#that’s some indie gay youtube movie content

[bluecheeseinmyoffwhites]

Very rarely can a series pull off a second season that’s better than the first in every way. Well done Heartstopper

[nieves-de-sugui]

My personal experience with BL history for @waitmyturtles​

After reading through the posts of your Old GMMTv Challenge, I decided to add my own perspective, as a watcher, of how BL has evolved as a genre as time went by. I hope this “history from the perspective of the viewer” might shed some light in some of the questions you might have or bring up interesting things for your viewing and understanding of the shows. I will try to not repeat what has already been said through your posts by all the wonderful people in this fandom and keep it as concise as possible (turns out it’s still super long).

I’m gonna use ABL’s chronology of the shows as a timeline guide for easy understanding:

Context: How I made my way to Thailand

I’ve always been into BL (yaoi, gay shows, whatever you wanna call it), but I became commited to it around 2008. The options for queer content back then were very limited, as I’m sure we all remember. But for the sake of adding context this were my go to:

Youtube playlists of cuts of “the gay storyline” from western shows (Brothers and Sisters, Hit The Floor, Shameless, Skins and soap operas (Salatut Elamat, Days of Our Lives), etc), 

Queer as Folk, 

bad japanese live action adaptations of yaoi mangas (Takumi kun) or just sad/melancholic movies about lost men, 

sad chinese movies (usually with fucked up plots), 

indie queer movies (Were The World Mine, Judas Kiss, Shelter, Yes or No, Love of Siam etc). 

But I was starving for more. I wanted shows. 

In the search for more content, through Love of Siam enters My Bromance (very sad ending, also pseudo incest?, still part of what I thought were just indie movies with yaoi influences) and then appears Lovesick (S1 and S2), with very questionable subs, but finally a show with a gay couple as protagonists. 

Lovesick was for me the first show that finally put a queer story as a main thing to focus on, finally breaking free of the eternal side story filled with drama and hurt that was never comforted. After that only Make it Right was around. It was more of the same thing but this time the cast was a lot more reduced and everyone is gay. Also, it showed some of the sexual aspects of the genre (which now feels wrong for so many reasons, but alas). 

One day, SOTUS is on youtube with subs, plus it’s the official channels (yay! finally we can be legal!). 

First shock, there’s an actual plot centered around these two people, who are their own characters besides being gay, and they actually kiss (I remember it was so impactful to me (in a never seen before way) that I did fanart of it). Thai shows became my guilty pleasure, they were bad but they were telling the stories I wanted to see and no one else was doing it. Only Thai shows cared to show cute love stories that ended well, without the big drama we were used to in the west. My thoughts were “It’s bad but I’ll take it, I’m staying here”

Living through the different booms

When Together With Me came out it brought proper making out session and high heat to the genre. Sround here is when I started watching everything that I could find because I had finally found my jam. So I watched all that now I could not watch again (because, man! they’re bad) like 2moons, Puppy Honey S2, What The Duck, My Dream,... And then, with Love By Chance we got the first signs of consent and communication with AePete. It finally felt like we could get stories with healthy relationships. 

Also, Our Skyy came in! Great moment! Treats for everyone! And honestly, it was such a fun project to watch. Iconic side-couples from straight shows getting their moment of spotlight on the same level as the main couples from BL shows. To me, Our Skyy comfirmed the importance of the main 3 (OG, TN, KS) and cemented the path GMM was taking with their BL shows. It started to be part of the norm and not just some shows here and there. It was no longer waiting for someone to make a BL once in a while, but an assurance a small but constant flow of BLs. 

Also Taiwan started the HIStory franchise.

BIG BOOM#1 - TharnType! Also, Ossan’s Love. 

TharnType comes in. The 1st episode ends and everybody hates it for the lack of consent, but everybody loves it for the high heat and the chemistry (also for those of us who had liked Mew in WTD it was nice to see him in this show, that seemed to have less drama around it). Plus, the hype of knowing more about Tharn from LBC, who was such a nice older gay character when he was palyed by Earth (Pirapat).

I think to me, TT was a mix of a lot of the usual flaws with the very new (only achieved before by MaxTul) high heat chemistry  (which despite the controversy is an important part of the BL genre, you can’t take the sex out of BL) and an interesting idea for a plot. 

Also I watched Great Men Academy for Captain (Noh in Lovesick), and he slays. Plus the BL in the show is good (even tho technically not bl, but queer enough)

Simultaneously Japan gets Ossan’s Love, it’s first mainstream BL boom, with very well known actors and gets talked about by the regular drama watchers. Everyone was watching Ossan’s Love in Japan, it brought the genre to the mainstream for the first time. (And prepared the grounds for Cherry Magic, imo)

Other shows that left an impact at the time were He’s Coming To Me and Dark Blue Kiss. HCTM was the great Ohm comeback (who I though we would never see again), paired with Singto doing a BL again. Besides the chemistry, the change in themes was very interesting, it was the first thai bl that showed thai culture for me. For its part, DBK had an interesting opening and Aof personal queer touch to the storyline (which made it wonderful) Especially for MorkSun. It was the first taste of what we know Aof for, but it was also the first time BL had such mature and nuanced themes to it.

little BOOM#1 - Until We Meet Again and Theory of Love

UWMA and TOL, to me were surprises. I thought that like KirstSingto and TayNew, OffGun would never do another BL with new characters. That BL was still just an undervaluated stepping stone that people didn’t treat as a proper genre (as everybody had been doing up to that point, do it once and never be seen near the genre again). 

However, UWMA confirmed that BL was here to stay. It was growing, it was exploring mixing with other genres and famous thai actors were in it. It was also moving away from the usual university storyline. And TOL was the comback of the year. I remember everyone losing their shit (me included), it was the lengendary OG afterall. Up until then they had done cameos and Puppy Honey season 1 and 2 but that was it. TOL also did something interesting with its theme, and the romcom references. AND! it was the first proper kiss in a gmmtv BL. From dead fish PickRome to full on make out with KhaiThird.

BIG BOOM#2 - 2gether and Why R U?

The BL expansion thanks to the pandemic was very very noticeable. Everybody was seeing 2gether and WRU. First time anything BL trended on Tumblr. Everyone was descovering thailand. 

Also 2gether was again a first, it felt like the story made more sense. It was more believable, with tolerable tropes and a cute main pair (this was the first thai show I dared to recommend to someone who was not into BL), plus the music. The ending of the show ruined it for me, however Still2gether Fixed everything that was wrong from the 1st season and showed quickly how the show could’ve been. WRU’s plot was directly affected by the pandemic and bettered what TharnType had started with the high heat chemistry. The whole success of the show is due to SaintZee having amazing chemistry and going with it. 

My engineer was the surprise of the year, it had nothing going for it promising but it managed to be good (I think thanks to some parts of the story and the cast mainly). 

little BOOMS#2 - Cherry Magic and ITSAY and others

The riples of the pandemic 2gether boom were felt in Japan. Nothing breaks throught the japanese content barrier. Japan only consumes MADE IN JAPAN, and yet 2gether made it there. And showed the Japanese show runners that there’s an interest there. Cherry Magic aired a few months after and it was big success, like OL had been. Korea starts with Where Your Eyes Linger here too.

The thing about I Told Sunset About You was that nobody knew what we were getting. I had heard about My ambulance, I even saw some of the clips, but it seemed to be side couple queerbaiting and honestly I wasn’t expecting much. But they had promised a BilkinPP series. I think it’s no wonder it blew our minds, nobody was expecting that! 

Then the big comeback of MaxTul with Manner of Death, broke our minds just as OF had with TOL and bringing again the mature themes to the genre (they are called the daddies of BL for a reason). No one thought they’d come back.

Around here I started watching the GMMtv end of the year announcements. All the build up we had had from the growing of the BL genre and p’Aof culminated on the annoucement of A Tale of Thousand Stars. Because of how it breaks the rules of thai bl (no engineers, no university, no highschool, no city, no 2000′s yaoi tropes just regular shoujo tropes) and tells a compeling story that tasted so new the hype didn’t die even when it came one year later than it should have. 

And Lovely Writer, was the first to present the criticizing of the industry as well as expanding on the mature themes outside of university and the lack of need for fanservice off screen between the actors. They acted like normal people :D

Light on Me appared around here too, and showed us that korea can do better than it had. And Taiwan gave us We Best Love.

BIG BOOM#3 -  Bad Buddy and Kinnporsche

BB was the biggest annoucement GMMtv has ever made. The thing about it was the combo AofOhmNanon. Always grazing BL and forever ghost shipped with Chimon, Nanon decided to do his first (and probably only) BL with none other than Ohm (with who he had great chemistry since they became friends in Blacklist) and under the guidance of Aof. Here I want to add that Aof considers BB to be his first Y series, the ones before were dramas, so I assume by that that the thai public makes a difference between the more mature tone series and the more highschool/university BLs (??). Such a year that was! Accompanied by the epicness that was the annoucement of Not Me (confirmed to be the last OG show... but then they went and annouced another). 

And last but not least, Kinnporsche breaks the internet, everyone knows about thailand now. It entered the realm of darker themes and violence. Accompanied by other shows exploring other themes like: You’re My Sky (sports), Something In My Room (ghosts), etc...

Which is the flow we have now, some of the known old stuff some of the new expanding stuff, waiting for the next boom. My, what a journey!

I hope this was an interesting read and that I managed to show how these shows were perceived when they came out, even though now they might not be as groundbreaking. If anybody else wants to add how they perceived these shows when they came out, feel free to add to this!

[lorz-ix]

Seeing how that Princess Peach game had its key art changed to be more expressive (as for myself, I do think the middle face looks somewhat off and closer to the proportions of the movie than the games' art style) and how apparently there's been some """drama""" and controversy around it.

Only to very quickly find out the person that controversy mainly originated from is one of those dipshit "loli" vtubers. Another one that I've never heard of before, but any time one of them pops up like weeds in a garden, they're always on some reactionary, 4chan type shit, saying it's because "she looks too masculine", parroting what some absolute morons on youtube said about the movie because Peach wears pants and isn't a helpless damsel to be rescued.

I think this vtuber space is rotten to the core. I hate how the biggest references in this industry are corporate puppets, anime mascots made only to exploit parasocial bonds and sell merchandise. How they appeal so directly to the absolute worst subsections of anime fandom. How so many good-willed indies end up making the problem worse because instead of being the alternative, they simply try to imitate the mainstream.

I said it before and I'll say it until my face turns blue. If you try to be an inoffensive "content creator" who doesn't take a stance when it matters, in fear of alienating part of the audience, you'll only be creating a safe space for the worst kind of people. The lie of "I just want my media to be a form of escapism" isn't something that you say because you don't want to depress people by discussing the Israel-Palestine conflict, it's a narrative cowardly pedalled by those whose day is ruined by seeing a gay person in their anime or pronouns in their sci-fi videogame.

You can "not all vtubers" me if you want, but as long as this is the influence and the reputation the label carries for people outside of the community, they might as well all be. I know what I mean when I say I hate them.

[alexscomplaints]

25 year old teenage girl

Today, I rediscovered my old journals. Starting from when I was a little 5 year old girl, till when I was a full on teenager, obsessed with boys and falling in love. I read all of them in one sitting, eager to learn how I felt page after page, phase after phase, heartbreak after heartbreak.

