#the context slaps I very much recommend

[midosune]

Day 10-Falling Sleep Together

[dyaz-stories]

anywhere else is hollow || Cha Hyun-Su x Reader

word count: 1.4k

warnings & tags: mostly fluff, some angst because it's sweet home, sharing a bed.

first one-shot · previous one-shot

A/N: Third entrance for @neohumanmonster's fandom event! The prompt was: Peaceful Pillowtalk. For context, reader and Hyun-Su were in high school together, reader was only there for a year before going to another high school, and therefore has no knowledge of the bullying which hyun-su was a victim of. this one-shot can be read independently (there's nothing intense plot-wise that requires having read the other parts), but I do recommend reading them for context.

Hyun-Su stays over at your place quite often now. Long gone are the days when he would drop by for no more than a couple of hours and flee the scene, as though he was scared that you spending time with him would make you despise him. Now he helps you out around the house, and, when he offers, the two of you go out on ‘dates’ around the city. It still makes you nervous, being out in the open, but Hyun-Su doesn’t hesitate anymore to take your hand in his and guide you through the empty streets.

When you’re both in your apartment, you can almost tell yourself you’re two college students living together. Almost. If it wasn’t for your blinds being always drawn to ensure no monsters could see you from outside, or your parents’ former room being turned into a laboratory by your dad before his disappearance, the illusion would be close to perfect. You do like the thought of it. Imagining you and Hyun-Su, sharing a place in a world where the Apocalypse hadn’t happened… It would be sweet.

That being said, despite your developing relationship, that you still haven’t put words on, Hyun-Su keeps sleeping on the sofa. You’d prepared a blanket and a pillow, ‘just in case’, in the very beginning, and that is where he still collapses every night. You’ve been waiting, hoping he would ask for another— arrangement, but he hasn’t said anything, and now you’re wondering if you should.

It isn’t always easy, being the one taking all the steps in the relationship. Makes you wonder if you’re pushing too much, too fast, makes you wonder how much he wants it. And yet, if he does want it but doesn’t dare to ask, how stupid would it be to lose that much time, when you never know how long you have?

“Um, Hyun-Su?” you say that night, as you’re about to leave for your room. He looks up at you with these beautiful dark eyes of his. “I was just thinking— you know you don’t have to sleep here, right?”

He blinks at you.

“Do you— are you asking me to leave?” he asks, and you immediately want to slap yourself. A few months ago, you think he’d have been half-way to the door already. Now, he sounds cautious and a little worried, but he doesn’t seem to have jumped to conclusions just yet.

“No,” you sigh, resisting the urge to bang your head against the door frame because, yeah, it makes sense he’d interpret it like that. “No, I just meant you could, uh—” you glance towards your room. “Just meant you have other options. Here. If you— if you want to.”

You don’t know why you’re so nervous all of sudden. You think a part of you cannot forget how beloved Hyun-Su was in high school, while you were— no one. If the world wasn’t ending, you don’t think he would have looked at you twice. So, sometimes, you wonder if he wants you the same way you want him. It doesn’t help that he doesn’t initiate much of your more intimate moments, and isn’t much of a talker in general.

Hyun-Su’s eyes slowly move to the open door to your room, then move back to you, going wide.

“Are you—” His voice cracks. “Are you sure?”

You nod, not really trusting yourself with words right now. You don’t want to sound desperate for affection, but you also don’t want, even for a second, to make it sound like it’s something you’re nonchalant about.

“Okay,” Hyun-Su mumbles. “Okay.”

He gets up from the couch, walks over to the door, where you’re still standing. You’re both quiet when you take his hand in yours and pull him towards the bed. It feels awkward, but you don’t have enough experience with this sort of thing to tell if that’s how it’s supposed to be.

For a while, you just stay laying on your back, staring at the ceiling, with Hyun-Su doing the same thing next to you. The atmosphere feels heavy, your whole body warm and tingling. This is all just so new to you. There have been lots of moments between the two of you, mostly spontaneous, just doing what felt right in the moment. This is different, probably because you asked, and you’re not sure what to do with it.

After a while, you roll over on your side, looking at Hyun-Su’s profile, until he turns his head to look at you. You press your lips together. Your mind is going into overdrive, trying to figure something to say — what do you even say in these circumstances? You’re drawing a blank. At least until Hyun-Su raises a hand and his fingers start slowly tracing your cheekbone, then your jaw.

You feel your breath catching in your throat, and your lips part as you do your best to keep yourself perfectly still. It’s like you’re finally being approached by a shy cat that you’re trying not to scare away.

Gently, he tucks a lock of hair behind your ear.

“Aren’t you afraid?” he asks, soft voice echoing in the dark.

Afraid of what? Of him? Of someone who touches you like you’re made of porcelain?

“No,” you answer.

For a while, there’s just the sound of the two of you breathing, and the feeling of his hand on your cheek.

“What if I hurt you?” he asks finally, voice weak and fragile.

“You wouldn’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

You swallow. You know he can feel it.

“Yes, I do,” you whisper, and you genuinely believe it to be true.

Hyun-Su’s hand stills. You hear him breathe out, before there’s the sound of rustling and then the feeling of his lips on yours. As usual with him, the kiss is brief and soft, a simple press of his lips against your own. What follows isn’t usual, though, the way he wraps his arms around you and pulls you against his chest, so he can put his chin on top of your head. It has your heart beating erratically, even if it’s not the first time he’s that close to you.

It’s just that that happens mostly when the two of you are kissing. The fact that he’s seeking that kind of closeness without that happening is a whole other kind of intimacy, one that almost makes you shiver.

“Is that okay too?” he checks. “You— said I didn’t need to ask, but…”

“It’s more than okay,” you answer, closing one arm around him however you can. “And I meant it when I said that.”

“I—” A sigh. “I don’t want to impose on you. Sometimes I— I feel like I need you too much.”

It becomes hard to breathe all of a sudden. Hyun-Su isn’t one for that kind of confession, not usually, but you desperately want to hear more. He keeps talking, and you feel his voice rumble through his chest and through you, while he plays with your hair distractedly.

“You’re so— independent. You look like you’re doing so well on your own, here. But it physically hurts to be away from you,” he mumbles into your hair. “But I— know what I am. I never want you to think you can’t— can’t push me away because you’re scared of that— that part of me.”

Your eyes sting, and you hold him a little tighter against you.

“I know who you are, too, Hyun-Su. And I don’t want to push you away.”

“Not now,” he admits. “But if one day—”

“Hyun-Su,” you call softly, trying to get his attention back on you instead of this distant, nebulous future. You live in a world where you may not know tomorrow, where a simple infection could be the end, not to mention the ever looming threat of monsterization taking you over. “I want you here. With me. I promise.”

Finally, you seem to be getting through to him. He relaxes into you, and his breathing turns deeper, more even.

“This feels nice,” he whispers after a while, and you smile against his skin.

“It does.”

You drift into sleep not long after that, you think, and for the first time in forever, you don’t wake throughout the night, startled by the smallest sound.

You just feel safe.

i hope you liked this one! i love developing reader and hyun-su's relationship through small steps, but just to let you know, we're getting closer to some smut taking place 👀 i hope people won't feel let down by that. i do think it would be out of character to write something super intense for them at that point so don't expect anything hardcore, but the 'porn with feelings' tag on ao3 is my shit so if you like that you might find something to enjoy in there! okay i think i'm done with this lil ramble.

Comments, whether here, in the tags or in a reblog, are greatly appreciated! interactions really motivate me and keep me writing :)

next part

[canmom]

Hello! I absolutely love your blog, everything from your festival recounts to animation analysis and programming (one of tumblr's recommended posts was the one where you made your own rasteriser, and I liked your attitude in what I've read so much that I'm gonna attempt to conquer my 3-year-long grudge against using opengl during college and do something similar now that I'm a bit older and have no deadlines :D).

But anyway, I have 2 questions (sorry if there's easily accessible answers, tumblr search is not helping): 1. During your animation nights, does the screen stay black while everyone watches their own video while you provide commentary? I haven't caught any yet but maybe someday! And 2. do you have any youtube channels or just one-off video essays that you like that also cover animation/directors? Or, even programming lol.

Sorry for the long ask have a nice day!

hiii! i'm very touched that you like my dorky eclectic blog <3

For the Animation Nights, I just stream the video over Twitch from local sources on my computer, typically by playing the video in mpv and recording it in OBS. This is obviously not ideal from a video quality perspective, but it's the easiest way to watch video in sync without making everyone download files in advance. Then we all chat in the Twitch chat box (in large part to crack stupid jokes, it's not that highbrow lmao). I've gotten away with it so far!

As for youtube channels, I can recommend...

anime production/history (i.e. sakuga fandom)

SteveM is likely the most sakuga-fan affiliated anituber. He makes long, well-researched and in-depth videos on anime history, usually themed around a particular director or studio.

Pyramid Inu might be my fave anituber - very thoughtful analysis of Gundam, obscure mecha anime and oldschool BL and similar topics. tremendously soothing voice too.

The Canipa Effect does excellent deep dives into the production of specific shows, both western and anime. I appreciate the respect he gives to the Korean animators of shows like AtlA in particular!

Sean Bires's 2013 presentation on sakuga is pretty foundational to this whole subcultural niche, and a great place to get an introduction to the major animator names to know and significant points in the history of anime. unfortunately a couple of the segments got slapped down by copyright but the rest holds up!

animation theory (for animators and aspirants)

I'm going to focus here on resources that are relevant to animation in general, and 2D animation. if I was going to list every Blender channel we'd be here all week :p

New Frame Plus is one of the best channels out there for game animation, describing in tightly edited videos how animation principles work in a game context and analysing the animation of various games. highly recommend

Videogame Animation Study is similar, examining the animation of specific games in detail

the 'twelve principles of animation' (defined by Disney's Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas) remain the standard approach to animation pedagogy; there are various videos on them, but Alan Becker (of Animator vs Animation) has quite a popular series. I haven't actually watched these but many people swear by them! Dermot O'Connor expands the list to 21. Note that some of the terminology can be a little inconsistent between different animators - c.f. 'secondary motion'...

Dong Chang is an animator at Studio NUT, who produces a lot of fantastic, succinct videos on standard techniques in the anime industry, timesheet notations, etc. etc. Studio Bulldog, a small anime studio, are a good complement; they focus more on douga than genga and are generally a bit more traditional.

programming

big topic here, I'm going to focus on game dev and tech art since that's my field. but also some general compsci stuff that's neat

SimonDev - graphics programmer with a bunch of AAA experience, fantastic explanations of advanced optimisations and some of the more counterintuitive aspects of rendering

Acerola - graphics programmer who makes very detailed guides to a variety of effects with a very rapid and funny 'guy that has seen monogatari' editing style. When he's good, he's really good. His video on water is probably the best one I've seen (though I can recommend a couple of others).

TodePond - the most charming, musical videos about recursion and cellular automata you've ever seen. less programming tutorial and more art in themselves.

