#surprisingly good show

[louis-quatorze]

new pathetic man alert: Freddy in The Gentlemen

[venriliz]

did @birdietrait's random cas challenge again °-° yeah... they're quite random lol. rolls/prompts are below the cut! :]

Marius/Sim 1: punk, fantasy, blonde hair, no makeup, gap teeth Nylah/Sim 2: favorite tv show*, bratz (completely missed that one i think lol), brown hair, long hair, gap teeth Sachiko/Sim 3: cyberpunk, prom, red hair, white eyes, gap teeth

-> * ok ok ok! for favorite tv show i picked The Tribe bc i've been obsessed with the show since my early teens BUT... why have so many ppl never heard of that show? v.v it's literally so good, it's basically the first time i experienced media abt post-apocalypse/dystopia and it became my comfort tv-show to watch. °-° rant over.

[mohntilyet]

okay this is actually just bias now so before you read what i have to say i did warn you. yes illario would never be able to beat lucanis at being a crow or an assassin but you know what he would beat him at. being a lord of fortune. hold my hand as i take you through my mind palace and introduce to you my ideal post-game vision for illario dellamorte

[bruciemilf]

One thing I wanna do more is include Battinson's complete lack of filter.

That scene at the funeral where Falcone tried to push that 'your father saved me for a reason' fantasy, which Bruce ended very quickly with his '' He took the Hippocratic oath" line

It can sure read as snarky, and in some parts, it was, -- Falcone's antourage surely saw it as that, -- but Bruce was completely serious.

It wasn't a diplomatic move on his part, but that's why it works. 'No filter' doesn't generally entail being rude and bold, it's your thoughts being faster than your mouth without considering how it'd sound out loud

Not to mention, Bruce wouldn't process sarcasm the same as everyone else. He's good at dishing it, for sure, but we've seen he's completely oblivious to obvious social ques,

If somebody were to be like, " haha maybe YOU'RE batman" him, the go to reaction would be " haha good one"

Bruce? Would start shaking on the spot. It's raining nerves out here. " No I'm not." With a blank face, " I'm not. I'm scared of bats. I hate bats. I wish bats never existed. I wish YOU never existed. Im sorry. Goodbye." Before taking off in a hurry.

[waterwizardcat]

more saiki k

[commandertartarsmoocher]

Commander Tartar stimboard

but it's a bunch glowsticks being shredded in a blender

[notbecauseofvictories]

man, the world seems terrible and full of bad things, and then you read about the Chicagoan who started developing ramen recipes with meticulous (even obscene) attention to detail, or an Irish hurler who decried state-sponsored spending for sports complexes live on air, or well-considered analyses of films or animated television shows and whether they are narratively/dramatically coherent, and it's....well, it's okay to be here. I like it here.

[kaeyachi]

Have you all imagined the days where Kaeya would scream in frustration when he tries to create a Khaenri'ahn dish, but the dish just doesn't taste quite right?

How about the helpless feeling he gets when he barely remembers what ingredients go in his homeland's dishes?

And what about the cravings that have never been satisfied since he was a child because his father didn't teach him how to make them?

For an adventurous food lover... perhaps forever losing your nation's food might just be the most painful thing.

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

The fans: Ugh Sonic was just so preachy. I mean obviously he's supposed to be the good guy, so any uncomfortableness I feel here and any way I feel like Sonic's choices are framed as being why some other people have shitty lives is just bad writing because he is obviously supposed to be right always, but this characterization makes no sense. Isn't he right for the things he did?

Ian Flynn, using Kitsunami to say the (barely even at this point) quiet part even louder: Hey it's almost like ever since the Mr. Tinker event we've been purposely running with the critique of Sonic as being more selfish than he appears. Sonic is upholding a system of Eggman v Sonic that currently benefits him and shuts down talk of how to improve the current system because he likes his own personal enjoyment and he's attached enough to Eggman that he'd rather Eggman pretend to be a good person than be stuck in prison for life. He doesn't even quite practice what he preaches. We are trying to show that the current hero v villain system and Sonic's recklessness currently affects some people poorly and that Sonic isn't a perfect hero.

[dick-chugger]

You may not like it but theatre peaked here.

[kendrysaneela]

I think this pregnancy storyline could defo make them all rethink the whole white picket fence heteronormative monogamous idea they all seem to have in their futures. Because they all seem to view their futures with this white picket fence fantasy more conceptually? Where they all think someday they’ll leave the ship and it’ll all fall into place. But this will defo make them rethink how they view their future I think. Like they all talk about getting married to one person and having children and living this life very conceptually? Like “One day when I leave the ship this will fall into place and I’ll be happy because this is how people become happy by settling down into this heteronormative monogamous fantasy” like it’s never “This is how I’ll do it and this is the type of person I’m looking for” it’s just “Once I leave the ship it’ll just happen” that makes me think they all view it more as something they think they’re supposed to do to be happy rather than something they’re all stating they actually WANT. So I think the question they’ll have to ask themselves is “Do I actually want the white picket fence or is that what I’ve been conditioned to want and I’m on this ship running away from that? Could there be another road to happiness they haven’t explored? Could that path be with each other?

