#tl;dr good ep i liked it

[cctinsleybaxter]

ed, what did you think of this years death blart?? the 10yr mark is great, but every ep i feel like it becomes more apparent how much more committed to it all tim & guy are compared to the rest :’/

I think the mcelroys are committed but Guy and Tim have a way of engaging with movies that is so impossible to grasp in the short term it genuinely caught them off guard lol.* I also have some hope there will be future recommitment because their fluctuating more than g&t from year to year (especially griffin) cuts both ways!

More thoughts:

Much like Griffin pointing out 10 years "finally feels like something" it is officially insanely funny that I've listened to 15+ hours of people talking about and recapping the plot of a 90-minute(?) movie that not only have I not seen, I have no idea what a single character besides paul blart looks like

In the midst of relearning the same information every year they are also still casually mentioning scenes and set pieces I had 0 idea existed and it makes me feel crazy <3 Lots of new ideas being thrown around this time too; better than many of the eps where they've tried gimmicks to spice things up

Thought Travis had some funny and insightful things to say!, which was then completely neutralized by him watching the movie as a twitch stream with his fans. poor sportsmanship imo, especially since they've already agreed they want to do a group watch-along at some point

I absentmindedly said the marbles line out loud in pitch-perfect sync with Justin and scared myself so much I yelled

*for anyone who doesn't listen, last year they briefly floated the idea of going to las vegas for the 10yr mark and tim immediately bought plane tickets from aotearoa and excitedly emailed everyone that it was happening while the u.s.-based brothers finished recording the ep and forgot about it. extremely funny

[harrowscore]

just imo, but a.rcane's s2 act ii was... weak. and below average for the series' standards (usually quite high)

[strayslost]

YOUR BSD NEW EP SPOILERS WARNING GOES HERE!!

you fools. fyodor couldn't die that easily. he's still fine you just gotta BELIEVE-

[xwhitenoise]

So I’ve started on Neverafter, right, and despite being sort of a baby when it comes to more grotesque horror elements I’m enjoying it so far

but some of the content warnings are for things that are... honestly really trivial and would not have warranted timestamped warnings in any other season, and I feel like they make the idea of content warnings themselves seem kind of frivolous and silly overall. Which is. The opposite of what they should be doing.

[theremustbeabear]

a lot of monster media has a hard time with balancing making their monster incredibly dangerous but also keeping the most important characters alive without it seeming like obvious plot armour

but i think the terror does a really great job--not just because they do allow it to kill a number of important characters, but because of the composition of the two scenes where tuunbaq is beaten

the first, in ep 5, is when tuunbaq chases blanky up the foremast, which, on the surface, seems like a very obvious case of plot armour. tuunbaq kills several other crewmen with incredible ease in that very same scene, but then blanky is spared long enough to escape from it, simply because he's an important character.

but that's not what's going on there. all of the easy deaths, so far, prior to this, have occurred on tuunbaq's territory. on flat ground, on the ice, and now tuunbaq is staking its claim on terror. but terror is still occupied, and blanky, especially, is a man who is more at home on a ship than land. tuunbaq is beaten, here, because blanky is playing with a home turf advantage. blanky does have armour, but it's not because he's an important character--it's because tuunbaq has invaded the space where he's most comfortable, and so he goes up, to where he knows a bear can still follow him, but it'll be exposed, and too heavy to follow him all the way.

and this show has done a great job of setting the stakes, already, by this point--the first time i watched this scene, even though blanky was so far surviving the confrontation, i was incredibly sure that he wasn't going to make it out. i thought for certain that he was going to have to sacrifice himself in order for them to hit tuunbaq with the cannon, and so it was deeply satisfying when he actually survived. i was so fucking happy, because i was already starting to get sad about him being dead, even though he wasn't dead yet, lol. it feels earned, when he makes it out, and fair enough that he loses a leg in the process, too.

the second, in the final episode, is i think a bit more obvious, and considering how many other major characters get torn apart, it doesn't feel quite so much like crozier has plot armour. but tuunbaq is once again beaten by using the things that are not native to its land, that tuunbaq isn't designed to deal with. the sick and poisoned flesh of the seamen it's already consumed, for one, and then the boat chain.

and, for the second time, in order to beat tuunbaq, a limb must be sacrificed--crozier's hand, i think, counts, even though he loses it after the confrontation is long over, because blanky only loses his leg properly after the fact as well. and i think this can be brought around to how tuunbaq's shaman must remove their own tongue to communicate with it--if one wishes to have any sort of dominance over tuunbaq, a part of their body must be given in exchange. silna and her father give their tongues, blanky gives his leg, and crozier gives his hand.

and it is emphasized through hickey's failure that tuunbaq cannot be controlled by the expeditioners. the colonizers. it can be beaten back, and suppressed, and killed, through sacrifice, but it cannot be harnessed. it belongs to silna's people, to the inuit, and cannot truly be taken away. the only way to beat it is by invading its home with foreign powers and losing something of yourself in the process.

tl;dr thomas blanky doesn't need plot armour because he's just that good /silly and also this show is just. awesome.

