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thealogie · 9 months ago

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picture this. you're michael sheen, beloved queer-friendly welsh actor and recent twilight saga vampire. you want your favorite book to become a tv show, and you want to be the lead. so what do you do? you befriend the author. he wines and dines you, you become a confidant in the scriptwriting phase. and in the process of the GO script you decide you don't want to be crowley, actually, you want to be aziraphale. you put in the work for months to influence the author to the same conclusion. so when neil gaiman comes to you one day saying, "i know you joined on to be crowley... but how would you feel about playing aziraphale?" you say, what a novel idea! i was feeling the same way, i just didn't want to say anything! let's do it.

you're michael sheen, the lead in the adaptation of your favorite book. you meet david tennant as your leading man, a rising star (and vocal fan of yours) you've had a few vague interactions with in the past. on set you immediately find the closest friend you have ever and will ever find in your life, and you know this. the romance you have in your (yes, your) show is ambiguous, but you're michael sheen. you think that romance needs to be explicit. so what do you do? you become a nightmare on set. you get really hands-on; you make costume choices, you make story decisions, you tell your author friend at the very end of filming: aziraphale is in love with crowley and realizes it in 1941. now go do it again.

so the author goes and does it again. you get a season 2. you get 1941 part 2. you're michael sheen, and you are the lead of the adaptation of your favorite book, and the romance you littered into the character you built from the ground up has become unambiguous. everything goes according to plan. but, you see, you have a problem: the author you have baby trapped is acting a FIEND on twitter and tumblr. he's saying everything he can to imply aziraphale and crowley aren't sexually attracted to each other. he's getting a bit too bold with his character assumptions, is all i'm saying. so here's what you're going to do: you play it up with your pal david tennant. you made a show with him during lockdown. you're going to depict your lives as even more intertwined and homoerotically codependent as previously possible. you grow even closer. your wives become best friends, too, because how could they not? this has been the plan since the beginning, too. your lockdown show ends. it wasn't enough.

so you, michael sheen, of course you put in the work. if david tennant's there, you're damn sure you're there physically, spiritually, biblically, in whatever capacity you can be. it's not hard. david tennant is a big fan of yours, after all, so he MAKES SURE you're always in the conversation. you have him wrapped around your little finger, this lovely little boy, and so you know what you do next? you become neighbors. you make your directorial debut casting your best friend's wife watching her husband and male neighbor initiate sex with each other. you play into the swinging rumors (that you, michael sheen, had started). you create a narrative that you and david tennant are two homoerotic besties, and is there more going on in the background there? any deeper conspiracy? who really knows, but what you do know is that the world is talking about it.

and you, michael sheen, your entire acting career has led to this moment, your gay quips, your oscar wilde sex scene (and the interviews following), all of your queer roles, EVERYTHING has brought us to this conclusion. you have created the lab perfect conditions where season 3 must have an explicit gay sex scene. i'm sorry neil, my hands are tied! the people are clamoring for me and david tennant to have sex-- i mean aziraphale and crowley to have sex, the public decided this all on their own! i really don't think you have much choice. but of course, i would never deign to tell an author how to practice his veritable craft. i concede to whatever version of series 3 you create, and i will happy to bring this beloved character to his deserved ending.

and why do you say this? because you're michael sheen. you're just an actor who incidentally stumbled his way into leading the queer romance adaptation of your favorite book that wasn't a romance, and you just read the script the way that it was given to you. and if series 3 means an explicit sex scene between you and your best friend david tennant, then what a lovely coincidence that you had absolutely no part in making happen. because what power do you really have?

This is my favorite book I’ve read so far this year. A rare occasion where the author pulls off use of the second person pov. I really felt like I was a beloved welsh actor crossed with Machiavelli when I read this

#michael sheen

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meerkatp · 2 months ago

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Now, let's talk about Drakepad. Can we talk about Drakepad, please? I've been dying to talk about Drakepad all year, OK! Sometimes I can't help but wonder if Drake and Launchpad were suppost to become a couple in the Ducktales reboot.

Like, you got that leaked concept art from the Darkwing spinoff (I guess it's okey to post this? It's long been dead if Disney even considered picking it up at all.) where Launchpad clearly has his hand on Drake's shoulder, but it looks like Drake's got his hand on LP's back. And I say Launchpad and not Gosalyn because if it was on/ around Gos we'd likely see his hand on her head or her shoulder which it very clearly is not.

This pitch likely predates TDKR and if I were to guess when it was pitched it'd of likely been sometime in 2018? Possibly even earlier judging by Drake's design as it's still pretty early. (Plus LP's bio in the pitch bible having big (and literal) "let's pick out curtains" energy.)

And then you got this excerpt from the bonus book of the deluxe edition of the Ducktales artbook where it talks about those romantic secret side adventures Launchpad has that we never got to see, and then mentions him meeting Drake as one of these aforementioned side adventures.

And then you got this Gay-ass moment from TDKR.

And the scene of them holding hands with Drake making goo-goo eyes that was intended by the storyboarder to be romantic.

And LP returning the favor in the finale.

The symbolism of the "go to them" scene, as well as how he puts his hand over his heart because of Drake.

Side note: He did this in the original show too.

Not to mention Launchpad's canonically Bi (though they never got to explore this in the show itself).

But even if they were, there's like no way Disney would of allowed it considering how pissed they were about Penumbra being a Lesbian (forcing them to censor it in a way that makes it seem like she's just racist (Speciesist? Planetist?)). And considering how Disney's been trying to reboot Darkwing Duck there problobly would of been the thought "Well if we make them Queer in this then we'd have no choice but to make them Queer in every adaption after that" and Disney has been notoriously anti-Queer when it comes to media (That we even got The Owl House feels like a miracle in and of itself.) and now with actual fucking anti-Queer terrorism on the rise in America especially, and Project 2025 on the horizon, the higher ups are cowards at best, that is if they don't agree with the terrorists themselves (okey I'm getting on a bit of a tangent here, sorry!)

IDK did I miss something? It's like almost 4AM and I can't sleep (if that wasn't obvious).

Anyways when I said that this is what it feels like to ship Drakepad I was not exaggerating or joking.

chika chika

#drakepad #drake mallard #darkwing duck #launchpad mcquack #ducktales 2017 #ducktales #duckverse #conspiracy corner #meerkat rambles

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welcometothejianghu · 5 months ago

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Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 山河令/Word of Honor.

Word of Honor is a 2021 adaptation of a novel by priest that tells the story of two beautiful murderers, their three kids, and their collective attempts to ignore the fetchquest madness that has taken over the rest of the jianghu.

Look, you know what Word of Honor is. Doing a rec for this is like doing my rec for Nirvana in Fire -- I am not introducing you to a new concept. Even if you haven't watched it, you've probably osmosed enough through the rest of Tumblr to have an opinion on it. At this point, if you haven't seen Word of Honor, I'm assuming it's for one of two reasons: either you haven't gotten around to it yet, or you haven't been sufficiently moved by what you've seen fandom do with it.

So I'm going to give you five reasons to watch the show, and they're probably not going to be the reasons you've seen already. Not to say that the other reasons are bad, but you've heard them already, right? What I've got for you are five somewhat more unexpected reasons that may just convince the fence-sitters that this nut-flavored morass of toxic relationships is worth your time.

1. No matter how gay you think it is, it's gayer

Okay, sure, you've probably been given the impression that this show is real gay. But I don't know if you know how gay it is. This show is so gay that we still haven't seen many of the other BL-flavored shows filmed around the same time period or since, because Chinese censorship gay-panicked and locked them all away before they could air, because Word of Honor was just too gay.

Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing (L-R above) are in love. The story does not make sense if they're not. There is no story if they're not. Everything else in the show is set dressing to this incredible adventure story of two horrible people who fall for one another.

Oh yeah, did I mention that they're both bad guys? One's a fascist toddler-murderer and the other's a cannibal mob boss. These two deserve one another, in every possible sense of that phrase. In any other property, they'd be the villains -- and even here, they're still kind of the villains! It's just that the heroes are worse.