Ben Eater - known for his breadboard computer series, a fantastic demonstration of how to go from logic gates up to the 6502 with actual hardware. worth watching just for how clean he puts the wires on his breadboards like goddamn man

Sebastian Lague, Useless Game Dev - both do 'coding adventure' style videos where they spend a few weeks on some project and then document it on Youtube, resulting in a huge library of videos about all sorts of fascinating techniques. great to dive into

Freya Holmér - creator of the 'shapes' library, makes videos on mathematical programming, with gorgeously animated vector graphics. Her video on splines is a particular treat.

There are definitely many more channels I can recommend on these subjects, but I'll need to dig into my history a bit - unfortunately I need to rush out right now, but hopefully that should be good to be getting going with!

[just-orbiting-you]

Honestly I’m sad and disappointed in all this discourse about Jikook not being gentle with each other just over JK play fighting with JM. And I would have got it if there was some real manhandling in that scene for people to be enraged about but that’s not the case at all. Also anon saying “just boys” as if being gentle and lovey dovey which they still are meant jikook weren’t boys 🤯

Some of them are those guys who would be drooling and cooing over the pool scene of JK hair grabbing JM to bring him on surface but one playful push or slap would have them questioning Jikook.

Also anon saying “just boys” as if being gentle and lovey dovey which they still are meant jikook weren’t boys 🤯

let me know if im reading too much into this, but i think you are absolutely right here. we either take one or the other: jikook being gentle and caring and softer toward each other means they’re together but more ‘masculine’ behaviors like playfighting and jokes immediately negate the previous implications.

sometimes the feminization of asian men plus the feminization of gay men plays at an intersection in this space. specifically for gay men, they are stereotyped as particularly effeminate and sexual.

if we are claiming jikook are queer, then to some there’s an implication of how they’re “supposed” to act based on stereotyping. and thus people paint jikook with broad strokes to fit them. we’ve seen how their softer (feminine stereotyped) behaviors toward each other have thus been indicative to shippers of their romantic relationship. but even still, jikook still played around often: there’s video of jungkook hitting jimin, picking him up, manhandling him.

even in ays, with jungkook pulling jimin’s hair like you said, it immediately turned into “👀 he looks very comfortable doing that.” these certain shows of particularly jungkook’s “strength” are immediately sexualized. that’s the only place where masculinity is ‘okay’ in regard to shippers view of their relationship.

but now some of us are seeing a more playful, “masculine” behavior from jikook often and consecutive in ays, it’s too jarring from the preset stereotype. it can’t fit in either a feminine, caring or sexy box.

i know its stating the obvious, but asian men, queer men, and queer asian men (really all men in general) are three-dimensional with capability to express a spectrum of emotionality and behavior. specifically here, queer men act in ways typed as masculine. you can still present more masculine and be queer. stereotypes and gender roles should not govern our outlook on jimin and jungkook.

jikook would still be “just boys” even if they truly are dating, even though they are often very sweet with each other. jikook playfighting with towels doesn’t mean they don’t love each other and could very well be dating. because men can be gentle and men can be playful and rough. men can be bratty and stubborn and men can be sweet and nurturing. people immediately jump to exhibition of these behaviors having implications for jikook and i think it often comes up unfounded.

and i don’t mean for this post to be offensive toward anyone, i’m merely commenting on what i see. i honestly recommend those unfamiliar to engage with queer theory and queer media (since some may not have a queer community around them). because it really shows when some have a background in this (mostly from probably being queer themselves or just having basic knowledge of queerness) while others don’t. jikook are real people, meaning if they truly are queer, it has real life implications. so we should speak about them in that context :). thanks for your ask anon! really ended up being thought provoking.

[physalian]

So I almost read ACOTAR…

*Trigger warning for discussion of the romanticization of r*pe and assault in fiction.

This is one of those posts that’s absolutely going to piss off some shippers of this fandom so I’ll tread lightly at the top and say: This is not a blanket condemnation of “write whatever the fuck you want you don’t owe anyone a righteous moral,” it’s a condemnation of the consequences of writing whatever the fuck you want, in the reality we live in with lacking media literacy, while then throwing up your hands and going “well golly gee that’s not my fault”. Nor is this only ACOTAR, ACOTAR just happens to be the problem child of the day because I very much do not tread lightly into this style of adult fiction.

So.

Inspired by me hemming and hawing over reading ACOTAR, while even the “fiery passion” in the summary would be enough to have me put my money elsewhere. I very much understand that I am not the target audience for that book and saying “this is objectively terrible” is unfair, but I think this series is bad is my opinion and I’m sticking to it.

Was going to read it, then, so I could back up my dislike of it in a properly informed context, but then I happened to see a post on here about what this Rhysand guy does to Feyre and… uh. And then I went looking for confirmation in case that post was blowing things out of proportion and uhhhhhh.

Yeah, I’m not required to read a book containing romanticized triggering material to still claim I hate it. Sorry not sorry.

Real quick breakdown of my stance on “problematic” topics in fiction: I have a repeat character archetype in my books that is someone who suffers assault done by somebody who has a great deal of political/literal/social power over them. So how can I say I won’t read ACOTAR if I myself write triggering material?

Welp. Mine isn’t romanticizing it.

What everyone defines as “problematic” is getting increasingly wider and foggier so I’m gonna only focus on assault and r*pe here and how these are framed in modern romantic fiction for women: Including these topics is not the issue, including these topics and saying "this is healthy and romantic and you should support this" is.

With a grey area that demands far more of an ability to critque and understand nuance we as a society are currently lacking: "wouldn't it be fucked up if..." stories still have the "fucked up" in the premise, and aren't saying "wouldn't it be so great if...".

And I’m torn.

On the one hand, I firmly believe authors should not be beholden to writing squeaky clean lawful good characters, especially either women or queer characters, lest somebody get offended because they… I don’t know, have a bit of a temper or smoke weed or have some black marks on their backstory. We should be allowed to write messy, uncouth characters, both heroes and villains, without the purity police slapping a “problematic” label everywhere. M’kay?

On the other hand, when incredibly popular works of fiction romanticize actual problematic behavior—stalking, controlling possessiveness, physical assault, emotional abuse, gaslighting, r*pe—going all the way back to the Twilight days, it’s not just a niche fanfic that you have to go looking for, this is something that’s flying off the shelves en masse, being recommended to people who might never have read anything like this before.

The issue comes when this legitimately problematic behavior becomes normalized and defended because it appears and is romanticized in popular fiction. It becomes a problem when people read it and whatever reservations they might have about certain scenes or characters are loudly and aggressively drowned out by other fans of the books insisting that it’s ~romantic~. When this is what sells, this is what makes money, and if you, aspiring writer, want to also make money, well, this is the kind of adult fiction that you have to write.

It becomes a problem when the book’s fierce defenders are so far down in their own pit of being manipulated that they can’t help but insist these are good men, because admitting otherwise opens up a massive can of worms in how they view real men. When these defenders cannot take criticism, cannot see or accept any flaws in these characters, and paint the naysayers as purity police or kink-shamers or gate-keepers or pontificators on their ostensibly high horses (but that’s many fandoms).

You want to write whatever in a fanfic? Go right ahead. Fanfic is isolated and niche and not going to become the next big thing on BookTok. Fanfic is already looked down on and criticized far more heavily than original books.

Original books like ACOTAR have this fluffy little bubble-wrap armor around them that says “hey it’s been published by an actual publishing house, that means it’s a-okay!”

I read Twilight when I was in 6th grade. It had zero impact on how I see romantic relationships (ace), but Twilight sure did have an impact on thousands of other women who thought both Edward and Jacob were just so hot, so heroic, so romantic, so much everything the men in their lives were not, so much they wish their partners would be.

On the one hand, again, Stephanie Meyer can’t be solely blamed for how readers interpret her works. She couldn’t see the future and how big her books would become.

On the other hand, she still thought shipping a grown-ass man with a supernaturally-aging toddler was cute and epic and romantic. Yes I know he was supposed to be “whatever she needed” but you go back and reread the imprinting scene yourself. “Whatever she needed” was still very much tinted Valentine-red. Renesme was his consolation prize since he couldn’t have Bella. Couldn’t just let him choose to be her loyal guardian, no, he had to be supernaturally leashed to this child that sprouted up to the age of consent within weeks, and leashing her to him, whether Renesme wanted it or not (and what's this I hear about the Nyx/Tamlin ship???).

You can’t control how the fans will react to your work, but play stupid games, win stupid prizes. I can write the fluffiest and most peaceful romance out there, and still wind up with the most popular ship being the hero and the very violent villain. I still did my job in telling the story I wanted to tell, and they showed up anyway. I would not be ringing the bell outside the bookstore loudly encouraging this behavior with my characters and canonizing it.

If Rhys was the villain and it was the fans going nuts over this fanon ship, that's just how fandom be. He's not the villain, though, he's the love interest.

So, do I think authors bear the burden of moral integrity, only writing healthy romances and abstaining from exploring darker, fucked-up, themes? ….No.

It’s not the authors who write this that are the problem alone. It’s a whole pot of other things like the waxing and waning of the influence and pushback against feminism, generational behavior that teaches young, impressionable readers that controlling, stalker, r*pist boyfriends are actually sweet and romantic and Grade-A man material.

But I can’t help but wonder that if I myself had written something raunchy and a character like Rhysand or Edward or Jacob, if I’d been able to find a publisher because that’s what’s hot right now, and that I’d be making bank on royalties because “that’s what people want”.

If we only popularize the books romanticizing this kind of material, then people aren’t going to know that there’s anything else out there to want.

It’s okay to like Rhys, though I myself will never understand why as posts both bashing and worshiping him for his faults have bled onto my Pinterest and again, I never search for ACOTAR.

I just wish characters like him weren’t saturating the market of adult fantasy, not just because I myself wrote a book that stays far, far away from these tropes, but just as a reader wanting to read new fantasy. I read TOG on recommendation from someone who did not at all understand what books I like and I finished the series purely out of morbid curiosity to see if she’d actually kill a major character (she did not).

But I wish I had spent that time reading fantasy with actual good men in the cast? I wish the “Best of #Booktok” wasn’t 2/3ds Maas books? Not just for women readers who read these books and think “well it’s popular and everybody seems to love it so this is a template by which I will begin to judge prospects and/or my own self worth”. Men readers, too, who either read this or hear about this and go “oh so they do want r*pists and controlling gaslighters? Excellent!”

What about when this inevitably gets adapted and then the audience that thinks reading is lame will tune in and see all this nastiness on screen?

“They’re fictional characters you’re not supposed to take them as gospel-”

Tell that to literally any modern fandom that hyperfixates on fictional characters all day long.

Beyond that, I didn’t read ACOTAR but I did read the entirety of TOG and hyping up this quality of writing as some gold standard both lowers and narrows the expectations of audience to only want what somebody called “fast food fantasy,” stories and concepts and plot lines that don’t take much thinking or effort to understand.

Twilight was a bad story, but at least it wasn’t badly written (not this bad, at least, Meyer didn't retcon her characters or assassinate any of them). Maas books are both. But they’re insanely popular, they’re what sells, so anything that doesn’t fit this mold isn’t going to get picked up by the big publishers—like Divergent leeching off the success of Hunger Games. Bad book, but it fit the hot genre of the time, so it sold, quality be damned.

So. Yeah.

Accountability, I guess? You can't write a book with an abusive, r*pist love interest and be shocked when the violence against women in the world continues, while contributing to the efforts to normalize this behavior as romantic.

