#why does no one ever think of Triage?

[absolutebl]

Heyo! I have a friend I'm trying to get more into BL. She's watched KinnPorsche and I recently got her to watch 3 Will Be Free (I know, not BL). She's somewhat picky about the romance she likes to consume, so I thought I'd ask you which BLs you think would be best to get her started with the genre. Her specifications are 1) a good, solid plot (any type is fine); 2) slow burn; 3) and good chemistry. She also loves sci fi and fantasy. My initial thoughts are MoD, Not Me, and AToTS. Any additions?

BLs with: 1 Good Story, 2 Slow Burn, 3 Good Chemistry, 4 PNR elements if possible

I have not one specific list for you, but several! Many of these not updated so likely to recommend pre the 2023 madness. (Imma rag on some of your choices briefly: KP & MoD only satisfy one criteria - chemistry IMHO.

I did give you a final list of winners at the bottom tho!

1) BLs with the best stories:

2) BLs with best slow burn:

3) BLs with the best chemistry:

(by my definition)

4) PNR BLs (paranormal, sci-fi, or fantastical elements)

P'ABL did the math:

BLs that do or should show up on most of those lists:

Dear Doctor I’m Coming for Soul (Thailand) - the first one I thought of that satisfies all criteria. Good story, great chemistry, PNR & slow burn. By your friend's accounting, this should be the perfect BL. I'm a fan of this show and I have a full review here BUT I don't actually rec it often. Why? My quibble with DDICFS is that for dyed-in-the-wool BL or romance fans the ending may not satisfy, BUT that seems to be the one thing your friend is NOT - so this should be perfect.

Triage (Thailand) - good chemistry, frustratingly slow burn, def PNR, and good story. This was my second pull. It suffered at the time of airing from distribution issues and (perhaps more sadly) being up against KP. It's really good tho. A “correct the past” Groundhog Day plot, that has narrative baggage I normally do not like but is so clever about time loops, I have to forgive it my hang-ups. About a doctor who must save a boy to fix reality, but not in the usual way. 

Until We Meet Again (Thailand) - GREAT story, decent chemistry, very PNR, but not slow burn. It’s a perfectly executed fated mates reincarnation plot, fantastic well-seeded twists & reveals, and the only BL I would love to see adapted by other countries or read professionally translated. 

Old Fashion Cupcake (Japan) - slow burn, great story & chemistry, no PNR. This is a deceptively simple office romance that actually has a lot to say about life, love, maturity, and pancakes. It’s charming but also deeply moving and loving in its exploration of what it means to give up, and how connection can bring with it second chances. It’s also beautifully filmed and acted. 

Seven Days (Japan) - slow burn, great romance plot, good chemistry, no PNR. This is a pitch perfect elegant little YA romance that stays completely true to its yaoi roots but neatly avoids all the flaws of the genre. The story is deceptively simple but allows for angst and miscommunication to develop with VERY good reason, and is almost worth studying because of that. As a romance, it is elegant. I can see why it got stolen adapted.

1000 Stars (Thailand) - solid romance, very slow burn, okay chemistry, no PNR. All BL is romantic, but not all BL is a modern romance in the literary sense of the term, but 1k* is just that, an absolutely glorious slow burn gay romance that nods at BL but isn’t behooven to it. It’s just a really well executed linear romance story.

HIStory 3: Trapped (Taiwan 2019 Viki) - not PNR and maybe not exactly slow burn but aces everything else. (This was MY KP when it aired.) Taiwan often struggles with story because their BLs aren’t always long enough to really get stuck in, Trapped is different. It has a baby murder investigation that promotes conflict between the leads, so the romantic tension is between plot and character, it’s so smart. The leads did a GREAT job of showcasing mature chemistry. The side dishes in this series are wonderful too. The main couple has an amorphous ending, but like with Dear Doctor, that shouldn't rank under these specific circumstances.

My School President (Thai 2023 YouTube) - great chemistry, very slow burn, okay story, no PNR BUT you have to like YA. I know not everyone does. This is very youthful. GMMTV gave us a classic high school set Thai BL with tropes like messy boys singing their feelings that made this one Love Sick for the modern age with all the gentle sweetness and pining ache, but none of the dated damaging tropes or issues. Yes, we’ve seen it all before, but I still ADORE this. And there is a lot to be said for the classics being executed perfectly. Who let my BL be this wholesome and funny? Possibly too slow burn for some, we wait many eps for that pay out, and Tin's pining is NOT quiet, but it defines dorky and earnest, so when the payout comes? Lovely.

About Youth (Taiwan 2022 Gaga) - exactly the same criteria as MSP just Taiwan's version. A truly lovely little coming of age high school BL with a classic YA low drama but high angst and an earnest depth. I didn’t even mind the singing, and that’s saying a lot. A weak seme/uke dynamic but tons of BL tropes (both rare in a high school setting but common for Taiwan) makes this one feel both sweet and colored by an almost real world queer authenticity and grit. Full review here.

See You After Quarantine? (Taiwan 2021 Viki) - it's short there isn't a ton of story development, but it's a nice nugget introduction to Taiwan's style. Great chemistry, def slow burn, and CUTE. This under-appreciated gem is Taiwan’s answer to Gameboys and is just as charming and adorable yet still quintessentially Taiwanese. It features a Japanese love interest and the cutest most confused disaster gay. Slow burn because the two have almost no actual screen time together and yet manage some truly amazing chemistry. How does Taiwan do it?

Why no KBL?

Fascinating but despite the fact that KBL tends to earn the highest ratings from me and occupies the most slots in my 10/10 BLs of all time, because they are so short they tend to fall... erm... short in the arena of story and slow burn. Also, until recently, not a lot of great chemistry.

So here are a few others I considered but ended up eliminating for not containing enough of your required elements:

He's Coming to Me (Thailand) - review here

Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding (Korea) - this has a 12th Night meet Cinderfella feel to it, plus some great story tricks like a plot that requires a historical setting (I love it when narrative elements are codependent). 

Our Dining Table - It’s a quiet & cozy little parable of found family alleviating loneliness. Possibly too slow for some but definitely high up there for me with the best of what Japan can do, it’s only flaw (if I dare say such a thing) is that it is not really “romantic.” Lovely & sweet but the romance beats are being used to build a family relationship, not just couple intimacy, it’s OK with me, but not totally BL.

DNA Says Love You (Taiwan) - full review here

Ghost Host Ghost House - if your friend likes horror and culture immersion this might be a winner. Boys shack up with ghosts and each other. The story is weak but everything else is on point and it has some of the best slow burn HOT chemistry ever to hit our screens. No... really. The THIRST is real.

Semantic Error (2022 Viki) - Simple story, no PNR, not slow burn, but for Korea it’s some of the best chemistry the traditional studios have ever managed. It is flawless BL. Truly, perfection for the genre. If your friend doesn't like this, BL is probubly not the right genre. Full review. 