I learned that, even though I've changed so much as a person, grew and developed and became so much more secure in myself, at the end of the day, I'm still that same little girl. The fear of the unknown, and specifically love, still lingers. The social anxiety, even though much less intense, still persists at times. The self doubt still affects my actions. And, at last, the procrastination and lack of discipline still torments my every move.

At the same time, I also realized that I wasn't such a fool teenager. I did really have some smart insights about life, they were just easier said than done.

All this reading took me back to my 4 AM teenage room, light up only by the computer screen, in between tumblr, twitter, or perhaps youtube. I'm probably also missing some illegal streaming platform where I could watch all of my comfort teen shows. Coincidently, I've been lingering a lot on teen shows, finding it extremely hard to watch "grown up" shit. From TSITP (girl, that tittle is simply too long for me to spell it out), where twilight is reborn from the ashes, this time without any fantasy vampires and werewolves, but instead two brothers. To Heartstopper, the cutest gay show ever. To Red White and Royal Blue, this time a cheesy HOT gay rom com between a prince and the son of the American president. Just your casual everyday romance. All of this to say that, I've been brain rotting and I can't seem to find the motivation to get out of it. It feels like my teenage self is crawling out of my skin and taking over. As if I've been burning out myself with all the attempts to consume mostly the indie "intelectual" acceptable media, defined by a lot of men around me. This reminds me of my obsession over being ethically sustainable, turned into not giving a single fuck about the environment anymore. This time, instead of being a burnout related to activism, it's related to wanting to be a cool girl once again. I was fully sure my attempts to be a cool girl and like cool girls things (things men like, but this time disguised as indie music and cult films), were long gone. Boy was I wrong. I was forcing myself to watch 3 hour movies, that I wasn't enjoying one bit, while feeling guilty for enjoying a cute love story. Oh for fucks sake. I'm tired. I'm burned out. I miss how simple consuming media was back then. Sure, I still felt embarrassed of certain things I consumed, but only from the exterior. Now I'm my own spectator, judging from the inside.

Besides all this, I still wonder if in fact it is necessary to force myself to consume érudit content. I guess in a way it's good for me, opening new doors of knowledge. But maybe it should be according to who I am, and not according to who that cool looking dude, or that snob male friend who has been sexually rejected by you. It should be tailored to who I am. A girl. And other stuff I don't care to explain, since no words could truly explain it.

[fandomrelatedshowerthoughts]

Hot take: “too much corporate influence is bad” and “forced indie-ness is bad” can both be true. As some examples of what I mean by forced indie-ness, here’s some things I saw around Tumblr that inspired me to make this (one of these isn’t technically about fandom but I think you get the point in all three)

This person making a metaphor comparing the MCU (and what might have gotten shelved because of it) to McDonalds “taking over” towns and closing diverse mom-and-pop restaurants etc. but with rhetoric that seemed to imply a solution to which the restaurant equivalent would be blowing up all McDonalds locations and the corporate headquarters (employees would be allowed to leave the actual restaurants beforehand, corporate not so lucky) and building a bunch of ethnic restaurants in their place and if a worker from a minority race is out of a job never fear as there is now a restaurant serving their ethnic food near them that they and their family will be forced to be running (along with any other employees of that race that are “overflow” from who’s assigned to other restaurants of that ethnicity in that community who’d have to pretend they are family or friends of the family running) and being forced to not only keep up authenticity but keep the we-are-not-a-fancy-corporation look up in all places where there isn’t something cultural they could put there (mismatched furniture, over-checkout-signage written on a chalkboard etc.)

This Lin-Manuel Miranda stan who made a positive claim/argument/whatever-this-is weirder than any negative ones I’ve seen his haters make about him; that instead of doing things like Disney soundtracks (no mention of his actual stage shows but presumably this guy likes In The Heights and maybe Bring It On but hates Hamilton because that’s what blew him up), Lin-Manuel Miranda should have been some kind of weird YouTuber doing StarKid-esque (but not as a part of them of course) stuff and making parodies and stuff like that and this appearance he apparently did on MBMBAM was “peak Lin-Manuel Miranda” (in terms of the kind of star this person thinks he should be). And this stan’s reasoning for wanting to basically lock his career in an indie box, well, this guy didn’t use the “Tumblr fandom terms” but it was essentially that he’s too “skrunkly scrimblo” to be involved with big corporate media (which apparently applies to Disney but not YouTube).

(the one that’s two points in one because they’re connected) While I see the point of the haters of rainbow capitalism, I think some people kinda take the whole “the first pride was a riot” narrative to too much heart and almost lose the the gay part (other than who’s doing it and jokes about “gay wrath month”) in favor of envisioning metaphorically (but only metaphorically because that’s not literally all the kinds of “killing and violence and killing and violence” they want to commit in the name of the cause) throwing bricks at cops until the streets run red with their blood. The other kinda-connected thing because it’s also a thing that’s against rainbow capitalism technically is this post I saw talking about how “good queer content” can never be found in mainstream media but things like (to paraphrase despite the quotes) “pre-code novels you’d probably never read” “foreign-language movies you’d be too turned off by the language-barrier to watch” “obscure YouTube series made by a friend of a friend” etc. in a tone that suggests if e.g. the YouTube series blew up or the foreign film got an English-language remake that changed nothing script-wise but the obvious cultural-marker stuff but kept the gay romance intact they’d automatically cease to be good queer rep because too many people liked them

[absolutebl]

the ones no one seems to know about or watch 

Top 10 Most Underrated BLs 

Seven Days (from Japan on YouTube) - One of the best live action yaoi adaptations, it has everything great about BL and none of the issues, plus a strong manga filming technique, a lovely little story with great acting, good chemistry, and no content or trigger warnings necessary.   

Restart after Come Back Home (from Japan via indie sub) - This BL showcases Japan’s cinematography and film history (rather than a manga style) with an atmospheric story of rediscovering family while falling unexpectedly in love. The ultimate grumpy/sunshine pairing this is a quietly graceful film that no one seems to know about. 

Wish You (from Korea on Viki & Netflix, go for the movie version!) - One of Korea’s earlier new wave pieces, Wish You has everything that I love about Korean BL: high production values, a simple clean concept, soft bois, and great pining. It’s winsome and lovely.  

Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding (from Korea) - if BL had a fairy tale, it would be this show. There’s something very 12th Night about it, with cross dressing, secret identities, evil stepsisters, period attire, and the softest most confused bois ever. 

He’s Coming to Me (from Thailand on YouTube) - I have no idea why fans are so against this show. Perhaps it’s just flack for Singto being paired with a different partner? It’s such a great story (a bit paranormal + a bit mystery), features one of the best coming out sequences in all BL, and even though one of them is a ghost, it still ends happily. 

Oxygen the series (from Thailand on YouTube) - On the flip side I know exactly why fans never jumped on Oxygen. It’s so quiet and mellow, it almost too simple, but it’s amazingly sweet. The doctor subplot is dumb, but Solo and Gui should run counseling sessions in good communication for all the other BL couples. However, because they talk to each other like adults, none of their conflict can come from miscommunication, and fans don’t seem to like to see an actually good working relationship. Still, if you want comfort, this is your drama, because (well) there’s very little drama. 

My Day the series (from the Philippines on YouTube) - Sometimes I feel like I am the only person in the world who liked My Day. I just found it so much fun. It has slightly better production values than most Pinoy stuff, the leads have great chemistry and are gorgeous, and it’s messy, but in the best possible way. 

Most Peaceful Place (from Vietnam on YouTube) - This list could also include Nation’s Brother, Follow My Sunshine, and You Are Ma Boy, all solid BLs from Vietnam. Vietnam struggles to gain viewers for various reasons (not the least of which is an apparent inability to understand SEO), but at least you can find their stuff legally on YouTube. This is one of their best. It’s a redemption story of the boy who got away coming home, and the two trying to understand what went wrong and how to repair it. Production values are low, and budget is sparse, but the acting is great and the chemistry is really good too. You should give Vietnam a chance to change your mind. 

HIStory 2: Right or Wrong (from Taiwan on Viki) - Another one where I can take a good guess as to why BL fans don’t love it. May/December is not a popular pairing, plus international fans in particular don’t like a teacher/student power dynamic, and there’s some weird child endangerment stuff at the start. BUT once it hits its stride this is the ultimate in domestic delights. The little family they form is fantastic, the drawn out explosive chemistry is great, and it has one of the best endings in BL. Also, it’s groundbreaking, as it’s the first BL to depict legally married gays. 

HIStory: Obsessed (from Taiwan on Viki) - This is classic old school yaoi-born BL in almost every way. Not many of us like something so traditional. I think you might have to come out of reading manga to truly get this one, but it’s kind of delightful to see it on screen. Mainland China did this style BL, only very dark, for years. It’s almost like with this (one of their first serious BLs), Taiwan was both making fun of that and fixing China’s past wrongs. It is about obsessive love, but also second chances. It turns the “kill your gay” trope on its head in a way that allows it to still pull your heartstrings but end happy, and, it’s Taiwan, so the chemistry is wonderful. 

FYI: I judge “underrated” on the strength of what I see people talk about (or more precisely not talk about) on social media, MDL reviews, and YouTube watch numbers (when available, as compared to comparable shows from the same country). 

(source)

[quitetheketch-moved]

so I’ve been seeing bad taste in youtubers, not like in my mutuals or anything but in general but it made me want to make a like, recommended list of youtubers i like who are pretty chill if not full on comrades so here we are - not prompted by anything specific but an itch I got here some of the channels I like:

Cooking:

BORE.D - Fun cooking channel with a stylish presentation 

Chinese Cooking Demystified - Like it says on the tin, informative authentic Chinese dishes from all over the country. 

David Seymour - started with buzzfeed taste tests but now covers most big cooking channels seeing if he can recreate them and how they are

Maangchi - Plz cook for me, like i’m begging feed me it all looks amazing 

My Name Is Andong - fun cooking videos from all over, especially the ones about Russian food.

Simply Sara Kitchen  - good home style cooking 

Souped Up Recipes - Traditional Chinese cooking

Movies/Tv:

Accented Cinema - a video essay channel with a focus on Asian cinema

Folding Ideas - Not strictly about film but I tend to watch a lot of essayists who fall into multiple things and I kinda just have to lean into their main aesthetic but Dan is a gif so check him out.

Jack Saint  - Jack and Joel have a lot of similar style of content but Jack leans into media stuff more so i’m moving him over here. (although i’ve been working on this post for over an hour going through my alphabetical yt sub list and i’m starting to regret trying to categorize them)

PushingUpRoses  - a must watch if you love old tv especially Murder She Wrote

Renegade Cut - Does games too, and frankly they are some of their best work, but quality media analysis.

Ryan Hollinger - Horror movie analysis

Scaredy Cats  - More horror movie analysis but my favorite channel of this kind

Gaming Essays:

Adam Millard - video essays about video games - really recommend the video on Frog Fractions and the Longing

Curio - I’m putting them here because theres been a big focus on games lately and they recently started twitch streaming which is fun but really it’s all media essay. Just please check out their four part Witcher series adfkj it’s the most recent so easy to find.