[junebugdunes]

alright listen. it is 3 in the morning and I have a cold but listen to me. I feel like one of the biggest reasons I'm so enthralled with Ramsey and Percy's dynamic is because it subverts the typical cop/con buddy duo-

Usually in buddy cop shows the dynamic play out as the smug or playful conman and the straight man cop

But what I'm really into is Ramsey is actually the "straight man" in their dynamic because Percy is so strange but completely able to roll with basically anything that happens, and she takes everything on the same serious level that she would normally

Which I think a lot of characters mistake as her taking everything at face value, but she doesn't do that either- Ramsey takes advantage of the situation by lying to her about his epithet and trying to play off how big of a criminal he is, and she does believe him, but you can see as the episodes move along she has her suspicions- but she's not accusatory. [Ep 6 "All's Well That Ends Well" 15:15]

She won't make any moves until she has solid evidence, which is a really good quality considering her line of work. She's smart, but she's not unfair. (Added to the fact that even once she recognized Ramsey, she made sure to negotiate something nice for him because of how much help he was. [Ep 7 "Winner Takes All" 23:20])

I've read a lot of fan stuff where people have completely misread her character and they make her so... robotic? And like, unemotional. Which she completely isn't.

She's very emotional. Although a lot of her more emotional scenes are read as comedic, she's not cold or robotic. Some of my favorite scenes from her are the crayon debauchery scene:

[Ep 6 "All's Well That Ends Well" 6:55] Along the same lines as when Zora broke her peashooter (the Oh Danny Boy scene)

When the Well Watcher was promoted to Sky Watcher and she was very supportive :) [Ep 6 16:50]

And when Ramsey used his epithet for the first time in front of her [Ep 7 19:15]

I feel like the comedy of these bits are really through Ramsey's reactions as he kind of just... doesn't know how to handle the situation or his brain literally won't process it [Ep 6 7:40]

Yes, Percy for the most part is a joke character but the whole point is the joke plays off of her being the silly one and Ramsey being the straight man, not vice versa.

I'm really tired so I can't exactly remember how I was going to wrap this up but

TL;DR: I really like Ramsey & Percy's dynamic and I feel like a lot of misreadings of it are due to a lack of understanding Percy's character

[karabell]

Color Theory in Cinderella Boy

There’s some silly stuff happening with colors, and in this probably brainrot post, I will be using my art brain to over analyze the heck outta this (for those who are interested, though I find it fascinating!)

**This post includes a scene from todays new ep (53), so make sure you read that first!**

So, I first stumbled upon this discovery sorta by accident. I use Clip Studio Paint for my artwork, and I often end up with an average to 30-50 layers per drawing, and thankfully Clip Studio has an option to color-code your layers to make things more manageable.

For my CB drawings, I defaulted to using green for Chase, purple for Buddy, and blue for Deacon. It made sense to me, because of the casts ‘default’ outfits feature these colors:

We can also see these colors in some book outfits:

Chase’s green outfit in We Need to Talk About Buddy, Deacons shirt in Beach Boys, and the blue accents in All That Glitters

What I noticed though, was that these aren’t the only colors they are seen in, and in fact, out of all the other colors, two in particular stand out

Specifically, pink for Chase, and orange for Deacon

Something to note is that these colors are nearly perfect complementary colors to each other. Even Prunella seems to have this theme, with her red hair and green shirt.

Now, it is generally good for character design for outfits to have good complementary colors to make them stand out, but me thinks that Punko went even further with this.

The thing is, Buddy really only has purple in his color scheme (unless out count every shade of gray and black).

We see him in some other colors, but mainly it’s purple:

Like, a lot of purple.

(Other examples include Toffee Break, Beach boys, Sick Day, etc)

Pretty much all but two of Buddy’s ten outfits have included some element of purple.

But then again, up until recently, he’s only been a villain. A foil to Chase. The black and purple suited him, for a while, because he was only ‘evil’. (This also leads me to believe that future Ex Libris members will also wear black in their outfits to fit on theme. In Dreams by Day, a presumably Ex Libris worker is wearing a black shirt).

But now? It’s Buddy’s story too. He is becoming a protagonist. And that means getting a new color, possibly one that compliments purple.

And what color flowers bloomed when Chase saved him?

Yellow.

This is leading me to believe that Buddy will have a major character shift at the end of season 1 / beginning of season 2, where yellow is included in his outfit colors. And maybe, S2 will feature Buddy’s story more as he becomes a protagonist ‘,:3

TL;DR: Colors are important to CB characters, and Buddy is gonna be a protagonist soon.

I’ve actually been forming this theory of mine since like, the beginning of October, and the amount of serotonin that filled my brain when I saw those flowers, and seeing that my theories may be true could literally flood a city.

Thank u for reading :D

[rikeijo]

A very deep dive into Yuri!!! on ICE canon #1

~Yuuri's bisexuality~

It's been 8 years, times changed, but to this day there are people in YoI fandom, who seem to be extremely uncomfortable with the idea that Yuuri can indeed be canonically bisexual and have had feelings for a girl (or anyone else that isn't Victor). As funny as it is to see people being obsessed with proving that a fictional character could have never ever even thought about touching a girl, I personally find it a bit scary, too.

There is no official sexuality confirmed&set in stone for any of the characters, and this is why everyone is able to interpret all the little nudges and pointed looks from the creators however they like, and the creators repeatedly stated that they are okay with that. Nevertheless, I gathered pieces of evidence (that I know of), that point toward Yuuri being canonically bisexual.

If you are bisexual and identify with Yuuri, but have ever felt that somebody is trying to invalidate your interpretation of the character, as in any way “inferior” or “headcanon not supported by canon” this post is dedicated to you ✨

Starting with the tl;dr conclusion of this very long post:

bisexual Yuuri is a valid interpretation of the canon Yuuri.

To begin with, the main point: Yuuri’s feelings for Yuuko and how the story deals with them.

Without Yuuko, the story wouldn’t have happened and episode 1. made it clear that she’s a very important person in Yuuri’s life – this is what everyone who watched the show agrees on, but were Yuuri’s feelings romantic?