Light on Me - def slow burn but story is a little weak and while there is chemistry, it's not really acted upon. Also v YA and a little stiff. I love this BL unreasonably.

KP not tagged to protect me from the fandom. Don't troll me and prove my point. Remember I can has ban hammer and am not afraid to use it.

(source)

[tossawary]

Everything surrounding Orihime's kidnapping in the Hueco Mundo arc of "Bleach" feels... weird and underwhelming to me. Like, I'm not fully certain what happened there. Did Ulquiorra hold those two random soul reaper escorts hostage until Orihime returned from saying her invisible goodbye, or was he just threatening her friends generally...?

The invisible goodbye thing has some interesting elements, but... I don't want to call Orihime a pushover for being threatened by genuinely scary people when she's feeling especially isolated, but it does seem to immediately and directly prove Urahara and others right when they said that Orihime is probably unsuited for the battlefield. Even medical / support people have to triage and improvise under fire and work within a greater structure! She (fairly!) does not like weighing lives!

(Though I do think that Urahara and others were very wrong to just tell Orihime to go away. She has no family! All she has left are her friends! And she's too self-sacrificing to ever willingly leave for her own sake! It would have been far better to keep her close and let her train for a medical / support position, so that she wouldn't get kidnapped like this (and would have had the confidence to work out some way to get around Aizen's weird mind games), when Ichigo is fucking notorious now for going apeshit if anything happens to even distant friends.)

When Ulquiorra first appeared in that space between worlds for an ambush, I was like, "OH SHIT, THAT'S COOL." This place is famously dangerous and if she and her escort disappear without a trace here, no one will know what happened. Perhaps Ulquiorra can destabilize whatever safety technology exists here and make it look like some mechanical failure. It's clever! (It also made me imagine Ulquiorra as some kind of deep sea leviathan, cleverly feeding on the plus souls and hollows passing over this trench, where the soul reapers don't think to look. Ulquiorra potentially first meeting Aizen by attempting to ambush him and swallow him whole in this inbetween place would be a great first encounter.)

And then Ulquiorra lets Orihime go to say a weird invisible goodbye? As part of Aizen's mind games to make the Gotei 13 think she left on her own and her feel like this kidnapping was partially her own choice? Unless Ulquiorra was holding those soul reapers hostage at this point in time, I'm really not sure why Orihime went along with this instead of trying to get help (besides her obvious feelings of isolation / depression + plot requires she be the damsel in distress to kick-start the Hueco Mundo arc). (There's REASONING, I'm just not fully persuaded by it.) It feels a little overcomplicated for me on Aizen's end, especially when I haven't yet seen it be paired with any other charisma or compelling persuasion from Aizen, this supposed master manipulator, when Orihime has plenty of buttons to press besides fear.

"Soul Society is broken and doesn't care for the poor people on the outside." "The Gotei 13 are corrupt and will ungratefully turn on people like Ichigo and Rukia as soon as they're no longer useful." "Hollows are people too, aren't they? And the soul reapers don't bother trying to help the people who need them most." "The Soul King is a threat to us all and I'm the only one who can stop him." There are so many lies and half-truths that Aizen could tell! This could be a point in time to showcase how he got so many people to follow him besides spiritual strength, and him being apparently nice to a vulnerable Orihime would be genuinely eerie given what we saw / know happened to Momo.

And this "making the Gotei 13 think that Orihime left of her own choice" story decision could work if Aizen had done more to frame her! But the fact that the Captain Commander immediately makes this assumption with so little evidence makes him look incompetent, when there are so many people who could immediately vouch for her and for the fact that it's way more likely she's been forced into something bad. Of course, maybe the story's point is to make the Captain Commander look bad at reading situations! Rather than simply ruthless for dismissing Orihime as lost and irrelevant. That gets a slight pass, I guess, but it's really such a wild and insulting and unnecessary assumption.

I think what I would have preferred to happen is OPTION 1) Aizen or underling kidnaps Tatsuki first and uses Tatsuki to get to Orihime.

This would bring Tatsuki fully into this arc instead of sidelining her again. It would be a nice culmination to the secrecy straining her friendships with both Ichigo and Orihime, and a nice bop to Ichigo's nose for trying to protect everyone on his own and his utter failure communicating danger to his friends and family. We could have a lot of fun stuff with Orihime and Tatsuki trying to survive together in this place. It would give Orihime some fucking motivation that isn't just "trying to help Ichigo". It would allow Orihime to find her strength by protecting the friend she has always viewed as being tougher and more confident. I need more women in this show who aren't made of relentless boob jokes.

OPTION 2) I would have preferred it if Aizen had found some way to locate Orihime's brother, Sora, and kidnapped him from Soul Society to use against her.

Aizen is supposedly a genius. It would track with the rest of the story if he could invent this technology. It would make the Gotei 13 look really bad if they have a way of helping families reconnect in the afterlife and just don't bother; and it would look really bad for them if Soul Society had utterly failed to be a safe place for Orihime's loved one. If Aizen is interested in Orihime's powers, he would probably be interested in seeing if her brother has any similar potential.

Option 2a is that Sora could be a regular plus soul and remembers Orihime. Aizen could have been experimenting on him and could be threatening to continue experimenting on Sora. Maybe being a regular plus soul in Hueco Mundo without the protection of a soul reaper's cultivation energy is dangerous. The air is toxic to him. He'll undergo hollowficafion again without special medicine from Aizen / Aizen's experiments keeping him as a normal plus soul, and he's terrified of becoming that monster again. Aizen coaxes Orihime to help him by claiming he's trying to find a way to cure hollowfication forever, so that Sora will be safe.

Option 2b is that Sora has no memories of Orihime or they've been suppressed, and Aizen has turned Sora into an Arrancar. Aizen claims that Sora was left vulnerable and starving on the outskirts of the Soul Society, abandoned to become a hollow again, or attacked by a hollow and transformed. Aizen has now used the Hogyoku to take Sora back to a mostly human state and given him Arrancar powers to "protect himself". Sora is grateful to Aizen for having saved him and as loyal as Ulquiorra. Aizen asks Orihime if she's prepared to fight her own brother. Doesn't she want to help him help Sora?

Honestly, I dig Ulquiorra so far and I'd like to keep him (he and Sora could have a weird not-twins thing going on), but you could totally replace his role in the story with Arrancar Sora and then put Orihime through the ringer torn between Ichigo and Sora. It feels so, SO weird to me that Orihime's dead brother never comes up again in this show about dead people and the story barely treats it as relevant.

OPTION 3) is that you bring both Tatsuki and Sora into it! Why not? Have amnesiac Arrancar Sora kidnap Tatsuki while Ulquiorra ambushes Orihime! Have Aizen threatening to turn both Tatsuki and plus soul Sora into hollows if Orihime doesn't cooperate!