[theborzoiarebackintown]

There’s a reason borzoi aren’t supposed to have prick ears

[starryalpacasstuff]

Indian BL? FROM 2017????

There's an Indian BL from 2017 that I just watched. And I have incoherent thoughts

Before I continue, massive thanks to my bestie @anixknowsnothin for telling me about this show and proofreading the post for me. You don't even watch bl so I have no idea how you found this, but I'm incredibly grateful nonetheless

Here's the link to where I watched the show from, there's a glitch in the first episode subs where the subs seem to be from another show entirely, but it's only for the first ep and about 50% of the dialogue is in English anyways, so it shouldn't be hard to follow.(My ask box is also always open if there's a specific dialogue/scene in Hindi that you want the translation of)

Edit: The link seems to be region locked, so to watch it you can use a vpn and set your region to India, otherwise the episodes are available on youtube, albeit without subs

Note:- this post is going to have a few mild spoilers throughout, but I'll flag major spoilers in red

It's no secret that India is fairly behind when it comes to queer love shows if we compare it to other Asian countries. While it has a handful of great queer shows and movies, it's still quite a small quantity. Additionally, before this, I'd never watched an Indian show that felt like I was watching a bl (if you have recs, please send them my way!!). I'm not going to get into the technicalities of what feels like a bl and doesn't, because honestly, I'm not completely sure myself. For now, I'm just going based off of vibes and feelings, and this show felt like a bl through and through.

Titled 'Romil and Jugal' after its main characters, the story is a modern, desi, bl remake of the classic story...

Romeo and Juliet

Well, Bad Buddy was the first Thai bl I ever watched, so Romil and Jugal being the first Indian BL I watched just feels right, no?

I didn't actually know that the story was based off of Romeo and Juliet till the second episode, because I didn't bother looking for a synopsis, and jumped right in. However, it's links to Romeo and Juliet quickly became apparent, around the same time I started to see similarities between this show and Bad Buddy. I also did not know that this show came out in 2017 before I googled it, having already watched the entire thing, which was a pretty huge shock, because this BL is progressive by 2024 India standards.

Alright, enough of my rambling. Here's a synopsis of the show in case you haven't heard of it. (I couldn't find an official one, so I did my best to write a spoiler free synopsis)

Ramya happens to start talking to a slightly older woman at an airport, who believes that there is no romance in the younger generation. To prove her wrong, Ramya decides to tell the older woman her brother's love story. The story from the past is shown to us as Ramya narrates it to the woman in the present. Jugal is a closeted 19-year-old who lives with his parents. One day, a family moves into the house next door, and Jugal immediately falls for the son, Romil. The two of them attend the same college, and eventually become friends. The two of them eventually get together, but have to face the challenges of a homophobic society and having parents that hate each other.

I was a little skeptical of the show going in, but the show surpassed all of my expectations in the best way possible. It's no masterpiece, and it has its flaws, but it was far better than what I expected. It had both comical elements and darker themes, and it did not shy away from exploring the darker themes at all. Oh, and it has a few musical numbers. What did you expect? This is India after all.

The show is 10 episodes long, with 20 minutes per episode, and so it does unfortunately fall into some of the pitfalls that shorter shows tend to fall into, namely underdeveloped relationships and rushed endings. I did end up feeling a little bit like it didn't make sense for the pair to sacrifice and suffer as much as they did because they hadn't known each other for very long, and I felt like they should have been given more time to fall in love with each other. But it also could be argued that the show stays true to the play, and Romil and Jugal are dumb teenagers who make mistakes and stick with each other through them. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it.

One thing that I loved the show for was that it showed us that the relationship is not all sunshine and rainbows. They argue, they break up, they get back together, and they do argue even after that. But every time, they eventually work through the issue and reconcile. The show even depicts Romil dealing with internalized homophobia and struggling to reconcile with the fact that he will never be who his family wants him to be. Although I do wish they'd have had more time to explore this, I'd say it was decently depicted and handled. The show really delves into how children are forced to uphold their family's wishes and are constantly put under pressure to make them proud. Although it clearly affects both of them, it's more obvious with Romil, who is expected by his family to date and marry the daughter of his father's boss, whom they think he is dating. There's a metaphor along this theme too, where Romil pretends to like the mango shake that his mom has been making for him since he was a kid, even though he hates it, and when he tries to tell her, he has to act like it was a joke to spare her feelings. The show also goes into the communal mindset of basing your actions off "what will people think?", and you can see how a lot of the characters' actions throughout the show are haunted by this question. Some of Romil and Jugal's earlier disagreements are due to this very mindset.

The show also very candidly depicts the extreme homophobia of society in India. Romil and Jugal had to constantly hide who they were, always having to keep up a mask and I felt that reach somewhere deep inside me. When the pair come out, the show really shows how ugly homophobia can be in India. Their parents immediately disown them. They're mocked in college and wrongfully suspended for a fight that was provoked by other students. Very, very few people stand with them, and the pair very quickly realize that now that they are out, they simply cannot live in the city anymore. So with the help of Jugal's best friend and her mother, they flee to Mumbai, where they get jobs and live as paying guests with a friend of the aforementioned mother. But, even in Mumbai, the masks stay up. They have to act like cousins, for fear of being persecuted. The series depicted the worst-case scenario that so many of us live in fear of, so watching it was something of a cathartic experience for me.