Why Yuuko was called the “Madonna of Ice Castle Hasetsu”

“アイスキャッスルはせつ”のマドンナ 相変わらずかわいいし/"Madonna of Ice Castle Hasetsu", and she’s cute like she always has been.”

How the word “Madonna” in Japanese is used is explained eg. here:

“In modern Japanese, more than in its religious meaning, the word “Madonna” is normally used as a metaphor for a “woman I adore”. (…) As “Madonna” means “a woman sb adores”, the word is used in phrases like: “Madonna of this school” or “Madonna-like person” etc. It’s not a word that is used in everyday life conversations directly to describe the person you speak to, but often when speaking with somebody else, if you want to emphasize how beautiful the woman is (...)”.

Google “マドンナ 意味” and the same dictionary definition will come up -（あこがれの）美しい女性 / A beautiful woman (sb admires/yearns for). Kubo Mitsurou has used this word in her other works in the same meaning – a beautiful woman the main character (secretly) adores/crushes on.

Calling Yuuko the ‘Madonna of the Ice Castle Hasetsu’ simply means that all the boys/girls on the rink had a crush on her (Yuuri included). And to put even more emphasis on that, Yuuri says that nothing has changed – she’s as cute as she always has been. When a boy says something like ‘あの子、可愛い’, ‘that girl/boy is cute’, it’s the most natural way to say: ‘to me, she/he is physically attractive’ (if you've been watching Dandadan recently, in ep. 6 there is an excellent example of this).

In conclusion, in the very beginning of the story, the creators decided to show us a scene, which establishes that to Yuuri, Yuuko has always been and still is physically attractive. Soon after this scene we have:

The love confession

“優ちゃん　僕、ずっと… 優ちゃんのこと…”

This has been already said thousands of times, but for good or for bad, this phrase is worded just as a love confession would be.

The translation of this line is a simple: “Yuu-chan… I’ve always… You…”, but in Japanese, there is this untranslatable “のこと/no koto” included in this line, which is exactly the part that makes is sound like Yuuri’s about to confess his love to Yuuko. It’s a way to put more emphasis on the noun, and you could say it’s something close in meaning to ‘everything about you’. Of course, the creators chose to not finish this sentence, so what Yuuri would exactly say is a mystery, but the wording/grammar naturally makes you expect a confession of feelings. Would he say ‘suki’ or something milder? That we don’t know, but eg. the word that Yuuri uses for Yuuko earlier in the same scene, "憧れの人/person I admire”, or any form of the same verb, simply wouldn't fit grammatically in this sentence.

But Yuri!!! is not just all 'tell' - it's very much 'show'. That it was supposed to be a confession of feelings is also pretty clear, when we look at Yuuri’s face in this scene. Even setting aside how the grammar limits the choice of how this sentence could be finished, Yuuri’s facial expression doesn't read: “You’ve always been a good friend to me, Yuuko. I liked skating together with you…🥲" No, all of sudden, Yuuri looks nervous and unsure, embarrassed, even though just a moment before, he had a normal conversation with her. Just like somebody would be, if they wanted to finally say something that they always wanted to say for so many years, even if it’s far too late now. This leads us to another important point:

How Yuuri’s feelings for Yuuko fit in the bigger story

A lot of people say that the Yuuri x Yuuko scene in episode 1. is just a trap of sort - you expect Yuuko to be the heroine of the story, but she isn’t. And this is very true that in the end, it’s obvious that she isn’t. At the same time though, it’s worth noting that the creators never deny in the story itself that Yuuri has had feelings for her, but they were simply unrequited. There is never any conversation with Nishigori of the likes of ‘-You liked Yuuko, didn’t you?’ ‘-No! It’s not like that! She’s always been like a sister to me!’ – to make sure everyone knows that Yuuri doesn’t like girls.

Quite the opposite - just like in real life, your crush marring somebody else doesn’t automatically erase your own feelings (Mitsurou tackles this topic in Moteki, too, funnily enough), I think that the creators wanted to suggest that this is simply what Yuuri experienced - a heartbreak. ‘Yuuri could never try to confess his feelings for a married woman!!!’ some people may say, but the confession scene can be easily interpreted as Yuuri wanting to finally say what he didn’t get to say earlier, to let it go and move on. For context, it’s perhaps important to remember that Yuuko got pregnant at 18/19, when Yuuri was only 16/17 and that must have been quite a shock for Yuuri at that age – as soon as he could (to go to uni at 18, after Yuuko had the triplets), he moved out of Hasetsu and hasn’t visited his hometown for the next 5 years.

It also all makes perfect sense in the bigger picture. Yuuri let Yuuko go and most likely didn’t even think about fighting for her (lack of self-confidence etc. + his choice to focus on skating). The story even suggests that he run away from this situation, which creates a very nice contrast to how the second time around, he doesn't run away, but stands his ground - Yuuri chose to actively fight (literally, with Yurio in Onsen on ICE) to not let Victor go.

The really cool thing about YoI is that the characters are realistic. It means that they are complicated, they aren’t just all perfect and always rational, making all the good and/or easy to understand choices. Plus, they are adults (this was important to Sayo according to her interviews), which naturally means more experience of many different sorts. They aren’t over-simplified anime/BL templates, whose personality is a collection of tropes or this one thing they are absolutely obsessed with. Imo, Yuuri’s complicated feelings for figure skating/Yuuko/Victor, all jumbled together, as the story shows them to us, are an excellent example of this.

What the creators have to say on this topic

After meeting with the Nishigoris in episode 1., the next line that Yuuri says is:

この町を出て５年間、スケートのことだけ考えて見ないようにしてきたことがいっぱいあった 僕は１人で滑っていく. 5 years have passed since I left this town. I’ve been thinking only about skating, and I chose not to see/look at a lot of things. I’m going to skate alone from now on.