I am feeling desperate for Orihime to have anything in her life again that is not her love for Ichigo. They don't have chemistry! The story is not taking the time to develop chemistry and bonding and partnership between them! Ichigo barely seems to remember she exists half the time.

Side note: I can barely fucking believe that Ichigo went off to train with the Visored without telling his family that he was leaving or where he would be. That's not a great sign for good mental health or healthy relationships! Which is probably (hopefully) the point! He could be dead in any alleyway for all his baby sisters know. That's not good big brother behavior! Ichigo has a real problem with not trusting anyone else to protect everyone (not without reason!), including not trusting his loved ones to protect themselves, and I'm not certain yet whether or not the story actually thinks this is a real problem and intends to have Ichigo fix his communication bullshit.

There is so much good, bloody material here if the story was genuinely willing to dig into the mess and make it hurt good. Instead, I'm watching Nel and her little hollow buddies do their fairly repetitive hijinks and Ichigo fight random nobodies who will not be meaningful to the story later. When Rukia finally ran into Aaroneiro pretending to be Kaien, I was like, "Oh, thank fuck, something with SOME emotional weight and compelling psychological turmoil again."

[variousqueerthings]

thing about rose, for me, is that she wasn't there first -- this in a "she was first in nu!who in the sense that this was the first person to travel with nine, and the first person since the timewar, and the last person that nine was with, to the point that ten was born out of that experience/modelled on her."

and in that framing, I am a big fan of her haunting of the narrative, because it start outs with her placing herself inside the doctor's ribcage and rebooting their ability to want to feel things, but unfortunately rose is still a human, like every human the doctor travelled with before, it's just that the doctor forgot how to steel themself against that inevitability because of the circumstances around meeting rose

this is The thing that I find tragic about martha, because I think she could have been that person, if she'd been the first person post-timewar to travel with the doctor, but because she's coming in during bleeding-heart times, she's got to deal with triage instead. and yes, there are wonders, and yes, there are good times, but for a lot of it, it's shrapnel, and I think if it hadn't been, she would have had a very different attitude towards *waves hands* space and time travel and aliens and the universe (one where she wouldn't be the person trusted with something like the osterhagen key)

and donna had a sense of that Space the doctor was in post-rose (she canonically stopped the doctor from dying in runaway bride) and stepped away from it, and didn't get back to the doctor until some of that hole-in-chest had been bandaged up, which martha did a great job of, but didn't get to really benefit from, and I think that's the sad thing about martha jones, is that she absolutely got a taste of the beauty and the splendor, but never without all the violence and heave weight that was put onto her

which, again, she seems to have been very aware of, considering she joined UNIT and Torchwood. her eyes were barely ever rose tinted (no pun here) during her whole journey in the story. martha really is in my opinion the most tragic companion (that I've met so far, I know Adric straight up dies, but maybe he had some fun times before that?), because yes, donna loses her memories and rose is in a parallel universe, but that's more tragic for the doctor -- they've both built lives

in donna's case there's probably a lot of imperfection in that life, but clearly a lot of joy as well, with her and her husband and her kid and her mum, and I'm sure she'd have preferred to be the donna who saw the universe and was splendid, but martha never gets to forget, and has to continue her life one step out of sync of everything she could have been

which, maybe her life is pretty flipping fantastic, but we really don't know, which is the biggest thing I side-eye about the first nu!who era. that whole weird ending with the sontaran and mickey is like... anti-character work, it answers nothing and it makes very little sense

all I know about her at the end is that she more than anyone saw the doctor's life and became a soldier (still a doctor as well, but...) because that was the work she saw needed doing, and she's the kind of person who does what needs doing. but is she... okay? youknow?

but going back to the original point, is that framing martha through the lens of rose is all well and good in the sense that rose is the reason the doctor is at that emotional point when he meets martha -- although donna absolutely had a very big hand in that as well -- but once we've established that, martha's arc is martha's arc, and it's dull to me to frame it as the "rebound" arc or even particularly about alloromanticism (including -- and this is why i get why people do it in fandom -- some shit said by rtd, which is just less interesting than what I get out of it, so shhhh)

she's got so much going on, and her relationship with the doctor changes the trajectory of her life, and it's in many ways a more interesting and far less straightforward trajectory of bad-to-better that many companions get -- it's a wonderfully complicated narrative that (and again, I get that some of this comes from within deliberate framings of the text, even though I think it's more than open enough to do more with, death of the author and all that -- but certainly not all of this is text either, some of it is ignoring what is actually there) is done a disservice by not going through the real messed up fascinating extraordinary shit that's going on during her era + arc in s4

but also... is she ok? I want to know. it's one of my top three burning questions, since we're getting a bit of best-ofs of the noughties DW era, some of your crimes can be righted by a simple bit of martha mr davies

[gusty-wind]

Mindy Robinson@AmericanAFMindy

The fact they are trying to raid Alex Jones over his questioning of Sandy Hook, means you should ABSOLUTELY start looking into Sandy Hook.

So many things did not add up with what the Feds were saying....but no one is allowed to question them because it's sensitive, like ever?

• How did the dead teacher's fingerprints get on the bullets on the inside of an unused magazine?

• Why didn't the DNA of the shooter and his mother match the DNA of their own crime scene?

• Why were articles and charity pages set up online the day before it happened?

• Why did so many people at the scene have their entire mortgages immediately paid off?

• Why was one of the fathers caught laughing and smiling right before the press conference?

• Why was the coroner so weird and off while giving his statement?

• Why did they ban the public release of autopsies for children a year earlier?

• Why does the drone footage show everyone walking in and out of the building, over and over in one giant circle through a crime scene?

• Why did their main witnesses keep changing their stories?

• Why wasn't there any triage being performed whatsoever on the day of?

• Why were the Feds and the press so obsessed with demonizing the mother as a "Prepper?"

Before you lay into me....I'm not saying what did or didn't happened. I'm saying why aren't we allowed to ask questions when authorities are this evasive and combative about the truth?

How many weird things happened in Uvalde that they simply refuse to ever answer or address? Or any mass shooter that was "previously known to Feds" for making threats, but then they're too busy going after MAGA grandmas that were at the Capitol?

I did a full length documentary exposing the insane Las Vegas shooting cover up....which they also suspiciously swept under the rug after only 2 weeks, because so many holes were forming in their story. That doesn't mean it didn't happen...it means authorities aren't telling the truth.

You think a government that's willing to unroll a medical genocide on our dime with an illegally made virus by a foreign enemy and an untested vax they lied their asses off about, or try to start WW3 by blowing up a pipeline, or kill 3,000 of us in one day to hide the money the Pentagon lost, push the Patriot Act through, and start a lucrative war in the Middle East over imaginary weapons of mass destruction....isn't being deceptive about all these mass shootings?

Their plan is to just....make it illegal to even question them, and then crucify anyone that does? Yea, because that's what innocent people do...

Watch my doc, and you tell me what these people are capable of.