Errant Signal - I dont have much to add other than please check out Errant Signal, they dont post much but I am in love with this channel.

Game Maker's Toolkit  - in depth essays about elements of game design

Jim Sterling  - Okay not essays but gaming news - if you dont check out anyone else here you should still check out Jim. Especially if you care about the rights of workers in the gaming industry. 

Gaming Play:

Biffa Plays Indie Games - mostly does Cities Skylines but sometimes other, great videos to relax to.

GaLm - GaLm deserves so much much than he gets, Love him been watching him for forever and honestly he’s enough of a workaholic that there’s so much content you WILL find something you like. All complete with critical analysis.

GrayStillPlays - one of the few like, non overtly left-os here but listen, if you want some slightly silly slightly more edgy style of video game videos to kinda turn off your brain and just enjoy you cant get much better than grey. He’s chaos but chaos that doesn’t rely on racism. Maybe one too many jokes about addiction but they aren’t usually punching down so???

John Wolfe - chill horror youtuber - not much to say but one of my favorites.

KatherineOfSky - want the most soothing voice ever to gently play hardcore logistic games at you? Well holy fuzzy cats, you’re home.

Many A True Nerd - Partner to Claire in the category below, known for his fallout but plays just about anything. Also loves grand strategy and paradox games. Good playlist management too do easy to find what you need.

Wanderbots - A just, massive amount of indie game content.

Commentary/Other:

Claire Rousseau - Books youtuber who is just a delight, I dont know how else to describe her but even tho I dont read anymore i’d still die for her.

Courtreezy -  just the queen of being bubbly and fun (some of these I dont have good sales pitches for just *shoves them at you* give em a shot)

D'Angelo Wallace and dangelowallace - Main and second channel, both the same kind of content but the formats are different. Dont always agree with all his opinions but man, theres no fault in the way he presents and researches them - solid essayist but also just oozes charisma and good times.

Drawfee Show - one of the bigger channels here save D’Angelo above so you may already be familiar with them but just a fun weekly drawing show. Good times.

Foo the Flowerhorn  - Watch fish be fed bits of blanched vegetables, like that either sells you or not but it’s Good.

Jarvis Johnson and Jarvis Johnson! GOLD - primary and secondary channels, pure commentary channel on a wide range of topics - i recommend the videos on 5 min crafts and the bachelor.

Life in Jars? - Eco-spheres and terrariums oh me :0

MacDoesIt - Gay chaotic energy, just chock full of Moods and fun times.

Sarah Z - Unofficial tumblr historian

Politics:

Big Joel - kinda variety content, plenty of media analysis but through a strongly leftist lens. Torn between here and commentary but the balance is slightly more overtly political than just media commentary through a political lens so here we go.

Black Red Guard - A black leftist commentary/essay channel focused on black issues and self described as a “New Afrikan Maoist”, this is fairly new channel I found so I’m not as good at describing his content def not better than he does but solid stuff through a perspective I wouldn’t normally get.

hbomberguy - Just watch his video on Pathologic please. Or like, watch 20 mins then go play Pathologic then come back after you’ve beaten it and Pathologic 2 and finish the video.

Innuendo Studios  - Frankly I had no idea where to put this one, because it’s a little of everything but mostly media analysis but also please watch the alt-right playbook if you like, want to understand more about how radicalization happens.

KAR - Black anarchist channel, solid political videos but shorter than most of the ones here so better for consuming when you dont have much time.

Leslie Exp - Videos about disability

Luna oi! and NonCompete  - frankly best agitprop communist duo. A good place to start learning about mutual aid and what anarchism is, beginner friendly videos on leftist theory.

Philosophy Tube - Videos are super polished and well made essays about philosophy, super theatrical and flashy. Honestly cannot stress enough how fun the production value of these are.

Professor Flowers - Nuanced important discussions about race, media, and the political landscape.

Some More News - Like it says on the tin, news but told to you by a disheveled fed up leftist (I joke because i’m running out of things to say in the comment for each but really, Cody and his entire team deserve a lot of credit for their well researched videos on current events)

Thought Slime  - Agitprop but make it a little silly because tbh we all need some jokes rn

Honorable mentions of some slightly bigger channels you may already know but I enjoy: UpIsNotJump , Steve1989MREInfo , SmallishBeans , RTGame , Primitive Survival Tool  , Mumbo Jumbo ,  emmymadeinjapan ,  Kurtis Conner ,  Danny Gonzalez , Drew Gooden  , How To Cook That , JunsKitchen , Defunctland 

[willowistic22]

Famous!newsies

Ok so here are my famous!newsies headcanons from an a modern au i thought of if newsies were celebrities/famous yknow bcs I couldn’t get this idea out of my head and idk what to do with it other than making a headcanon list nabsnzbsvsnsbz anyways hope yall validate me after not posting any original content for like…. awhile now hehe

btw it got longer than expected. And I mean r e a l l y long. So if yall wanna read this better sit down and buckle up! 

Jack

He’s an artist on youtube

Like a modern day bob ross ig??

If yall know zhc on youtube just imagine that but not so rich (I don’t watch zhc btw but i do know that he does custom art on iphones and stuff and that is definitely not jack kelly)

Anyways Jack simply goes by Jack Kelly.

So jack does art challenges. Like does the weirdest requests from his fans left in his comment section and stuff

Or maybe challenging himself to make art from a specific theme or a specific media

Sometimes he vlogs too but his art videos are what his fans like the most

His merch is amazing because he designed the pattern/drawing/whatever yknow. It’s printed/sewed/whatever on the clothing and it’s good quality. It’s pretty lowkey for a youtuber’s merch bcs jack doesn’t like those merch that just smacks his logo on a hoodie

Davey

He’s a fantasy, YA, romance writer (he mixes it wisely ok?)

And goes by David Jacobs

Listen he’s a hopeless romantic and i’m pretty sure yall agree too

He wanted to stick to YA romance. The classic high school lovers yknow

But he wanted to challenge himself since he’s been writing about high school lovers since he was in high school

Thus the fantasy genre came in mind

So yeah he likes creating love in his own universe

Whether it’d be different worlds, universe, species, time periods, whatever.

He wanted to direct the movies based on his books, but he’s actually lowkey terrible at leading on his own. But he did stick to being the script writer and co-director (look idk how it works in the film industry i’m just making shit up)

Crutchie

He’s a solo jazz singer

Crutchie gives off Michael Buble and Jason Mraz vibes tho

And maybe a bit of frank sinatra? Yknow ‘cause he sings jazz

Also he riffs thank you very much :)

He goes by Crutchie Morris to everyone

He usually plays the acoustic guitar or piano on stage

Ok but he’s like really good with the piano

Makes the best jokes on stage too. Some are just sarcastic comments.

Crutchie asking through the microphone : “Oh, straight?”

A fan he’s talking to from the crowd : “Uhh… no, gay”

Crutchie : “no not you, the vodka”

Everyone at the concert : *laughs*

Crutchie, jokingly : “Oh, you’re drinking vodka! Straight? No gay”

(yes that was indeed inspired by that one video of Harry Styles and a fan in one of his concerts yall can’t stop me)

Kathrine

She’s a crime mystery writer

Think like the modern day Agatha Christie

Okok but she goes by Kathrine Plumber on her books :D

She chooses that genre bcs she’s a huge fan of Agatha Christie

Her favorite book from Agatha is Murder on the Orient Express

Oh and her books are sometime very gruesome alkjsfhakjsfb

Nobody check her browsing history, she’ll look like a murderer

Ok but I feel like she also has a youtube channel about books and stuff and sometimes like to vlog

She also has a writing tips series on her channel where she shares tips on some of the frequently asked questions about writing or her fans leave a specific question in the comment section and thought she could expand more to it in a full length video

Also she likes to vlog while she’s in a book convention

Her books are also turned into movies and she has done a great job directing it

Race

Yall would be lying to me if you don’t think this kid would end up being a twitch streamer and youtuber (like vlogging yknow. I feel like his gaming stuff would strictly be on twitch)

And ik it’s widely agreed by everyone in the fandom that he’s a dancer of some sort so yeah he’s also simultaneously a dancer

I don’t think I need to explain any further bcs it’s just so in character

He goes by Racetrack Higgins

Ok so he likes to vlog on his youtube channel

Sometimes does stupid challenges

Maybe he’d drag Albert to do a challenge which he always says no

“I’ll just be your cameraman dude, dw”

Race : *angery*

Since Al and Smalls are the skateboard peeps™ race is the rollerblade dude™ bcs I say so

He has three cats named Racecat Higgins, Spot Clawlon, and Romeow (i’ve mentioned it before and I will mention it again hehe) and his fans loves them endlessly

Albert

You don’t think this kid would also end up being a twitch streamer and youtuber like his bestie up there?? Lmao you thought wrong (again, gaming is strictly on his twitch)

He just goes by Albert DaSilva on the internet

And yes he’s also a dancer because I say so

On his Youtube channel he also vlogs

Half of his vlogs starts with him riding his skateboard

“Hey, guys! Welcome back to another vlog-” *falls off his skateboard for not paying attention to a curb*

It happens way more often than he’d like to admit let’s be real. His fans make a compilation of it and memes on reddit

Always wear a snapback

Snapbacks are an important element to him so his merch store is really boosting his snapbacks

And just for the wormsie discord server he has one with the word ranga on it after it being born from a stupid inside joke he, race, and both of their fanbases combined share (@ my wormsie fam thank me later)

Oh yeah, his youtube besties are Race and Smalls just so we’re clear here :) (I’ll get to Smalls in a bit)

So I always headcanon Albert having two big dobermans. So his fans always want to see a doggy update because Zara and Zoey are everything to them.

Doggo vlogs are fun. It’s usually Albert taking the two good girls to Central Park for playtime or teaching them new tricks

Spot

He’s a solo rock singer

Is an amazing singer like wow none of the newsies expected him to have that sort of pipes to reach high notes

And he does it amazingly with no sweat

Also his instrument is the electric guitar to go with his amazing singing ajsfhasjfhajhf

Anyways he goes by Spot Conlon still

And his songs are very lyrical. Like very.

A lot of metaphors. No one knows what most of his songs means.