This line is directly linked to what Kubo Mitsurou said about the reason why Yuuri had never come back to Hasetsu in those five years:

(…) I was also thinking about the reason why Yuuri didn’t want to go back to his hometown for such a very long time, that it's because of Nishigori and Yuuko. When it comes to Nishigori and Yuuko’s relationship, I think Yuuko is the one who started it. She didn’t confess her feelings directly, but I think it was probably very clear that she likes Nishigori. (…)

That Yuuri didn’t want to face Yuuko and Nishigori together suggests clearly that there are unresolved feelings on Yuuri’s side towards their marriage. I don’t think that they have to be just simple ‘I loved you, but you are married to another guy now and I don’t want to see that’, but it’s very likely that this is part of that ‘many things that I chose not to see/look at’ that Yuuri mentions. In the end, Yuuri didn’t say what he wanted to say to Yuuko and it seems that instead, it's this scene that tells us that now, back in Hasetsu after facing Yuuko and Nishigori and their children again, Yuuri decided to move on - alone.

Also Hiramatsu Tadashi mentions Yuuri’s feelings for Yuuko, and that they were an important part of episode 1.:

– After character design, you started working on animating the episodes, I assume. You are the Animation Director for the first episode - what was the key scene for that episode? Hiramatsu: For Yuuri, it was the sequence of scenes that leads to the scene, in which he is skating at the rink in Hasetsu. At first, he experienced a crushing defeat, and still depressed he came back to his hometown. He sees his posters at the train station, and reacts to that with 'oh no, that’s embarrassing~’, but he can’t just retire like that. [The sequence of scenes] until, when he re-affirms that there is still something that he wants to do… His changing emotions, and feelings that he has for Yuuko. That was what I paid special attention to, as I was working.

All in all, it’s the same issue once again – Yuuri’s character is not only about Victor. His journey is much more complicated than that, and because of this, it’s way more realistic. Treating Yuuri's feelings for Yuuko as inconvenience to yaoi shipping is just... reducing the story to what it never even aspired to be (a bundle of yaoi tropes).

～Bonus round～

Yuuri and the ladies ✨

This one is mainly my speculation (I'm really interested in the topic of how queerness in portrayed in anime&related media).

A very unique characteristic of YoI, which people who are interested in anime and representation probably noticed is that Victor is “safely” kept away from all female characters.

Why they couldn’t just say ‘he’s gay’ is a topic for another long discussion, so let’s simply state the fact – they couldn’t. If we think about the topic of YoI, how it’s 'we love&support you' message to gay figure skaters, who have been facing blatant homophobia when competing, it’s not hard to imagine that it was important for the creators to not give the viewers the wrong idea…

The problem is, in Japan, heteronormativity is still the default setting and people will look at even the smallest of details to prove that the character is ‘normal’. This trick is even often used by the creators themselves to make the homophobic part of the audience feel more comfortable with shows that contain more or less queer-coding – Buddy Daddies is a prime example of this - the show literally starts with “the main character sleeps with a woman” scene and ends with “the main character is still a playboy” scene just to make sure that people can have some 'they are not really gay gay' leverage, if they need it. A subtler version of this is something like SK8, that also includes some ‘girls are hot, aren’t they!’ scenes, yk, just in case.

YoI is the opposite - the only female characters that Victor ever interacts with are Yuuri’s mother, Yuuri’s older sister, Yuuri’s childhood friend (married), Yuuri’s ballet teacher (almost twice his age) and two random characters (the conversation between them only confirms that Victor is indeed gay, as they directly suggest that Victor only plays the role of Yuuri’s coach to get near his dick). Of all these characters (that’s six [6] in total), the only one that Victor has a one-to-one conversation with is Minako. Mila is on his team, as are some other background female characters, but they never interact. Even in the Sochi banquet photos, no girl in Victor’s vicinity, just in case someone could get any ideas.... And of course, he uses gender neutral pronouns when talking about lovers.

Yuuri, though, just doesn’t receive the same treatment - there is of course Yuuko, there is the mysterious music student, who for some reason knew Yuuri well-enough to express his life in music, and there is the other girl, who was clearly very much into him, when he was in Detroit. And of course, there is the last boss that Victor needs to defeat, Chihoko... A few scenes suggest that even Sara may be interested in Yuuri. They could use another gender-neutral word instead, but no, even Victor, first evening in Yuuri's house, asks Yuuri: “is there a girl that you like?" (女の子). Nishigoris also talk about Yuuri still not having a 'girlfriend' (彼女, not a 恋人).

We also have some subtle suggestions that Yuuri actually isn't as inexperienced as he may seem to be for some people - the *wink wink* statement from the creators that Yuuri actually has a romantic love history that is kept ‘top secret’ and Nishigori in ep. 3. suggesting that Yuuri has some experience, even though it's "scarce" (and he's most likely talking about Yuuri in Hasetsu; I can bet that what happens in Detroit, stays in Detroit). Imo, these are not just random funny tidbits about the character - it's all a part of the important lesson the show tries to teach us: stereotypes and judging by appearances lead you to wrong conclusions.

Because of all of this, my personal impression has always been that the creators aren’t at all afraid to suggest Yuuri is into girls, as they clearly are in case of Victor.

Quasi-canon

YoI has very little quasi-canon material (the protectiveness over the characters was probably one of the first things that fascinated me about YoI, because the standard is to push out as much as you can to maximize the profit… That’s also a topic for another discussion, though). The interesting thing is, however, that both (and only) quasi-canon stories touch upon the topic of Yuuri’s bisexuality.