[night-unfurls-its-splendour]

I have finished reading Phantom of the Opera.

Of course what I have most been looking forward to on my first reading is an in-depth comparison between the book and the musical, specifically how Lloyd Webber, managed his tweaks to alter a macabre gothic detective fiction into high romance with erotic undertones.

The most obvious changes are to the man himself, and I don't just mean his deformity which for book!Erik is total. Musical!Erik gets off relatively easy in comparison, the disfigurement touches only his face (and he even has a nose, of which Book!Erik is no doubt exceedingly jealous) and thus seems not to remove Erik wholly from the realm of humanity, even in his own eyes. He sings to Christine of learning to "see the man behind the monster", while in the book, Erik sees himself as a being "made up from head to toe of death."

Webber spares Musical!Erik somewhat to make him a viable romantic option; what I find most interesting is the character triage.

One can perhaps sum up the difference in characterization between Book!Erik and Musical!Erik as the difference between Derangement and Desperation.

Though both OG's are geniuses in the regards of Music, mechanics, illusion, and architecture, musical!Erik is also a man of learning; Madame Giry calls him a scholar. Book!Erik... less so. He is never mentioned to be particularly learned, and even his handwriting is disjointed and childish. He is also highly petulant--infantile, even--and displays that horrific childishness found often in the true psychopaths of history.

While Musical!Erik does not hesitate to use violence, Book!Erik simply does not care. Erik of the Musical never explicitly threatens Raoul's life until the Final Lair, so Christine's insistence on their flight to the rooftop following the Il Muto incident appears to be an assumption of danger on her part (well reasoned assumption, given that the Phantom has just dropped a body onto the stage, but nevertheless). In the book it is more implicit (though not explicit) that Erik has indicated that Raoul will come to serious harm if his flirtation continues, and Erik is not simply satisfied to torture Raoul almost to death, he is gruesomely gleeful with it, and the Persian details how he delights childishly to show off his methods of murder.

Even Christine, whom he worships is not spared. When she removes his mask in the musical, she is thrust away, chased and cursed at, while in the book he does all this and manhandles her and pulls her hair. Musical!Erik never resorts to violent touches with Christine until the Final Lair, and then he is indignant at the insinuation that he would ever physically hurt Christine ("Monsieur, I bid you welcome! Did you think that I would harm her?") Though it must be said that if Erik, at this point in the story was not mad before, he certainly is now, and madmen generally have very bad perceptions of what constitutes "harm"--but for our purposes let's assume that he is still short of causing permanent or fatal damage to her person.

By the Persian's account we understand that Erik of the book sees himself as inhuman (both super and sub) and it is this visual disconnect from the rest of the race and from sympathetic human intercourse that is the root of his contempt and lack of remorse. Even when presented with Christine's compassion he finds himself so miserable that he would rather just die.

Book!Erik was well into manhood before he came across a single being that could resemble a friend; Musical!Erik (though only in the film, not in the play) is spared this utter lack of human sympathy in the form of young miss Giry assisting his escape at a more formative age. Though retroactive, this may explain why Musical!Erik seems to go through the story with a desperate hope for Christine's love, rather than the nihilistic entitlement of Book!Erik. He spirals slowly toward demands with the object of his affection, rather than demanding outright early on as in the book ("Christine, you must love me!").

Musical!Erik does appear to be something of a romantic idealist, and takes great care to make himself as attractive as he possibly can for Christine (see the iconic hair-slick for more details) while serenading her with and about the thing he knows their souls might connect over: music itself. He casts himself in the role of Music, and romances her with it.

Book!Erik, bowing and scraping and wailing and pleading, cursing himself and gnashing his teeth on the floor at her feet is... shall we say less studied in the art of tactful wooing. For all his insistence of worshipful humility, though, and his protestations of wishing to have "A life like everyone else, with a wife like everyone else!" [I would delight to see a musical horror-comedy adaptation that takes advantage of that little rhyme] he treats Christine less as a muse or a goddess and more as a slave to Music and his whims.

Let us turn our attention now to Christine, for whom there are also significant changes but the important ones are more subtle, and take Christine's conflict from a question of sympathy for the damned vs love for the pure to one of love for the forbidden vs the love of the upright.

Firstly, Christine of the Musical finds herself with a rather different backstory. Her origins, the daughter of a famed Swedish violinist of humble origin and her girlhood acquaintance with Raoul are intact, but the context is vastly different.

Book!Christine was six when her mother died and her father took her on the road to seek his fortune through music. They were taken in by wealthy benefactors by the name of Valerius and provided a summer house in Brittany where Christine first crossed paths with the pure-hearted little Raoul. It makes absolute sense with this level of intimacy shared between them at the crucial age of, early adolesence that despite their separation by class (which is somewhat bridged by the presence of a wealthy benefactress who is as good as a mother to Christine) that they should lose their hearts utterly and forever to each other. Especially considering their meeting three years later while Christine's father lay near death, and she certainly in her teenage years (Raoul is a "young man"). Christine then enters the Conservatoire, and scrapes through despite the deadness in her voice which she's carried since her father's death. At the beginning of the story's events, Christine is 21 (by context clues) and it is only three months since she has been under the tutelage of her "good genius" the Angel of Music.

Though Christine's age is never explicitly stated in the Musical, Sir Andrew began reworking her backstory by making her truly quite alone in the world, with no benefactress and no apparent guardian of any kind. She is not a graduate of the conservatoire and is a mere ballet dancer and chorus girl. The details of her childhood connection to Raoul are glossed over almost entirely, except that they met at the age of fourteen (going under the assumption that Raoul and Christine are the same age) when he retrieved her scarf from the sea as in the book, and their shared picnics in the attic. The term of her tutelage is never explicitly stated either, but it can be inferred to be at least as long as Carlotta's unfortunate mishaps (calculated to drive the diva off) have been befalling her: about three years. This shifts the position of Christine's rival's rather significantly, putting the Angel of Music a mite higher with the length of their intimate communication, while Raoul sits further back with just one summer at age fourteen.

The movie adaptation only doubles down on this shift. Christine is orphaned much earlier, at the age of seven, and taken into the care of Madame Giry, who appears to act as her guardian, bringing her to the Opera Populaire at that age. This cinematic backstory goes further with added dialogue in which Christine's "great tutor" (changed from "new tutor" in the play) is revealed by her to Meg Giry to have been contacting her since she first came to the opera. This means that her bond with the Angel of Music (and thus with Erik) is of some nine or ten years standing.

Of course the end result is the same as the book: the Phantom, moved by Christine's compassion, abandons his suit and allows Christine to leave with Raoul. In the book Erik gives Christine his ring to keep until she returns to bury his remains, in the musical, she gives him his ring back (and in the movie this ring is actually the same one Raoul gave her which is lame and stupid and I hates product placement precious). Fortunately Musical!Erik seems to still be chugging along with that resilient hope--he disappears at the end of the Musical, rather than letting himself starve to death.