What's more, their two actors absolutely understood the assignment. They got the memo. They read the book. No one ever had to sit them down midway through shooting and explain their dynamic. They had it from the table read. When given creative freedom, they chose to double down and make the gay shit even gayer.

But the actors weren't the only ones who knew what they were doing! Everybody working on the production was pretty much in full-on Let's Make A BL mode. There are no gay accidents here. It's so gay that it's actually gayer than the version that aired. If you can do a little lip-reading (though beware of spoilers in those links), you can get at the original filmed version, which had a number of lines that were too homo and/or sexual for Chinese television.

No, they don't kiss. They don't have to. This is the TV version of the tweet about, what's gayer, gay sex or whatever these two have going on? The answer is, whatever these two have going on.

It's so gay that they're not the only gays. No, I'm not going to tell you who the other gays are, in part because spoilers. But trust me, they're there. Lesbians too! And a bisexual elderly polycule! And one pair of hets that we love love love, and most other heterosexuals are creepy and gross. And if that's not an accurate representation of how the world looks to queer people, I don't know what to tell you.

2. Go nuts!

You are not prepared for the product placement.

Word of Honor started off having a budget, so they went ahead and started spending that budget in the way you do when you're making a TV show. Unfortunately, circumstances changed, and their budget became much less, which meant they couldn't keep making that TV show unless they got more dollars. But where to get a sponsor for a fairly low-profile wuxia BL property?

Enter our hero: Wolong Nuts.

I have seen actors do bumper ads in costume for products from their various sponsors, and I have seen actors do bumper ads in character for the same. But the feeling of seeing a modern product diegetically hawked mid-scene by ancient fantasy characters is like none other.

Something like 40% of Word of Honor's total budget came from this nut sponsorship. And here the thing: It worked! It sold nuts! Hell, I’d buy them if they were sold anywhere near me; I like nuts in general, and nuts that support the queers in particular.

I'm including this as a selling point because, come on, it's funny as hell. But it's also a good place to warn you that Word of Honor has what we're politely going to call a spotty use of its funds. Some things, like everyone's outfits and the score, are lavish and beautiful. Other things, like some of the sets and a lot of the CG, are janky and sad. Crowd scenes are thirty humans and a bunch of Blender assets. I've never seen so many fake plastic trees together in one place before. There's a lot of visible hairnets. Like, a lot.

The show was originally planned as being 45 episodes long. It wound up being 36 + a tiny epilogue. That's a huge cut! I’ll say to its credit that you mostly can’t feel the seams; the production team did a heroic job killing their darlings (in many senses) while keeping the narrative coherent. If you know about the original vision, though, you can identify pretty quickly where the excised material should have been. Don’t be surprised when the last two episodes in particular smack you like a hit-and-run.

They blew a truly unwise amount of the budget on costumes in general, and Wen Kexing's costumes in particular, and thank goodness. (@canary3d-obsessed has done a noble job of cataloging everyone's wardrobes, and some of the details are just stunning.) See that red outfit he's wearing there, with the elaborate, delicate embroidery? That apparently took two people literal months to hand-sew. It's a terrible use of limited funds, and I am living for it. Even when Wen Kexing looks awful, he looks stunning -- especially when you put him side by side with Zhou Zishu, who is wearing the jianghu equivalent of slutty yoga pants and a thrift-store dollar-bin t-shirt that says IT'S WINE O'CLOCK SOMEWHERE.

So if, while you’re watching, you’re ever disappointed by the quality of the production in front of you, just console yourself by thinking: That’s nut money, baby.

3. The ghosts (and everyone else) doing the mosts

This is a show that somehow managed to accumulate a tremendous supporting cast of actual grown-ass adults, then had the wisdom to make them play a wide variety of balls-to-the-wall bonkers roles.

You can't throw a rock in a crowd scene without hitting a dozen actors with resumes as long as their arms, who have been acting since before you were born. Apparently they poached a couple veteran film and stage actors from other contemporaneous productions and had them come over to film bit parts on their days off. If you see a character played by an older actor who's getting more lines and face time than you think their character strictly deserves relative to their importance to the plot, and you're like, hm, I wonder if this older actor has a career that includes roles in several dozen other shows and/or stage productions, the answer is yes.

I've seen the tone of the show described as melodramatic, but I don't think that's quite it -- it's more operatic. People speak to the middle distance and play to the back row. Several actors have the body language and line delivery that makes it seem like they're always about three words away from breaking into song. Several of my favorites are downright camp. It's magnificent.

Statistically, everyone in this show is a bad guy. There are the respectable people who don't mean to be bad guys, but wind up being bad guys anyway because they support bullshit systems. There are the morally grey folk who are willing to become bad guys because they think they'll be the good guys when all is said and done. And there are the bad guys who know they're bad guys and are going to chew every piece of scenery in the vicinity about it, so watch out.

My favorite collection of scene-stealing weirdos is probably the clutch of freaks that make up the ghosts of Ghost Valley. They're not actual ghosts -- this is not a supernatural show. They are instead living people who call themselves ghosts because they've found themselves on the margins of society for one reason or another, and have created their own little society! With hookers! And blackjack! And also a little murder, as a treat!

These ghosts are so extra that they actually have a Top Ten List, where all the ones that have code names and specific costumes hang out. How do you get on the Top Ten List? By killing one or more of the people already on it, of course! I told you these guys are villains! They're not even the only villains! They're not even the only villain organization! It's wall-to-wall bad guys around here! And oh my goodness, the actors are clearly having a ball with it.

When the screenwriter came to adapt Faraway Wanderers (the novel) into Word of Honor, she realized that there weren't a whole lot of ladies in the book -- so she invented/adapted some for the show and made most of them sinister! (In fact, if you watch Legend of Fei -- and you should watch Legend of Fei -- you can see a lot of the inspiration for said ladies.) Some of the female characters in the show were men in the book, while others weren't even in the book at all. They all feel organic, though, and not like someone was trying to get Strong Female Character Points. It's the good representation you get when there's a lot of representation, so nobody has to be The Girl, and all the girls can just be people.

...Alas that another casualty of the budget cuts is that several of the lady characters did not get to live up to their full ass-kicking potential. But that potential is still there! The badassery may be implicit instead of explicit, but you don't doubt that many of these women would eat your heart at the slightest provocation, and you would thank them while they were doing it.

This show is perfect food if you're the kind of viewer liable to get sucked up into the worlds of villains, NPCs, bit parts, optional side characters, and other narratives going on outside the main storyline. Because there's a lot going on outside the main storyline. I mean, that's kind of the running joke of the whole novel, that there's this whole complicated political plot happening, and yet our dudes are over here studiously trying to not know what the hell is going on. Obviously that's harder to preserve in a show, but it's still a key feature of the narrative. Most of the Big Power Play What-Not is always happening a few towns over from where the main party is at any given moment. I know people who've watched the drama several times and still can't explain whatever's happening with all that. That's fine. You roll with it for the sake of everything else.

So! Do you like gazing upon delightful character actors and having imagination adventures about the unexplored workings of a bunch of tantalizingly mysterious and often very sexy weirdos? Great! This will keep you busy for a good long while.

4. The juciest pining in the jianghu

I said I wasn't going to tell you about all the gay shit going on here, and I'm not. What I do want to cover, however, is how much gay shit isn't going on here -- and by that I mean just how much of the show's gay longing is unrequited. If you like it when the boy yearns for the other boy, friend, you will feast well tonight.

You have likely already, through fandom, been alerted to the existence of the biggest gremlin in the land and an understandable number of people's favorite character, immortal grandpa Ye Baiyi. What may not have been conveyed, however, is just how tragically gay this bitch is. The ultra-condensed, scrubbed-for-spoilers version of his backstory is that he was in love with a guy who got injured because of him, so he decided to stay and live on a mountain with that guy and the guy's wife and coparent their son with them, all the while never once telling the guy how he felt.