I don't have any idea what Maas's stances are on the interpretation of her characters, but if she's against it, she asked for it, if she supports it, then I'm very glad I didn't pay her a cent more buying ACOTAR.

[sungbeam]

𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐤

motorcycle racer!ji changmin x gn!reader

1.4k words, flirting, changmin is wearing a leather jacket and aviators and dog tags (swoons), he calls u sweetheart ofc

a/n: at this point, i might as well just keep on going — btw, i recommend reading "rush" before this so the plot is put into context, but if u don't that's cool too

You had never seen Ji Changmin in the daylight before. 

You had been summoned down to the front of your apartment complex by his text message, informing you that your car was waiting outside. Instead of seeing only your beloved, hand-me-down sedan, you found yourself gazing upon the very thing mentioned beforehand: Ji Changmin, in all his glory. 

He was leaning up against the side of your car with his hands tucked into the pockets of his leather jacket, a garment riddled with pretty patches of art and emblems you'd like to take a closer look at. His dark hair was swept back slightly, just enough to be out of his face. He wore a pair of dark aviators over his eyes, and your keen eyes caught the dog tags hanging from the chain around his neck. 

He grinned at the sight of you, his tongue caught between his teeth. The dimples were throwing you off immensely. 

"Well?" He said in greeting, throwing his arms out open wide in a vague gesture. "Told you, you could trust me."

You made your way down the stairs toward him and your sandaled feet slapped against the concrete. You laughed under your breath, a little disbelieving. "I have to admit: I didn't think you could drive cars, Ji."

Changmin's mouth pressed into a smile then, taking a step toward you until the two of you stood face to face on the sidewalk. "Just one of my many charms, sweetheart."

You braided your arms over your chest. "Well, uh, for what it's worth—thanks for bringing my car back safe and sound." You made a show of peering around him at the vehicle. "At least, I hope it's all sound."

He snorted. "You're talking to the city's resident mechanic, Yn. It's as sound as sound can be."

"Ah, so you're a mechanic now?"

"I always have been." He leaned forward slightly, and you saw his eyes over the rim of his glasses, just as his tongue swiped over his bottom lip. "If you want, we can take it out for a spin and maybe you can learn a few more of my many talents."

You tilted your head to the side. Your thundering heart was making it difficult to think, or maybe that was just Changmin. This man was definitely keeping you on your toes. "I think some things are better left to the imagination."

Even with the aviators, you saw surprise flash over his features, and satisfaction purred in your chest. It felt good to elicit that kind of reaction from him. 

You shifted your gaze to movement in your periphery to watch as one of your neighbors pulled into the lot down the block. The thought suddenly occurred to you that if Changmin had your car dropped off here, he might not actually have a way back to wherever his residence was, unless the walk wasn't far. 

Maybe you were about to take your car out for a spin after all. 

You sighed, facing Changmin again. He was still waiting for you. "Let me grab my wallet," you exhaled, already turning on your heel to head into the complex. 

His laugh followed you all the way in. 

You had to adjust the driver's seat when you got into your car. Changmin was already settled in the passenger side, seat belt strapped over his chest and aviators propped up on his head. The keys were left dangling in the ignition for you, and he had even gone so far as to roll down his window and let the radio start playing. 

"You've made yourself at home," you noted as you sat up straight and quickly checked your mirrors. 

You stole a glance over at him at the same time as he did for you. 

He looked like he had too much room over there with his legs spread like that. "It's not every day that I get chauffeured. Usually it's the other way 'round. Pull out onto the main street and make a left," he instructed. 

"Yes, sir," you muttered under your breath as you followed his words, glancing over your shoulder as you turned out of the neighborhood and onto the bustling main intersection. 

Changmin tongued his cheek to keep from smiling. 

As you sped along the main road with the rest of traffic, you said, "For some reason, you feel very nocturnal to me."

He chuckled. "Why? Because races are at night?"

You lifted a shoulder half-heartedly. "I mean, yeah. I haven't seen you or associated you in any other context besides that. And maybe as Chanhee's weird friend—"

Changmin shot you a look. "I'm the weird one? Have you seen that man play Cool Math Games when he's bored?"

You guffawed aloud, and Changmin's mouth widened into a grin at the sound. "Do I keep going straight, or where do I turn?"

"Oh, keep going for two more intersections and then make a right into the first alleyway." He peered out his window for a second to watch the pedestrians and other cars on his side. "Again, not really sure what gave you the impression that I'm the weird one."

The smile on your face just wouldn't go away. But this time, you didn't have Changmin's helmet to hide it. 

You heeded Changmin's instructions and followed the road past two more intersections, then signaled to turn into the first alleyway. The alley led you into the back parking lot of what you assumed connected to the street of shops facing the main road. Changmin pointed toward an opened garage door like the yawning jaws of a cavern just down the block, and you carefully swung your car into park along the curb across from it. 

Changmin unbuckled his seatbelt and popped his door open. "My bike's inside," he said, as if interpreting your silent gaze toward the open garage door as a question. You could see all the equipment inside, as well as his motorcycle amongst the chaos. It seemed that he wasn't kidding about being a mechanic.

Your eyes darted upward at the second level above the garage. "Do you live here?" You blurted. "Sorry that was nosy—"

He shook his head, his hand propped on top of the car door where he stood just outside the car. "It's all good. Yeah, I live up there. It was just convenient and I couldn't exactly pass up the chance for a two-in-one rent," he chuckled. 

You nodded. There were thoughts running through your head, and yet, none of the words felt right on your tongue. 

Changmin pursed his lips into a dimpled smile, saluting you again. "Thanks for the ride back, Yn."

"Thanks for getting my car back," you replied. 

The car door slammed shut, and you slumped in your seat, waiting for him to round your car and head into his residence. 

Except, he rounded the car, then knocked on your window instead. 

You furrowed your brows, jamming your thumb on the button to lower the window all the way down. "Something up?"

He broke into an impish smile. "I forgot to give you this." He shouldered off the leather jacket on his shoulders, exposing the muscular build of his upper arms constrained in the navy blue T-shirt he wore. Your eyes widened as he folded the jacket in half, rolled it in a neat bundle, then passed it to you through the open window. You stared down at it like he had just placed a bomb in your lap. 

He snickered at your reaction, leaning his forearms above his head on the top of the car as he ducked his head in your window. "They see that, they'll let you in for free," he said, nodding to the jacket. 

You raised your head to meet his eyes. "They know it's yours?"

Changmin hummed, teeth capturing his bottom lip. "Mhm."

Oh. "They're gonna assume things."

"Like what?"

You deadpanned at him, and swore your heart tripped at the boyish smile on his face. He knew exactly what you were trying to get at. "They're gonna assume that we're an item."

Changmin shrugged his shoulders. "So? What does it matter what they think or assume? We know the truth."

"The truth?" You echoed. "You can't just tell them to let me in when I show my ID or something?"

Instead of addressing your logical suggestion, he simply said, "It's none of their business who you are to me." 

You blinked; his expression was unfaltering. You didn't know what game he was playing, but you had to remind yourself that you were only in this city for a short time, not a long one. (Then again, maybe that was more reason to live your life out like you had never gotten to before.) "And who am I to you?"

Changmin straightened, pushing off the car. He began walking backward toward his garage, putting distance between himself and his jacket. There was that cocky, smug smile again. "Whoever you wanna be, sweetheart."

a/n: i *really* need to make up for the lack of jacob fics now :/ (sorry cobie close ur eyes !! u don't see ANYTHING)

tbz m.list

permanent taglist: @tayunji @im-a-big-mess @honeyhuii @y3jiishot @crazywittysassy @seomisaho @stopeatread @enhacolor @rnjfy @jaehunnyy @kpopjackie @spiderrenjunfics @soobin-chois @mingiholic @ja4hyvn @ethereal-engene @justalildumpling @vatterie @yogurteume

[intotheelliwoods]

-> -> -> 2AL playlist drop!

Answered all the music related asks under the cut!

Question reference btw!

---

@teainthesnow

4 - a lyric you like

"Triangles are my favorite shape" From Tessellate by Alt-J !! Do I know why? Nah. I just also like triangles :)

11 - a popular song you think is Good, Actually

On Time by The Disco Biscuits !! Its not popular more than it is mainstream? Its one of those songs you swear you have heard everywhere, because its very much played everywhere, but like its actually good! Either its played everywhere or it just gives me loads of nostalgia? Eh whatever, its still good and im bestowing it upon you.

13 - a playlist name without context

"To Enter The Beyond" Past Human City Soundtrack

18 - a song or lyric that reminds you of the asker

Oh this for sure belongs on your AMW playlist!! Gives some absolute Tea vibes!

---

@dandywonderous

5 - ramble about a song

FORGIVENESS BY ALICE GLASS!!!!!!! OUGHOUGHOGH I LOVE THIS SONG WITH ALL MY HEART god something about it just vibrates my insides and tickles my eyes. I dont know how to describe it other than each time I hear this song I feel nothing but pure power and hopelessness at the same time. Drifting along in never ending darkness, and the only thing you have with you are the spirits and memories of those who have passed. The spirits call for freedom. You should listen to them. This song gets real for me alright?

7 - a song for which you like a cover more than the original

Not really a cover moreso than it is a remix!? But im counting it! Silk by Giselle, the original, somber and sweet but just sorta missing something you know? This remix by Favored Nations though? SLAPS. Its so upbeat and I am so here for it!

11 - a popular song you think is Good, Actually

Honestly literally anything by Electric Light Orchestra. Though to be more specific, Evil Woman!! Alright is also a good one, but less popular!

16 - do you sing or play any instruments?

No instruments here! I actually have one really nice/complex song memorized that I can do on the piano but unfortunately thats about it whoops~ As for singing apparently I actually sing good when I try!?

23 - a song you remember liking as a kid

You are going to laugh at this one. Actually. I still like it. But damn was I a weird kid. I once had a solid 150 digits of pi memorized because I would just play this stupid song on loop for like a whole ass hour every now and then???? I think I still have about 50 memorized thanks to this song.. whoopsies

---

@thimbell

5 - ramble about a song

YESSSSS YESSSSS I GET TO RAMBLE ABOUT ANOTHER SONG The World Is Ending by Matt and Kim !!!!!!!!!!!!! good GOD this song is so dear to me. Not because of the song really, but because of what the song means to me? The connections I have too it?????? Longish story short, someone made a killer AMV using it? The AMV using clips from the show Final Space! No clue if you have seen the show but no matter. Final Space is definitely up there as one of my favorite shows, not only because its good but because it actually helped me get closer with my dad, we watched it together! In other words I associate this song with just so much joy. The AMV if you were curious btw!

14 - an unpopular music opinion

Glass Animals is overrated <3 <3 Dont get me wrong I love their music! It just gets so tiresome hearing them everywhere!??? Probably just a me problem though

24 - a song people often misinterpret

I dont think I have much an answer for this one, apologies! Mostly because its not too often I pay attention to lyrics, and even then I think its cool that everyone has their own interpretations of someones song!