The journey to that outcome though is interesting, I think.

Christine of the book (blond-haired and blue-eyed) is dreamy and credulous and, having been raised by a very odd father and an old woman given to fancy, (by Raoul's reckoning) the perfect victim for a deception such as the Angel of Music. Her ecstatic devotion to the Angel is twofold what it is in the musical, but then so is her terror of the hideous maniac. Yet he confesses that despite her horror of him, she still pities his circumstances.

Musical!Christine (brunette) is even more confusing, and this is perhaps ALW falling at cross-purposes with his tale of romance and the source material. It's been fairly clear to me that ALW cherishes some strong ErikxChristine sentiments, given the sexual subtext he layered throughout the musical, but that would have been a big step to take. She nevertheless finds herself still somewhat doe-eyed and dreamy, though in the film this credulousness and oddity is never stressed. In fact by Meg's line "Christine you're talking in riddles, and it's not like you!" it seems we're meant to understand that Christine, though imaginative is quite level-headed.

Musical!Christine's rather enchanted stay in Erik's lair (and she is certainly enchanted by his crooning advances) begins with her ecstatic entreaty for the Angel to show himself. She takes his hand and follows him to his lair (though timidly) of her own volition, but it is abruptly interrupted by his violent reaction to her curiously snatching away his mask. And yet she seems to do this only out of a desire to know her mysterious tutor that much better. The movie even has her take the mask off very gently after touching his face, while in the Musical, it is snatched from behind.

Book!Christine's stay is less charmed. She is taken by trickery, faints and must be carried on horseback through the tunnels. She is terrified of her captor through the whole of her stay (not just one night but two whole weeks). Her motivation to steal his mask is not one of innocent (if somewhat selfish) curiosity, but of morbid fascination. At no point does her sympathy overshadow her terror, which can at least be said for Musical!Christine: her terror on the rooftop is quelled by the memory of Erik's gentle song making her "soul begin to soar" (and I find it notable that Raoul interrupts here to begin wooing her, not when she was talking about her fear.)

Perhaps the most fascinating (and dissapointing) aspect of Book!Christine for me, though is her confrontation with Raoul after the masquerade. He insists that her private affairs concern him (because he is in love with her). She actually asserts some kind of agency, by refusing to acknowledge that he has any right to try and protect her.

"...what I am not certain of, Madame, is that the man Christine loves is worthy of her love!"

"It is for me to be the judge of that, monsieur!" said Christine looking Raoul angrily in the face.

"When a man," continued Raoul, "adopts such romantic methods to entice a young girl's affections..."

"The man must be a villain, or the girl a fool: is that it?"

"Christine!"

"Raoul, why do you condemn a man whom you have never seen, whom no one knows, and of whom you yourself know nothing?"

I was positively admiring of Christine's backbone here--would that she of the Musical had anything like it! Unfortunately her vehement agency is not serving of the narrative. She of course is so because she is terrified to be otherwise. (It does provide some lovely character fodder for fics which might put it to sexier, more Erik-positive uses though.)

Raoul is perhaps the least changed of all the principle characters. His family arrangement is somewhat different from the Musical; he is notably the Vicomte under his elder brother Philippe the Comte, who, 20 years older than he, practically raised him. Though an upstanding young man, Book!Raoul is not exactly the picture of a hero. He's described rather delicately, femininely, even, and is always stressed to be quite innocent and pure of heart.

Webber beefs him up a bit, makes him rather dashing and heroic (even having him best the Phantom in a duel in the movie--which I will grudingly admit is the most realistic outcome of that face-off, based on the characterization-- Book! Raoul is winning no duels against anyone, i fear). Perhaps the greatest difference between Book!Raoul and Musical!Raoul is that musical!Raoul has a great deal more mettle (every useful effort to save Christine in the book comes on behalf of the Persian), and is so incredulous as to brush off Christine's fears of the Opera Ghost as dreams and dark fancies which are the byproducts of her superstitious northern upbringing. Book!Raoul, though very much focused on what impacts his own sense of insecurity, is at least able to figure out that the lack of an "Angel" does not necessarily mean the lack of a mysterious tutor.

The time line also fascinates. This is perhaps the greatest difference between Book and Musical (and it, again, is further tweaked for the movie). The scene at Father Daaé's grave where Christine is enraptured by the Angel, for example takes place quite early in the book, while in the Musical is as a third-act setpiece which really makes one question if Christine isn't wavering a little bit (particularly in the film, where it happens before her attestation of terror should the Phantom get her in his clutches again).

Musical!Christine spends much of the story fairly safe from those clutches, engaged to Raoul, while Book!Christine is never free from looking over her shoulder. Her engagement to Raoul is a sort of game they play (they are several times referred to by Leroux as "Children").

The Masquerade is almost inverted in the musical. In the book, this marks Christine and Raoul's first meeting following Erik's allowing her to leave his subterranean lake house. In the Musical, it marks her reunion with Erik following an uninterrupted (though secret) courtship/engagement with Raoul of six (in the movie, three) months. It is also notable that this reunion immediately precipitates her little trip to the graveyard.

I did garner several wonderful little morsels to sprinkle through my fic, (one of which matched up with shocking synchronicity to a detail which I had already written before reading the book!)

One of my favorite parts is how all throughout the opera house is described as being Erik's empire. It is also, by Raoul called Christine's empire, as she takes him through the building and shows all of its secrets that she knows, and the fact that she seems to know everyone in it from the youngest ballerina to the oldest of the poor door-shutters (elderly scene-shifters and stage hands too aged to be of other useful employment than closing all the doors to prevent draughts, but who could not afford to leave the opera for lack of anywhere else to live) and talks to each of them as a good queen might hear her subjects. It's a beautiful piece of characterisation I wish had been somehow represented in the musical.

[squigglyoctosquigglez]

assinging each cpds member a milgram song (except Undercover. no one is Es here. except maybe Lucy. yeah Lucy is Es now she gives the verdicts for each of their murders-)

for those who don't know, milgram is a fictional music project that involves a prison that hold 10 prisoners, each had been the sole cause of someones death (not just murder) and the only real clues to their "sin" is through songs !! there's also es they're the prison warden

i got this idea at like 10 pm today in my timezone, i say random ass shit here too please dont judge im tired

chris - Throw Down (uhh reading the lyrics chris is the kind to like really care but hes just done with everyone), Triage (he does not want to be deemed INNOCENT [he's still getting voted innocent])

dennis - After Pain ("“I’m sorry” won’t reach anyone (I hope it will someday) " dennis seems like the kind of kid to be bullied in school), Magic (dennis is at heart, childish. and also probably had shit parents. nothing wrong with the first one, everything wrong with the second one), The Purge March (eh hes probably not in a cult but like still he follows orders a bit too much to order idk how to explain it he remembers everything exactly except his own lines so like)