Yuri!!! on STAGE

It’s a story that’s meant to be funny, so are the events in the drama canon to the main story? Of course not. I don’t think, though, that the creators would agree to show the characters in a way that contradicts how the characters are supposed to be in a fundamental way. Imagine they went through all the trouble to make sure that nobody got the wrong idea about Victor, and then there was a story, in which characters, that know him very well, all think that he has a girlfriend. That doesn’t feel right, does it? But that’s exactly what they did for Yuuri.

In the story, they find the writing on Yuuri’s back in Russian: ‘I’ll overcome Chihoko/ I’ll become better than Chihoko’. Yuri P. asks ‘Oi, who this Chihoko hag is?!’, and Chris asks Yuuri: ‘勇利の女?' This is another point scored nicely by the creators, because the word that Chris uses is not “girlfriend” nor “sweetheart”, but “onna/woman”. In this context, it means simply: ‘Is she your mistress?’ == even though it's just a silly story written to make people laugh, they still recognize that Yuuri and Victor are in a relationship, but Chris basically thinks that Yuuri cheats on Victor with a woman. Yurio and Chris assume that Chihoko is a woman, because her name ends with a -ko, but they are gaijins... The story would make perfect sense, if they didn't know a thing about female names in Japan, and simply didn't assume what gender Chihoko is. The whole conversation could be gender-neutral, but the active choice was to make it about a 'woman'.

So, if in Chris’ mind Yuuri wasn’t bi, would he automatically assume that Yuuri cheats on his good friend with a woman, as he did in this story? The reality is that he doesn’t even sound that surprised that Yuuri may have a female lover... Phichit also just goes along with what Chirs suggested. Shouldn't Phichit be more surprised in this situation, if he thought Yuuri wasn't into girls? Victor, on the other hand, is super stressed that there was a woman in Yuuri’s life that was in some ways better than him in Yuuri's opinion, but his lines also don’t suggest in any way that he’s just made a big discovery about Yuuri’s sexuality.

Yuri!!! on FESTIVAL

This is also an interesting one. In the story, Chihoko strikes again – Yuuri explains why they hold the festival in Hasetsu and the word ‘Chihoko’ is part of the name of one of the deities. Hearing that, Victor asks concerned: “女神なのかい/Is this a female deity?”

But... why does it matter to Victor if it’s a male or female god? Would Chihoko be less scary to him if it was a male? Well, to me it sounds like, through this silly story about Chihoko, the creators want to suggest that Victor is afraid of women, specifically, in context of Yuuri.

It's just a crack story, but I’d say that the creators/the writer neatly sneaked some serious topics into it (just like the fact that it was very important for Yuuri to say he wants Victor to just be himself in ep. 4, or how in Yuri on STAGE, one of the jokes is that there is a side of Victor that only Yuuri gets to see = the last few blacked-out seconds of ep. 12). Imo, Victor being afraid that a woman can be better than him may as well be another example of this. (Imagine Yuuri hypothetically decided that he wanted to start a family with a woman, have his own babies etc., then that would be a desire that Victor couldn't fulfill for him as easily, wouldn't it? Like, it's hard for one person to be better than two sexes at once in certain situations, and I'm sure many people in similar circumstances can get anxious if they are 'enough'...) I think that this kind of a suggestion, dressed up as a joke, that Victor is afraid some female Chihoko will come and take Yuuri away from him only makes sense if in the creators' minds Yuuri is bi.

For contrast, in both stories, Yuuri is jealous only of Chris and/or unhappy that Victor wants to show too much skin in public...

That was a very long one, but that's what Tumblr is good for, isn't it? ✨ Thank you for reading, if you have made it this far! All in all, it's 2024... The yaoi tropes will probably never completely disappear, but the 'my uwu baby needs to be 100% pure, no-one (especially a female char) is allowed to taint my yaoi fantasies' mentality really should just die out, it's not healthy and female characters are not something that should be feared😭

So, have I missed something (I probably have)? Opinions? Different interpretations? It's always nice to discuss stuff ~✨

[fortune-maiden]

Okay, now after rewatching Eps 1-2, I'm doubling down on this - Overture is not a good replacement for Eps 1-2 for a first time viewer

(I'd probably recommend it after Season 1 since it mainly deals with S1 characters and factions or after Season 2 which is when it originally came out)

(also the OVA DID cut the 'Call me Reinhard when we're alone' scene xD)

(and on another side note, I had also thought Farenheit's presence at Astarte was a DNT addition... because he gets exactly one line of dialogue in the OVA ver. In Ep 2.)

(He didn't even get a little intro card in Ep 1! xD)

Coping with being unable to watch the last stretch of LOGH until the weekend by watching the Overture movie

Let's see how many characters I can actually recognize/remember from back then! xD

[snapscube]

I think a lot of people read dereconstruct as a trans journey, but when you talk about it you seem to mention religion, is it a mix of both? or leaning more one way than the other?

i don't really like talking about, or having other people talk about, my gender identity or transition unless i have something novel to say about it and initiate the conversation myself. you will rarely hear me bring it up myself, and you will also see me shut it down sometimes. this has been a sticking point for a while and it's a very necessary bit of control i have to keep over my personal narrative wherever i can because as my audience has grown the more people project things onto me or tell my story in a way i don't actually resonate with. my journey was very public at the onset out of necessity but at the same time i find myself wishing less people would offer up info in my stead because oftentimes it genuinely affects people's ability to discuss me with any more nuance than that and i can always tell the difference between someone who views me as like a person and someone who's primary understanding of me is "trans content creator". however, all this being said, it has been true for a very long time that music is the medium in which i am most open about these things because it is the way i often find the most novel and most meaningful ways to talk about my experiences without beating a dead horse or inviting limitation to my persona. i'm not really good at being a role model in that sense, but i do think i am pretty good at being an artist or at least that's where i strive to make the most impact, and i just don't find this stuff as personally interesting to talk about any other way anymore, at least not with strangers.