---

@wraenata

17 - a song that has made you cry

... honestly? Any song in a tv show that is played during a sad scene! A REALLY sad scene... one that comes to mind is Enter One by Sol Seppy (would recommend skipping to about 2:30), because it is played in the death scene of one of my all time favorite characters... alright im going to weep about that death scene more now because listening to this again is NOT helping pfft... oughh honestly now im tempted to add it to the 2AL playlist... maybe.

24 - a song people often misinterpret

Answered above!

30 - a song that makes you nostalgic

Divinity by Porter Robinson, listen this used to be my favorite song for the longest time... and it might even still be my favorite song?? Either way, I DARE not listen to it anymore for the sake of I fear for the day where this absolutely nostalgic gem gets tiresome for me...

---

@unfortunate-songbird

17 - a song that has made you cry

Answered this one above! Though for a less serious answer, any of the finale songs in Centaurworld... oops.

---

1 - which artist(s) have you listened to the most lately?

The Asteroids Galaxy Tour has been a fav in the past month! Heres a good song by them if you would like~

I am going to use this ask as a chance to also say how much I love Hugo Kant!! He makes great stuff to chill too when working! If I could log hours on youtube, my most listened to videos are so just listening to the guy live!

21 - favourite album

Not to pull out my inner cowboy, but Harlequin Dream by Boy & Bear. I fear for the day I get sick of this album its such a trip for me!

28 - rank the songs in an album

THATS IT IM RANKING ALL THE SONGS IN PAGANS IN VEGAS BY METRIC. I love this album.

#1 - Celebrate. This is the song that introduced me to the band and gives me SUCH a blast of nostalgia each listen, and it shows. Best song in the album by far. Its so weird though since I knew this song before I knew about the rest of the album, so when I finally discovered the whole album each time this song comes up its so out of place pfft! Still such a bop though!

#2 - Blind Valentine. This is just one of those songs I love singing too whenever it comes on alright!?????

#3 - Lie Lie Lie. This is the first song in the whole album, and honestly? What a knee slapping way to start an album too god damn!!!!

#4 - Cascades. I am begging you to skip to about 3:15 in this song, its a little on the plain end before that end, but THAT ENDING??????? SLAYS.

#5 - Too Bad, So Sad. ITS SO GRINDY I LOVE IT. I FEEL LIKE A PUNK IN A DESERTED WASTELAND

#6 - For Kicks. The beat is just so unique here!!!!!!???????

#7 - The Face Part |. Just some funky cool down beats at the end of the album that are very enjoyable!

#8 - Fortunes. A decent enough second song in the album, helps sets the tone for whats coming!

#9 - The Shade. Its actually a good song, just nothing special about it you know??

#10 - The Governess. vibes are there, the vibes are sure there

#11 - The Face Part ||. Just more cool off tunes to end the album with

#12 - Other Side. No. Why are you here. your ass does NOT fit with the rest of this god-tier album. goodbye.

---

Edit: @kiaxet Thought I should add you to the masterpost here!!

5 - ramble about a song

Ok. Adventure Time by Yoann Turpin. I am usually not too big on 16 bit video game sort of vibes but this??? Is such a MASSIVE exception. Holy????? THE HEART THE GUY PUT INTO THIS SONG MAN. The beat is just so unique, its impossible to try and guess whats going to happen in the song next, you strait up feel like you are on an ADVENTURE. I am so here for this song, god and its so upbeat I am in LOVE.

By the way, I linked the whole ass album because the whole album overall is so nice to listen to to pump you up when doing dishes or something lmaooooo, the first song in the album is also an amazing trip!!

8 - an artist you think underrated

HUGO KANT!!! God!!! mentioned above as well, I love Hugo Kant with a passion! He makes such good stuff just to chill too, and him live is absolutely incredible!

With the ask above I linked a video from him preforming live, so this time around I bring you two favorite albums of mine!! Far From Home and Out Of Time

I get in SUCH a zone listening to his stuff!

9 - a song you think is underrated

Phleps by C418!!! C418, the producer of the original music behind minecraft, but the guy has so much underrated personal music that is SO underrated! This song in particular, is vastly different from his usually stuff and I love it for that. Definitely underrated for being overshadowed by his work on minecraft and his work that isnt minecraft but sounds like minecraft..

29 - what do you look for in a song or artist?

I always look for something where you can tell it has genuine love and heart put into it! That + something that just sounds truly unique in its own right!

[explosionshark]

Your turn!

It's halfway through the year! Got any favorite albums/books/tv shows/whatever to recommend?

thanks to you @badwolfwho1 who both asked me!

music:

right off the top i'm gonna recommend 3 pop albums bc i almost never have this many TO recommend. but tei shi's valerie, empress of's for your consideration, and shygirl's club shy EP have all been on constant repeat for me this year.

big year for metal also - in particular crypt sermon, job for a cowboy, darkest hour, gatecreeper, aborted and tzompantli were all incredible. i feel like between seeing them live and the release of cure, this is the first time erra has really clicked for me and i'm loving it.

for post-hardcore i've loved the debut LPs by with sails aheads and your ghost in glass. the EP lonely people by love rarely was on repeat for me for weeks also - really great stuff.

i got heaven by mannequin pussy slaps too. and i also really, really want to recommend you could do it tonight by couch slut - if you love the queasy, depraved noise that chat pile make, you absolutely should be listening to couch slut.

i threw a couple little playlists together to roundup some of my faves:

(extended version here)

honorable mention: as was really apparent from my charts this year, i spent A LOT of time listening to the saosin s/t again. but also got really back into grouper this year - especially her 2021 album shade, which i missed entirely when it came out.

books:

okay for music i focused mostly on 2024 releases but for books i won't be so strict.

shirley jackson: a rather haunted life by ruth franklin was REALLY good and provided a lot of great insight into jackson's work and also just had some really interesting history in it. really enjoyed it.

hit so hard by patty schemel a rock music and addiction memoir by the drummer of Hole. very dark and upsetting at points, but compelling. was very illuminating re: the 90s seattle music scene and the drug culture around it, provided a lot of context and detail to some stuff i thought i already knew about. really great stuff.

penance by eliza clark - this is a fake true crime book that REALLY got under my skin. it's a meta commentary on true crime as a fandom and an industry and the exploitation inherent in it. it's a mirror to make you stare at your own internal biases. it's SO fucking 2014 tumblr. i've gotten like three other people to read it and they all went insane like me. highly recommended.

hex by thomas olde heuvelt - very late to the party on this one but i loved it. translated AND localized from dutch, with very interesting results. almost goofy to start and ends up totally bleak. i adored it.

magic for beginners and white cat, black dog by kelly link - REALLY falling in love with kelly link this year. read these two and currently re-reading stranger things happen and i just adore her style. weird but SO heartfelt, surreal and dreamy, as often horrifying as it is sweet. she's so talented, i'm really excited to read the book of love later this year.

between two fires by christopher buehlman - FINALLY read this and i loved it. absolutely deserves the hype. kinda wild that dark ages horror isn't more of a thing? i re-read buehlman's the blacktongue thief too and really loved it, definitely cemented it as one of my favorite fantasy books. i'm reading the daughters' war now and enjoying it a lot.

i also re-read the golden enclaves by naomi novik and had such a great time with it.

tv shows:

finished my buffy re-watch! been watching a ton of xena with @holdsteady and @nataliving this year too - we just finished s3 and it was insane and i loved it soooo much.

i watched under the bridge and thought it was very good, but i'd recommend people learn a little about the real reena virk case before engaging.

hacks season 3 was INSANE it made me crazy i loved it so much.

haven't watched much tv aside from that!

[cyle]

the internet diverges again

(if you're a regular Garbage Day reader, a lot of this may sound very familiar to you, as i'm borrowing heavily from conclusions Ryan keeps drawing as well. my thoughts below are my own, and kinda rambling because i don't really have any strong conclusions yet, just speculation that keeps me up at night.)

feels to me like the internet is diverging yet again, into two primary modes of user experience:

the new FM radio. this is what TikTok is, and YouTube has been for a long time. it's massive, it's impossible to ingest all of it or even a fraction of it, and it moves so fast that the vast majority of people can be nothing but passive consumers. it's a lean-back, wayyy back, experience on these platforms. the key difference today, from actual FM radio, is how much the experience is personalized and molds itself in real time to you as the consumer. more and more people want to tune out of the active social media model and into the hyper-passive radio model. you don't have to even follow anybody, the content comes to you, just like the radio. sit back, relax, swipe up, watch, keep swiping, the next piece of content will be more suited to you than the last, head empty no thoughts.

the archipelago. this is what Discord is, and what Reddit subreddits are, and what Substack newsletters are, and Minecraft servers, and why people gravitate towards them. people do still want a sense of belonging, and we've all agreed lately that such a thing is way too much work on the slightly-customizable-algo-feeds of Twitter or Facebook. this is a polar opposite of the new FM radio model above, because this archipelago requires deep commitment, buy-in, and time investment. and the islands are inherently getting smaller and smaller and smaller and more nostalgic and like the message boards of the 00s. the key point being that they're independent, separate, and feel owned and controlled by their inhabitants. there can't/won't be an index of them.

i think these two paths are in stark contrast with what the predominant UX model has been over the last 15 years, which is that slightly-customizable centralized walled garden algorithmic feed that is what Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram have been perfecting, and is now wholly inadequate. and those platforms keep trying to compete with TikTok, but in the wrong way. it's not about video, nor even the infinite feed, it's about the extremes of ownership and depth of involvement.

in this new context, the traditional walled garden feeds now feel like work with little reward, and TikTok doesn't feel like work at all, with lots of reward. Discord feels like deliberate work with reward. it's those different patterns of passive and active reward that feel so disrupted by TikTok, which is not a UI feature, it's the whole thing. you can't just slap a feed of recommended videos into Instagram and get the same result, now that we consumers are all more wise to it.

i'm somewhat excited about this shift because underneath these new-but-old paradigms are important shifts in our relationship to the products and our actual ownership of them. Discord relies on subscription money, not ads; they survey paying users to figure out what to build next, and it seems to work at scale and make people feel like they really own their servers. TikTok runs ads the way radio runs ads, except far more deeply personalized, because they have the mount everest of attention data (which is not the same as Facebook's relational targeting data). it's very clear that you own nothing on TikTok or YouTube, you're just a passively floating leaf in an ocean of content.

i'm also excited about this shift because it means we're in fertile territory for products, both new and existing, to figure out where they belong and if they can adapt. TikTok and Discord feel like the two opposite axis points to me, in terms of product ownership, anonymity, tracking behavior, attention economy, etc. if both worlds are feasibly sustainable, then that's great news for those of us who want to cultivate safer, smaller places to coexist on the internet. there is a whole spectrum of possibility to explore here and lean into. it comes with a myriad of new problems, but arguably, we never figured out a lot of the core problems with the old model anyway, so what's it worth?

no conclusions here, just a lot of thoughts.