So basically Taylor Swift songs if it switched genres to rock. And not even like songs from speak now or red. But like if evermore and folklore songs were to turn into rock songs with a little bit of reputation vibes sprinkled on top. And his concerts has the reputation era vibes but make it spot conlon (hey non swiftie fans reading this i’m so sorry i’m pretty sure yall don’t understand wtf i’m talking abt)

That is also the only way i know to describe his vibe i’m sorry but i don’t really listen to a lot of rock alkjhfasjk

Anyways it’s a known fact that he wears tank tops daily that it becomes his signature look. And also an inside joke among his fanbase

Now just picture the merch booth from one of his shows and there’s like endless tank top designs for his fans to pick and choose

He’s also crowned to be the King of Brooklyn bcs of obvious reasons

But the joke is he’s a pretty tough hardcore guy that’s a cat person

Sarah

She’s a badass female solo singer

Mostly does pop but the badass type of pop

Yes, she does go by Sarah Jacobs

Fans were really surprised Davey and Sarah are related

Because one is a hopeless romantic while the other is a total badass

Anyways she gives off Little mix, Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, and Selena Gomez vibes

That is literally the only way I can describe it

She’s very lyrical, with a lot of metaphors

When she dances on stage, she d a n c e s

All while holding a mic to sing. And she hits all those high notes like it’s no ones business (a literal queen i tell you)

She and Spot are besties and has been known to have done a few collabs together

Their fans were hesitant about their collabs since their genre is pretty different from the other but they make it work and it slAPS

And among all her boppy songs with full choreography and backup singers, she always have a few songs she sings while only being accompanied by piano or guitar (Either electric or acoustic) which she plays on her own

Finch

He’s an indie pop artist with his trusted acoustic guitar by his side

Just think of music by Wallows and Lewis Capaldi were to be blended in together and Conan Gray for the cherry on top

But it has a little bit of Ed sheeran, Lorde, and Lauv vibes to it too

His concerts are simple but his songs are mostly very boppy so his fans still have fun either way

And it’s usually in small venues but there are times where he had a concert in a huge stadium

He goes by FINCH (yeah all caps btw)

Finches are a very on brand thing for him obviously

Has been known to collab with Crutchie and they actually make a very good team

Somehow was able to combined both genres to produce a few boppy songs

Ok ok but Finch and Crutchie have made a collaborative album (and maybe they went on tour????)

Specs 

He’s a history fiction writer

Yes this is inspired by the fact that he’s 100% a history nerd (no one change my mind i love this headcanon aight)

And he explores a lot of different histories from different parts of the world

He actually helps a lot of students understand history even further for school through his novels

Anyways he goes by Specs because I say so

No one knows why that’s his pseudonym and Specs isn’t interested in explaining either. No one other than the newsies need to know it was born from a stupid nickname the newsies gave him :)

His research mostly comes from history books because of his genre which wouldn’t be a problem since he has loads and will voluntarily buy more if needed

Also yeah he makes a great director for the movies taken from his books

Mush

He’s a chef on youtube

Goes by Mush Meyers

So think if Gordon Ramsey and his youtube channel but make it mush

Yeah that’s it really

Ok but Mush is a jolly and friendly person

Other than just food vlogging he does cooking challenges and cooking tips too

Sometimes he does the cooking challenges with a friend (mostly henry but i’ll get to him later on in the list)

But he also vlogs his life

Which isn’t really often but he likes to sometimes

He’s that big of a foodie he has a food blog too

And also a seafood restaurant so that’s cool :D

Henry

Like Mush, he’s a chef on youtube

Goes by Henry on the internet and in general

Ajkfhajfjska I’m thinking about how ppl would address him as Chef Henry kajhfkjlashfjklasfjklsf

He mostly does the same thing like Mush actually

Food vlogging and cooking challenges (they do it together so) sometimes cooking tips

But Henry vlogs his life a lot

And instead of a food instagram he has a food blog

He has a sandwich restaurant

Yeah it is inspired by his pastrami on rye with a sour pickle line from KONY get mad about it why don’t ya (well if i’m not mistaken henry was the one that said it but idk i have horrible memory) 

Blink

He’s a youtuber

Ok so I have a specific headcanon that Blink majored in psychology but didn’t end up being a psychologist

So instead he becomes a psychologist on youtube

Who often vlogs jhgasjlfhs

The guy looks like he could cut you but his sense of humor once you get him talking is just *chef’s kiss* amazing

Which is why he also has a podcast because he’s also secretly great at talking

He just thinks mental health is very important, okay?

Romeo

He’s an actor

Mostly on Broadway but has worked with Hollywood before

He’s usually a supporting character but has been known to understudy for main characters

Ok ik these bullet points are getting shorter and shorter but these are mostly bcs some of these stuff are pretty self explanatory since it’s very in character

Like are you telling me a kid named Romeo isn’t gonna be in some way very dramatic and end up turning that personality trait into his career?? Plus he’s very good at that?

Yeah you’re lying to me

Also he’s a pretty frequent vlogger on youtube

Look he’s a fun guy, what did you expect?

Just goes by Romeo on youtube

Elmer

He’s an actor

Has done his fair share in Broadway and Hollywood but started in Broadway

He can dance but thinks he’s pretty average in it yknow

Which his fans has no idea what he’s talking about because on stage he can do flips and turns like it’s no ones business yknow

But he can sing really good and takes pride in it

Elmer would play characters that is really far off from his own personality that fans couldn’t believe that Elmer played that character

He has done his fair share in main characters and supporting characters on Broadway

In Hollywood he usually does indie and rom-com movies

Buttons

He’s a fashion youtuber and basically an influencer 

Let’s be real this boy is a fashion icon

He’s not really a model but more like a fashion influencer and also kind of a fashion designer

His clothing line is very *chefs kiss* amazing

He designed it all and sometimes likes to design for his friends as well

He also does fashion tips on his youtube channel

His instagram game is god tier level (along with Tommy Boy and Sniper I’ll get to them in a bit) 

But yeah he also vlogs

And goes by Buttons Davenport

Jojo

He’s an actor

Mostly on Broadway but has done a few movies in Hollywood

He radiates main character energy and he does become the main character most of the time (on hollywood at least)

On Broadway he mostly enjoys being apart of the ensemble because this boy loves dancing

But he does play a few supporting characters

He has released one or two albums too because his singing is top tier

But isn’t interested in doing a lot of live concerts with his albums

Since no one has the time to say Josephino Jorgelino De La Guerra he turned it into Jojo De La Guerra (so much for ‘a special nickname only for friends and family’)

Mike and Ike

They’re a pop boy band and bcs of my lack of creativity it’s called Mike and Ike

At the start of their career :

“My name goes first because I’m older than you!” - Mike

“You’re only older than me by 13 minutes, holy shit!” - Ike

But Ike slowly accepts the fact that it’ll be like this yknow

Anyways they’re pretty great singers

They have one direction and new hope club vibes

Tho unlike one direction they can dance (i love the boys alright but i really think it’s funny that they can’t dancelkhjjlh)

They like to switch from the guitar (electric and/or acoustic) to the piano

The amount of times their name is confused by the candy is too many 

But they like it like that lol

Anyways i’ve mentioned a headcanon where Mike has tattoos (not like from head to toe but it’s fairly noticeable to everyone) and Ike has piercings

So the only way their fans tell them apart is by that

But there are times where Mike has his tattoos covered or Ike took his piercings off in public alone. A fan mistakens them for the other twin but they still respond to the other name because they don’t feel like there’s a need to correct them since they’re mostly known by Mike and Ike anyways. When the fan posts it on instagram and tags the twin they thought it was the twin that was tagged would comment “wrong twin but nice pic you two”

Happens wayyyyy too many times. Their fans are officially scared to approach one of the two in public alone without their differentiating indicators on which is which

And yes it is widely known that they argue a lot when it comes to writing songs

Nothing out of the ordinary sibling squabble yknow but it’s a lot

But they do end up finding a solution to the topic of their argument and make a good team at the end of the day

Hotshot

He’s an actor

On Broadway, he’s one of those actor’s that is mostly good in just the acting and singing

He can’t dance to save his life sjdfghaf

So Jeremy Jordan yknow asj;oghajshf

No not really. He can dance a little bit

So he’s mostly the main character

But he’s widely known for his works in Hollywood

He does a lot of drama. Think stuff like Elite and Designated Survivor. Yeah those kinds of heavy drama (well idk i think those two are pretty heavy)

He wants to release his own music because he’s a pretty good singer but he can’t write songs to save his life either jgnjafjasf

And all the demo songs he was suggested by producers isn’t his cup of tea

So he’s no singer ladies and gents ://

The name Hotshot is used to name his social media platforms. He always adds a description in his bio’s that Hotshot is a nickname his friends and family use so his fans and the media refer to him with his name

I headcanon Hotshot’s real name is Tyler or some sort. No don’t ask me what’s his last name is because idk either lol

Sniper

She’s a model, beauty and fashion youtuber (I’m pretty sure those are two different things tho idk i don’t watch youtube religiously anymore), and just an influencer in general

Instagram game on p o i n t

I know most beauty youtubers go by their names but uhh… i don’t think i’ve ever thought of a first name for Sniper but I really think she really would just go by Sniper Wah on the internet (Idk she seems like an Ashley in my head but feel free to recommend headcanon names to me)

Anyways she’s very fashionable

Tommy Boy (i’ll get to him just wait aight?) and Buttons are her fashion besties

The three of them pretty much appear in each other’s Youtube video not Tommy’s tho bcs he doesn’t have one lol

Sniper’s brand are huge sun hats

I have no idea how or why but that girl has sun hats vibes I can’t explain any further I’m sorry

Doesn’t have a clothing line but does have a make up brand of her own. She calls it Sniper. Yeah that’s it akjfhjf

Smalls

She’s a twitch streamer and youtuber like race and albert

They’re a youtube trio everyone loves it

And yes she does go by Smalls

Oh and she also dances like her two stupid besties thanks for asking

Bubblegum is her brand (idk how to explain she just has the vibe)

She is skateboard chick

I’m imagining a video collab of her and Al on a skatepark doing stupid challenges

It’s her most viewed video

Tommy Boy

Ok ok he’s a model, influencer, and dancer

So think a male version of Gigi Hadid that dances

No he doesn’t have a youtube channel but frequently has made an appearance on Buttons’ and Sniper’s videos

Yes his instagram feed is also very amazing

He goes by Tommy Boy

People genuinely thinking ‘Boy’ is actually his last name and kinda think it’s strange but doesn’t complain

Tommy literally didn’t think people would think it was his last name. But they did anyways

Les

Let’s just get straight to the point : he’s a famous tiktoker 

And yes, ppl are surprised at the fact that him, Davey, and Sarah are related to each other 

To the people that made it through this entire list. Congratulations and thank you for your validation. Have a wonderful evening and stay hydrated 

i will write at least one oneshot out of this au i promise!!

[sareesonscreen]

S1 E3: Sex and Sexuality in South Asian Media

In this episode, we will be talking about Sex and Sexuality in South Asian Media. This is in essence the first half of a two-part conversation. In this first half, we hope to address the broader discussions around Sex and Sexuality in the media in our region. And in our next discussion episode, the conversation will continue into an in-depth discussion around Queer Media.

It’s been empowering to see many people speak about sex so candidly today. This was nearly unimaginable even a decade ago. Unfortunately, open conversations around sex and sexuality continue to be taboo in our society, but it’s been great to see a segment of people start to chip away at that reluctance to talk about such a fundamental part of all our lives.

There are a lot of great podcasters and Youtubers who share their experiences on this (linked below). And we highly recommend you give them a listen (links below). While we absolutely value the importance of sharing lived experiences, in this episode, we will specifically look at the media we consume - how it portrays sex and sexualities of women and marginalized people, and how it shapes the greater societal conversations around these issues.

We wanted to highlight the importance of recognizing that sex and sexuality is experienced very differently and uniquely by everyone. There is no universal women’s experience or queer experience. The specific socio-economic and cultural locations that shape our identities empower and disempower us in different ways, also change how we engage with sex and our sexualities. 