so anyway, all this to say: DeReconstruct does feature a heavy emphasis on my identity and the ways in which i've come into my own in that sense because it was produced at a time where i had a lot of newfound independence and was able to make strides in my own personal development like i'd never done before, and transition was a big part of that. but it was not the only part of that by a long shot. obviously whatever the album means to you as an individual, i'd never want to take that away or say it's wrong! but personally when i think of DeReconstruct or really any of my music i don't think of them as "trans stories". religion was a HUGE aspect of why i decided to make the EP in the first place, which is why Hypothesis, a song primarily about religious deconstruction, was the climax of that album. similarly, though Electrolysis is, in the most literal sense, a song about electrolysis as a treatment, it means a lot more to me in 2023 as a story about perseverance through any number of pains.

TL;DR, it is both and also more. i am a person with multitudes and DeReconstruct is made up of multitudes as well. as is my previous work, and as will my work be in the future.

[pharawee]

So. Addicted Heroin Thailand.

A small disclaimer first: I have neither watched any of the Chinese adaptations of Addicted Heroin nor did I read the novel. No wait, that's not true. I watched a few eps of the first series years ago but I barely remember anything about it (just global pandemic things, I guess).

Also, I only watched the tv-version of the first ep, which is apparently a whole 10 minutes shorter than the uncut version (and whatever they decided to cut, it's probably not spicy - unless it involves som tam or something) but ... I really like it so far? The cheap cash-grab argument that I've seen on MDL (🙄) doesn't hold up at all because they clearly put a lot of thought into this to turn it into an adaptation that (to me as an interfan at least) feels genuinely Thai - from ror dor to the public school backdrop to Pop reciting a poem by Sunthorn Phu (fun fact: it's the same poem that was prominently used in I Feel You Linger in the Air).

I also really like the production quality. It feels light and soft, kind of nostalgic actually - and while that's not how you'd describe the tone of the original novel (which is at least somewhat dark and toxic, I believe?) I don't think it necessarily has to since it's an adaptation and not a remake.

This is only the first episode of course and if you're hesitant about how this show will navigate around the age gap of the actors in light of the mature source material I'd hold back on watching for at least a few more eps.

That being said, I'm reasonably sure that Addicted Heroin Thailand will be a lot more soft and lighthearted than the original(s) - not unlike Jinloe's last show Hit Bite Love that had the younger cast in a separate, much more fluffy storyline.

Unfortunately, some people seem to expect or even want the show to be as dark and explicit as the novel, and there's of course nothing wrong with that, except that's not really a possibility with a cast that young. Going by what I've seen of the show so far, Jinloe are aware of this and have adapted the source material accordingly.

Granted, they could have chosen another, more lighthearted novel to adapt, but personally I don't think that an adaptation needs to be 100% screen-accurate (or is it novel-accurate?) to be an entertaining watch. There's plenty of themes to focus on, after all. Afaik, Stay With Me (the second Chinese adaptation) was well-received and the main characters didn't even kiss, so why single out this production as exploitative and unsafe* before it's even aired?

*Oh, and I've also seen people explicitly bash the show for its Thai-ness which is another matter entirely.

With the way things are right now (and I say this in good faith - don't go where I can't follow, Jinloe! 🙏) I don't really see how this show could ever live up to the controversy. Right now at least, it's got gmmtv-levels of toxicity (so, uh... about none).

tl;dr: The first episode of Addicted Heroin Thailand was cute and well done. That's about it.

[otomatonom]

Tl;dr - I really, really love a story where every main character is wonderful and likeable and also SO FLAWED, pls listen to the Worlds Beyond Number pod.

Ep. 39 Ame is so focused on solving the social inequities she perceives that she fails to actually connect with anyone inclined to listen to her!! I have a horrible secondhand-embarrassment/discomfort with awkward social situations in media that makes me want to jump out a window, and listening to her talk to Sworn and Silver drove me insane.

Every conversation was so awkward and she managed to alienate them so quickly; not that she didn't have good points, but she shut them down instead of trying to empathize or really persuade them. Like, girl - you are a MEDIUM, and u just managed to talk to the other biggest Suvi stans and actively make them think less of u.

100% me reading into things too much, but it really feels like Ame might have a jealousy problem around Suvi?? Like I re-listened to Act 2 and found it really weird how she seems to dislike Silver from the start.

[hyperfixatedonthings]

Getting ready to do a Pluto rewatch and I'm watching some of the last BTS videos. Tell me why it took seeing this:

For me to understand that Oom has some real CPTSD.

**Spoilers for Ep 11 below 👇**

I'm not sure the order things were filmed. If NT shot the Ai-oon stuff second like the video makes it seem then, I find the above moment really interesting.

When I first watched the episode I of course was sad for Oom. But it was always from the perspective of "she just had so much information dumped on her and, she has not had a chance to grieve." I mean the girl just woke up from a coma and found out:

She was married

Her new husband died (in a car accident of all things!! With her being the only survivor, just like with her parents)

Her sister has been pretending to be her...again (don't forget that she's been beat up at least once because of Ai doing this)

Her sister has been pretending to be her w/ her girlfriend.

Said girlfriend is blind now.