robert - half (kazui literally starts preforming an opera in the mv for this, anyways uhhh denise), It's Not My Fault (its literally in the name), Cat ("Love (plus) Destiny = Crap, smash it, shatter it, bye-bye / That sticky-sweet sequence: Dinner + Camouflage + You-Know-What / Loving Affection (minus) Love, it’s tacky, this two-way deceit / Victim and Perpetrator, let’s keep it simple" continuing half "Phew, oh wow I’m drunk, Hey, so what if I said I liked-liked you, what would you do?" this song is so painfully robert its insane idk why also kazui (prisoner singing the song) eats a fucking dove in the mv btw do with that info what you want idk)

sandra - MeMe (i have no actual reason for this just take my word for this one), It's Not My Fault (datte datte warekurai mon-), I Love You / Daisuki (see max's description) (im sorry there's still like 1 trial left, idk there's only like 20 songs)

max - This is how to be in love with you (title speaks for itself, max is a very loving person! sometimes too loving… like mahiru (prisoner singing the song) i think they would get along actually), I Love You / Daisuki (this song goes too hard to have that title, anyways Mon-mon-monstrously in love in love / Mon-mon-monstrous, cuz I love you so much / Mon-mon-monstrously in love in love / A monstrous dilemma!!!) (someone protect him)

johnathan - Weakness (idfk "ahHaHA, Please notice me. ahHaHA, Someone please notice me."), All-Knowing And All-Agony (probaby was neglected as a child or something idk now he indirectly relys on robert please dont listen to me im jsut spouting random shit atp im tired its 11 pmg now)

vanessa - Umbilical (i actually have no good reason for this), Tear Drop (i dont think she wants to be voted innocent for her murder [news flash, shes still getting voted innocent]), Double (or not innocent! idk man shes not mikoto (prisoner singing the song) but i gotta give his songs to someone and she kinda fits)

annie - HARROW (annie and trevor are similar in goals, to take down sin and make them pay for what they've done. however they do it in two different ways. idk those two different ways probably direct death threats (trevor) and an indirect slow death (annie). i have no fucking clue what im talking about actually), Deep Cover ("Don’t you dare stop now I want a reason for judgment execution, I want it" idk what kotoko (prisoner singing the song) ment by this but uhh do what you want with that)

trevor - Bring It On (see HARROW), Backdraft (LISTEN TO THE SONG ITS A FUCKING BANGER- anyways i have no reason for this than this connects with bring it on Burn, burn! An ever-victorious FIRE, burn so high till it becomes ash / Burn, burn! Deliciously scorched, till your mouth waters / Flames closing in, can’t douse this FIRE)

[fiercynn]

so @manogirl, @inventedfangirling, and @sharingfandoms all tagged me in the thai ql favorites tag game (thanks friends!), and i wasn't sure if i had enough to say about shows other than bad buddy to do it, but i figure you can't ever talk about bbs too much amirite

favorite thai ql: yeah so it's bad buddy, surprise surprise. i watched it all in the course of like 36 hours in february 2022, not long after it had ended, and it has been thoroughly stuck in my soul ever since. i've watched it so many times and in so many pieces that i couldn't even guess at a number. i've posted...uh...200k words of bad buddy fic in the past year and half? the obsession is real. it's just such a perfect mix of antagonistic and silly and tense and sweet and heartbreaking and healing that i keep going back to it over over. i love its narrative arc, and i love its little details, and i love all the ways we get to keep reinterpreting it over and over in fanworks. and i love the people i've met in the fandom, which is really hard to separate from the show! i've made really close and awesome friends here, which seems extremely fitting tbh. so yeah anyway i like that show a lot

favorite pairing: seems obvious given my previous answer, but patpran, followed closely by inkpa! idk i just think they're both neat and extremely in love

most underrated actor: JENNIE PANHAN I NEED HER IN EVERYTHING OKAY

favorite character: parakul siridechawat. he's just so in love you guys, even when (he thinks) it's hopeless. i love a character who pines. my sexuality is pining actually and pran's might be too (jk i love pran for many many many reasons but this is the one i felt like talking about today)

favorite side character: i think it has to be a tie between mae from 3wbf and longtae from a tale of thousand stars...two very different characters! i love mae in all her complexity, her efforts to be good and kind and empathetic that are interrupted by the death of the one person who was good and kind and empathetic towards her, and her search for revenge once he's gone, and then her ultimate realization that she needs to stop the cycle of violence even if it takes one more act of violence herself. meanwhile i love longtae because he is sweet and funny and adorable and such a good friend to literally everyone in pha phun dao and also it's khao, how could i not?

favorite scene in a ql: so if i type the letter "y" in my browser, the first search result is the youtube link to bad buddy episode 5 part 4/4. does that answer your question

favorite line in a ql: i thought i was going to struggle with this one but it came to me instantly: uncle tong from bad buddy saying, "you might think one man can't change the world. but i want you to know that this world can't change someone like me either." have i mentioned i am both queer and work in climate activism for a living

most anticipated ql (& why): 23.5 degrees the series!!!! i was already one million percent there for milklove but the recent confirmation of viewjune is just like the icingest of icing on the cake. i'm so fucking stoked you guys

i'm sorry i'm not going to answer the question on guilty pleasure series because like @manogirl i do not believe in the concept, nor the ones on healthiest vs. toxic relationships because i simply do not feel like it <3

most underrated series: hmm, most of the thai ql series i've seen are too well-known/watched to count for this. like would we call gap the series underrated? probably not, right? maybe...triage? but i personally felt like triage got pretty uneven in the second half...idk this is the problem with having mostly stuck to gmmtv huh

i really have not kept good track of who has done this meme already so ummmm @citystoryscapes @mahuhumaling @melto @mousieta @incandescentflower @galauvant @dancing-out-in-space

[dixieconley]

My clone OCs, pt 1

All about Triage and Deece (Corries, medic and shiny respectively).

How did they get their name? Was it given to them, or did they choose it? Both chose theirs. Deece's is a dick joke. He thought it was funny. Triage chose a medical themed name because he's a medic. He's good at triage, which is ironic, because he's ended up on Coruscant where they can't treat anything.

How do they paint their armor? Why did they choose that design? Same Corrie red design as everyone else, with a medic sigil for Triage.

What kinds of scars do they have? How did they earn their first one? Deece doesn't while Triage has none he'll admit to.

How do they react to the loss of a sibling they were close to? Deece's bounce went out of him when his batch stopped responding once he got to Coruscant. He gets a little less bouncy every day he's on Triple Zero. Triage made a stone out of his heart.

Do they have plans or dreams for after the war? If so, what? Deece would like to try porn and food shaped as phallic symbols. He's innocently curious about everything. Triage doesn't believe in the end of the war.

Do they have any tattoos or piercings? If so, what? When did they get them, and why? Deece has a penis shaped nose ring. He was dared to do it by his batchmates. It's his one good memory of them. Triage has none.