The movies and shows we plan to talk about in this episode come from Netflix productions, slightly indie parts of Bollywood, and the West Bengali film industry. While the chosen media here vary in their representations of language, socioeconomic class, urban/rural spaces, and to a degree caste, a common critique for all the movies chosen (and of us as well) is that it mostly still looks at sex and sexuality through the imposed universality of an upper class/upper caste gaze. We did our best to make note of this as we discussed the issues pertaining to this episode. 

The AIDS epidemic of the 1980s was the first time that conversations around sex and sexuality were forced into the public sphere, outside its usual legal, medical, and demographic confines. Then in the ’90s, with the rise in access to electricity and televisions, a new brand of more explicit sexual imagery entered South Asian homes and media. 

It’s not that sex was invented in the ’90s, or that people in the subcontinent didn’t engage in sex or non-heteronormative sexuality (including gay men and sex workers). It’s just that it became a more constant presence in the media that we consumed.

In the 2000s, there was suddenly more “sex” on local television and movies. Still heteronormative, still patriarchal, of course. We were showered with the overwhelmingly hetero male gazes in Imran Hashmi movies and the item songs that accompanied almost every movie of that decade. In even worse scenarios, there was the inescapable plight of gratuitous violence in the rape scenes. 

Luckily, even through that period - healthier works were being created in more indie industries or regional media. West Bengal, amongst others, was prominent in producing more “forward” and mature depictions of sex and sexuality.

What’s unfortunate is because of how inaccessible these local healthier portrayals of sex were, a lot of us who had the alternative of having access to Western narratives of sex/sexuality, kind of clung to it. Our vocabulary around sex ended up being heavily shaped by a culture that we didn’t live in. When it felt like the words for sex and sexuality are limited to medical terms or slurs, it was easy to just assume the western alternative (added with our post-colonial hang-ups).  

It’s been very fortunate that the film industries and the artists within it continued to push for better media in this realm. In the last decade, we’ve seen some very prominent works that highlight sex/sexuality that made it to mainstream success. In this episode, we’ll be primarily tackling 3 movies that have done so - Lust Stories, a Bollywood anthology hit, Parched - an Indie movie directed by Leena Yadav and Rajkahini - a take on the partition of the Indian subcontinent through the setting of a brothel and the issues faced by the sex-workers residing there, directed by Srijit Mukherji. 

Through these movies - we hope to tackle some of the major issues confronting discussions around sex and sexuality.

Often discussion around sex and sexuality is looked at with a male-centric gaze, especially in their depictions of women - this was especially apparent in Karan Johar’s short in Lust Stories as well as the portrayals of sex workers in Rajkahini. Some of these portrayals used women’s sexuality for the sake of shock value and titillation and did not take into account the multiple facets of people’s identities that influence their sexual expression. 

Parched was refreshing in its gentler, more feminine take on women’s sexuality showing empathy, affection, and agency as necessary elements of fulfilling sexual experiences. However, even Parched failed to fully consider the “unsexy” elements of how sexuality is affected everyday lives - the women who were the protagonists in Parched were shown to be from a remote, rural village in India, and yet no discussion on their sexuality ever included the structural realities that rural women face in South Asia, like the lack of access to basic sanitation, water or even, privacy.

Any depiction of marginalized people when exploring their sexuality is incomplete without understanding their material struggles. The film, though shot from a feminine gaze, is unable to shed its upper-class/upper-caste romanticization of marginalized women’s lives. This re-orientalization of disadvantaged women’s struggles to be consumed by a privileged, upper-class/ Western audience is an appropriation of the challenges they face, packaged to be palatable (even enjoyable) to its privileged viewers. It is also made worse when the cast and the culture is a hodgepodge of people from completely different cultures than the ones being portrayed.

Rajkahini, while claiming to be telling the stories of ‘forgotten women’ ends up using the women characters as props for the overarching narratives of loss and displacement during the Partition of 1947. Only one character - that of Begum Jaan is given agency and individuality and even she becomes a stereotypical version of the soft on the inside, harsh on the outside, raspy-voiced Madame. The other women characters are only shown to be recipients of violence and abuse and the script and direction do very little to empower them.

Zoya Akhtar & Anurag Kashyap both attempted to make shorts on the sociocultural power dynamics that plague sexuality and sexual interaction in their contributions to Lust Stories. While Zoya Akhtar was more slightly successful in addressing perceptions of the economic and class dynamics between two sexual partners, Anurag Kashyap’s short woefully fell prey to a tired narrative of the “crazy woman” even though it began with a laudable commentary on the predatory relationship dynamic between older women and younger men.

Our main goal in this episode was to examine how mainstream and indie representations of sex and sexuality further (or set back) important conversations around these issues. While Parched and Zoya Akhtar’s short made some commendable efforts, most of these pieces of media were unable to take on a fully intersectional lens to these controversial, but extremely relevant issues for the larger South Asian audience.

In our upcoming episodes, we plan to address topics in consent and rape culture which we briefly touched on in this episode. We also hope to tackle movies from other parts of South Asia as we do this. This episode was so important to us, be sure to let us know what you thought of this episode!

Further Readings + Content

Singh, Asha. “Are All Women’s Stories the Same?” Round Table India. Oct 19, 2016. https://roundtableindia.co.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8831:parched-and-feminism-are-all-women-s-stories-the-same&catid=119:feature&Itemid=13

Sander, Lalon. “Eleven Heroines Does Not A Feminist Film Make: A Review of Srijit Mukherji’s "Rajkahini.” The Caravan. Oct 31, 2015. https://caravanmagazine.in/vantage/eleven-heroines-not-feminist-make-review-rajkahini

Singh, Poonam. “Film Review: Parched, Of Women Thirsting for More.” Feminism in India. Sept 26, 2016. https://feminisminindia.com/2016/09/26/film-review-parched/

Ghosh, Stutee. “Review: Women in Radhika Apte’s ‘Parched’ Are Bruised, Not Bechari.” The Quint. Sept 22, 2016. https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/film-review-women-in-radhika-aptes-parched-are-bruised-not-bechari-ajay-devgn-surveen-chawla-feminism#read-more

Podcasters

Masala Podcast https://www.soulsutras.co.uk/masala-podcast/

Brown Girls Do it Too https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08k5cp0/episodes/downloads

Chuski Pop http://chuskipop.com/

Liberating Sexuality https://www.instagram.com/liberatingsexuality/?hl=en

[secret-diary-of-an-fa]

The End of Year Awards Are Back... and This Time, It’s Personal!

And so we approach the end of 2020, the year that never really began. On paper, at least, it looked incredibly promising. There were lots of great movies slated to come out; culture seemed slightly less paucity-riddled and pointless than usual; good things were in the air. Then COVID happened, and basically fucked everything. Actually, that’s not quite true: my personal year has been fucking spectacular. I’m in a long-term relationship with a gorgeous woman for the first time in forever- no more abrupt trysts and stolen moments for yer humble narrator: I’ve got a sumptuously plus-size lady-friend who actually wants to spend substantial amounts of time me (and has knockers you could sled down, were you so inclined). I also started a Youtube channel where I upload performances of magic tricks I’ve designed and a few people seem to quite like it. Oh, and I’ve written four novels, with a fifth well on its way to completion. Unfortunately, that’s my life, not the life of our civilisation and culture as a whole. The fact that bugger all happened in that makes this end-of-year round-up a little hard to write. With that in mind, I’m going to hand out the gongs for 2020, but I’m also going to do my usual dodge of giving end-of-year awards to things that I discovered in 2020, even if they came out the year, decade or century before. It’s not like any right-minded person gives a hoot about my opinion anyway. Right then, everyone clear on the rules? Then let’s roll up our sleeves and plunge elbow deep into the fetid trough of our decaying society to ferret out the best and worst of the Things That Humans Have Done Recently.

The ‘I Like It Because It Confused Thick People’ Award for Best High-Concept Sci-Fi Movie... … Goes to the sterling Tenet, a spy film that used entropy inversion and symmetric, opposite-direction timelines within the same physical space the way most spy films use hacking and guns. Christopher Nolan films are always intricately constructed and meticulously-executed, but this one must have had Japanese Master Puzzle-Box Makers crying into their breakfast cereal. Is breakfast cereal a thing in Japan? I honestly I have no idea. For some reason, all I can imagine is a sort of dry kedgeree where all the ingredients that aren’t rice have been removed. But I digress. For all its intricacy, Tenet is actually really easy to follow once you’ve grasped the basic premise that there’s a machine that lets people move backwards through time, and that this makes them appear to move in reverse to the rest of the world while they perceive the rest of the world as moving in reverse. Nolan maintains a mastery of cinematic visual language that makes even the most abstruse concept easy to wrap your head around. Nonetheless, following Tenet’s release, dumb people took to the Internet on mass to complain that the film was confusing and stupid, never once realising that their inability to conceptualise time in non-linear ways was their own failing, not Nolan’s. I find that refreshing. It’s nice to see a sci-fi film that’s actually made for smart-cookie sci-fi fans and doesn’t give a hoot if it alienate thickos.

The Award for Most Inexplicably Compelling Web Comic… … Goes to Questionable Content. I originally started reading Questionable Content because I’d heard that the female lead and love interest was a plus size lassie and that shit’s my jam. However, the art style makes everyone look like a skinny indie-type, regardless of their actual, in-universe size, so it doesn’t do much to titillate my Fat Admiring Titillation Centres. And yet, I’m over five hundred ���episodes’ in and still reading. The thing is, I couldn’t tell you why for the life of me. Maybe it’s the hope that the art style will evolve to the point where the people look like actual human beings with different body types (but then, why would I care unless I was invested for some other reason). Maybe it’s the fact that when I get one of the many, many obscure band or pop culture references, I feel a little buzz of kinship with the writer. Maybe it’s the fact that it takes place in a universe where robots and superheroes are things that regularly happen, yet most of the strips are just normal people chatting shit in a coffee shop and the slice-of-life narrative/sci-fi setting appeals to my sense of juxtaposition. I don’t know, but I find it really compelling to the extent that I’ve pissed away entire days reading it. I have a horrible feeling that it’s a short step from this to really angsty hentai. If I start singing the praises of that, somebody please shoot me in the crotch.

The ‘Forest Gump Debating Peter Andre’ Award For Most Sustained or Elongated Instance of Stupidity… … Goes to Donald Trump. I was tempted just to award this gong to his entire presidency, but that wasn’t just stupid: it was also venal, corrupt, horrifying and punctuated by terrible moments of low cunning. So, instead, this award goes to his ‘soup’ rant. For those of you who missed it, the former President of the United States spent a really, really long time (in the run-up to the election) wittering on about protestors throwing cans of soup at police. What was dumb and weird about it was that he appeared to be extolling the virtues of soup as a siege weapon, going into really specific detail about how it was better than a brick because it could be thrown with more force, finishing with the utterance that protestors would just argue that “this is just soup for my family” if they were caught with the cans… which is phrased wrong in such a subtle and inhuman way it’s hard to imagine that anyone actually ever said it, at least in those words. I have no idea if protestors in America were throwing soup cans at police (which would be entirely justified considering how many innocent people American police have murdered in cold blood quite recently) or if this was a fantasy dreamed up by the former president in the cloudcuckooland that is his diseased little brain. Either way, the connected rant was balls deep in dumb.