Your sister is being nice to you. (Basically you're closer then when you went into the coma)

Your sister is also acting suspicious/weird when it comes to May.

That's all separate from the fact that Oom just learned that May and Ai-oon fell in love!

Any of that would be a lot on its own. It makes COMPLETE SENSE that Oom was searching for a good memory but wanted it to be with May. Her irrational mind may (haha..pun) have been trying to recreate the proposal but have May choose her. At least that's what I'm going with for now.

Which kind of answers a question I had during my initial watch, what did Oom take May to that river?

Don't ask me why this hit me when I saw NT swaying sadly on this cart. idk why.

I remember seeing discussions at the time about Oom having Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). That never made 100% sense to me. More like 75%. I could see it but, could not justify it with her past behavior. CPTSD makes perfect sense when you consider she might also have survivors guilt also. Especially considering this is the second fatal crash she has been able to walk away from. It also explains her selfishness in this moment and her ominous comment about the water. She probably thinks that her life is limited and thinks she could die at any moment. Forcing Ai to choose could have felt a bit like making a "dying wish".

Anyway TL;DR: I love this show!! You can tell that sooo much love, heart, care and, effort went into it. Oom had her reasons for forcing The Choice ™ and, I'm glad I did not write her off like I wanted to originally.

[oodlyenough]

dw christmas special no. i lost track: joy to the world

I went into this with low expectations because I generally don't really like 1) Christmas specials, 2) Moffat, 3) Moffat Christmas specials. Because of these things I also wasn't really paying attention to promo and was pretty much unspoiled for everything besides "time hotel" and "Nicola Coughlan".

Anyway possibly for that reason, this exceeded my (low) expectations and I mostly had fun, lol. Cynicism pays off

Spoilers:

I think this had a lot of the basic problems I have with most Christmas specials, and it speedran through a lot of the cliches that mark them, but... tbh whatever I guess, I mean, there were some enjoyable bits and at this point it's a Christmas special, right, you know what you're getting.

Time Hotel was a very cool idea and was executed pretty well. Put Disney's money to work

Fifteen abruptly having to spend a year waiting was not an angle I anticipated at all, though perhaps I should've. I think at this point "omg I've NEVER done this EVER before" is just so comically untrue it's an inherent eye roll BUT I'm also at a point with this show where I'm like... it's been over 60 years... of course they've done everything. I'll look the other way. It's fine. The Doctor in mundane scenarios is fun when he's not being an asshole about it and Anita and the Doctor were fun to watch. I also appreciated that they addressed the obvious elephant of "call Ruby ffs" lmao. (Or call the other guy who literally has a TARDIS ... but again, I'll give it to 'em.)

Fifteen's angst about being alone doesn't hit quite right because Ruby didn't leave him, he left Ruby behind. I think you can argue he left Ruby behind because he was trying to get ahead of it -- you can't break up with me I'm breaking up with you! -- but, well, in this era of Doctor Who character stuff comes at you fast and you either roll with it or are miserable I guess. Ncuti is very good and that helps a lot

The general plot of "they want to sell a star so they are using a time hotel and will sacrifice Earth to do it" like. Sure. That's fine lmao whatever it's a DW plot it's serviceable

Joy herself was kind of a letdown ... I def felt more of a connection to Anita than to Joy, unfortunately, and as the Anita montage was wrapping I thought why wasn't the whole ep about this... But I did like the mom-died-alone-during-covid reveal and particularly the jab at the tories. I thought that hit. Fuck em.

It's not a Moffat episode without some generalization about human nature that makes absolutely no sense to me and the "hotel rooms reveal who you are as a person" was way up there lmao. Hotel rooms reveal how much disposable income I have at the time of booking actually.

Moffat's humour is hit or miss with me but it was more hit than miss here, I think. The mansplain bits for example made my eyes roll back into my skull but I liked the plunger joke, the TARDIS toys from the internet, I even thought Joy's boner joke was funny lmao

The ending w the star and Bethlehem and stuff ... pretty naff imo but hey it's a Christmas special. I liked the fakeout of Ruby getting a call and it being from her mom too ... I know they'll reunite next season so I don't mind the tease here.

tl;dr I had fun! I could nitpick a lot of this but what's the point. it's Christmas. is this character growth? hm. tbh I think I enjoyed it more than Boom lmao

[lazzarella]

Peaceful Property rambling incoming! I wrote it in like ten minutes, so it’s a mess, but I’ve been meaning to write this since ep 6 and I just wanted to finally get some of my thoughts out. This really is more for myself than anything I guess 😅

TL;DR I’m finding the writing in Peaceful Property really good and satisfying, especially when it comes to tropes I sometimes find frustrating or offputting or that are often poorly executed imho

The writing in Peaceful Property has been so good and so satisfying to me so far! The pacing in general is really nice, and there's been some nice misdirection/red herrings (I kept forgetting to write about this and now I can't remember what they were lol) and I think the pace of the reveals has been really good too. Like, if we knew from the outset that Peach was hit by a car and died for a while, I feel like it would've been easier to suspect Home's involvement? Similarly, if we knew that Home had been involved in a hit and run earlier, I don't think the audience would've sympathised with him as much (of course, some people have lost sympathy with him now, and that's understandable)

But the writing is also a good illustration of how tropes that aren't my favourite or can be frustrating for me can end up enjoyable in certain writers' hands. Obviously, this is just a personal preference, but I often find the 'person wants to confess something and takes their time doing it because they're nervous and then, when they're finally ready, the person they want to confess to finds out some other way with disastrous results' trope frustrating at times. But it worked SO well here! I think the frustration sometimes comes from it not fitting characters, but it fits Home and Peach so well and the setup worked well to make it believable for me too!