This is not me with slash goggles on. This is canon. Well, okay, the "in love with" part is only confirmed in the book, but Huang Youming, Ye Baiyi's equally gremlin-like actor, has also clearly done the reading and understands how to break your heart with it. Ugh, it's so good.

Shidifuckers, rejoice! Zhou Zishu has Han Ying, his devoted little dumpling who would -- and does -- do anything for him. Back in Zhou Zishu's regrettable (but very fashionable) fascist days, he had a bunch of little underlings; one of them was Han Ying, who still works for the same evil empire. Problem is, Han Ying isn't evil. He was never loyal to his job; he was always just loyal to Zhou Zishu. It's cute the way Wen Kexing hisses like a cat upon meeting Han Ying and immediately identifying him as a rival for Zhou Zishu's affections. If you like OTPs that occasionally roll in a service-top third, please consider that adorable muffin boy up there.

And speaking of quitting your job, have you ever had the problem where you had to orchestrate your own death to get away from your toxic boss who won't stop sexually harassing you, and that motherfucker still expects you to show up for your shift next weekend? Meet Prince Jin, who has refused to accept Zhou Zishu's resignation letter with extreme prejudice.

Zhou Zishu isn't even the only ex he's mad he drove off! But that's just a namedrop in the show; see my bonus selling point for instructions on how to get into that whole gay-ass story. [insert obligatory "Prince Jin is not Helian Yi" disclaimer here]

...Nope, uh-uh, we're not going to get into what's going on with Scorpy. Suffice it to say, this is one of those cases where the show can't outright call a thing gay (though uhhhh it sure can imply a lot of it!), but it can set up an unspoken Gay Bad Idea as a direct, textual parallel with a canon Straight Bad Idea and be like, see? see? Anyway, daddy's boy there has deliciously terrible taste. This is the one that'll have you screaming crying throwing up etc.

And then there's this handsome jackass, who isn't doing the pining, but is the unfortunately heterosexual object of the often confused and misdirected longings of his friends. About the first thing you know about Rong Xuan is that he died before the series begins, so you only see him in a few flashbacks. The precious few times you do, though, you're treated to scenes of him holding court among his besties (many of whom are the spectacularly cast younger versions of major older male characters) while they all wrestle with varying degrees of homo longing for his cocky dreamboat self. You ever wanted to fuck a straight guy so bad you got both him and his wife killed about it? Because somebody in this drama sure has!

I sense you think I'm making this all up, that I'm just a fujoshi looking at the world through rainbow-colored glasses and telling you about her favorite slash pairings. Friend, I am not. Okay, I am being a little cheeky about the last one, but I swear that everything else I have listed in this selling point is about as textual as the show could make it, if not outright straight (ha ha) from the books.

(I have a whole separate theory about how priest herself is a real-life queer, based on how basically everyone in her works is either queer-coded or a token straight who's on thin ice, but that's a subject for a completely different Tumblr post no one's ever going to read, so save us both the time and imagine I already wrote it.)

I cannot stress to you enough how much this show knew what it was doing with the queer stuff. I love how amazingly toxic so much of it is, too, because one of the big themes of the show is that secrets will destroy you and everyone you love. If you have gay longing in a society that forces you to hide that gay longing, yeah, you're going to be extra-vulnerable to making some shitty decisions because of it! You're either going to suffocate yourself by keeping silent, or you're going to open yourself to intimate partner abuse you can't reveal to anyone else, or you're going to do some murders about it! Or some combination of the three! Either way, it's not good!

Also, tell your partner about your chronic health conditions, whether they be Can't Remember My Past, Would Eat A Guy If I Had The Opportunity, Stuck Some Nails In My Chest And Am Now Dying And Also Can't Get A Boner, or Whoops Took The Nails Out Of My Chest And Still Can't Get A Boner. Oh, and tell your partner if you're about to run off and go confront your dangerous ex. And absolutely tell your partner if you're about to fake your own death. Just ... learn to have conversations with the people who love you, okay? Avoid huge amounts of narrative suffering with this one weird trick!

5. Putting his whole Zhang Zhehussy into it

See, Gong Jun (playing Wen Kexing) is not what I'd call a great actor. This is more of a case where you take a guy, you cast him as a character whose motivation can be summed up as "I want to fuck that man in half," and then you cast opposite him a man that the guy in question clearly actually wants to fuck in half. And you let the magic work.

Zhang Zhehan (playing Zhou Zishu), however, legitimately knocks it entirely out of the park. Whenever the camera's on him, it's hard to take your eyes off him. He holds his own in a sea of veteran actors. He can do comedy and tragedy with equal panache. It's lucky he's such a beautiful crier, because Zhou Zishu cries so much. I have never seen someone more perfectly portray the mood of "in love and absolutely furious about it."

As the story goes, when he auditioned, he actually wanted to play Wen Kexing -- but the director told him, look, while you'd be great at that, I can find another Wen Kexing, but I'm never going to find another Zhou Zishu.

Zhou Zishu is bad man who has done terrible things and resigned himself to suffering to atone for his crimes, and he is so mad to find himself at the end of his life suddenly having a reason to keep living. Zhang Zhehan does a pitch-perfect tsundere right up to the point where he breaks. I'm not going to call it an understated performance, because nothing in this show is understated, but it is often times subtle and always complex, and fuck does he have a good crazy grin.

One of the first things you find out about Zhou Zishu is that he's got just a couple years left to live, over which time all his senses are going to deteriorate. In fact, they've already started going. And as the show goes on, you can watch Zhang Zhehan play it so you can tell when he's missed something he should otherwise have picked up on, reacting to noises and touches a split-second late. It's a testament to what a thoughtful job Zhang Zhehan's doing, keeping track of how much of Zhou Zishu has already slipped away.

There are, if you've read the book, legitimate complaints to be made about the adaptation's interpretation of Zhou Zishu's character, and I get that. But you can't say that Zhang Zhehan isn't pulling off exactly what he means to here. I say this too as someone who loves the novel: I think it works. Given the constraints of Chinese television in particular and cinematic adaptations in general, the show made the right choices when it came to figuring out what were the more filmable, actable options, and Zhang Zhehan plays every one of those choices within an inch of his life.

Also did I mention he's like the most beautiful man to ever exist? Holy crap. You're going to be so mad about what they do to his face for the first several episodes.

Don't worry, it washes off eventually.

caveat: Kind of a bummer!

You may have been warned that this one's got a sad ending. Well ... yes and no. On the "no" side of things, there's a "secret" mini-episode 37 that rolls back one of the major points of tragedy. (It's also clearly the first version that got shot, and then they shuffled around and redubbed some material to make the aired end of episode 36.)

But oh man, not all of them. Plenty of characters we love do not make it to the end. Like ... kind of a shockingly large number. Some are dispatched offscreen, some have tragic onscreen deaths, some are probably dead given the circumstances we last see them in, and a couple aren't dead yet but are almost certainly going to be soon.

(It's also kind of a meta-bummer! I mean, I don't recommend falling down the rabbit hole of what happened with Zhang Zhehan's career after the show aired, but tl;dr, it's not great.)

So yeah, it's not an outright pain simulator, and if you've got the mettle for Nirvana in Fire or Guardian, you should be okay here. But hoo boy, don't just blunder on in expecting a cheerful romp from start to finish, because ... yeah. I said it before: This is a story about a bunch of bad guys. Bad guys don't live long lives, nor do the good people who get tangled up in their shit. Just be prepared!

bonus selling point: black and white husbands

Okay, I will tell you who one of the other pairs of gays is. You'll see the two of them show up near the tail end of the show, and then you'll decide you want to know more about what their whole deal is, and then you'll read Qi Ye, which is a novel entirely about gay pining, and then it'll be all over for you.

Ready to wander this way?

There's a number of ways to watch this one! Viki, Netflix, YouTube, and Amazon Prime all have you covered -- but Viki's the only one that has the epilogue at the ready, so I'd go there if you can.

