cute timeskip. So, you know, manage yourselves on that one.
Jazz For Two. High school Korean music BL in which the main couple really fell flat for me and the side couple were a bully-turned-love-interest that I also really did not enjoy. This show tried to incorporate internalized homophobia as part of its main storyline but didn’t engage with characters overcoming it, so everyone feels kind of like they suddenly switch from being in a drama to a romance and it was both jarring and honestly, a little offensive. Trigger warnings are also important for this one, so take care of yourselves if you’re deciding to watch it.
Boys Be Brave. Another KBL in which a man who can’t say no tries to get the person with a crush on him to ask him out, to no avail. This felt like it was trying to be a manic pixie dream boy meets an autistic-coded grump, but they didn’t quite calibrate either of those characters right. The side couple also ended up landing kind of badly in terms of class politics. But it was pretty, and they were cute. I actually had fun with this one despite everything I just said.
Deep Night is a Thai BL in which the son of a club owner is against the host/club business model until he falls for one of his mother’s hosts. He decides to start working there to get closer to him. You might imagine that a setup like that would involve class and power politics, but you would be wrong! That being said, this show has a lot to recommend it: The main couple has great chemistry and the side couple is a canonical throuple, and there is another side couple of older sapphics to enjoy, as well. It is also very prettily shot.
Lastly, Close Friend 3: Soju Bomb is a beautifully shot and cute friendship drama, another Thai/Korean joint series this time about Thai boys in a Korean band who go on a bender in Korea after their contract is canceled. Honestly, my only caveat about this show is that it is absolutely not a BL. There isn’t a romance subplot at all in this show. I spent the entire time it aired so confused waiting for the romance to appear! It does not. If it hadn’t been advertised as Close Friend 3–a series which was previously all BL shorts–I would have enjoyed this for what it was. As it stands, I hold a grudge for being misled. Go in knowing what you’re getting and you’ll be fine.
Finally, let’s get to the shows that you might have missed that I actually recommend. To Be Continued, a Thai second chance romance of a famous person and a doctor who were friends when they were in high school. This one tells a lot of the story in flashbacks that are poorly paced at the beginning, so the start of the show really drags. But the reveal for why they broke up was satisfying. The pacing is the barrier in this one–if you can power through the first few episodes it ends up being a good little show. They have great chemistry, the story holds together, and I had fun.
Gym Affairs is an absolutely bonkers but cute mainland China BL in which a guy gets a personal trainer and sparks fly. This show is a silly comedy that is also surprisingly earnest. It goes by extremely fast and I really enjoyed the ride. That one’s on YouTube.
Blue Boys/Lonely Girl. SUKFilm is a Korean YouTube channel putting out short series. Blue Boys was a little disappointing, the couple had too many issues that they cycled through so fast. The GL though, Lonely Girl, was much more focused with a single main problem between the couple and so it worked much better. And both are really beautifully shot and have some great kisses.
Fake Buddies is another YouTube miniseries. It’s a 7 episode Korean series about a girl and guy who are dating, ostensibly, but really both using the other as a beard because they’re both in a gay relationship. The first few episodes are very funny comedy as the two of them try to make the other realize what’s happening; and then we get prequel episodes for how the gay couple and the lesbian couple both came to be. It’s a fun use of 45 minutes on the guynextdoor YouTube channel if you’re bored.
To the X Who Hated Me is a Korean GL produced by Red Q. It’s a series of microseries, there’s two out so far with 2-3 episodes each. They’re both GL and solid short second chance romances that are very fun.
City of Stars is the last one I’ll be talking about. It’s, in my opinion, the best hidden gem QL from this quarter. A charming celebrity/regular guy romance that tackles shipping, toxic fans, and the unreasonable expectations on people in the spotlight. Acting is a little rough, and it’s not perfect, but it had some really good things to say and it very smartly sandwiches those things among some pretty good sex scenes. The two leads are my communication kings. And there’s some decent trans side rep as well. This show really uses BL as a vehicle for having something to say and I appreciate it. And the story really holds together in a way that’s a little refreshing in Thai BL, too, so I really liked it.
And that’s the dispatch for this quarter! Thanks again for having me.