Like, Home has never had to take responsibility for anything ever. Of course he doesn't know how to own up to what he's done wrong! Especially not to someone he truly cares about! (Which also seems like a rarity in his life). Like, he literally has no precedent in his life to draw from as far as we know. And he has a family and he doesn't want to risk it and he wants the apology to be perfect. So, it makes sense to me that he would hesitate and take so long!

And, of course, Peach's devastation is believable, but him jumping to the conclusion that Home knew all along when he sees the video makes sense too! Yeah, he's learnt to trust Home, but seeing that video would just really mess you up, right? That the worst thing that's ever happened to you was done by this person you now see as family? I think it's easy to assume he'd known who he hit. And Home's family stepping in before Home can explain also makes perfect sense because they've done it before. So, yeah, where I can sometimes find this setup frustrating and annoying because it doesn't fit the characters or it's just sort of weak, I thought it was really strong here

(As a sidenote: I'm not necessarily mad at Kan, but really really curious about what's going on with her, so that's another nice piece of writing for me personally. I'm not saying she's not out of line, but she's so mysterious that, yeah, I'm just SO damn curious more than anything)

I can also go either way on the 'poor person rejects rich person's money out of pride, etc.' trope. But, again, I thought it worked perfectly here! There were a couple of other posts that went over why it made sense for them, and it definitely worked for me too. Peach is still very emotionally raw, he believes his friend—his family—has been lying to him all along, probably using the money to assuage his guilt, and now this attorney says he's there on Home's behalf, so he's reacting emotionally on some level. (I mean, we see him not long after sobbing on the bathroom floor) He feels used and betrayed and the money—even for the work he's already done—symbolises that to him. 

So, yeah, like a lot of the writing in the show, his rejection of return of the money is symbolic of severing ties with Home and rejecting what he sees as corrupt ideals, or whatever. He wants Home to know, without a doubt, that he wants nothing more to do with him. And, because Peach thinks Home cares more about money than anything else (and has good reason to believe so), this feels like a 'hit 'em where it hurts' thing to me too? 

But, yeah, sometimes I hate this trope, but it worked well for me here as well because of the way it was written

Anyway, I'm repeating what others have said, and I don't know where I'm going with this, but, in conclusion, I'm finding the writing SO satisfying. I could probably do a breakdown of every ep, but I won't because I'm lazy and also just parroting what's been said already haha

[mikuni14]

Takara's Treasure - Ep 4

I admit that I watch Takara's Treasure with morbid fascination 😆 I don't vibe with this romance at all, I watch it like a scientist wondering what will happen and how the show will handle this relationship.

I read with interest the opinions about Taishin from people who explained his behavior and respectfully, but I disagree. (I would like to emphasize the word respectfully just in case 😘). First of all, I fully accept that I may be misreading this character because I may have a completely different background and character than those who understand him. That being said, I think the problem with Taishi lies largely in the script. First of all I think Taishi would be more believable in this story if he were YOUNGER. Second, the script is not consistent in showing his character, because sorry, but either you create a completely clueless person who is clueless about everything, or you make this character innocent, naive, or having difficulty "reading" people and themselves, and it applies to everything. Taishin correctly recognized the threat in the form of his stalker and correctly called for help, just as he correctly recognized the figure on the roof as someone who might want to commit suicide, rather than just standing and gazing at the clouds. Going out involves panic about what to wear, which is 100% just the behavior of an ordinary person. Somehow he got into college, and if I'm not mistaken, in Tokyo (?), so I assume he's a good student, which means he must have had some education. At the same time, the series portrays him as someone who is so clueless that someone else has to silence him so he doesn't sound "weird" (???), someone who has been still wondering about the concept of people being attracted to someone of the same sex, and is completely unable to connect the dots between how he panicked when someone invaded his space and him invading someone else's space by rummaging through their bag (edit: I forgot the most important thing, which is him interpretating of his feelings towards Takara, which the series shows as both comedic and romantic). For me it just doesn't add up.

We've already had characters in BLs who are clueless, uninterested in love, characters who are just figuring out what's happening to them, what this new feeling, new state, new reactions of their bodies are - including people in college. But these characters were consistent, their behavior was logical, and above all, it didn't make them stupid and problematic at times (I feel like if Taishin was not a sweet uke, but a macho guy, and Takara was a cute, petite girl, the reaction to him , his stalking behavior and "weirdness" would certainly be different). Ae from LBC analyzed his new feelings, consulted with his friend, Chu Sang Wu from Semantic Error had a whole meltdown because of his new, unknown feelings, Mork from My Ride was also confused about his feelings for a guy, in many other series the characters were surprised with their often new, anxiety-provoking, unknown feelings, they panicked, analyzed them, discussed them. But in each of these cases everything was logical. And series still can keep as much as possible that the characters are clueless and "do not fit into generally accepted norms" (that's why so many viewers identified with Ae - many called him our demi king ^^ and Chu Sang Wu as a neurodivergent character, or with Mork and him discovering his bisexuality as a grown man).

tl;dr imho Taishin should be clueless in all social situations, not just the select ones that fit the script. And he really should stop his stalking, strange actions and rummaging through people's things (and.. it's actually getting worse! and it's presented as funny, cute and romantic!). There are limits, and quite often legal limits to finding out something about your crush (in Chery Magic, Adachi/Achi had no idea that he was someone's object of affection and that that person knew almost everything about him, because his boundaries and right to privacy were never violated). Sorry to all Taishin fans but for me what Taishi does and what he says is not romantic or cute in any way 🤷‍♀️