And I get it, if you're enough of an aging hipster that you don't want to play in the same sandbox everybody else is playing in. Believe me, I understand that impulse on a visceral level. After all, this is not a small fandom -- 7718 works on AO3 (at time of writing) isn't Untamed levels of content, but it's nothing to sneeze at. Maybe you want to leave this one for a little while longer, until the hubbub dies down a bit more and people's attention is redirected by a different gay and shiny thing. That's valid. I get it.

But if you do, I still encourage you to get around to it someday. For all its flaws -- and yeah, it's got flaws -- it's a good, solid story that makes you feel lots of feelings about some fascinating characters in some beautiful costumes, running around being real queer (and okay, occasionally straight) to beautiful music. This, to me, is television.

Fun fact! There is also a Japanese dub, if you feel like taking it at that speed, and the guy who voices Zhou Zishu is the voice of Kaworu from Evangelion, and the guy who voices Wen Kexing is the voice of Victor Nikiforov from Yuri on Ice. See what I mean???

I'm telling you, everybody ships it.

#word of honor #山河令 #shan he ling #wenzhou #rec post #i made this #tyk

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myidlehand · 1 year ago

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I've once again seen a post on my dash about how Joey had to "fight" for Jaskier being queer this season.

I didn't reblog it cause I don't want to target one post in particular but people who make those posts need to understand this is factually wrong and just keep the hate towards Lauren growing for no reason.

It was Lauren who approached him. Joey said so himself. He praised her in many interviews for going that road. He worked with her on making sure it was done right, his words again (he seems quite aware of LGBTQA+ culture and maybe his sensibilities are a bit more "up to date" than the average straight person. If Lauren and most of the writers are straight, it seems logical for them to struggle to make it not cliché and for Joey to help make it something the community would like more, but that is just my theory).

But he never said he had to fight for it as much as people say he did, on the contrary. He said in at least one interview that it was very collaborative. From what I understand in some of his interviews he possibly wanted more control over Jaskier's journey this season but he certainly didn't have to fight for it. People seem to have gotten that idea from Joey's "essay" but at no point did he say it was to fix what they did. He obviously had an idea of what he wanted to do and asked for re writes and cuts in the dialogue to add more music. Every interview where he mentions this he pretty much says he was helping and collaborating with the writers. This sounds pretty normal to me as every actor on this show (Henry in particular) seems to be allowed to participate with the writing of their own character.

I know most of the fandom loves to believe all the good parts come from the actors and all the bad ideas come from Lauren (she obviously hasn't always made good choices and I'm not excusing her for the mess season 2 was) but this is just deforming what Joey actually said and taking some of the credit away from other people.

I love that Jaskier is pan. It's one of my favourite parts of the season. But it was not just Joey's idea it was Lauren's as well. Credit where credit's due. She's not as bad as the fandom makes her to be and she's a big reason why season 3 is so good. I don't love the way she try to sell the show as something never seen before because it still is mostly adapted from the books but nobody can argue when it comes to Jaskier that she made him a lot better than Dandelion (who I love to death but he's a little shit and I think Jaskier is a much more interesting character).

#jaskier #joey batey #lauren schmidt hissrich #the witcher

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gothicprep · 3 months ago

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twitter lesbians who intellectualize why they can't find a girlfriend are so annoying. "i'm convinced that the etiology of female homosexuality is blah blah" shut up and stop making excuses. get out of your head and follow my example.

hold down a part time job in food service for at least six months. the skills you develop from this benefit you in a variety of ways, from dating women who are out of your league to landing jobs you're probably not fully qualified for. this is especially true if your bag is something STEM related.

hate dating apps? me too! i've never bothered with them. all you really need to do is develop your social muscles and be open about your sexual orientation. or go to one of those lesbian meetup hobby groups called "dykes on hikes" or whatever. are you a musician? go to an open mic night and fraternize with people. you can adapt this in whatever way works for you.

be flexible with your aesthetic choices. some women like the ~queer~ aesthetic, some women are turned off by it. master looking as good as possible in queer and conventional self-presentation and you'll always win.

if applicable, keep your interest in manga and anime out of the range of date conversation topics. unless it's something massively popular like one piece or eva, i cannot emphasize enough how much this scares the hoes. you can have private interests and i'd recommend relegating this one to that sphere in the early phases of seeing someone.

source: this attitude got me a wife. you'll be fine. just start pressing the limits of your comfort zone.

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xxgothchatonxx · 8 months ago

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I am so excited to see Luke Brandon Field as Daniel Molloy next season.

I think Daniel Molloy is a great character. The whole idea of a human character willingly wanting to be a vampire and being subjected to a horrific, self-destructive lifestyle as a result of that desire that is never fulfilled until he is literally dying because of it (yup, metaphor for drug addiction) is just so horrifying but so well-written in the books.

And the fact that we're FINALLY getting to see his story with Armand be portrayed on-screen is both exciting and dread-inducing in the best possible ways. It's exciting because this will be the first time this story has been adapted. It wasn't included in the '94 film (well, duh, it was just about 'IWTV') and the QOTD film just completely erased Daniel's existence (another queer plot bites the dust...) so I am so relieved that we're finally getting this hauntingly beautiful insanely fucked up vampire-human romance story. Because it truly is a fucked up romance. And I have no doubt that the show will do this story justice. Sure, show how Daniel made the wrong choice with his desire to be a vampire BUT also show how selfish Armand is for putting him through all that. Because yes, Armand does love him and he does have a point that vampirism is a curse etc., but he's incredibly selfish for not just letting Daniel go... EXCEPT in this show he did eventually let Daniel go... but now Daniel's back- jeez, this season's going to be completely chock-full of drama, huh?

So, this show's version of 'Devil's Minion' is clearly more extended than the book's version, but I'm really excited to see how it all plays out. And I'm so excited to see how Luke portrays this version of Daniel. I hope to see a lot of love, delirium, comfort, anger, confusion, exhaustion, and heartbreak.

It's going to be very uncomfortable to watch, but I reckon he (and Assad, Jacob and whoever's playing Alice) is going to deliver an incredible performance.

#interview with the vampire #daniel molloy

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orionsangel86 · 1 year ago

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Subtext Glorious Subtext! A Dreamling on Netflix analysis in The Sandman - Masterpost

Introduction

Shortly after realising this show was going to become my new obsession, I decided to throw myself into all things Sandman, which meant actually reading the comics (several times over) and listening to the audio book on Audible. The one thing that struck me most after consuming all Sandman media, was how different the tone of the Netflix show was. In particular, the choices made in the show for the Men of Good Fortune sequence in episode 6 The Sound of Her Wings which is the reason I fell head first into shipping Dreamling. The Netflix show portrays Dream and Hob’s relationship in a whole different way to the comic and the Audible book.

Whilst it IS possible to pick up certain moments in the Men of Good Fortune comic which can be interpreted with a queer lense, (the rose, Death’s knowing expression, etc) there isn’t really much to work with until we get to Hob’s dream in Season of Mists (and I’m losing my mind thinking about how the Netflix show will adapt THAT).

The queer coding in the show however is laid on so thickly, it’s difficult to ignore it. Like with most popular fandom ships, the reason Dreamling has suddenly become SO popular, is because viewers all collectively watched this 30 minute sequence, and had the eyebrow raising realisation that this was actually all very romantic and subtextually very queer.

I have yet to see a full meta analysis of the episode, so thought I would write a breakdown of Dream and Hob’s meetings over the centuries and outline how their differences from the comics have had such an impact on Dream and Hob’s relationship. How everything from the tweaks to the dialogue and additional scenes, the acting choices made, music cues, and the use of classic love tropes in TV have all come together to give us a subtextual masterpiece of queer coding and very much turned a friendship into something more. Even if you don’t ship Dreamling, I believe it would be very difficult for anyone versed in fandom culture (and anyone with a good knowledge of film and TV analysis) to ignore just how thickly the queer subtext is laid on.