00:14:25 Spotlight: Tadaima Okaeri
Ben
It's time to talk about my favorite show of the season that no one else watched except for Twig. [NiNi laughs] We're going to talk about an animated BL from Japan called Tadaima, Okaeri. It is the best show of the season and I'm begging you, please, to go watch this show.
Tadaima, Okaeri is a 12 episode BL from Studio Deen that aired on Crunchyroll. Studio Deen is actually fairly important in the BL space. Pretty much all of the BL anime that we're probably going to recommend to you offhand was produced by the studio. In this particular one, they're adapting a manga series about a gay couple in the omegaverse that is trying to raise their kid in the suburbs. Our protagonist's name Fujiyoshi Masaki, that is actually his name, and his husband, Hiromu. Masaki is an omega, his husband is an alpha, and they have a son named Hikari together. He is a little baby and they are living in the burbs away from everybody else because they had a very difficult time getting together.
The show was not so much about the difficulties these two had getting together, it's about them building a life that they love and are happy with after going through what they did. So, like, this is your favorite leads, married and trying to raise their family now and working on healing some of the relationships that were damaged over the course of them getting together. There's a great deal of healing and growth in this. There's healing between Hiromu and his dad, who was not keen on their romance in the first place. There's the fact that these two guys love each other and love being parents. I am very often amused by how much my dad is still obsessed with my mom. And I really liked seeing that in a gay couple here. It was really restorative in a lot of ways, ‘cause we don't ever really see dads in BL.
This show was so healing. This was such a peaceful experience of a show to watch. What I like the most out of fluffy shows like this is for there to be a nice arc about what life we’re building for our family and a strong thematic thrust of, we're not trying to get back at anybody who hurt us. We just want our kid to grow up in a world where he—and eventually their daughter too—are loved by the people around them. Each episode was about a specific sort of challenge that the family was facing, and some of them were really huge. Like, how are we going to reconcile with the kids’ grandfather who wants to be part of his grandson's life? Even if it's something as small as, Hikaru is getting older and he wants to run an errand. Okay, we're going to let him deliver a letter to his grandfather to the mailbox, and getting a two year old to deliver something [laughs] successfully to a mailbox was a production unto itself, because he kept getting distracted.
It was genuinely one of the most delightful and wholesome experiences I have ever had in the genre. I have said for a long time that I've wanted a married gay dads show. I was not expecting it to come from the omegaverse of all places, but this was everything I ever hoped it could be and honestly, so much more. If you can handle omegaverse nonsense, including mpreg and the alpha omega pheromone shit, and rutting behavior. This is one of the best shows I have ever seen.
Shan
Oof. [Ben laughs] You just said so many words that upset me.
Ben
I know. I know!
[all laugh]
NiNi
I was like, “if you can handle” I can handle none of those things. I'm sorry.
Ben
If you're gonna be in genre, you gotta take your shit seriously, and I think that's why it worked. This show was not embarrassed about being an omegaverse show. It's not like [funny voice] we're going to do this in omegaverse because we know the girls will fucking show up for it. It took the conceits of its own genre seriously and incorporated it into the emotional context of their characters.
And so like I totally get it, mpreg is not easy for a lot of people. The rutting behavior stuff, it's not easy for some people. The way that omegaverse is used to perpetuate some of the heteronormative kinds of misogyny that women face is not for everyone, truly and sincerely. When I say that these are caveats to watching this, I am not being funny. These are real things that are being dealt with in this show, but they're not half-assing it. These are not normally things I enjoy. Tell a good story and take your shit seriously and we can show up for it. And that's what happened for me here.
So, I wholeheartedly recommend this show, but I do think it's important to not downplay that this is very legitimately an omegaverse story.
Shan
I appreciate that.
Ben
It's a 10, baby! Perfect execution of its own premise, and genuinely, it's the kinda show that was so fun to watch with other people.
Shan
I have been so intrigued by the conversation around this show and I really regret that it has so many of my hard lines in it [laughs[ because I would like to see it. I don't think I'll be able to, but I have heard nothing but praise and love from the people who've watched it.
Ben
I love the show with my whole heart. I do not recommend it at all. [Ben and NiNi laugh] This show had really strong ideas and it wore its whole heart on its sleeves the whole time. Mm mm mm. What an experience. Great show.