The Most Disturbing Unintentional Impression of Vincent Price Award… … Goes to the narrator from One Step Beyond, a Twilight Zone-esque anthology of weirdness that purports to be based on true events and has to be seen to be believed. The stories are oft-disturbing instances of spooky-inflected human drama and can occasionally be quite disconcerting… until they’re book-ended by a dude who sounds like Vincent Price reading a children’s book in a really earnest voice. It’s weird and no, it didn’t hit our screens in Space Year 2020, it dates back to Ye Olden Times of the 1950s or 60s, when men were men, women were women and technincolour was a distant dream that could get you strung up for witchcraft. Nonetheless, I only encountered it this year, so it’s getting its prize. I warned you I was going to pull this shit, but you foolish fools didn’t listen.

The ‘It’s Not Gay If I Don’t Clench’ Award for Cognitive Dissonance… … Goes to Amazon Prime, the content-making branch of evil, tax-dodging, anti-monopoly-law-breaking megalith Amazon. You see, while Big Daddy Amazon is off being incredibly sinister and worrying, like a shifty vampire hanging off the economy’s throat, the creative people at Amazon Prime are busy making or acquiring some of the flat-out best TV ever committed to a streaming-service, from the extra-weird slice of fun-pie that is The Tick, to the entertainingly horrifying cultural dissection of The Boys to the utterly unique Carnival Row, to the superbly adapted American Gods. It’s a bit like discovering that Geoffrey Dahlmer single-handedly created a body of artistic work to rival Vincent Van Gogh’s when he wasn’t pouring acid onto the brains of emotionally vulnerable young adults. It gives me a headache.

The Clint Eastwood Award for Most Effective Older Gentlemen… … Goes to Joe Biden, for unseating dipshit in chief Donald Trump with the casual badassery of a Wild West gunslinger shooting a baddy (probably played by Leonardo Di Caprio) in the balls. I mean, he’s not the best Prez America could ask for but a) as a Brit I don’t have to care and b) anyone who ousts Trump gets mad props from me.

The ‘It’s a Pity Everything Else is Shit Now’ Award for Best New Ongoing Series… … Goes to my own Youtube series, Victor The Magician, in which I claim to be a reality-hopping, interdimensional wizard on an endless quest to… perform magic, basically. I’ll admit that the quality is super-variable (Youtube algorithms and their constant demand for fresh content be a harsh mistress, etc., etc.). However, when I’m good, I’m really good. If you’re looking for a punch-line other than the fact that this whole bit is a self-promoting plug, it’s this: my Youtube series really was the best thing to come out this year. Not because I’m great or anything, just by default. A promising year really did turn into a cultural wasteland the moment COVIDius Rex reared its scaly head.

The Zombie Ian Curtis Award for Most Crushing Disappointment… … Goes to Rick and Morty Series 4. As I think I’ve said before, it was still good, but it just didn’t reach the dizzy heights of nihilistic lunacy achieved in series 1-3. I think the problem is that the audience is meant to learn something from Rick’s poor choices, even if he doesn’t, because the creators saw the amazing success of Bojack Horseman and decided they wanted a slice of that sweet, tangy deconstructionist pie. It worked up to a point in the climax of Series 3, but having made their point, the showrunners probably should have moved onto a different point. They forgot that the appeal of Rick Sanchez is his combination of ‘entertaining car-crash of a human being’ and ‘unstoppable superbeing’. Push him through an arc and you risk breaking the thing that makes him and the show so endlessly watchable. Rick, unlike Bojack, just wasn’t built for heavy introspection. Also, the team hired on new writers who were less than familiar with the characters, setting and subtext, and that’s always an invitation to disaster.

The Special Sir Mixalot Award for Posteriority… ...Goes to… my girlfriend and glamorous assistant, Mystic Miss Terri, who’s arse is gorgeous and majestic.

The ‘Are They STILL Making That?’ Award for a Show You Forgot Existed And is Now Back… … Goes to Supernatural, which never technically went away and whose final series is apparently being broadcast on one of the 4 channels (though who knows which one, any more), It’s kind of nice to realise it’s still out there and be reminded that there are still people who care deeply about what happens to it. It’s like when you remember ‘oh yeah, [insert cute animal here] actually exists and isn’t just an internet meme. That’s nice’. Also, it’s good to see Jared Padelacki working steadily. It can’t be easy to find acting gigs when most producers just want to shoot you and mount your antlers over a fireplace.

The Irritating Magician Award for Something That Just Won’t Fuck Off… ...Goes to this blog entry, which is three pages long in Word. Good grief. Bye y’all! See you next year, assuming that the last few days of 2020 don’t culminate in a civilisation-destroying attack by giant space-ants. If that seems worryingly specific, let’s just say that- as Leonard Cohen would say “I’ve seen the future and, brother, it is murder”… by giant space-ants.

[tearlessrain]

I’m about to watch Arthur and Merlin, which is free on youtube and came up in my suggestions randomly. I have no idea what it is but I am hungry for the arthurian Content so Imma watch it and see how it goes

update: it was way better than I expected and accidentally SUPER gay. that merlin tv show everyone loved was amateur hour compared to how gay this was.

“there is magic in the air, and in the water, but it has been forgotten by many in these lands” wow why does that sound familiar I wonder

the funny thing is I watched fellowship of the ring literally yesterday so this will be hilarious

but there is hope [extremely unsubtle cut to a baby who is definitely important]

now I think... and I could be wrong... but guys I suspect this baby might be the chosen one.

oh god there was no father he was conceived by midichlorians

THE SKYWALKERS HAVE INFILTRATED THE CELTS

okay place your bets is it arthur or merlin

it’s Merlin. or Merddyn rather, in a surprise twist this movie was written by Fucking Nerds

so far mild cheese aside this is surprisingly watchable

“your crops fail and so you ask the king for help, but do not help yourselves! where are your alters?? starvation is punishment for your lack of faith!” THE RNC HAS INFILTRATED THE CELTS

okay so near as I can figure out the mark is from the old gods but there’s a druid who I guess speaks for the king or something who wants them to worship different old gods and now he’s demanding the villagers make a human sacrifice and it’s gonna be Smol Merddyn.

aw no they killed Celtic Shmi. Merddyn got away though and is now wandering the Forbidden Forest

I’m mad this is actually a solid movie so far. absolutely nothing unexpected has happened but I didn’t click on a movie called “Arthur and Merlin” to be surprised

oh wait that kid who freed him was Arthur

fifteen years later arthur is... a military leader who looks strangely like one of those romans played by obviously white actors in older movies

I honestly can’t pinpoint when this movie was made on aesthetics alone

ooo some Roving Misogynists™ are here to cause trouble and assault random women for being christian. by order of the druid no doubt.

“you mock us!” “I do.” okay I’m starting to like this arthur.

oh my god is that. he just fucking. tripped over excalibur while wading in like a two foot deep pond to get this woman’s cross back for her. best interpretation ever.

wait Olwen??? as in Ysbaddaden’s daughter Olwen?? once again I assumed they’d go with Guinevere or make someone up but I forgot, this movie was made by Fucking Nerds.

okay I know insisting everything is gay is a constant thing on this site but I want to point out that Arthur has showed nothing but very platonic friendship to Olwen but this is the face he makes when he sees Merddyn in a vision

and I mean to be fair to him this is what Merddyn looks like now

goddamn

oh no they’ve immediately made it very clear that he’s Romantically Involved With Olwen In Secret Look They’re Kissing Nobody Is Gay

so now I really want to know who wrote this movie because what I’m seeing here is people who intentionally chose to use the name merddyn, and know that olwen exists, but then decided to pair her romantically with... king arthur. and culhwch just doesn’t exist I guess. not that this is the most off the wall welsh mythology ship I’ve encountered but still it’s a weird one for this kind of media even if it’s an indie film

who are you people. how did this movie get made. I mean I like whatever it is but for real how and why did you do this.

I love how there’s just this trio of random dudes who don’t even have names who are arthur/olwen’s friends. and yet somehow they’re likable and I’m rooting for them. whoever they are.

so the only real problem with this movie that’s denting my enjoyment is that nobody has names and they all have the same haircut so I lose track of who’s doing what. see these are arthur’s friends:

and these are bad guys:

and Olwen is the only person in either screenshot who has a name

if any of them ever changes into a new outfit I’m screwed.

I’m gonna be real with y’all I love me a cursed forest

in an ironic twist, excalibur is now firmly stuck in a tree trunk and arthur cannot get it out

why is this movie GOOD what the heck. I mean the druid and king situation is blatantly ripped from wormtongue and theoden but I still like. care about the king. they’ve done it well.

“I’ve already told you, I am no longer a man.” “are you so sure???” see I know nothing will happen since this is a movie not a fanfic but that line is the quintessential hate-makeout segue

THIS IS VERY HETEROSEXUAL they’ve had most of the argument while approximately that distance from each other

oh god what the fuck arthur’s friends got sacrificed by the druid just to make a point to olwen. this is the opposite of a Sacrificial Girlfriend.

they do not need to be this close to each other to argue but they keep on doing it

they’ve been on screen together for less than five minutes y’all

arthur: maybe you’re right, you are no longer a man

merlin: [conjures an entire patch of flowers for him to make... some kind of point I guess?]

okay now they’re arguing again but there’s all this “I thought I knew you” talk (which, again, it’s been five minutes) and the actors have clearly decided that their dynamic is based entirely on constant, roiling sexual tension

why does every single thing they say scan like dialogue from a slow burn enemies to friends to lovers fanfic

“the girl in the village, did you love her once?” “I know little of love” “Surely a man who can control the growth of a flower must be able to make love blossom” JUST FUCK ALREADY

this is how they’re having this conversation by the way

there was only one shrub hollow

“to control nature is one thing, but only the most powerful sorcerer could control the mind of a man- OR WOMAN,” he said, heterosexually.

y’all I’m gonna be honest I thought I was just projecting at first but this is the gayest thing I’ve seen since the baseball song in high school musical 2. this is just absolute beleg and turin levels of probably unintended but utterly blatant homosexuality. I’m so glad I decided to watch this movie and youtube was right to recommend it to me.

this movie really speaks to me because on a spiritual level I too am a mystical but irritable and socially stunted forest hermit with sexy hair just waiting for a brash but pure-hearted warrior who looks like a roman statue to draw me out of my cave with homoerotic banter. 

oh it’s not excalibur it’s... nuadu. which I guess in this movie is not the king of the tuatha de danann but a sword forged by them? see my first impulse would be to assume that the way they’re mangling everything, the writers knew nothing about Celtic folklore, except that they’ve chosen such weirdly specific things to mangle. they know their shit, they’ve just deliberately chosen to go absolutely buckwild with it.

THEY’RE DOING IT AGAIN THEY ARE INCAPABLE OF ARGUING WHILE STANDING MORE THAN TWO FEET APART

for real though character-wise this might be one of my favorite interpretations of merlin/merddyn I’ve ever seen. I feel like everyone involved was genuinely super passionate about the subject matter they were working with. like all jokes aside he’s really honestly well acted and well written.