Besides, its also writer acknowledged that there was intention there among the creative team, whatever they may decide to do with that going forward.

Initially I was going to put this entire analysis into one long post, but it is far too long and Tumblr was getting angry with me for the amount of gifs I was using. Instead I have broken my meta essay down into 8 parts as follows under the cut:

Chapter 1 - A Walk with Death and the Return to the White Horse

Chapter 2 - 1389 and 1489

Chapter 3 - 1589

Chapter 4 - 1689

Chapter 5 - 1789

Chapter 6 - 1889

Chapter 7 - 1989

Chaper 8 - Reunited

I have been writing this meta essay very slowly over the space of 7 months and I would love to know your thoughts, feedback, comments, or questions on it! Tagging those who may be interested and those who have asked to be tagged:

@notallsandmen @academicblorbo @just-cosmere-fan @seiya-starsniper @littledreamling @altair214 @lulusolier @joyce20091234 @zenkitty714 @tickldpnk8 @timeuntravel @marlowe-zara @mr-sadman @duckland

#dreamling #dreamling meta #the sandman #sandman analysis #sandman meta #dream of the endless #hob gadling #sandman comic spoilers #my meta #dream x hob #dreamling week #dreamling week 2023

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lurkingshan · 9 months ago

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Anticipating the LITBC Adaptations

One of the questions @bengiyo asked us this week is what parts of the book we are most looking forward to seeing in the upcoming film and drama adaptations. I had a good convo with @doyou000me and @stuffnonsenseandotherthings in the comments here, and I wanted to talk a bit about why I am excited for these adaptations.

Most folks who watch a lot of South Korean media know that there is precious little LGBTQ+ representation in Korean dramas and film. In mainstream kdrama, we are lucky if we get a queer side character a couple times a year, and it's even more rare for those characters to get a romantic partner (but not unheard of, see Be Melodramatic my beloved). There has been a big uptick in Korean bl production over the last few years, but most of those projects are underfunded and fly under the radar (with notable exceptions like Semantic Error, The Eighth Sense, and Love for Love's Sake). So it is a very big deal to me to see two mainstream adaptations of Love in the Big City, a story that is undeniably centered on a queer lived experience.

Let's talk about the film first. When I first saw the announcement that we would get a film adaptation starring Kim Go Eun, Steve Noh, and Kang Ha Neul, I was ecstatic. These are huge names in Korean media, drama headliners and movie stars. Now, does the choice to focus only on part 1 and center the story on Jaehee mean this project likely won't feel fully rooted in Young's queer perspective? Absolutely, we should recognize that and manage our expectations accordingly. But there will be a mainstream film about the relationship between a woman and a gay man living together, and that is already a very big deal for South Korea. We have to look at this project from the context of Korean social politics and recognize that it signifies progress. And I am still hopeful that Young will feel like a fully realized character, even if we are unlikely to see the full extent of his depth and complexity represented in this film.

And that is where the drama comes in. Sang Young Park himself is the screenwriter for this adaptation, and based on the production photos @my-rose-tinted-glasses shared here, we are getting all four parts of the story in this version. The cast here is not as famous as the film headliners, but they are recognizable, solid actors who have had main roles in other dramas. I don't know how these two projects came to be made at the same time, so I can only say that having them premiere around the same time is genius, whether by intention or happenstance. Because I can easily imagine that people who are exposed to this story for the first time via the film might then go check out the drama, where they will see a much fuller picture of Young's life and an authentic queer experience. @archiveofmystuff shared that there has been some reporting about the long process to secure funding for this full novel adaptation, and I'm not surprised it was difficult. But with Sang Young Park attached I feel confident that we will get a solid version of this story, even if it can't get quite as explicit about all the gory details as the novel did. I can't wait to see Young, Jaehee, Umma, Hyung, and Gyu-ho on my screen, and I'll be so curious to see how he structures the show to fit the four parts of his novel into eight 50-minute episodes. There are so many exciting possibilities and I am feeling optimistic.

TL; DR: it's a big deal that these adaptations are being made, and it will surely result in more people seeing Young's story. It's a signal of positive progress in the Korean media landscape, and I welcome it.

#love in the big city #litbc book club #korean bl #kdrama #shan shouts into the void

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yelena-bellova · 5 months ago

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Let me first say that I hold absolutely zero hate for any community, any minority, any gender. While I know it would be convenient for whoever disagrees with this post if I were a hateful, racist, homophobic asshole, that’s not the case. I also bear no ill will towards Masali Baduza. These are my opinions that no one else has to agree with.

I don’t like the Michaela/Michael change.

1: It’s a direct f-you to the book fans.

I have read only one Bridgerton book and didn’t get into the show till 2022 but I have known for a long time that Francesca and Michael are one of the most popular couples. I’ve known WHWW is tied with AOFAG for the most popular book. I know that Michael Stirling is a sacred name in this fandom. People have been waiting years to laugh at him, to be charmed by him, to swoon over him for years.

And now…he’s never going to exist.

Imagine if a queer character were made heterosexual. The community would be screaming. It’s not the gender politics influencing people’s emotions on the subject, it’s losing a character as they were written. We trust those who adapt literature to stay on the basic path of the story with the usual minor changes. Michaela having the same general vibes as Michael is not the same thing. This creative choice is relegating WHWW essentially to just general inspiration.

2: Jess Brownell comments while discussing the change were bad.

“I know for people who love the book When He Was Wicked that Michael Stirling is one of their favorite characters. I understand that people are going to have feelings about the fact that this character won’t appear exactly as they expected.”

“I would also just say that the book still stands. Michael Stirling still exists in book world.”

So…that’s it? Go read the book? That’s supposed to be enough? I’ll say it again, FANS HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR MICHAEL FOR YEARS. They deserve more than “lol sad for you. Go read the book!” As the show runner for a popular adaption, it’s a poor answer.

Jess also included comments about how she related as a queer woman to Francesca feeling different from her family in WHWW. Ok, great! By all means, write a personal queer storyline for your show. Please do not take a beloved character and erase them because you felt a certain way reading the book.

The fans are the only reason why the show is so popular. While no creative team should let the fans dictate every move they make, it’s very clear they ignored them entirely when it came to the love for Francesca’s story. Going this much against what the fans have 100% reasonably expected is a move that kills successful shows.

3: It’s poor representation.

Genderbending a role is the absolute laziest way to bring representation to a project. Rather than craft a new character, studios take pre-written material and give it to a woman, a POC, someone disabled or someone from the LGBTQ community to appease those asking for representation. In this case, the amount of changes they will have to make for Francesca’s storyline will create more work than it would have taken to just create a new character with their own story. The entire basis of Francesca’s season requires a male lead.

If you want representation, if you want the audience see themselves in the characters, WORK FOR IT. Don’t put forth the least effort possible and upcycle a pre-existing story. As a member of multiple of the aforementioned communities, I don’t want the bare minimum when it comes to feeling represented.

Not to mention that Francesca is one of the strangest choices of characters to make queer. Whether or not they tried, the Bridgerton writers created two brilliant opportunities for LGBTQ representation with Benedict and Eloise. Both have been theorized about (and Benedict was confirmed this season) for years and they could have written both/either a full queer storyline and it would have made total sense. Fans would have loved it! Francesca’s sexuality being changed from the book feels forced.

4: It cancels out the depth of John and Francesca’s relationship.

To spend a whole season building up John and Francesca’s love story only to end it with laying groundwork for another relationship is…so bad.

John spent the season putting in effort to come out of his shell for Francesca. He is the first person outside her family she’s comfortable enough to connect with. They find something in one another that cannot be duplicated. With Francesca utterly flustered by another person after JUST MARRYING John is a disservice to both of them. It takes away so much of the relationship’s meaning if Francesca now has an eye, even fleetingly, on someone else. Not to mention her face after kissing him? That is so far from book Francesca’s devotion and love for her husband. By initiating Francesca’s draw to Michaela, especially through the foreshadowing of Violet’s speech leading up to their meeting, the show has made John a present afterthought.