00:20:32 Girl, You Tried
Ben
Let's hand out our favorite award on the show: Girl, You Tried.
NiNi
Our nominees this season for a Girl, You Tried are Unknown the series from Taiwan, Love is Better the Second Time Around from Japan, and Living With Him from Japan. Does anybody wanna do propaganda here?
Ben
Ooh…
Shan
Let's start with reminding folks how we think about Girl, You Tried.
Ben
The Girl, You Tried for me is meant to reflect on a production that missed the mark, but we felt like the core work and the intent was there to actually do something good, and for whatever reason stumbled.
Shan
There's different ways that shows can stumble. There are shows that can be very well told and very confident up to a point, and then a mistake is made that is hard to recover from. There are shows that never quite nailed what they were trying to do, but did clearly have aspirations. There are shows that have a solid idea of at least the beginning and endpoints and something in the middle just got messy. So, those are different categories of ways that shows can go sideways. And all of these different ways came up in this season.
For me, a show like Unknown is not a Girl, You Tried because they actually did succeed at what they were doing for the vast majority of their run. So I wouldn't call that a Girl, You Tried. They made a mistake right at the end—and it was a big mistake—but their level of execution was so good through most of the show that I can't really consider that a Girl, You Tried.
For our two Japanese BLs here, Love is Better was really solid through about the first four episodes, and then it kind of veered off in a very strange direction that I still don't really understand why that happened. Versus Living With Him had a solid start, had a pretty decent end point that it was trying to get towards, and then got kind of messed up along the way trying to stretch out the story.
So for me I think I would want to give the Girl, You Tried to Living With Him out of these three, because I do think they had the bones of a good story. They executed parts of it really well. But in their effort to stretch it out into a longer format than the story really supported, they kind of lost track of some of their threads and got a little confused in the way that they landed at the end. So for me that one makes more sense as a Girl, You Tried because I see what they were trying to do. And I think that they just made some execution errors that got in the way.
Ben
An interesting analysis; one I will be pondering. It feels mean to say that Unknown is a Girl, You Tried because they rushed to their sex scene. It ignores how good the family story was around all of that, but I am also torn now if I'm going to choose between Love is Better and Living With Him because I feel like my angst for Living With Him is it doesn't release the implied sexual tension that really irritated me more than anything else, which Love is Better absolutely did.
Man, this is hard.
Shan
Have we ever had a Girl, You Tried tie?
Ben
We have not.
NiNi
There's usually a fairly clear cut winner once we talk about it, but I think part of the problem is that Love is Better and Living With Him sort of failed in similar ways, so it's hard to choose.
Ben
If I have to choose between the two of them, Love is Better the Second Time Around knew exactly what it was doing and it made very bad choices, and there's a difference between making stupid choices and struggling against something you couldn't do, in my opinion. I will give it to Living With Him because there's so much hang time, it's overly reliant on actor charm to hold itself together, and I do like how well the cast was able to hold this flimsy project together.
I think weaker actors would have made this a more irritating experience than it was, as opposed to just being kind of disappointing. So if I'm backed into a corner and have to choose [Shan laughs], it's going to be Living With Him.
Shan
[laughs] You do. Good job.
NiNi
Oh no, I'm about to throw a spanner in the works because I'm going to go for Love Is Better. [laughs]
Shan
This is very exciting! This is Conversation pod history!
Ben
Go ahead, give us your reasoning.
NiNi
For me, the original premise of Girl, You Tried was always ‘a strong idea that failed in the execution,’ and I feel like the ideas from Love is Better were stronger to me than the ideas in Living With Him, just in terms of, A, what I was interested in seeing and, B, what they wanted to do. I feel like those ideas were stronger in Love is Better. So the failure of the execution part is not the part that I'm looking at in terms of comparing the two, but the strength of the premise part.
Ben
Because both of these shows had really strong gay themes in them that I was really compelled by, I am going to allow them to tie and both get a Girl, You Tried, because I think both these shows were trying to do something really cool. I think by episode 3 and 4 both of these shows, I was like, “This show's got something in it. This is a real contender!” And then it was like, “Oh no, what happened, girl? Come on.” [laughs]
NiNi
So our first ever Girl, You Tried tie! Girls, you both tried.