Are they a good liar? What's the biggest lie they've told, and did they get away with it? Deece would be a terrible liar, knows it and wouldn't lie anyway. The way he acts when he doesn't want to say something would give it away regardless. Triage would be an excellent liar, but doesn't bother.

What's the most difficult campaign or mission they've been on? Was it a success? For Deece, just being on 000. For Triage, getting Fox to practice any form of self-care. Both are somewhat successful.

What's their greatest fear? How would they react to encountering it? Deece is afraid of lots of little things and wouldn't be able to name one big fear. He's pure sunshine up until something trips him up and then he's a ball of anxiety. Triage won't admit to any, having ruthlessly buried them under an attitude of general irritation shortly after seeing his first cadet die on the table while still on Kamino

Is there someone they look up to? Is it someone they know personally? Why do they look up to that person? Deece looks up to Fox, who's the bravest bestest, smartest commander in the whole wide galaxy who you never ever want to cross and who can do anything. Triage also respects Fox, but because Fox just won't die and that's impressive given what Fox has gone through.

What's their proudest moment? For Deece, successfully running a personal errand for Fox. For Triage, improvising a working treatment for Fox's out-of-whack brain chemistry using drugs from the lower levels.

What's an embarrassing moment they still remember years later? Deece still blushes thinking about the time when he not only told a natborn female about his nose ring but also asked her if they made candy versions. Triage would never admit to embarrassment even if such a thing had hypothetically occurred.

What kinds of non-ration foods have they tried? What's their favorite? Deece has tried sugar cubes. The Senate keeps loads of them in their break rooms and it's easy to sneak one or two as long as only one trooper does it and it's only once every week or so. Most of them have tried them now and they're considered quite the treat. Triage has tried a number of items from the lower levels in the process of finding replacements for the medical items they don't have. He didn't find any of them edible. The Corries also supplement their meager rations with easily grown items like fungi and any vermin that don't go toward feeding the massiffs. The sugar cubes win hands down.

How often do they end up in medbay? Are they a good patient, or a pain to treat? Deece goes for required check-ups and to visit vod'e. He's a good patient, if a little excitable. Triage is a medic, so he's always in the medbay. He thinks of himself as a pain to treat, because if he needs treatment, then that means his job isn't getting done.

Do they like their Commander/General? Why or why not? Deece worships Fox. Triage would refuse to admit one way or the other, but despite how aggravating it is to take care of someone who doesn't want to be taken care of, he respects Fox and wants to keep him sane and in one piece.

What does their genuine laugh sound like? Is it a loud cackle, or more of a deep chuckle? Deece has a tenor chuckle, but giggles and tee hees as well. When he grows up a little, he'll have an appealing laugh. Triage doesn't laugh.

Would they ever want to own a pet? What kind? What would they name it? Deece timeshares the Guard's tookas and makes time to scritch the massiffs whenever he can. According to everyone who's learned his name, he shouldn't be allowed to name anything ever. Triage vehemently protests wanting a pet and lists all the reasons he could never take care of one, but one of the tookas comes to sleep on him regularly and he calls them Alor'ika.

How closely do they follow rules/regulations? Deece adheres to them right up to the point where they fly out of his pretty little head; when he gets enthused, all thought disappears. It gets him into trouble. Triage learned the regs then promptly discarded them. And in the medbay, he *makes* the rules.

What are they best at? Shooting, flying, demolitions, etc.? Deece doesn't have a specialty yet. He's good with people, but puppyishly awkward, which is deadly on Coruscant, so Fox keeps him away from the Senate. Hound tried him with the massiffs, but Deece is incapable of projecting authority and they won't listen to him. Triage is a superb CMO.

If they collected something, what would it be? Deece collects dick related items. Triage collects headaches.

Would/Do they ever wear makeup? A lot or a little? Neither do.

What’s one thing they could infodump about for hours? Deece wouldn't be able to stick to a single topic for more than five minutes, but will happily chatter about anything and everything for as long as someone's willing. Triage would happily rant about Fox, taking care of Fox, primitive medical expedients and the overall wretched quality of medicine on 000.

[stormyoceans]

monica! i need your best slow burn pining recommendations, i feel like you're the right person to ask <3

TURNS OUT THIS WAS ACTUALLY A WAY HARDER QUESTION TO ANSWER THAN I EXPECTED AND IT SENT ME INTO A DEEP EXISTENTIAL CRISIS ;;;;;;;;;

the thing is. i feel like 'slow burn' is an extremely subjective concept. for example, the only criteria a lot of people take into consideration to define a story as slow burn is when the characters enter an official romantic relationship, but to me it's also a matter of the characters' awareness when it comes to their own feelings: i personally have a hard time labeling a story as slow burn if the characters are attracted to each other from the first episode, or if one of them is already in love with the other at the beginning of the show, even if it may take them the rest of it to officially get together. and on the other hand, just because the characters aren't attracted to each other right away that doesn't automatically make it a slow burn to me

if i went with my idea of slow burn, tho, this list would be REALLY SHORT (like.. probably only 3 series would fit that ;;;;;;;), so first and foremost i’ve tried to pick shows that i think are the closest to my personal view of what a slow burn is and that have a good balance between pining, awareness and official romantic status, but after that im also gonna give you some different options just to cover a bit more ground, so here we go!!!!!

CLOSEST TO MY IDEA OF SLOW BURN

a tale of thousand stars. what could i even say about this show that hasn’t already been said. it simply has everything: great story, great characters, great chemistry, great slow burn and tension and pining that will make you scream at your screen.

enchanté. this show isn’t half as bad as most people say it is and this is a hill im willing to die on. features one of the best childhood friends to lovers romances with levels of tension and pining that are honestly out of this world and that made me want to punch through a wall in multiple occasions, which is why im willing to put it in the slow burn section even if it’s obvious that both akk and theo are aware of their own feelings for the other since the beginning.

i told sunset about you. it’s hard for me to call a show with only 5 episodes a slow burn, and yet it still very much feels like one. i don’t talk much about itsay because it speaks to the queer experience in a way that hits a bit too close to home for me, but the chemistry and the tension are truly unparalleled (in this house we do not talk about i promised you the moon tho).

my ride. kind overworked doctor meets broken-hearted motorcycle taxi driver in one of the softest, sweetest, most underrated slow burn romances ever put on screen. i don’t really know what else to say except that this is one of my comfort show and that it never fails to make me feel all warm and fuzzy.