Let me finish with this…

It is NOT homophobic to dislike the change.

It is NOT racist to dislike the change.

It is NOT misogynistic to dislike the change.

Unless someone is spewing direct and discriminatory hate, they are simply a disappointed fan. 99% of the comments I’ve seen are people saying yes to queer storylines, yes to representation in Bridgerton itself, but begging not to dismantle another storyline to bring those things forth.

#i’m also turning off anons so if anyone sends me d*ath threats they’ll have to do so publically #bridgerton #bridgerton spoilers #francesca bridgerton #michaela stirling #michael stirling #when he was wicked

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musicalmoritz · 4 months ago

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I am hopeful about how the anime will adapt TeruAoi

Hear me out, one of the most common complaints about the writing of the manga is that Teru’s crush on Aoi doesn’t make any sense. There’s still the possibility he could like Akane instead (or the even less likely possibility he could like both), but right now it’s strongly looking like his crush is Aoi. I know, I wanted gay people too, but this is what we’re working with. There are hints throughout the manga that he likes her, but most of those come in the form of jokes where he’s trying to get a rise out of Akane. That actually provides more evidence towards him liking Akane than Aoi, since in those scenes he’s focused on how Akane is feeling rather than Aoi herself. So if AidaIro intend on us to pick up on TeruAoi, they’ve done a very poor job. I’d argue that the ship thrives off of heteronormativity, most straight readers (and even many queer ones) will automatically assume Teru likes Aoi and not Akane simply because he’s a boy and she’s a girl. It’s a reasonable assumption, queer rep still isn’t common enough to be the default. But it’s not a great basis for building an actual relationship, even a one-sided one

Look at Kou and Nene, that’s a one-sided relationship that was written well while still making it clear who we’re supposed to be rooting for. TBHK isn’t a love triangle like Twilight, we’re not meant to have equal fuel for both sides because AidaIro ultimately care that we support HanaNene. Kou and Nene have had numerous scenes building their friendship and, by extension, Kou’s feelings for her. However, most of these scenes are intercepted by HanaNene and Mitsukou moments. Their most notable ship moment, the donut scene, was used so that Nene could cheer Hanako up. This method gives Kounene plenty of buildup to where Kou’s feelings for her make sense without disrupting either of the main pairings. It’s also remedied by the fact that Kou gets another love interest fairly early on, so he’s not stuck in the role of the “second choice” for long. That was never really part of his arc but I digress

A lot of my points here are up for interpretation or preference, some fans don’t have a problem with how TeruAoi has been built up. It’s not going to be engame, so some might even say it doesn’t matter. But with Teru’s feelings for her being such a consistent thing throughout the manga, I’d say it’s fairly important that they’re set up well. It’s central to the dynamic of the Sunflower Troupe too, which is even more important. Teru’s feelings for Aoi play into the Terukane rivalry that is so integral to their dynamic, and towards motivating Teru during the Red House arc. Keep in mind, if TeruAoi were well-written, the fandom wouldn’t be so divided on whether or not Aoi is Teru’s crush

There is still the chance that it’s been kept vague for a reason and Teru is actually gay. Please AidaIro it’s not too late-

Despite the negative tone of everything you just read, I love TeruAoi. I’m content with it being canon, although I would rather have Terukane if I’m being honest. I’m a multishipper though, so I want to make it clear that I am by no means a TeruAoi hater. On the contrary, I think they have a lot of potential, and I hope the anime doesn’t waste the opportunity to explore that. So onto the actual point of this rant

THIS CHAPTER. The one that somewhat salvaged TeruAoi’s lazy writing. The chapter that brought TeruAoi shippers rain after a drought. We’re going to see it animated in October. And I am going insane over that

The anime is known for being a poor adaptation of the manga, but in my opinion it has its benefits and its drawbacks. One of the biggest drawbacks is Teru, they completely cut out the arc that delves into his childhood and dynamic with Kou. We lost a lot of his characterization and he essentially became a background character. My boy deserves better than that. But the two new trailers showed a lot of Teru from what I remember (it’s impossible for me to miss my king), and I’m taking that as a sign that they’ve realized his potential as a character. We might get the Young Exorcist arc in season 2, since it’s incredibly important to Kou and Teru’s development both as characters and as a sibling dynamic. This might be wishful thinking but now that they realize people like this series and want to see more of it, maybe they’ll start doing the side characters justice

One of the good points, and this is going to be very controversial, is AoiAoi. The number one complaint I’ve seen about the anime (besides the exclusion of the Young Exorcist arc), is that they nerfed Akane. I disagree. Yes, anime Akane is nothing but a goofy looking nerd who simps for Aoi, but that’s essentially what his character was in the first few arcs of the manga. They adapted him accurately for what they covered. You could just as well complain that Aoi is nothing but Nene’s popular best friend in the anime. That’s true, but only because they haven’t gotten to the Grim Reaper arc yet. The anime notoriously didn’t get to the Clock Keepers arc, but since we’re getting that in season 2, we’ll be seeing a lot more of anime Akane soon. And I don’t think he’s going to disappoint

“But how did they do AoiAoi well if they didn’t adapt much?” I’m so glad you asked. Not many people have pointed this out, but the anime clearly favored AoiAoi in comparison to the other side characters. They added in a lot of scenes that weren’t in the manga, such as their interaction in the garden and the “I’d cut off my own head” scene. I can’t remember them adding in many other scenes, besides Yako’s backstory, so they must have wanted some fan service. The anime really leans into the romance element (for better or worse), which is where I think they could do right by TeruAoi

We’ll be getting the iconic convenience store chapter in October, before season 2 of the anime comes out. This means we’ll get a meaningful TeruAoi moment animated before any meaningful AoiAoi moments have been animated, though AoiAoi has already been setup through the first seasons of TBHK and ASHK. So anime-onlys already know Akane and Aoi have feelings for each other, but before that gets explored in a serious manner, they’ll learn that Teru also potentially has feelings for Aoi. This is good, this will put the idea in viewers heads that Teru likes Aoi before he even jokes about liking her in the main series. The first time his feelings were mentioned in the manga was during the exam chapter, and that won’t get animated until season 3 or 4. So until then, they’ll already have the concept of TeruAoi. And they’ll be introduced to that concept through a serious episode rather than a gag scene of Teru threatening Akane

This will set up the group dynamic well while still upholding AoiAoi as the one we’re supposed to root for. They were established first, and we’ll get more insight into Akane’s feelings during the Clock Keepers arc. It won’t come at the expense of AoiAoi, but we’ll be shown a more serious TeruAoi scene to build them up as competition. That will balance out the two dynamics

I’m also hoping they add in a few scenes of TeruAoi the way they did with AoiAoi. The two aren’t really friends until the Grim Reaper arc, but they could throw in a few gag scenes of Teru sucking up to Aoi the way he’s mentioned to do in the manga. A scene of him being overly friendly to her in the hallway, offering to help her carry her bag, etc. And she could still shut him down in a polite way so they don’t lose the dynamic they have in the manga. I wouldn’t want them to do too much or give more confirmation of Teru’s feelings than we get at that point in the manga, but a few filler scenes could really help to build their relationship. At the very least, it would help Teru’s feelings make sense. But I’m already very optimistic since the TeruAoi episode of ASHK is already going to give Teru’s feelings more grounding. Releasing it before the two of them interact/mention each other in the main anime is honestly the best decision they could have made. It will be pleasantly unexpected to anime-onlys who haven’t seen the characters interact before and don’t know what their relationship is in the manga

Anyways, I know a lot of people are freaking out about the anime getting a season 2 (and I understand why), but I’m trying to stay hopeful. The first season was bad, but it’s a good introduction to the series. It was how I got into tbhk, and I felt it was a good start. It was enough to get me hyperfixated after just a few episodes so it’s not THAT bad (okay, it’s kinda bad). But they still have time to fix the major mistakes they made in season 2, as long as we get the Young Exorcist arc. And either way, ASHK is going to be delightful

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eliaskew · 3 months ago

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Found a post on Reddit talking about possible Marauders AU's and thought I'd throw my own hat into the ring so, here are some, specifically british shows/movies I think could be adapted into brilliant fics and AU's.