Ben
Congratulations to Japan for getting your first Girl, You Tried awards.
NiNi
Is it?
Shan
And the double at that! Japan, always overachieving.
[Ben and NiNi laugh]
00:27:02 Celebrating 50 Episodes
NiNi
I think we have exorcized the demon of the summer, so let's wrap this up. We are wrapping our summer lagniappe and wrapping our summer season. See you in dot-dot-dot weeks for our fall season beginning as soon as I can get my shit together and edit.
Shan
NiNi, should we shout out that this is the 50th episode of the podcast?
Ben
Oh shit!
NiNi
[gasp] Oh my God, we didn't even talk about that! Yes, congratulate us, guys. This is episode number 50 for The Conversation!
Ben
Oh my God. [air horn sound]
Shan
There ya go.
Ben
If you are one of our listeners who has listened to us talk for all 50 episodes, please—
Shan
Wow.
Ben
—shout us out on Tumblr. I would love to talk to you and see how you're feeling about what we're doing after all this time.
Shan
You're a trooper if you actually did that.
NiNi
[laughs] Please, please, please. If you love us and you're hearing this, we are 50 episodes old today. Send us a note. Either send us a note on Tumblr if you know how to do that, or send us something in the Spotify down below—whatever…answer the thing thing.
Ben
[laughs] In the doobly-doo.
NiNi
Listen, okay? Auntie's old, okay? She don't remember what things are called.
We out! Say bye to the people, Shan.
Shan
Bye, people!
NiNi
Ben, say bye to the people.
Ben
Peace.
#ben and nini's conversations#podcast#the conversation#on art#lgbtq#bl series#summer series#summer 2024#thai bl#gl series#korean bl#blossom campus#love is like a cat#gray shelter#kiseki chapter 2#memory in the letter#1000 years old#two worlds#please teach me#blank the series#jazz for two#boys be brave#deep night#close friend 3: soju bomb#to be continue the series#gym affairs#blue boys#lonely girls#fake boys#the x who hated me
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Composer Philippe D'Aram, from Memories of a Blue World (2012)
#interview#philippe d'aram#memories of a blue world#2010s#2012#caps#subtitles#documentary#les deux orphelines vampires extras
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🌦️&💤
on childhood best friends.
via ill give you the sun by jandy nelson // via the art of ponyo by hayao miyazaki // jack johnson, we're going to be friends // a message from my childhood best friend // mitski, i guess // via a little life by hanya yanagihara // adventure time, island song (come along with me) // via unknown // abba, chiquitita
#do you ever think about how momo was taught to weaponize her anger while mikan was taught to swallow his back. both as a means of survival#how momo probably admires mikans ability to hold it in. how mikan probably admires momos ability to release it all.#because i do. i think about it a lot#(BTW. IF YOU KNOW WHERE THE “let's go to the garden. let's be kids again. i'll chase you if you chase me.” IS FROM PLEEEASE LMK.)#the message is from the friend that inspired momo and mikan. btw she messaged me out of the blue and we chatted about our earliest memories#the whole “ohhh he came up to me offered me his hand and said you wanna go play with me because i was all alone” seems really unrealistic#BUT THATS. WHAT HAPPENED WITH US. WITH ME AND HER. i dont remember it very well which is funny and poetic in a sense. but SHE does... gugh#its because i was the one that went up to her... of course she remembers me offering her my hand because that meant the entire world to her#← OR SOMETHING. NEVER RUMINATE ON UR CHILDHOOD WORST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE its because my birthdays coming up im getting all weird. ugh#okay actual tags instead of my rambles...#web weaving#my wws#oc tag#momo tenki#mikan javier#on childhood friends#id in alt#nova noise#also hai sunny. (halo freak) one of these for kinzoku and gensou when. i will NEVER RECOVER#← silly slash lighthearted. i am just crazy over them you absolutely do not have to ^_^ i hope it doesnt come across that way
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Realised it’s @khoc-week so even though I don’t have the energy to do it daily have this I did a while ago but never posted.