[splatcat64]

the same goes to you for getting excited LOL !! that was a very endearing talk about the both of them (all four of them) it was super interesting :) i love hearing other ppls thoughts on characters. honestly i see all ur points and agree with everything. :P one of the few ppl in the current blands tag (or overall, i know this place has been a nightmare) mentioning jack being a genocidal fascist so im like I Respect You . im a bit shy to babble on my thoughts but theres SOOOO MUCH. idk what u use for music so ill just tell u text so u can look it up - its on my general borderlands playlist but it was such a fiona song to me but the hand that feeds by the crane wives.. i know the lyrics are about not caring about money but the symbolism is important to me . i have parts that make me go nuts but you know . hehe

I am SO glad we’re on the same page lmao thank you!!! This really warms my heart :}

I totally understand being shy to spit out your thoughts, often, if I’m not having trouble just getting the words out in general, I’m too damn scared to say anything. Just recently I worked up the courage to actually speak what I think here. And I am GLAD I can be of service in that way oh my god. I respect u too it’s been. A huge honor, I stalk literally all the tags and it can be like a minefield. Like, It’s okay to like Jack as a character, he’s a compelling villain and I think he’s really well written. But he’s genocidal and a fascist… that can’t be ignored bl2 literally yells it at you. However an analysis of him is definitely not for this post and definitely not my strongest suit, we’ll see about that on my side.

And I use Spotify! Seeing you mention crane wives made my brain EXPLODE because not only are they a reaaaally Fiona like band, it gives real Sasha vibes, and just tales/borderlands in general. I’m definitely biased because of stuff with me and my friends own stories and headcanons and ocs, but even with a grain of salt if you or anyone wants to check more songs out pleaaase do. I definitely agree that I can see how the hand that feeds is soooo Fiona but I’m gonna go run and listen to it in the context of her now.

BUT I do have some Crane wives songs that I one, just recommend in general, and two, can fit the tales cast really well. High Horse, Curses [it’s popular I know but trust me I have a vision], and Arcturus Beaming.

High horse just reminds me of Fiona and Sasha a lot, it’s been influenced by stuff me and my best friend come up with so. Again. Biased, but it’s a GOOD song. Arcturus Beaming is new, and it’s not some people’s fav but because it reminded me so much of the tales cast I have a very good opinion of it. For lack of better words that shit was so good I immediately slapped that shit on my tales’ oc’s playlist cause holy shit. Good song. AND THE SYMBOLISM GOD. Anyways those are my recs if you wanna check them out, otherwise, Tysm and Ty for the song rec I appreciate it so so so much!!!!

[tilebytiles]

this has probably already been talked about lol but i was trying to find the puppets website for funsies and instead came across this really odd rabbit hole??? full story under the cut so i don't clog the dash or anything

so for context i have the ecosia extension installed and when i typed in "the last shadow puppets" and nothing came up i was like Hmm ok sometimes the results can be 50/50. so i hit a recommended search at the bottom that threw in the word "website" and the first 2 results were wikipedia and the domino page but the third was theageoftheunderstatement.com.

the immediate thing that threw me off was that the first sentence on the page is "Like monthly car insurance site prudentplus.com these guys are different." What. there's like a whole description of the band (which is out of date now cause the page is from 2010) but then underneath it, there's a whole thing about fast food delivery insurance (???) and how to get it, what the best way is etc etc. the prudent plus comment does have a link that leads to the insurance company in question and from what i can tell it was still active as recently as last year.

at the veeery bottom of the taotu page is "search here for uk short term cover" which has another link that leads to another page on the site about car insurance for foreign drivers. this has another link like 3/4 of the way down the page that leads to a different site that from what i can tell hasn't been updated in over a decade (at the very bottom it says copyright 2006/13).

its worth noting that if we hop back to the main page there's a box on the left side with all the songs off of taotu listed as well as a link at the bottom that leads to a page about no deposit car insurance in the uk. every song leads to a different page on the site describing the storyline of the song (and mv, if it has one) as well as the sound of the song. most of the song pages lead to different insurance things. standing next to me leads to disqualified driver insurance, calm like you leads to lorry insurance, the chamber leads to builders / business property insurance, only the truth leads to architects / beautician liability insurance, black plant leads to convicted driver insurance, and the time has come again leads to personal liability insurance.

at the bottom of the home page is the name peter marsden. initially i just tried searching his name up but then i realized the answer was right in front of me and i searched it up with "prudent plus" slapped on the end. sure enough, a page on the prudent plus site came up introducing the staff, including a man named peter. at least at the time the "about us" page was set up (idk if its still updated) he was 71 and "has an obsession for creating images of cars, people, monsters and other strange objects and beings in unusual, and sometimes impossible, environments." very cool peter!

i didn't check all the links on the songs because i didn't think there'd be much there but my only guess for the website's existence is that the insurance people saw the popularity of taotu and decided to make a page about it while promoting their insurance stuff. outside of that i have no fucking clue. maybe they're just big tlsp fans. good on you peter

[isawken]

i found out about the slap stick from reading about commedia del'arte which i would recommend bc its a total brain blast. its kind of like... idk if youve experienced this but for me reading about vaudeville contextualizes all of hollywood as an industry in a really eye-opening way bc you see this whole lineage. and thats just one example for one industry, many such cases obvs. but like commedia del'arte is like legitimately the grandaddy of All Of It, its like THE fount from which all these different entertainment disciplines can trace their roots. its wild. did you know the term "pleased as punch" is more accurately transcribed as "pleased as Punch" bc Punch is a character from a folk-traditional archetypical british puppet show? which itself has its origins in you guessed it commedia del'arte. theres hundreds of tidbits like this one could cite. dont even get me started on the harlequin

YES reading abt the commedia was exactly how i came across this! (well kinda, i'm reading a bio of first ever clown joseph grimaldi and the author was describing one of the bits he was doing and it featured said stick) and it really is crazy how much of what we know today goes back to it! it's like a cultural entertainment funnel lmao. i've read a fair bit about the commedia and that's why it's wild to me i'd never come across the stick- the sources i'd been able to get my hands on were all like, hoity toity academic literature that very rarely delved into what the performances actually looked like. it was all about the cultural context of the plays and its characters, which is great! but i was shocked how hard it was to find anything telling me what the dang shows would actually look like, and now i'm just thinking of what other juicy deets i've missed out on. i've also had trouble finding literature abt Punch and Judy shows so i don't know much about them other than a vague awareness of the ties to the commedia, i love that that's where pleased as punch comes from! also please do get started on the harlequin i'm all fucking about the harlequin lay it on me baby

[radiocity]

honestly, what's your take on the l word? atp i can't tell if it's just shit but i'm too far along to stop. the 5th and 6th seasons seem to be done in a complete different tone too and there's so many problematic aspects just slapped in for unecessary drama. still.. i like the main characters a lot and it is representation at the end of the day. Maybe it would've been cooler if they just did more of a 'slice of life' thing instead of 'drama rama cheating on people is like a slip of the hand thing due to the strong nuclear force'

anyway interested in your take, what do you think are the well- and badly- handled aspects of the show, how do you reflect on the story and character building?

stay cool out there (◕‿◕)♡

MY TAKE ON THE L WORD? getting this ask made me so excited you have no idea how much I love talking about the l word. So excited in fact that I wrote 6165 words about it, sorry, I am so severely unemployed right now. here, I talk about my thoughts, some theory, and then break down some of the intrinsic problems with the show, specifically how it thinks about gender and nonconformity, race, and transgender identities, within the scaffolding of it being a show concerned with women who have relationships with other women, rather than necessarily a truth of lesbianism. i’m citing various linked sources and very loosely using an academic approach, but it’s more like a messy collage of sources than it is a fully fleshed out argument and narrative! if you want the tl;dr, I’d recommend scrolling to the final 3 paragraphs

tbh I haven’t watched it in a while but I really want to rewatch the whole thing and go back to my gif series instead of just making random sets (don’t be put off by my absence its bc I was doing my master’s degree and then I got really sick) and maybe thinking so intensely about tlw these past 3 days will inspire me into it .

I’d be really interested in hearing any thoughts on response to any of this, even though it’s not particularly well written or formulated, so feel free to drop a message/reply/response anywhere if u or anyone else is compelled to. anyway response under the cut ->

so, my opening thoughts on the l word revolve around two things: there is nothing about this show that makes it an inherently lesbian show, and that it functions as a product of its time, not in culture but in Hollywood and show running. the imagined audience of TLW isn’t necessarily the modern ‘sapphic’ audience watching things like First Kill (2022), Do Revenge (2022), or Crush (2022) which are all, generally, pointed towards a younger audience seeking things like validation and romantic projection (from what I understand, and I’ll admit I haven’t watched any of these! But I have read synopsis and seen clips, so I’ll watch soon I promise). I do think this conversation has re-emerged a little in the growing conversations about wanting sexy lesbians having sex, which is a conversation that surrounded Love Lies Bleeding (LLB, 2024) for quite a while, repeating this argument that what lesbians want isn’t romance or tension, but sex, real sex, sex on screen and sex on TV. of course, it’s a little difficult for showrunners to ‘do’ sex or sexual content without it being so brazenly for men – and here I’ll step out and say when, in this context, I discuss women being looked at and ‘male gaze’, it’s more under the original theory of laura mulvey that women are objectified by the camera as men are in control of production, and here I’ll link the article (it’s very short, but I refer largely here to section B) – and to equally appeal to women looking at women but who are, equally not free from patriarchal understandings of the ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ ways of being attracted to women. I feel a good example of how we saw this was the big tiktok-wide discussion about sapphic cottage-core as an equally white endeavour, a sort of softcore launching of racist white American ideals of frolicking on a plantation. For showrunners to produce sexual lesbian content now, it needs to contend with who will be doing its marketing for them, i.e. a lot of people on tiktok talking about how LLB is for the ‘lesbian gaze’, whatever that means, or that these things are perhaps attractive to men in general, but are specifically geared to being attractive to lesbians specifically. Actually candace Moore, in a really brilliant article (and if u want access and don’t have it… just let me know) describes, through gaze theory, the notion of the straight viewer as a “tourist” and the “traveller”. Here:

Problematizing a distinction between the tourist, who "gladly or unknowingly accepts Disneyland's versions of the world's wonders," and the traveler, who "seeks and knows how to recognize authenticity," Strain argues that perhaps these archetypes are, if not one and the same, both victims to the notion that there is an "authenticity" available to be misrecognized, or grasped, in the first place. (10) But what of the lesbian viewer? (11) At first glance it would seem that the lesbian viewer falls outside of the already-tenuous tourist and traveler distinction, being a "local" intimately familiar with this culture. However, insofar as lesbian spectators are consuming mediated images of themselves, I argue that not only do straight audiences engage in a form of tourism when viewing the The L Word, but lesbian audiences, even those from Southern California, do too. The distinction between the tourist, the traveler, and, in this case, the local-as-consumer becomes blurred. Locals drawn to the latest "lesbian attraction," lesbians enjoy The L Word's eye candy along with straight "tourists." Like straight "travelers," they seek to identify albeit illusory "authentic" elements of the representation. However, for the queer viewer, the mediated reality of the show will never match up to reality. While the tourist and the traveler of The L Word are at base one and the same, the distinction between them lies not in what they are, but what they think they are; how they conceive of their own intentions, levels of "expertise," relationships to the local culture, and the "gains" that they take away--whether they travel for pleasure or for knowledge. It is through the enticement of lesbian sex (a spectacle of attraction for straight and queer viewers alike) and through the wonderment of either "understanding" the other or "recognizing" oneself (fantasy of authenticity), through both "watching from a remove" and "being there," that The L Word captivates its straight and queer tourists.