The History Boys-

A group of Sixth Formers from a poor area in Yorkshire achieve the highest grades in their A Levels that the school has ever seen. Consequently, the principal makes them stay an extra term so that they can prepare to get into Oxford and Cambridge universities (the most prestigious universities in the UK).

There's a wide variety of characters, including an eccentric "general studies" teacher who takes the boys on "special" motorbike rides and feels them up at stops, a young history teacher brought in to get them ready for Oxford, despite being a fraud, and the boys themselves who are all colourful and weird in their own ways.

The story has tragedy, heartbreak, exam stress, lots of very British banter and an excellent commentary on Queerness and Queen relationships. It's the British answer to the Dead Poets Society and has adaptations on the BBC.

The Full Monty-

Another British film, once again set in Yorkshire (both around the canon time period too). After the Thatcher administration, hundreds of miners in Yorkshire lose their jobs, as do many factory workers.

This film follows a dad attempting to raise money so he can fight his ex-wife in court for joint custody of their son, his best mate who feels insecure about his weight, a depressed young queer man looking after his mother and a few others besides as they try and fail to look for jobs now their steel factory is bust.

They see hoards of women watching male strip shows and decide to give that a try as a way to raise money. Hijinks ensue including stripping, intimidation of repo men, running naked from the police, terrible dancing, hilarious auditions for the troupe and more.

It's a commentary on class, desperation and male friendships which remain wholesome throughout. There is also a queer relationship between two characters which while not particularly explored in the film could be explored in an au.

The Importance of Being Ernest-

Oscar Wilde's most famous comedy where two upper class gentleman pull a long con on the people around them by each pretending to be a fictional "Ernest". Of course, the core of this revolves around the women they're interested in:

Jack Worthing invents a brother named "Ernest" for the people of his country home, while his friend Algernon Montcrieff creates an invalid friend called Bunbury. Both characters invented by these men as reasons to skive off their duties and pursue romantic encounters.

Jack is interested in Algernon's cousin, who has a fascination with men called Ernest and Algernon hears about Jack's ward and, seeing her as a way to raise himself out of debt, pretends to be Jack's non-existent brother "Ernest" to get in with her.

It's a comedy of errors entirely befitting of the Marauders era with a lot of British tongue-in-cheek humour, romantic moments and convoluted deception.

Derry Girls-

A more modern entry than most of the others on my list. Set in an all girls school (minus James the wee English fella) in Ireland it follows a group of girls and James as they go through the trials and tribulations of living in Ireland during the Troubles, school life, religious guilt and sexuality. Again, it's incredibly funny, heartbreaking in moments and highly relatable. Definitely a good choice for an AU, especially if one wanted to focus more on the friendship side than the relationship side of the Marauders fandom.

Sex Education-

Fairly self explanatory, a group for British pupils at a Sixth Form College discovering their sexualities, learning about sex in a way that wasn't taught at school. Very queer, very funny at points with moments of family troubles, harder topics and exam stress. Modern day as opposed to Derry Girls which is set in the 90's so more wiggle room if you're someone who prefers modern au's. Large and diverse cast with individual stories and character growth so another one that's perfect for including the entire Marauders Ensemble.

Good Omens-

An Angel and a Demon are both sent to earth, one to bring miracles, the other to tempt people to sin. Along the way they get to know and care about each other, forming a pact where they will occasionally help each other out on jobs since they're effectively cancelling out each other's usefulness.

6000 years later and the Antichrist is born, Crowley (the demon) has the idea for them both to raise the boy together so that he neither turns out good OR evil, which Aziraphale (the angel) agrees to. However, due to an entirely human mix-up at the Antichrist's birth, they end up raising the wrong boy.

And the Actual Antichrist begins the end of the world. Crowley and Aziraphale have to work together to find him, and stop it, despite the risk of their respective sides catching wind and punishing them.

This is essentially a very British 6000 year long slow-burn between two male presenting entities and would be ideal for an enemies to lovers situation.

The Holiday-

In fairness, I think I have seen someone do an AU of this film but I can't remember the name of the fic so I'm going to put this forward anyway.

A british Publisher finds out that the man she's in love with is marrying someone else after leading her on and becomes incredibly depressed by this. At the same time, in America, a producer has caught her long-term boyfriend cheating on her and though she is devastated by this, she cannot cry. Instead of both of them wallowing in there maudlin, they decide to go on holiday and end up swapping houses for a while.

There are cultural differences each must overcome including the british lady's drunke, widower brother stumbling into her house while she isn't there and entering a relationship with the American, and the British lady encountering an American composer whom she quickly falls for despite him being in a relationship already.

Very sweet, very touching with explorations of romance, self and belonging. Another wide cast of characters but more focused on the romantic aspect of the four leads.

BBC Ghosts-

Specifically the British version of this, because while the American version is brilliant, this is focusing on British media.

Allison and Mike are a married couple who are struggling with their finances. When a distant relative of Allison's dies they're gifted her Manor house in rural England with plans to turn it into a BnB and earn some money. The ghosts inhabiting the house, varying from a Tory Politician who died in a sex scandal, to a woman burned as a witch and a caveman who died on the grounds- aren't very happy about this and do their best to scare them away.

An accident leaves Allison dead for a few minutes before modern technology is able to bring her back and from that moment onward she is able to see and speak to the ghosts.

Various hijinks ensue where the ghosts and Allison must learn to get along despite the issues with the house, the failing BnB business and Button House being put on the map through various historical discoveries.

This would be another great one for an Ensemble feel, historical discoveries and shenanigans around the different ways each character was raised (and subsequently died.) Incredibly funny, very British humour and very on brand for the Marauders.

And finally: Twelfth Night (or really, any Shakespeare, Twelfth Night just happens to be my favourite and I'm incredibly biased)-

Another comedy of Errors. Sebastian and Viola, twins from Medici (if I remember correctly) are caught in a storm and shipwrecked, both believing the other is dead. Viola washes up on Illyria having been saved by a local captain and decides her best bet at survival is to put on Sebastian's clothes and pretend to be a man so she can seek employment under Duke Orsino.

Duke Orsino is head over heels for Countess Olivia, whom is mourning her family and also hates the Duke. Viola, as Cesario her male disguise, falls for Orsino, Orsino sends them to court Olivia in his wake, Olivia falls for Viola/Cesario and then Sebastian washes up with his pirate "friend" and all hell breaks loose and no-one is able to tell one from the other.

Theres a side plot involving the members of Olivia's household sending a man insane because he's a dick which is just as funny as the rest of it.

Very funny, lots of deception and a brilliant exploration of relationships, self-discovery, identities and queerness. It's not a stretch to see Viola/Cesario as trans, Orsino and Olivia as queer and Antonio (Sebastian's pirate "friend") as gayer than a bottle of crisps.

Plus, I think there should be more Shakespeare Au's and this one, while the plot is complicated, fits the Marauders characters brilliantly well.

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breadvidence · 1 year ago

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Please mind the #wineposting tag. Regardless: are you asking, "Should I watch this adaptation of Les Misérables?" I'll give you advice, though I suspect if you are reading this blog post you have watched all of these anyway (and quite possibly a few more, besides!).

'25 (Fescourt): Probably! If you are a Brick fan none of the adaptation choices will startle you, but having visuals to go with key scenes is a treat. This is a loyal piece. Toulout as Javert, Gabrio as Valjean, Milovanoff as Fantine, and Nivette as Éponine all give excellent performances. Be prepared for a lukewarm Cosette. You might struggle with silent film conventions, length, and French intertitles.