STOP IT NOW YOU HORNY SIMPLETONS

uh oh they’ve been captured by... bandits?

oh it’s olwen’s uncle

“TO GOOD WOMEN... WHY DO YOU NOT DRINK, MERDDYN”

it is a mystery, olwen’s uncle.

a mystery.

this motivational monologue could have been so cheesy but like. I’m here for it. I would follow arthur into battle.

aw come on. olwen’s uncle betrayed them. I kinda saw it coming but dammit.

again, the druid should be absolutely stupid but he’s kind of a cool villain.

yay olwen’s uncle unbetrayed them. probably so would I if I’d seen what merddyn just did to the druid’s guys.

so the druid is trying to sacrifice ten thousand souls to raise a god from the underworld and merddyn is on the fucking warpath. and olwen’s uncle is ON BOARD HELL YEAH.

THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS THE HOBBITS TO ISENGUARD TO ISENGUARD

arthur and merddyn have escalated to clutching each other’s clothes during their heated two-feet-apart discussions

olwen is a badass in her own right like she has her own whole thing going trying to save the king from basically his own literal dementia and the druid who’s taking advantage of it, which is somehow way more compelling than just magical mind control.

“I thought the cave taught you fairness” “well... you taught me fighting” JUST KISS.

okay let’s see how they pull off this dark god on the shoestring budget they definitely have, at this point I honestly believe in them.

by avoiding showing the god entirely apparently but they made it work even with that.

aw the king has named him his heir. which again we all knew would happen but it’s still so well done.

and we end on merddyn placing the crown on arthur’s head while lovingly quoting his own words back at him, while olwen looks on with the kind of approval that implies they’ve ended up with some kind of road to el dorado situation. solid.

so I was expecting this to be absolute garbage with bad actors and checked out writers just trying to make another mediocre coattail-riding medieval fantasy movie and what I got was some weirdly good actors and writers who are clearly obsessed with celtic folklore and desperately wanted to just run amok with it for an hour and 45 minutes. and they did. they poured every ounce of their hearts and souls and tiny, tiny budget into it. and it was beautiful. 10/10

[qveenpoppy]

the kissing booth: a review

this is... a bad movie. i could probably forgive its many flaws & mistakes if it were made 10+ years ago, but now? ugh, it’s really, really bad.

i watched the trailer on youtube last night and didn’t think it looked too bad. cheesy, predictable, but not awful. its flaws were not on display in the trailer.

i guess i can start with the background on this film: apparently it’s based on a wattpad story. woo. (those wattpad stories sure are getting popular, as of recently. should i publish there? ...yeah, definitely not. when are book publishers and film studios gonna look at ao3 for quality content?) 

i’ve never actually read anything in full on wattpad. maybe a fic here or there, but nothing multi-chaptered from start to finish. even so, i know they’re all crap. i guess i failed to realize how crappy, when it came to this film.

now visually, the film doesn’t look bad. cinematically, it looks like a film you could see on the big screen. the graphics in the intro aren’t the greatest, but it’s otherwise a good-looking film. but the script is bad. the characters are bad. it’s just... ugh.

i probably should have stopped watching this film sometime in the middle, but i also got curious to see how it ended, you know?

i should also say now before i forget that despite the bad script, the leads are fine. at least, those i know. it’s kinda weird to see joey king doing all these ~adult~ things when i still remember her as the adorable little star of ramona & beezus. (we’re the same age... amazing, right?) also, it wasn’t until the opening credits of the film that i recognized joel courtney’s name as one of the actors from the short-lived cw series the messengers i watched... i think three years ago? maybe more? yeah, he was fine. she was fine. the script was just... bad.

it was just ridiculously cliche. the best friend’s brother thing is something that’s been done before. falling for the bad boy/jock (i think he was both, like a teen girl’s wet dream), also done before. popular clique. peer pressure. nerd no one wants to be seen with. token gay kid. i could go on, but i won’t it’s just such an outdated film. and i think the source material’s from 2014 or something. it makes me mad. haven’t we grown past all this?

what bothered me most about this film was the male love interest - noah. he’s a jerk. a player, makes out with, like, all the girls of the school. and the lead - elle (joey) - was still into him. worst of all, he had anger issues. like, bad anger issues with violent tendencies. and his excuse? he’s protective of her. he gets into fights and i believe broke a guy’s nose because he came to her defense against another shitty student. like, come on. who wants to get involved with a guy like that?

his anger issues don’t disappear after that first fight. they come back, like, twice more in the film, and it’s said that he’s gone to therapy for them, but it didn’t work, apparently. he’s still getting into fights. there’s also no explanation for his anger issues. you don’t see his home life. i don’t think he was abused or anything, so how did he get like that? who knows? consider it a plot hole, i guess.

one other thing that bothered me about him and this film was privilege. he got into harvard, apparently. he’s not seen as studious. elle teases him once for being in the library and actually reading a book. maybe he got in on an athletic scholarship, but harvard has an athletics program? not a good one, i’d guess, since i’ve heard nothing about athletes being drafted from harvard. i’m guessing the original story was written by some young teen who hadn’t started her college search yet and it was the only school she could think of on the other side of the country that would force him away from elle. but come on. not even rutgers? really? at least they’re known for their athletics!!!

i also hate how obvious it was that elle and her bff lee (joel) should have been together. yeah, friends to lovers is probably an overdone trope too, but it’s better than falling for some violent, angry jerk, right? 

and the film ends on a disappointing note as it is. yeah, elle and noah end up together, but he leaves for school and the end narration makes it sound like their relationship didn’t continue past that. i may not have cared for them together, but if elle was happy with him, then they should have stayed together, right? at least, that would be the satisfying ending. (or she ends up with lee. either is fine with me, at this point.)

ugh. there’s probably more i can talk about, like those lazy cliches, but i’m honestly tired of writing about this. i was optimistic going in but it was bad. i don’t recommend it. i have some other lame teen movies saved on my list (i think one’s another netflix original, another is indie or straight-to-dvd, and the third/last is a theatrical release whose book i tried to read and liked but took way too long, so i quit), but maybe i’ll think twice about giving those a try.

i’ll give the film a 3/10 bc it’s not total trash like films i despise girl most likely or scot pilgrim, but it’s still bad and i do not recommend it.

[sc101]

BAKLA KA NG TAON!: How Sassa Gurl appropriates Baklang Kanal Culture into the mainstream by showing us its realities.

If you've been on TikTok or Twitter lately, then you would know how Sassa Gurl took over Universe (este, the Philippines) overnight by his crazy antics and relatable "Baklang Kanal" content. But to those who aren't that well off with social media, let me introduce to you Sassa Gurl in all of his glam and glory.

 Sassa Gurl is a media personality that rose to fame on TikTok for posting content that highlights "Kanal Culture", a concept we'll get into much deeper later, and creating characters that play within his "Baklang Kanal Universe." Penetrating TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, Sassa Gurl has made headlines for his unapologetic opinions and witty skits that truly relate to the masses. He is also an activist, both online and on ground, mainly advocating for LGBTQ+ Rights. He does this through incorporating his advocacies in his content or sharing his experiences and learnings on different programs he's invited to.

But what makes Sassa Gurl and his content so relatable? I believe that his humor definitely plays a significant role in why people love him so much, but it's where his humor is rooted, which I want to take a deeper dive into: the baklang kanal culture. 

Kanal Culture came from the slums. Likening the squatter's area with smelly canals and dingy environment, Kanal Culture celebrates this culture of what we say ugaling squatter. The term has been used to stigmatize poverty and its way of life. 

This concept then created a subculture that targeted the LGBTQ+ members who live in shanty neighborhoods called Baklang Kanal. Before internet trolls got the hold of the term Baklang Kanal to use as an insult, many gay people have repurposed the derogatory term as a form of empowerment, embracing the flamboyancy and stigma revolving around being a Baklang Kanal. 

Pop culture has reinforced the Baklang Kanal stereotype in media through making them side characters for comedic relief. My earliest exposure to this stereotype was through comedians such as Chokoleit, Shalala, Pooh, and Vice Ganda. Their characters portray gay sidekicks living in poverty. Athena Charanne Presto of the Philippine Daily Inquirer writes about this in her column saying, "The rural and poor bakla grow up with an idea of who they are, and this idea can direct the choices they make and the actions they take." Baklang Kanal isn't a form of comedy; it is a way of life brought upon by the inequalities forced upon the masses and, for most gay people, a means to self-discovery.

Using the wise old words of Nadine Lustre, "C'mon guys, it's 2021." Pop culture and media have made progress in showing the realities of Baklang Kanal culture through realistic portrayals of gay characters in films and television. A great example of this is the Indie award-winning movie Mamu and a Mother Too. It tells a story of a transgender sex worker who is determined to get breast implants but unexpectedly assumes the role of a mother to an orphaned child. The movie closely portrayed the realities of sex workers, especially those out of the binary genders, and their relationship in their environment. The shanty neighborhoods, sexual encounters, and terrible work conditions are just some aspects that most of the LGBTQ+ community face while in poverty.

Baklang Kanal culture embraces both the good and bad that come of their situation. Yes, some stereotypes come to be accurate, and others come from a place of ignorance or prejudice. But at the end of the day, it is a culture that binds the different narratives under a shared space of struggle—creating a community of acceptance in a society plagued by rejection.

And I think this is why Sassa Gurl's skits and content are relatable to the masses because it doesn't sugarcoat reality. His humor is rooted in a shared struggle that a majority of Filipinos have experienced or, if not, have encountered. This shared reality is communicated through skits, which I think is the most creative way because it involves the audience. It involves us. Yes, Sassa Gurl utilizes Baklang Kanal culture to entertain his audience. Still, through this, he interjects the realities and breaks stereotypes of being a Baklang Kanal. Like all cultures, he shares it with the public to engage with it and educate themselves about the culture.

In all things, there are its limitations. We must remember that Baklang Kanal culture and those who live it do not exist merely for anyone's entertainment; most certainly, the traits presented aren't a means to gain clout. We must not stray away from its roots of marginalization and poverty, a reminder that Baklang Kanal is a continuous struggle faced by many Filipinos and LGBTQ+ members. Baklang Kanal derogatory and prejudiced attributions must never be taken out of context.

Many more internet personalities represent and portray Baklang Kanal culture in their spaces, but this is not a battle of who shows it best; it's a matter of looking beyond the humor and understanding the underlying advocacies. Equal rights and proper representation are a few of the calls that the LGBTQ+ community and other progressive groups fight strongly for. This is not just for the members of the LGBTQ+, but for everyone so that we can protect ourselves from facing derogatory name-calling, slurs, harassment, discrimination, and bigotry.

 References: Losa, Rogin. “#PangPangOnItsShowtime Is a Big Lesson on Queer Microaggression - SCOUT.” Scout Magazine, November 10, 2020. https://www.scoutmag.ph/opinion/pangpangonitsshowtime-gaya-sa-pelikula-microaggression-roginl-20201109.

Presto, Athena Charanne. “Liberating and Constraining the 'Bakla'.” INQUIRER.net, June 26, 2019. https://opinion.inquirer.net/122191/liberating-and-constraining-the-bakla.