Pulling away from the academic angle, I don’t agree with the idea of LLB being for a lesbian gaze, nor do I think that TLW was ‘for’ lesbians more than it was ‘enjoyed’ by lesbians – a show that can hit as many audiences at once is a good thing. dennis cass for the slade in 2004 wrote that the L word “often feels like it’s not about being gay at all” and that a lot of what the show presents is pretty removed from any lesbian experience as we know it, additionally writing on bette and tina’s marriage counselling that they “aren’t merely in couples therapy, they’re seeing one of L.A.’s hottest personal gurus—that you not only forget they’re lesbians, but that they live on Earth.” A pretty accurate read for how removed a lot of TLW is from anything, and, to me, sort of bypasses any notion of ‘representation’ by just how fantastical it is. ginia bellafante also wrote in 2009, after s6 aired, that “’The L Word’ is a Sapphic Playboy fantasia in which women with wrinkles or squishy thighs or an aversion to lingerie appear to have been flagged down on the freeway with urgent instructions to move to Seattle”. basically, yeah

TLW itself is very clearly appealing to its heterosexual audiences at the same time it appeals to lesbians, even through the same mechanisms – the character’s conventional attractiveness, their skinniness, their lack of bras and how you can 9/10 times see their nipples through their shirts, and all the lesbian sex shown in as much detail as they could get away with – and that is the core driving force of the show in a lot of ways. we can’t really have another TLW today for the same reasons that all media from the early 2000s has shifted to give women more complex characters, arcs, appearances, and functions – and that’s a good thing, obviously – which in turn demonstrates the lack of these things the characters in TLW actually had. At its core, it’s sexy and men are the people behind the companies getting it on TV, not necessarily specific men but the shadow of patriarchy and how women exist on the screen. This isn’t to say media creation and output has become a liberal utopia for women’s rights, but rather there has definitely been a shift in how women exist on screen and what roles they were given before – think easy fast and furious, or megan fox in transformers, or even how very popular musicians styled themselves and appeared to the massive; Shakira, Jennifer lopez, Britney spears, etc – which, to me, reflects a way in which TLW capitalises off the straight heteropatriarchy in its desire to show sexy women at all times, always available to be ogled. in a way, this sorta aligns with bellafante’s observation that the show had ‘never aligned itself with the traditionalist ambitions of a large faction of the gay rights movement’ (written in 2009, 6 years before gay marriage was legalised in the us) – the liberator in the l word is sex, and that’s what all the characters are constantly aiming for, nothing else. Similarly, the show gets so obsessed with defining who or what a lesbian is (throughout the whole of s1 as they look for signs of lesbianism in jenny, with jenny at that party, or with dana talking about her ‘gaydar’, and so by doing this it turns lesbianism into a visual brand, something that be hidden in plain sight, appeasing both the hetrosexual viewer and the lesbian seeker - Martina Ladendorf describes a branding of lesbian identities through TLW in a form of “thingification”, and so “the representations of lesbian identities are discursively displaced and the identity position “lesbian” is partially filled with new meanings in the televised text of The L-word.”  Ladendorf offers a far more generous reading than I do – to me, a lot of TLW needs to extrapolate lesbians from their womanhood and vice versa, creating a sort of woman who is a lesbian, rather than, simply, a lesbian

naturally, the l word is inherently a misogynist show , and in a lot of ways I think it’s unavoidable to think about when it comes to discussing schematics or opinions of the show, it’s a show full of, in the words of liz feldman in this interview, ‘beautiful lesbians with just nothing but time on their hands… and just somehow also money’. Obviously, the stereotypes the show puts forwards make it feel pretty cheap at time, and when the show ventures out into attempting to either tackle or just include plotlines about poverty, racism, transphobia, infidelity, (or plotlines it totally avoids, like conversations on butchness, gender non-conformity, or transfemininity), it honestly just gets stranger and stranger, not to mention the very active racism present in the show, via how pam grier’s character was written, handled, and expanded upon when she was by far one of the most skilled and seasoned actors on the show. a lot of issues I and other people have are through this lens, and hence why a lot of the pushback focuses on how little was understood about trans people in mainstream media back then, or how the show was just such a landmark moment that it was purely reflective of the times so it’s just nit-picking to be pointing out all its negative parts, which isn’t a sentiment I agree with at all, and instead I think of the l word as being both progressive and problematic for these reasons. Even as an addition, I feel like TLW is why we just don’t really need more tv shows like the L word… because we have the L word, and it’d be nice if we could have something different

so, when I talk about and recommend the l word I usually put it in these terms: season 1 is a phenomenal piece of storytelling and such a compelling way to create and introduce a show all about lesbianism to a world that is not filled with parallel lesbians, but rather is the only show on air in the world doing that exactly, and, following that, season 4 gets a little art deco and experimental as it pushes its characters through new, meaningful struggle, like tasha working in the military under ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ (fuck the army though), max living his new reality as a trans man (yeah it was dealt with horribly), bette dating jodi and this inviting so much conversation about art, disability, and deafness into the mix, and, in other ways, jenny and tina working together on her show, helena’s… gambling addiction or whatever, kit’s nonsense relationship shane’s nonsensical relationship. Imo these two seasons show the best of what the L word has to offer, which is, in S1, a sensitive introduction that pushes jenny through the wringer as she really becomes herself and takes hold of her destiny, and then in S4, these characters all essentially performing at their apex, in love, making mistakes, trying again, to the best of the l word’s ability to show any of this (relatively speaking, it’s the best TLW ever gets)

with all this in mind, I do think the show thrives in really profound ways at times. The real hook of it is, and always has been, season 1, which is just this ferociously strong exploration in television about such a serious sensitive topic, jenny’s coming out. a lot of criticism sort of facetiously responds to jenny’s character by focusing on her writing quality (which I honestly thought was fine lol!), and will ignore sincerely engaging with her in favour of laughing at how bad her character became as the writer’s lost the plot more and more, but I really do think that jenny in the first two seasons was just phenomenal, and mia kirshner’s fantastic meditative performance just stole the entire show for me. In season 1 as we are introduced to the show and their world through jenny’s process of coming out and ripping her life apart at the seams to live her ideal life (even if it was very explosive with marina and didn’t end well), which I just thought was such captivating writing about that moment of choice, where a character has to decide whether or not they’ll live their easy life or do the difficult thing. one of the scenes I have always come back to is in s1 where jenny has sex with tim and cries afterwards because that moment for her is the one where she realises she just can’t do it anymore, and seeing that in the show was just really otherworldly for me, I loved it and I thought it was amazing, and then later on in season 2 where jenny asks shane to cut her hair for her – a real splitting off from her regular, comfortable life, to ‘become’ a lesbian in heart and soul, was again just another moment where the writing and directing teams could really show some muscle in just how good the show could be, before dropping all presences and going back to whatever drivel they’d been doing. As a more technical note on the show, the inconsistent directors and writing is really hilarious, and sometimes the drop in quality between episodes is… staggering, to say the least

tbh s1 functions well as a drama-comedy mix because those scenes, as well as tina and bette’s fertility journey, is spliced within the rest of the nonsense going on, which I felt crafted this really enjoyable diametric swing throughout . arguably more than anything, jenny’s coming out was the best and most meaningful part of the show, and I really haven’t seen much other lesbian media hold a candle to it (though I could name a few). What they did with jenny as the show went on was disappointing to say the least, but s2 had a lot of heart in it as they attempted to have her coming to terms with her abuse (naturally, having finally discovered herself in s1) and focus more on what makes her happy – her writing. As the show continued to develop and jenny’s character just morphed into this unrecognisable thing, I even still think mia kirshner could perform such a charming take on it that I never really aligned myself to a lot of the jenny hate people joke about

other drama aspects in mind, like bette and tina’s marriage falling apart, bette’s other relationships (bette always seems to be the one facing the ‘serious problems), and even dana’s cancer and subsequent death, I thought were generally handled… ‘well’. Dana’s cancer worked interestingly within this as, while it was kind of bizarre, I think the relationship between alice and dana was a real life force on the show for a  while, and that whole situation meant that alice could go through some real, meaningful growth in her character which she’d been a little starved of to that point. perhaps my thoughts are that when the show focuses on cheating as the only method of things falling apart, that’s when it really starts to fumble, because cheating at that level is such a sitcom-only esque plotline that removes a lot of reality you might be looking for and finding charming in these shows. Equally, I just think cheating can be quite an alienating plotline!

But, to talk about writing alone, my god it gets shit. Various parts of the writing I remember disliking off the top of my head are dana’s season 2 girlfriend which turns into a weird trope of the pretty girls vs the ‘uglier’ one (her then-gf), when the max arc is in full swing (though I’ll be clear as well and say I loved Daniel Sea’s acting within the role, however bad the writing was), papi and the racism that guided the writers in constructing her character, the random plotline of the guy living with shane and jenny in season 2 (though I thought it could have been really interesting, almost a meta comment on men watching lesbians, men watching the l word, men watching lesbians in media).  Helena’s entire character was a little baffling to me, and while I did enjoy her at times and thought she was a hilarious addition to the cast, I just had no clue exactly what she was doing. Parts of the shows ideology itself is equally harmful, like alice and dana shopping for strap-ons (bc alice is bisexual and therefore loves penetrative sex, and dana is a lesbian and therefore doesn’t), or just that the shows ensemble cast reflects the background, and everyone is cis white thin feminine, etc.  until they’re not, like ivan or papi, or Dylan..? (or a character’s non-whiteness function as a sort of ethnic flair to them, say papi and carmen being Latina and that being their exciting ‘exotic’ traits), that floods the show with a very recognisable sort of white Hollywood liberalism, and if we can understand and comprehend that, we get a good working frame for the rest of what’s going on. as alice and tasha were arguing about the military it was, of course, them trying to suggest that alice is this very liberal character who disagrees with the war and tasha’s politics, but not enough to…. Break things off with her. Instead (fashion tumblr user steps in) she even joins in this roleplay and dresses more femininely around her, growing out her hair a little and everything – and alice in general usually had a pretty fluid sense of style, so it was an… interesting choice. And then Jamie shows up for some reason (and is similarly one of the very few reoccurring Asian characters on the show – her, Catherine (one of helena’s stupid love interests) and adele (who is not serious); actually to make a side note on how this show was received, there was even a petition to get the character’s from alice wu’s Saving Face (which is a brilliant movie, and you should watch it) to be on the show and bring more Asian representation, from autumn 2008)

One episode I think is pretty good for reading the ethos of how TLW engages with women who aren’t their ‘ideals’ is shown is, imo, episode 3? 4? of season 1, where lacey is harassing shane for moving on from her. Lacey is one of the very few characters who leans a little more into being gender nonconforming, yes still with the full face of makeup, but with heavy punk-ish eye makeup, short hair, leather jacket, a demanding attitude, (and she’s not fat, but definietely has more weight on her than any of the verrrrry skinny main cast), and all-in-all embodies a kind of paltry attempt at TLW at bringing in someone with more of an edge, perhaps a modern day masc we might imagine – she’s really one of the only women I can think of on the show, let alone women that shane gets with, who isn’t an ultra-feminine character with long hair, tall, skinny, petite frame, etc. devoid of reality, the show really pushes on her as this over-demanding woman who reactedly badly to shane using her and moving on, and of course the show is trying to show us that shane uses people without much care for them, but doing so through lacey lets you sympathise more with shane than it would if they’d brought in a far more feminine woman who could play that damsel in distress role through looks alone. Lacey’s problems are like a pet or a child’s wherein you do what they want (in this case, another 1 night stand) to appease them, and then you get them off your back. The writing itself is very bizarre, but the fact that they used a woman who was just a little left of centre from the standard the show had set of these beautiful women in Hollywood, demonstrates enough

likewise, to go from here and talk about gender non-conformity, one of the strangest lines on the show was always kit in season 3 episode 9 saying “It just saddens me to see so many of our strong butch girls giving up their womanhood to be a man” – why she said that, I don’t know, some sort of meditation on her bizarre relationship with ivan perhaps? But that relationship fell apart because ivan was… not a man… and couldn’t be a man… whereas max is a man and could be a man, so I just don’t know.