Arxeht my beloved. They came to me in a dream where I was a replica (of multiple people but looked most like Vidar) made by apprentice Nort/Xemnas, who was the fifteenth member of the organisation and also had my knowledge of hit video games Kingdom Hearts and kept getting randomly thrown through space and time.
#khocweek2024#kh oc#kh ocs#kingdom hearts oc#kingdom hearts original character#Arxeht#blue boi draws#kingdom hearts#kh#Arxeht my beloved I love them#Apprentice Nort started making them to help figure out memories and based them on people he’d get glimpses of in dreams#but he got distracted and only came back and finished them/woke them up around the beginning of Days after Xion#meaning they are theoretically younger then Xion and Roxas but with the way they act and view the others they’re older#they woke up sorta all at once unlike Roxas and Xion. they also have basic knowledge about General Like that the kiddos lack#also their knowledge of how the game plays out is from the perspective of someone who played the games.#like they’d know the ‘press triangle for Sora’ meme and the differences between CoM and ReCoM and refer to time periods by their game name#also VERY AWARE that most kh games are tragedies and desperately trying to change that despite not really having the power to do so#Arxeht is shit at fighting but is saved from getting injured by any time they’re about to get hit it triggers a jump through time/space#and the jumps can be really far and in fast succession. they start a jump in twilight town and are thrown through Daybreak Town#and like two other worlds until they settle and fef a chance to breathe. its handy because they wont die but jumps can happen#in the middle of a conversation or while they’re trying to get somewhere in particular and then suddenly they’re ten years in the past#in a whole different world. it sucks.#can you tell the dream they came from was a stress dream? 90% of what I remember from it was running around trying to get to Xion and Roxas#and keep them safe. the other 10% was the org not knowing what to think of Arx and Xemnas being weird#Arxeht is heart + x in a reflection of Xehanort being no heart + x btw. that did not come from the dream I made it awake#Xemnas was weird he had a very distant vaguely amused view on everything Arxeht was doing I don’t think he ever thought of them as a threat#unlike Xigbar who was concerned which is fair because Arxeht knew he was Luxu and about MoM and stuff#the time jumps can get really long as well but tend to avoid kh era?? days onwards and bbs and before is fair game but they dont actually#meet Sora until kh2.#their main power is information. they know who people are and what’s going on and they are constantly trying to tell people during the
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little purge march cover thing. it's been a while since i touched jummbox. also, amane art. they go together ! how sweet.
(edit 2023.11.07: i decided to ditch the video format (this is tumblr !! we have audio posts!! wowie!!!) and make it less of a hassle. i also took the opportunity to fix various details that were bothering me. hooray! i don't mind people listening to this now. also, here's a link if you wanna play around with it. customize your experience if you will.)
i know this may seem like a little weird jump in fandoms ... its all hlvrai hlvrai hlvrai and then BOOM milgram. but i wanted to expand my horizons a little bit + i just think there isn't enough milgram fanart in the world. i really really love hlvrai, and i want to continue making art of it, but i wanna start posting stuff about other things i like as well.
i **HEAVILY** recommend headphones ... i am not the most experienced ( ~ --- ~,)
anyways. sorry to my hlvrai followers. and potentially to the milgram fans who come across this and don't know what I'm talking about. i hope strangers can find this as enjoyable as my friends have made it out to be :}
2023.11.05
#milgram#milgram amane#amane momose#the purge march#milgram fanart#(walks into milgram room) how are we milgram station i hear you like sad old men#im gonna be honest .. sometimes i wish my thoughts could be extracted as music videos too#like yeah sure. I'd be in jail ! id be cut off from society ! id be stuck with 9 other people i may or may not like !#i may be punished horribly if the audience finds me guilty !!#but i get to have my memories and thoughts extracted into sick animations and songs for the world to see. i think its a win! idk!#jummbox#me whenever i see red green blue and yellow together (amane reference) (somebody help m)#completely absolutely totally undoubtedly undeniably guilty type beat
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Looking across the World War II Memorial from one theater to the other.
#original photography#photographer on tumblr#pws photos worth seeing#trees#world war ii memorial#memoria#wreath#blue sky#columns#fountain#water#history#washington dc#district of columbia#travel#photography
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