Another thing that the show did quite well is showing how different people and their mindsets can be. Jugal's best friend, Ahalya, and her mom are very supportive, and they help the pair out quite a bit. Ahalya's mother provided a safe house for the pair and helped them find a fresh start. Meanwhile, Romil and Jugal's parents are incredibly homophobic. There was a scene that really stuck with me, (mild spoiler ahead, skip to the last sentence of the paragraph) where Ahalya's mother came across Jugal's mother, who prided herself on being educated and well-read, searching up how to cure homosexuality. Ahalya's mother then tells her off for calling herself educated yet believing that homosexuality is an illness. It is so important to me that the show depicted both the violent homophobia that permeates Indian society and the surprising, warm acceptance that one can find.

One final thing that I loved about this show so, so much is just how authentically Indian it feels. Asian cultures share a lot in common, but they also have their differences, so seeing a show where I can imagine encountering the characters in real life is really amazing. Rather than something big, it was little things sprinkled throughout the story that warmed my heart. The story felt like something I could hear the local aunties gossiping about. The way it depicts queerness in India hits incredibly close to home.

One thing I've learned watching Asian bls is that the ending of a show can make it or break it, but with this one, I'm stuck. The best way I can describe the ending is absolutely insane and incredibly Bollywood.

I believe this show was supposed to get a second season because the last two minutes of the show leave us with a massive cliffhanger. Now, it's been 7 years, so a second season is unlikely, so I'm simply pretending that the last two minutes of the show never happened. But the ending has so much more to it than just this (Major spoilers for the ending up ahead. I mean it when I say major, this is like going into Bad Buddy knowing that they're going to trick their parents in the end).

About halfway through the show, I remembered what play it was based upon and realized that there was a very real possibility that Romil and Jugal would die. The first half of the last episode leads up to this, telling us that they died when reconciling after an argument in the middle of the road when they were hit by a truck. We get a super emotional scene (yes, I cried) where the two families somewhat reconcile in their grief as they go to the police station to identify the bodies. Except... they're not dead, which is revealed when Romil's father hugs Romil's (not) dead body. They reveal that they planned this to show their family that they still loved their sons. I did say it was like PatPran tricking their parents in the end, didn't I? So the families reunite, Romil and Jugal get jobs in New Zealand and get married, and return to India for a wedding celebration (yes, I cried. again). The ending does feel slightly rushed, but if I'm being honest, it wasn't as terrible as it could have been. Believing that your child is dead for a bit is a somewhat justifiable reason for a sudden change of heart. There's a part where Romil and Jugal tell their parents that if they choose acceptance, they can reconcile, but if they choose to remain prejudiced, Romil and Jugal can simply get back on the stretchers, because they'll be as good as dead to their families anyways and it is *chef's kiss*.

All in all, the show was surprisingly heartfelt and poignant. It had me laughing, kicking my feet and even crying. There's a lot more about this show that I could talk about, but I'm going to stop here for now, and I'll try to write more on it later. This show really does deserve more recognition than it has, and I'm almost mad at myself for not knowing about it before. Am I being really biased when talking about this show? Absolutely. But I do think that this show is a worthwhile watch, and I'd really like to see what other people on here think of the show, especially because I'm aware that I am biased towards this show.

I'm tagging a few people who I know might be interested/have some thoughts about the show because this is a show that I really want to hear other people's opinions on and have conversations about, so I hope you guys don't mind!

@waitmyturtles @lurkingshan @bengiyo @neuroticbookworm

[scribblue]

Crawls up on my weirdly specific soapbox

The way Ninjago has handled Ronin in the Island minisodes + now in s15 (which i just started) is so uniquely annoying bc like... I feel like his actions aren't exactly OOC, but the way he and the ninja interact is ??

Like yeah ofc Ronin would take advantage of his position with the police to swindle a bunch of people for money. He's a selfish bastard(/aff). But he's also a selfish bastard that, despite everything, became an ally and friend to the ninja and helped them out on numerous occasions. So why is the response to his crimes essentially "ugh i knew it, you were always a despicable villain who has never done anything reedeeming ever"???? Like c'mon guys you could at least act a little surprised. Betrayed, even. Write him right or commit to the angst you cowards.

Anyway. I have so many Ronin/Dareth animatics and HCs brewing in my head rn just to spite the writers of the later seasons AHAHA

[doozie97]

I like to imagine that Isami is actually very competent at handling high stress workplace environments and resolving conflicts in his military role. He just comes off as a coward most of the series because he’s being forced into situations involving alien robots with fantastical powers and zero regard for the value of human life, the rule of law nor the Geneva conventions.

[brewed-pangolin]

Soap MacTavish, five seconds after watching Fallout..

"You wanna make my cock explode now?"