Kit: Why can't you be the butchest butch in the world... and keep your body? Max: Because I wanna feel whole.

and he is so punished for that split away from butchness into transness, even by the woman who is notably placed outside of the lesbianism of the show – which is arguably worse than having one of the lesbians come at him for it, as kit is more or less representative of “the rest of the world” in these types of conversations, pushing max away from transition while the lesbians of the show, the ones who, you would imagine, have had some sort of intersection with transness once before (again, notably shane, who, as part of her traumatic backstory, was mistaken for a boy when she was a teenager and was paid by men to give them a handjobs) . instead the show curiously places kit there as some voice of reason, and the rest of the lesbian cast are kind of fast and loose with the whole thing. when they do talk about butchness in s3e3, it’s just bizarre. Pre-transition max pulls shane with him to unpack the car as “us butches”, and carmen giggles and jokingly calls shane a “big butch” even though, again, she’s the closest thing the show gets to reoccurring butchism, and is likely seen and imagined as butch by a lot of the people watching . at dinner later on in the episode, they make a joke about him not being “stone butch”… as if that’s a way of measuring masculinity rather than a sexual identity, before shane interrupts the conversation to say “You know what, what difference does it make whether someone is butch or femme?”. again, she is the butchest one at the table, and very notable not butch, but has gone up so close to the border before, you really wonder… why. Why there is such intense resolution to not make her butch, but really it’s because TLW functions in the absence of the butch – alice eler puts it succinctly: “The L-Word asserts that a “femme” lesbian woman is more desirable than a “butch” lesbian.”

In tlw, butch and femme are always roles played rather than realities lived, so it defaults to femininity being ‘standard’  - and this is where, imo, a lot of reaction to max’s transition hinges on. If the show can’t allow any character to firmly be ‘butch’, so when a character takes on butchness as a passage to realising his truth, that he is a trans man, it pulls out all the ugly thoughts and feelings held by certain lesbians about trans men who were, previously, identifying as lesbians/butch lesbians. Here, it really creates a perfect storm for TLW to uphold dangerous ideology (how they showed max’s transition was horrible), and justifying their cis lesbian audience’s response (they got angry that the only character who transgressed gender went ‘too far’ with it, essentially, living his truth in a way they didn’t like). I imagine, if TLW had functioning butch characters on the show, this all might’ve played out differently, but if TLW let go of its standard of femininity, then it… isn’t sexy, becoming too lesbian and too trans and alienates its non-lesbian audience, getting too deeply invested in its lesbianism than it is with its glamour. An interview with Ilene chiaken that gets thrown around a lot is here: on max, “She’s our first real butch on the show — a fabulously attractive butch, but nonetheless a real butch,” Chaiken said. “And we deal with the issue of gender. We wanted to tell that story, a big story in the gay community and, in the last couple years, a huge story in the lesbian community.” it’s an interesting statement for sure– gender transgression has always been a part of lesbianism (read any book ever), and with the advent of the internet and online communities – afterellen being founded in 2002 – more conversations could be had by lesbians from all walks of life, from any economic background or lived reality of race, ability, anything.  jack halberstam writes interestingly in Transgender Butch about butch/ftm borders that,

The distinction that some butches need to make between lesbianism and butchness hinges on a distinction between sexual and gender identities. Lesbian, obviously, refers to sexual preference and to some version of the “woman-loving woman.” Butch, on the other hand, bears a complex relation of disidentification with femininity and femaleness and, in terms of sexual orientation, could refer to “woman-loving butch” or “butch-loving butch.

butchness, and max’s ex-butchness, is never truly interacted or responded to in the show – ivan states he doesn’t mind being referred to as a he, shane half-heartedly defends butchism by asking her friends to stop talking about it, and max finds himself as a man through a meaningful identification with butchism and ‘disidentification’ with femininity to then finding a reidentification with not just masculinity, but manhood, which lends way to him truly discovering himself. Curiously, in response to this, this reidentification is one step too far, and suddenly its actually ok to be butch on the l word. The rest of the cast seems to ask him over and over again, why by a man? Why not be butch? But in the world of TLW, to be butch and to be trans are both radical acts of nonconformity, to disidentify is to no longer be the thing that sells, so you very fundamentally cannot do any of it – lisa the male lesbian in s1 is played for laughs as a transmisogynist  punchline, and carmen giggling at the idea of shane being butch (and thus disidentifying) demonstrates that this is equally hilarious.

from this angle, i feel that TLW functions primarily as a show about women attracted to women, not lesbians attracted to lesbians (lesbian as gender, as identifier, as being). Immovable womanhood is the centre of everything, constructing familiarity, and to stray is to exit safe perimeters that TLW establishes within unradical, conformist, cisgendered white femininity. candace Moore, again, writes that TLW “positions lesbianism as a sensibility, not a sexuality. This is particularly important because as a sensibility, lesbianism can potentially be co-opted by straight viewers.”

of course, it would be remiss to fail in mentioning that much of this discussion about tlw’s association to butchness is very much within whiteness as well – we can argue that tasha is a stud even if she never says the word herself, her specific attraction being to “girly girls” and her riding a motorbike, always with a more masculine wardrobe, and being in the……. Army………. Really aligns her with this sentiment. I do think she’s a stud, but this being off the back of the show’s depiction of max sits so strangely, and we can’t ignore that her blackness is so instinctually connected to how they wrote her – in a world where no one else can be a butch, why then is the only dark skinned black lesbian more masculine leaning than the rest of them? yes, racism, and all tied in to her nationalism and dedication to the army. It’s certainly an interesting choice for the writers to make and, while she is one of my favourites in the whole show, I definitely have a lot of pause with why she was written and created the way she was, and what she offers the show politically – she holds space as a particularly vulnerable body, a dark skin black stud lesbian, but maintains the status quo of the country and of American imperialism. What’s the message? Even the most unavailable of lesbians can still be patriots??? the individual's physical unfuckable body is still acessible through american aligience?

As later seasons continued to get worse, parts I did really enjoy were tasha’s entire character, molly’s entire character, seeing tina ‘get her life back’ as it were and return to painting, jodi’s entire character, all the music featured, and bette and tina getting back together was really well written and laurel holloman and Jennifer beals are just two very strong actors steering that ship, and random moments throughout I really enjoyed (specifically bette’s professional life gave a lot of breathing room for the show to have other funny little characters, like her office assistants etc) that I’m struggling to remember here rn tbh but generally even as the show was getting bad, the more ridiculous things got the more fun I was having, but the later seasons ‘drama’ was a little painful. If it had started as a drama and then shifted into something more palatable, I think it would’ve been great, but really anything that wasn’t season 6 would have been fine.. just such an unforgiving and cruel way to end the show, and I thought adding jenny to the mix of toxic sad relationships after leaving her straight life and coming to terms with her abuse was such a mean-spirited and cruel way to end it IDK! And this is why the l word FAILS as a sitcom, bc at least usually (to my knowledge) the  idea is that at the end… they’re kinda happy and stepping into another new life with some stability and lifelong friends!!! But instead TLW said fuck you and I hate you

anyway yeah closing thoughts… if you watch TLW without even thinking about representation I think it’s an easy watch, bc what I was watching it for is psycho lesbians who don’t act normally and that’s what I got. All caricatures of themselves or whatever they’re performing in the shadows of, and, in a way – and maybe this is a little weird to say – but I think the lesbians in the show are, to me, like watching a species of lesbian that I myself am not. Which is a shame because, if I recall correctly, a lot of those musical performances in the show were about exposing the world to lesbian music that broke the norm and went against the stereotype of music people associated with lesbians at the time, showing them on the cutting edge of new sound, which somehow did not cross into the actual meat of the show at all. And I haven’t spoken at all about it here, but a lot of those musical features are my favourite parts of the show and made some of those scenes just electric, magical parts of storytelling on tv

to address the “you”/I in what “I think”, and this one actually is TMI, when I first watched the L word, it was when I had really just finished coming to terms with my own lesbianism back in late 2021, early 2022 (I was gay and trans before this, but hiding from myself and my sexuality and my gender in complex ways, living a sort of double life online and offline – this was more an unforgiving reckoning with who I was vs what the life I was leading looked like). i was finally letting myself think about it holistically, reflecting on conversion therapy and how I navigated my desires and my identity. I wrote a lot of melodramatic diary entries and was trying to figure out how to handle a 3 year long semi-formed, confusing, and impressively undefined ‘situation’ship I was in with a guy while I was living alone during a gap year. all I really did in this time was go to the gym, go on walks, go to therapy, and think… a lot. by the time I started watching TLW I had come to terms with my lesbianism (and its inextricable relationship to my gender), but watching jenny go through something I had basically been in the thick of myself (just without all the sex and the cheating and the sex and the sex and the sex), and was, at that point, yet to experience the real horror of, meant a lot to me, and, just from some reading online, I’ve understood too how the early seasons of TLW really helped a lot of other lesbians come out to themselves or start thinking about where they might sit in relation to lesbianism. again, TLW fails time and time again at any sort of political radicalism, but when you’re so, so painfully alone and you don’t really have anyone to talk to about these desires, or even have the strength to talk about these things out loud, I do think somehow the unabashed desire flung around the screen of TLW does one thing, and that is to declare that lesbianism doesn’t have to be in your head, and that even good change can be really difficult when it’s something like this, and that, to me, was the best thing TLW added to the conversation about lesbian TV and reflects, for a lot of lesbians who find themselves trying to navigate repression and abuse, the experience that we’re still moving through: taking hold of our lives with our own hands

beyond that, beyond being a story about transformation – which I do think really permeates the first season (dana coming out to the world and to her parents; shane learning how to love or whatever the fuck genuinely; tina and bette trying and failing and trying to live the life they’d always dreamt of; marina navigating her own bad relationship through a sort of uncaring outwards desire;  bette ‘choosing’ the wrong path from her married life and cheating; kit re-entering the world of professional music and working hard to get into that music video thing situation – I think s1 is just such a rare gem of tv, that had so many flaws in it and so much was mishandled, but it came to it all with a lot of heart. But still that same angle is what alienates it from reality and sets it up as this fantasy land of woman-who-engage-in-lesbianism and abstractifies lesbian reality to make way for lesbian (or straight) fantasies of standard hegemony with a little zest. As it goes on however, it falls so hard to the more difficult aspects already clear at its start, and dramatizes their sexual escapades and relationships endlessly in a way that gives, says, and does nothing. jill dolan describes it well, albeit more positively than I have here: “part of the fun has become to simply go with it, to enjoy its excesses of character and plot and to tolerate its rather sweetly absurd attempts at relevance and authenticity.” and you really can ‘go with it’ for a while, but to put it shortly, TLW is not a show worth following to the end of the earth

[arkiwii]

user meeblo made me want to do a nostalgia trip through my first operators and the context I got them, if anyone cares! and its pretty funny i swear because you can see my eternal struggle to get just one non rare operator (im cursed)

under the cut because mass posting of screenshots from my game

I remember I joined just after Ideal City concluded, so I never got the occasion to get Gavial alter, F

But the joint operation banner for CC #10 was here! and many liberi operators available in it, so i pulled so much

seems like dobermann was my first pull, which i remember being happy with because i was convinced she was a rare/strong operator since she was in the main scenario... well i ended up barely using her

Exusiai was my first 6-stars from that guaranteed banner, and Quercus my first 5-stars from standard pool 81! I really wanted Mudrock at the time, but I was too focused on getting the birds out of the CC#10 banner

La Pluma my BELOVED, i got her on the CC#10 banner and she carried me through the entire game, and also was my second E2, she's amazing

a bit more of 5-stars history, Ayerscape soon followed and was my main too for a while - then I realized around a week after I started the game that I had vouchers (i am so oblivious), and got Projekt Red and Silence from them! I literally started the game for these two, AND Aciddrop that I rolled not long after, so I was really happy about it! and shout-out to Mr.Nothing who showed up on the CC#10 banner

Finally, some 6-stars!