'34 (Bernard): Probably! This is a fairly loyal adaptation of the Brick that makes internally consistent choices where it deviates from its source (sometimes it has goofy continuity errors—politely ignore). Baur as Valjean and Gaël as Cosette give fabulous performances. Moments of silliness do not detract from the quality. Another long haul.

'35 (Boleslawski): Probably not. As an adaptation of Les Misérables this film is bad. That being said, Charles Laughton is a lauded actor, and you can't say he didn't put his whole laughussy into his performance. Because it is accessible and prominent, a lot of LM fans will have seen this film, and you might benefit from shared context if you're in fandom. Speaking personally, I'm glad I saw it, but I'm not sure you will be.

'52 (Milestone): No. Most likely based on '35 rather than on the book, this film is also a bad adaptation of Les Misérables. There are no notable performances. Because it is accessible, this is another adaptation many fans are familiar with, but understanding jokes about Valjean's boyfriend Robert and Javert's sentient hat probably don't justify sitting through the movie.

'58 (Le Chanois): No. Not the English dub, at least. "Bland" is the word of the day. Contemporary French audiences wildly disagree with me per Wikipedia.

'72 (Bluwal): Strong maybe. If you are an intense fan of the Brick, yes. Its use of a narrator to draw from the novel directly and its focus on the Amis makes this adaptation unique on this list. You might not end up liking it but you will have had an experience. If you have zero investment in Les Misérables but are still reading this post for some reason: no, do not watch this.

'78 (Jordan): At some point I will talk about this film and not make a gay joke but today is not that day. If you are not queer, get off my blog, you cis straight, begone. Everyone else: yes, watch this movie, c'mon. Perkins. That performance. At some point I need to make a serious post about queerness and '78 but right now all I've got is Javert's literal on-screen boner. Jesus Christ. Not a great adaptation of the novel but a virtuoso example of unintentional homoeroticism.

'82 (Hossein): No. This is an odd little adaptation without the charisma of a '35 or '78, somehow not as bad as either of those but not as good either. The GIF of the Amis walking in heavy wind is the best this film has to offer.

'98 (August): No—but I stared into my wine glass for a long, long time before typing those two letters. If we are judging adaptations by how they handle the source material, this is a disaster. As a film? I'm sure entertained. I call it bitchslap Les Mis. I should note here I am also a huge fan of Uma Thurman. Possibly I should recuse myself. I don't know, pal. IDK.

2012 (Hooper): I dwell bitterly on the fact that this is our film version of the musical. Brick fans are restless, musical fans are restless. People who first encountered Les Mis via this version are making feral noises. I'm afraid. I'm moving on.

2018 (Davies): It's really unfortunate that I am at my most drunk while commenting on this adaptation. Sure, watch it, it's one of those BBC series that has watchability sheerly because of production value and proximity to contemporary narrative/film expectations/standards. Personally I hate it. My partner is so tired of the tone in which I utter the syllables "Oyelowo".

The Musical: yes c'mon. Bootleg that good bitch.

#les mis #les misérables #wineposting

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emotionallychargedtowel · 1 year ago

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Intense Subtext in Front of Oblivious Side Characters: "I had no wife in the year six"

There's a thing, I guess it would be considered a trope, that is one of my favorite such things in any form of media but especially any sort of romance-centered story. I don't know of an existing term for this and I'm terrible at being concise so I'm not sure how I could put it briefly. Basically, it's the thing that happens when a larger interaction is happening with a group of people but there's a subtext to it that means something very different--and generally, much more meaningful--to the central characters. You could call it something like Intense Subtext in Front of Oblivious Side Characters.

I've been thinking for a while about possible parallels between BLs and Jane Austen novels and/or adaptations. This is my attempt at taking a small, specific example of a parallel I sometimes notice and talking about it. Austen's novels do a lot of this trope I mentioned. That's in part because of choices Austen made in what she wanted to write about. But it's also because of the social context of her time. There was a lot going on that people couldn't be explicit about, for a variety of reasons. I think one reason why I see similar things happening in some BLs--and maybe one reason for the appeal of certain types of BLs--is the fact that being queer in a homophobic society makes openness complicated in a way that doesn't come up as much for hetero relationships these days. Especially when we get into things like office romances, in which appearances have higher stakes. These complications around openness have a kind of similarity to the reasons Austen's characters had to play a lot of things close to the chest.

Fellow Old Fashion Cupcake fans will remember an example from that series that I think really fits here. Nozue and Togawa agree to attend a goukon, or "mixer" as it's sometimes translated--basically a group hangout intended to help men and women meet for the purpose of finding people to date. Nozue is hitting it off with a cute younger woman, which is bad enough. But then he mentions his "anti-aging" efforts, and because of the mysterious way he words it, the woman asks, "Does that mean you're in love?" which of course catches Togawa's attention even more. He's clearly affected when Nozue answers, "If I were, I wouldn't be here."

@jdramastuff did a great screenshot post of this scene if you want to see what this looked like.

After Nozue's comment, Togawa starts knocking back alcoholic drinks like it's going out of style, ensuring that Nozue will have to help him home instead of going home with the woman who's been flirting with him.

(You could argue that this isn't so much a case of subtext as it is the significance one person assigns to what another is saying. Subtext really requires some degree of communication between more than one person. But while Nozue doesn't fully grasp what's going on, I think he does understand in some ways what he's communicating. I don't want to go on too much of a tangent, so I'll just say that having just read the manga the series was based on, it strengthened my belief that while Nozue is repressed, insecure, even deluded at times, he has glimmers of awareness of his feelings for Togawa and even suspicions of Togawa's feelings for him, and on some level he knows what he's saying, though I don't think he knows in this moment how much these words will hurt Togawa.)

I have another favorite example of this, a scene from Persuasion. It's rendered really well in the 1995 adaptation of the novel with Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root. (The whole thing is phenomenal, by the way--I think it's the best Austen adaptation ever made, personally.)

A bit of background for anyone not familiar with the story: Anne Elliott was engaged to Captain Frederick Wentworth in 1806 but was convinced by Lady Russell, her neighbor/family friend and a kind of surrogate mother to her following her mom's death, to break off the engagement. She has regretted it ever since. Wentworth was deeply hurt and angry when she broke things off, not surprisingly.

More than eight years later, Anne is visiting her sister and her sister's in-laws, the Musgroves, when Wentworth comes to the area and starts spending a lot of time at the Musgrove place (and with the Musgroves' eligible young daughters). Wentworth acknowledges Anne, but just barely, while paying enough attention to both the Musgrove girls that everyone is gossiping about which one he's going to marry. Anne's sister Mary was away at boarding school when her previous relationship with Wentworth happened, so neither Mary nor the Musgroves are aware Anne and Wentworth were involved and think they were only acquaintances.

At a dinner party, the Musgrove girls try to look up the ship that Wentworth first commanded, the Asp, in the Navy List, a book that chronicles the various ships in the British Navy, their commanders, and so forth. Wentworth tells them not to bother--"she" is not in the current version of the List because "she" no longer exists.

Louisa and Henrietta Musgrove are suitably horrified.

Admiral Croft, Wentworth's brother-in-law and superior in the Navy, remarks that Wentworth was lucky to get a command so early in his career at all, no matter how seaworthy (or un-seaworthy) the ship was.

(Remember, 1806 was the year that Anne and Wentworth became engaged and then un-engaged.)

Gut-wrenching. And nobody else sitting at that table has any idea what just happened. I love it.

I have some more thoughts about this languishing in an excessively long post in my drafts, which I'll try to get out one of these days. I know I've talked to a few people about trying to do some BL/Austen posts and had meant to tag them but the only person I remember talking with about it was @absolutebl. If you're reading this and you want a heads up next time I write about this stuff, let me know!

#austen & BL parallels #jane austen #persuasion #persuasion 1995 #wentworth x anne #old fashion cupcake #togawa x nozue #ciaran hinds #amanda root #takeda kouhei #kimura tatsunari #intense subtext in front of oblivious side characters #tropes #I need a better and shorter name for this

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