Vilog, Danea. “While You're Living for the ‘Baklang Kanal’ Trend, Let's Not Forget Its Roots - SCOUT.” Scout Magazine, November 16, 2020. https://www.scoutmag.ph/opinion/baklang-kanal-twitter-bn-2020-daneav-20201116.

[mcjuggie]

pegasus, comet, pulsar, wormhole!

actual angel chloe hitting me with the hee (and the q’s, thank you!!)

pegasus: favourite place to be?

with my best friend david, in my apartment eating cheese pizza with my cat annabelle and watching bad youtube content and talking about our problems for hours on end. it’s like therapy but gay and it doesn’t cost anything but a 20 for the ‘za.

another option was seeing david preform as amy, which always make me cry 

comet: what’s your big dream?

i want a tv show. i want to be a director, i’m genuinely good at it and i think i could make indie content that people want to see. i made a short in film school (only 4 out of 300+ got to direct) and i made the first sci-fi movie ever made at the university. i really think me and david have a great idea for a tv show, and if it get picked up it would just be a blast for absolutely everyone involved. i want to have a crew of women and minorities who all respect one another and actually listen, too!

plus we need more drag and queer content that isn’t reality TV...

pulsar: what do you hope to do in the next 10 years?

i want to work in the industry! and get my tv show off the ground, and get to make a ton of art with my friends. mostly i just hope i can keep working with david to make content together, and that i’ll always have time to write and make movies no matter what. i wanna’ go on a tour together and do some stand-up and comedy and sell some t-shirts. i also really hope to start a support group for rape victims that’s specifically gender-diverse and uses non-gendered language so it feels safe for everyone to get involved and share their stories. i think it’s really important to get inclusive with the conversation about sexual assault, and i wanna use any resources i ever get to build something like that.

wormhole: what’s something you wish would happen, but know won’t? 

tomorrow sony pictures calls and gives us 15 million to direct the teen witch remake

[canonicallyanxious]

For the fic ask meme, 3, 15, and 23, please! :-)

Thanks friend!!! I’m on mobile currently and who knows when I’ll next be able ti get in a computer so I apologize in advance for the terrible formatting but what can you do lol

3. Favorite line/scene you wrote this year?

I always find this question insanely unfair because like how am I supposed to remember everything I wrote this year, there’s almost 200k words of it??? having said that, I do have a list of favorite scenes I wrote (for skam fandom because like what else did I write this year lol)

-the last scene in the long distance fic a dream to be close to you where Even feels bigger than the whole universe -in making new cliches: the last scene of chapter three where they race home and Isak tells even that his punishment is that the loser has to stay; the museum scene in chapter 4; the r+j scene in chapter 7 was immensely fun; pretty much all of chapters 8, 9, and 12; the scene with ISak’s mom in the epilogue, as well as where Even meets Mikael-a scene I didn’t actually end up publishing for a fic that will never exist, in a universe where Isak and Even meet over the Internet; I sort of mashed out their first meeting over Skype and I actually really enjoyed writing it lol

And as far as fave lines go I am going to share this one from a chapter of the marching band au that didn’t end up getting posted, mostly because there is a chance it never will be posted and honestly what a damn shame this brilliant exchange might never be shared with the world:

“Oh my god,” Eva says gleefully. “You’re gay for Even.”His brain kind of short circuits, a little.“I’m not /gay for Even/,” Isak snaps. “I’m gay, /period/.”“Uh huh. I bet you think his ass looks great in uniform.”“Oh my god,” Isak says, scandalized.“Do you wanna suck his reed?” Eva says, the widest shit eating grin on her face he’s ever seen in his damn life. “Do you wanna blow on his horn?”“Oh my /god/.”“Do you want him to lick your brass?”

15. Things I’ve learned this year

The true meaning of writing for yourselfTaking a break from fic is okay, and fuck the assholes who give you shit for itYou’re not a failure if you’re not putting out as much content as other people. Doesnt make your work any lesser. No matter what it seems like, taking your time is 100% okay.

23. Fics you wanted to write and didn’t

FUCK THERE ARE SO MANY!!! WHERE DO I EVEN START!!!!!!

Okay well there was an in the flesh evak au collab that never got past the first couple chapters. There’s another au which was supposed to be a collab but isn’t going to be anymore that I alluded to earlier, in which Isak is an amateur movie critic/blogger and Even makes indie short films to put on YouTube for free as a hobby, and they meet after Isak stumbles on Even’s vids and decides to write a hugely positive review for it and Even of course happens to follow ISak’s blog religiously and flips a shit or ten when he posts the reviews. They proceed to strike up an intense, fast moving internet long distance friendship that gradually turns into romance. Can you tell I’m still stuck on this idea lol it was going to be SO MUCH FUN

For mnc verse, I had at least two spinoffs planned, a noora/eva/vilde one shot and an Even POV of part 2, but that universe ended up exhausting me too much for me to continue with either of those plans haha.

In terms of one shots, there’s a fic I wanted to write where jonas and Magnus and Mahdi all sort of figure out that they’re queer together. I also toyed with the idea of trying nsfw for evak, but in terms of like, writing a crackish scene where htey try sexy things and it goes horrifically awry lol. The marching band au counts I guess because it was going to be much more extensive than it already was. I didn’t end up finishing the au in which they’re kindergarten teachers but I’m still holding out hope on that one for 2018 (if it weren’t for my DAMN KEYBOARD BREAKING……..) there’s probably waaaay more au’s I came up with but that’s all I can think of, mostly notable because for most of these ideas I actually ended up writing a good portion of it before life got in the way or whatnot. Idk if anyone would be interested but if you are I’d be happy to post some of the outlines for them, as especially for the ones that were supposed to be collabs it’s extremely unlikely they’ll ever come to fruition.

Ask me some q’s about fic I wrote this year! On mobile so can’t link but if you go through my blog a bit you should find them.

[movietvtechgeeks]

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/noam-ash-austin-bening-talk-gay-roommate-homo-hetero-power-couples/

Noam Ash, Austin Bening Talk ‘My Gay Roommate’ and Homo-Hetero Power Couples

A friend of MTTG at Entertainment Weekly turned us on to the YouTube web series My Gay Roommate starring Noam Ash and Austin Bening back in 2013, and it turned out to be a very funny and fun interview. Like his onscreen character, Ash was the more talkative of the duo, but Bening got some talk time in. I was impressed with how persistent they were in promoting their show and just having so much passion for it, so it came as no surprise when Ash informed me last year that they had been featured in Vanity Fair. Three seasons later and over 6 million YouTube views has caught the attention of Keshet Studios and Ish Entertainment, who will be turning My Gay Roommate into a half-hour TV show slated to debut in 2018. Ash and Bening are a great inspiration for those out there trying to break into the entertainment industry and just not giving up no matter how much the odds are against you. It's not easy to get in, so we're happy to see these guys getting to the next level. Here's the interview we did with them shortly after they began the first season of My Gay Roommate before Hollywood came calling. You can check the entire series here on their channel. Noam Ash and Austin Bening have been able to use their college roommate stories to create the popular web series My Gay Roommate. If you ever had a straight roommate in college you will easily relate to the show as it follows the unique relationship between a straight boy from Ohio and his very gay roommate through all their experiences and sometimes over the top situations. I immediately took to their show since I was thrown together in my college with a straight roommate, and we hit it off and have been best friends ever since. Even if you didn’t have a straight roommate, you’ll still find this show hilarious as it covers everything from the guys losing their virginity to cleanliness and a very funny Valentine’s Day episode. The guys have loosely based the show on their own friendship and college experiences. When you watch the series, you can see why it acquired a cult following plus some very vocal fans that keep up with the duo on Twitter. We’ll let the guys tell you more about them and their show as only they can. If you’ve not seen My Gay Roommate before, after this interview, you’ll be ready too! How did you guys meet?  Noam: I came to Austin in a dream. As I descended from the clouds, I declared to him that fate had brought us together, and that our roommateship would lead us to become Hollywood’s premier homo-hetero power couple. Before being rainbow-beamed to my home planet, I whispered that we would own a two-winged mansion connected by a bridge over a pool. Austin: There’s also the part where Noam found me on the Facebook group to find freshman roommates and then called me every day for a week until I agreed to room with him. Noam: Austi doesn’t always know what’s best for him. We’ve been roommates ever since. What inspired the idea for your My Gay Roommate series?  It’s all based on our own friendship/college stories. Even at a liberal place like Tufts, people found our relationship odd.  Some thought Austin was secretly gay, or that Noam had this insatiable crush on him.  But in reality, we were just two best friends. Not a lot of media explores the Gay-Straight dynamic in a way that describes us, so we thought we’d add our own voice. It was also a way for us to document our time at college. My Gay Roommate is the ‘greatest hits’ of our freshman year told in 20 minutes. Were you guys surprised at the response to the show? Very. #MGR is a college webseries that we made in a dorm with our friends. We hoped it would find an audience, but we never thought it would catch on like it did. But the Internet can be a wonderful place. We love the tweets, blog posts, likes, comments, everything. It makes our day!! You had a successful on Kickstarter for your music video for the series. Do you think you’ll try Kickstarter again for more episodes?   Yes yes! We have a lot of great new stuff planned for the near future, so be on the look out, sports fans! We’re also in the market for generous sugar daddies with yachts. You can only do so much with unemployment and student loans. We were humbled by the enthusiastic response and generosity of our viewers. Thank you all! What was your favorite episode to make? (Everyone here personally loved the Good Will Hunting sequence)  Noam:  Well I really liked filming the Valentine’s Day episode because of the awesome handshake choreography and my little naked photoshoot. It was precious. Austin: The scale of Hard Candy was pretty awesome, but you can’t beat the black turtleneck D’angelo montage. Are you planning a second season of My Gay Roommate and what can we expect? We don’t want to give too much away, but you can definitely be sure that the journey is far from over. Our content is basically a dramatic interpretation of our own lives. In that way, #MGR and #NDR (Nick’s Daily Routine) are character driven shows. We go where they go and vice versa. Have you had any interest from Logo as this fits perfectly into their web series?  Funny you should say that!  WE think it’s perfect too!  You hear that LOGO??? Answer our emails, dammit.  :) Will you guys go beyond an internet series and try an indie film? Maybe! We’re both intrigued by the idea of a feature, but we’re definitely not through with the YouTubes yet. If you did go the indie film route, what actors/actresses would you cast just so you could sleep with them?  Noam:  Well.  I would have to say NPH and Hugh Jackman, those sexy beasts! They can play my hot gay uncles.  Also I’ve been a total creep and tweeting at Davey Wavey for months now, but he won’t respond.  So to heal my broken heart, I’ll let him play a lover if he asks nicely enough :P  Maybe Ian McKellen can be my sexy Grandpa. Austin: Mia Sara circa 1984 as a thrill seeking young teen or a dream sequence featuring Emily Ratajkowski in an ice cream bubble bath. So with your new fan Accidental Bear on Twitter (@AxxidentalSite), what can be expected when he comes to NYC to find you? Oh he is a precious one, isn’t he?  He seems to like taking baths in his videos, so maybe we can engage in some water sports. Thoughts? You can check out the entire series on their YouTube Channel.

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