So, a fun story. you see how La Pluma, Mr. Nothing, Passenger and Mulberry have a ton of potential? Well. It's because the banner was about to end and I REALLY wanted Magallan. so, yeah. i whaled a bit. never pulled Magallan. Passenger showed up so many times I still can't believe it

Also got Carnelian - and we can see the first side stories I did, in the heart of a surging flame was the first because I've been told that Ceylon was a BIRD

Here it starts to be funny

I pulled Blaze and Fiammetta so randomly as off-banners, then on a standard banner, I got Phantom and Aak (off-banner) on my first 10 pulls

Dossoles Holidays event rerun, we can see I was farming CC at that time since I got Erato and Bibeak, then Dorothy Vision happened, from which I pulled Ptilopsis, I really wanted her!

Saga is here because my biggest struggle when I started was with Vanguards. I only used Texas and Courrier, and it was awful - a friend recommended me to pull Saga because she was a very good Vanguard, and she arrived, glad she did! I still use her today

Now. Now we go into the funny.

I rolled Mlynar out of boredome in like 13 pulls because "apparently he's strong so why not" (never used him), Conviction from April's fool, and now, we go into the problem.

LAPPLAND.

At that time I was around chapter 5-6? and there was a lot of those explosive slugs, ice slugs and stuff. I NEEDED Lappland, I kept borrowing her as a support unit. And good for me, she got a banner, with Ifrit and Weedy! So I pulled

I got both Ifrit and Weedy, then TWO off banners, Archetto and Hoshiguma, before I got Lappland. She took me 100 goddamn pulls to get her. I hate you Lappland

Then my first top operator tag with Saria! i was in italy at the time. italian saria. then Nearl Light rerun

Now the enter the second funny and it's worse than Lappland.

smiles.

TOTTER.

Yes. A 4-stars. With 50% rate to drop.

See Ch'en, Stainless and Goldenglow? I pulled these 3 BEFORE TOTTER. JUST. HOW. I must have slapped 100 rolls too for him, for just a 4-stars. i am cursed i told you.

Flametail is very funny. Her banner was up and I was like "well, i pretty much like her, and i wouldn't say no to another vanguard, but im afraid i wont pull her, and im trying to save..."

Then i got her FIRST PULL? she wanted me

i screamed and shaked irl

THEN I rolled for Ashlock because if i get Flametail I HAD to get Ashley. do not separate them

Got Irene on her banner with Ceobe as well, really glad I did I really loved her and using her in IS3!

With the thank you celebration i decided to put an end to my failed Magallan hunt on CC#10 banner and directly bought her from the 6-stars voucher

Texalter and Penance I got on Il Siracusano banner because. yeah. i didn't really wanted them but cool i guess

Break the Ice rerun, I rolled like hell for Gnosis (BIRD), then got a senior operator tag with Elysium, directly followed by a top operator tag with Hellagur! then CC#11 happened and I rolled Fartooth in my first 10 rolls

Once again rolled very hard for Skadi and got her!! Mayer appeared on the next banner :]

Then What the Firelast Cast while I was visiting a friend. this friend saw me going through all stages of grief trying to roll Reedalter and getting Pozy and Mudrock instead, but finally got them...

I got Schwarz from that one banner with a guaranteed 6-stars you don't have, was secretly hoping for Mostima

Justice Knight 👏 DROPPED completing my Pinus Sylvestris gang

3.5 anniversary and I bought the one voucher that guaranteed either Dorothy, Surtr or Silverash, and got Dorothy, woo! I got Chongyue while trying to get Firewhistle potentials

And finally my last hunt with Cantabile, in like 140~ rolls, where I pulled a dupe Blaze and Irene, but I got Reed so that's a W

And Mostima, I'm glad she showed so soon because i was TIRED

I can finally save for Lone Trail now! I have about 100 rolls saved in one month without any pulls (except the free ones), so goal to 300 rolls before the event starts!

That's all, that's my funny little history in Arknights!

In conclusion, fuck Lappland, Totter and Cantabile, they're not invited to my birthday party

[waitmyturtles]

A quick Old GMMTV Challenge update, and a few fast sentences on my first-ever piece of Taiwanese queer media in Marry My Dead Body!

1) My LONG-AWAITED review of Manner of Death drops tomorrow morning! EEEEEEE. I LOVED IT. MAXTULLLLLLLL. I'm teeing up a little conversation for us all as to whether or not it "counts" as a BL. Gimme all yer hot Monday takes!

2) I'm a few shows ahead of my writing slate, so: next week, we have my rewatch review of A Tale of Thousand Stars dropping, and after that -- Lovely Writer, and then Last Twilight in Phuket/I Promised You The Moon. (I went a little IN-sane! and made an IPYTM comparison to Only Friends on Saturday, which made me feel very. proud. of. myself. thankyouverymuch.) (lol.) Anyway! Lots of writing, in the midst of some huge life changes at the end of the month for me (have YOU ever moved with children? Not me! LKSJDFLKSJGLKSDJ).

3) Speaking of not me -- I start Not Me this week! (And, do you know what I didn't realize? I didn't realize that Not Me and Bad Buddy aired at the same time in December 2021/January 2022. What a time to be alive, huh?!)

4) Finally, non-OGMMTVC-related -- I don't have time to give this a full review, but on the recommendation of @lurkingshan, I watched Marry My Dead Body, a Taiwanese crime/mystery film about a straight cop who is pushed into a Buddhist ghost marriage with a deceased gay man to help him solve the mystery of his death so that he may be reincarnated.

There were enough posts (cc @lurkingshan, @benkaaoi, @smittenskitten) about the ending of the film to get me intrigued to watch it, but Shan's especially adamant notes to me directly roped me in. I utterly LOVED what He's Coming To Me taught us about ancestors and ghosts in Chinese Buddhist practice, and I felt like I was following along somewhat expertly as the ghost marriage took place, and as Wu Ming-Han needed to jump BACK into practice to keep his ghost hubby, Mao-Mao, around long enough as an animate spirit for him to learn about the real details of his passing.

I don't want to give too much away, but if you loved He's Coming To Me, you will LOVE this film and what it holds. It's not a BL -- it's more of a redemption/revelation story -- but it has for me key elements of what makes an Asian family story truly great, including realistic depictions of utterly mistimed miscommunication between parents and children that can have long-lasting costs.

Marry My Dead Body SLAPPED (....that's...a funny sentence, lol). It's on Netflix -- and I love when Netflix translates not just the lines, but background signs as well, all well-placed to give context to what we're watching. It was fabulous. Thank you, Shan, for the recommendation!

Alright, see y'all tomorrow morning with the hotties MaxTul for a Manner of Death celebration, woop woop!

[catty-words]

Your writing is so good that I’m almost tempted to binge all of your other shows so I can read more of it with proper context. You’re one of my all-time favorite authors (both published and non). Thanks for your work!

stooop i'm blushing and getting those sweet, naturally-induced ASMR tinglies. 😳🥺 thank you for this message!

if you want my hot takes on what's worth it, i am quite please with 90% of my julie and the phantoms fic (particularly the therapy fic, and i think the stage diving fic holds up as a good time) and the show itself has a low barrier to entry. it's sweet, it's silly, it's one 9-episode season, and the cliffhanger is compelling but doesn't stop the single season from feeling like a complete enough story so as to be unsatisfying. it's sometimes too much 'written for children' for my tastes but the soundtrack slaps and its quality on its face + the themes of the show all centering around art = essential to life genuinely reinvigorated my love for music and led me to reinvent my musical tastes.

have you already watched crazy ex-girlfriend? i have a complicated relationship with this one because season four spun its wheels so much when the premise and execution up until that point made it some of the most poignant television i've ever had the pleasure of watching. the fact that the end was so mishandled means i haven't been able to bring myself to revisit it since its conclusion. i also haven't reread much of my fic - no taste for languishing in my crazy ex feels, y'know? - so i don't know how well it holds up. to the show's credit, though, being in the crazy ex fandom irreversibly shaped my relationship to shipping and how i approach writing romance (a good case for it having delivered on its themes, even if the end itself is so disappointingly weak). my nhie fic being so well cultivated is owed to my work/time in crazy ex girlfriend fan spaces. but do i recommend it? eh, i really don't know! it let me down and i'm not over that.

cw's nancy drew just finished its fourth and final season, and it's a good time! the editing is really sharp, which helps it take advantage of its genre, but it's not overly scary or upsetting. it's horror-lite! furthermore, it's buffy-style literary horror, where the ghosts stand in for more concrete, everyday problems our characters are dealing with. and ace [redacted] is the character of all time, okay? i feel very genderrrrrr about him; i want a miniature version of him to live in my pocket. the cherry on top is that my fic for the show is freaking cute.

do not watch the 100, do not read my 100 fic. i mean, you can if you want to, but i was in a weird and performative space with my own sexuality when i was fucking with the source material and being in a much better place with myself now, it brings me no pleasure to think about my days in that fandom. also the show did literally everyone dirty, i don't know any fans who feel like their investment in it paid off.

i still haven't watched season four and the show eventually ensambles too hard for the amount of time it has each episode, but sex education is a solid show. i've always found it very atmospheric, its world comfortably lived-in, and some of the characters are near and dear to my heart. last i checked, my fic is the only fic worth reading in the fandom, too, so...

final hot take: i don't care for the witcher's relationship to parenthood, which is like, the show's whooooole deal thematically-speaking. it's a testament to how entertained i am by the slutty little bard that i fuck with it at all. but my witcher fic? contains some of the most beautiful lines i've ever written.

do with this onslaught of information what you will.