SOTUS. look.. im fully aware this show has its issues. aside from the hazing (which personally doesn’t bother me, but i know it can be triggering for other people), it belongs to a generation of BL where the concept of any other sexuality aside from straight and gay did not exist, so you will have to bear with now thankfully outdated tropes like ‘gay for you’ and a certain amount of sex negativity. despite all this, it still does many things right, including giving us an enemies to lovers slow burn romance that to this day no other BL can compare to.

triage. TIME LOOP + MEDICAL MURDER MYSTERY + SLOW BURN = A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN. i know this show isn’t for everyone – for some it’s too slow and complicated, for others there’s not enough romance – but it is made for me specifically and i will never stop recommending it.

the untamed. okay so.. i guess technically we can’t call this a BL because the show has been edulcorated by chinese censorship, but even if there are no kiss and no actual declaration of love in the series, this is still very much a romance, and it’s also the perfect example of what slow burn is to me: excruciating and with the power to reduce you to a rabies-ridded violent little gremlin.

vice versa. IM THE MOST PREDICTABLE WOMAN ON EARTH IM SORRY. and alright, this may be a little bit of a stretch because if i put vice versa here then it’s fair to argue i should put other shows as well, BUT IN MY DEFENSE. episode 6 and episode 7 caused me irreparable damage with how much i was screaming at my screen for puen and talay to just kiss and get together already. these two idiots also confirmed their status only in the last part of the very last episode, and just for that they deserve a spot here. ABSOLUTE BUFFOONERY.

other shows that fit this and that are not my cup of tea but maybe they’re yours:

stay with me [cw: sad ending]

SHOWS THAT I THINK COULD BE CONSIDERED SLOW BURN (maybe. possibly. perhaps? ;;;;;)

dear doctor i’m coming for soul

i will knock you (is this show good? no. did i watch it until the very end laughing my ass off and having the time of my life? yes. it is EXTREMELY cringey and pretty low quality tho, so be aware of that ;;;;;;)

ingredients

light on me

my tooth your love

our dining table

unintentional love story

other shows that fit this and that are not my cup of tea but maybe they’re yours:

minato shouji’s coin laundry

step by step

MORE OF A NICE SIMMER TO A ROILING BOIL BUT THE PINING IS DELICIOUS

2gether

my school president

old fashion cupcake

we best love: nr. 1 for you

other shows that fit this and that are not my cup of tea but maybe they’re yours:

plus and minus

NOT SLOW BURN TO ME BUT THE RELATIONSHIP IS DEVELOPED NICELY AND/OR THERE IS SOME GOOD PINING

bad buddy

blueming

the eighth sense

history 3: trapped

laws of attraction

love tractor

not me

semantic error

[genderqueer-miharu]

Remember that Harrow cover i reblogged a few days ago? Well i checked Kingsleigh channel to see if they had any other Milgram covers and, to my delight, not only did they have covers for every song in trial one but after listening to all of them i've come to the conclusion that they might just have the BEST Milgram covers i've heard. Not only do the lyrics flow SO SO well with the beat and rythm of the song but their choice of lyrics is absolutely AMAZING. The way they adapted all the songs fit so well with all the characters and their mentalities like they REALLY understand these characters these songs have fantastic lyrics. These ones in particular are my favorites:

Bring It On: I think because of the frantic nature of the song many covers are not able to make the lyrics flow that well with the song, but this one does that SO well. And again the lyrics they chose are absolute bangers and it fits with the tone of the original.

Throw Down: This one's great because the lyrics they chose REALLY made me question if they watched Triage while making it (they didn't this was uploaded last year) because seriously it's like they Knew. Like just look at these lyrics

"Ah tick tock tick tock tick tock you know, all my reasons stay but you don't. They'll keep holding on if stop"

""Throw down" the thread connecting you with me it's in your breath, the seconds while you're still living/"Throw down" the calling that i can't take back, for every lie i say, comes hope and can that be the same?"

(Thay "calling" line specifically really hits hard aftet Triage because of the cut phone line noises in the song)

"Hey, remember what it feels like? If what i want comes at a price, then i'll give through sacrifice"

And my personal favorite part

""Throw down" all ethics are a delusion. But my guilt is still the same when morning comes/"Throw down" emotions that are colorless. Should i be scared of death when i have nothing of me left?"

Just...ough. They're really really good

Half: I think because Kazui is such a hard character to grasp, a cover of his song in english that fits with his character can be really hard. But they did it they managed to make a cover that fits Kazui so well and it highlighted certain things from the original song that i never noticed. Such as these lyrics:

"And though one day your heart could change, i know it never will. So i will, to love you still. You ever heard a lie so sincere?"

"But if hiding this in every kiss is called unhappiness. Then i vow, I won't allow, A single word to ever reach you"

I love this one because it made realize oh he's not lamenting that a single word won't reach his wife he's making sure that's the case. Also the entire final bridge of the song is fantastic

"How did I think that we could always stay the same? We'd laugh hand in hand, making up dumb names And if I Could pick the coward's thing to I'd take the fiction over truth"

"What I gave up didn't matter anyhow So many years ago why's it coming back now? And if I Could pick the coward's thing to do I'd take the fiction over truth"

The fiction over truth, simply amazing. Also i love that in the description they jokingly called this song "Am i lamenting or am i resenting" like yeah that really sums up Kazui really well

Harrow: Ok so remember how i mentioned two days ago that i wanted Kotoko to get Undead Alice as her cover this trial? Well this cover was the main reason i came to that conlusion. It honestly gave a very different perspective on her character and it showed me a side of her i didn't even consider. It's because of this cover that i realized what many lyrics in the song actually meant, i'll compare them:

Cover

"Now that I'm prowling through the haze and Crawling through this maze I Can't go back to who i was

Feeling myself fading Burdens i've taken Weigh me down but drive my soul to go on

The evil out there I'm sickened to the core Pick a poison that i've done before"

Original

"Becoming light-headed again, it all becomes crazy

The normalcy sought for, Fading away, Everytime death comes The soul moves forward

I hate all the evils in this world, I feel like I’m about to break The surrounding net covered with poison"

Cover

"Now when a soul is too far gone you do what you got to Put it out of misery

"I'll never do it again" "I didn't mean to do it!" Even when I catch them I just can't win"

Original

"Shall we replace the poor soul, and the miserable delusion

“I didn’t mean to offend”, “I won’t do it again” How many wins in a row?"

Like comparing these lyrics i realized that "the normalcy sought for" and the "poor soul" Kotoko is talking about isn't refering to another person or the evils she's trying to get, they're refering to herself. She's lost herself and abandoned what the concept of justice meant for her in order to catch the people she's hunting, and the "pick a poison" line in the cover drives home the point of her using the bad things she's done before to complete her goal.

These lyrics really make the theme of her storyline being revenge even more clear. And the final bridge of the song as well

Cover

"When I was young HARROW HARROW Why can't I let it go? All of this weight, all of this hate If not for them what can hope for?

The moon is full HARROW HARROW I bare my fangs into a grin and I know how I can win"

Original

"Newly born “HARROW” “HARROW” It’s ok to dislike, right? Losing it, losing it, What should I hope for

Goodnight “HARROW” “HARROW” Laugh and I can get to like myself"

The lyrics here made me realize that throughout the song she expresses her doubts with what she's doing. She's using the things the people she deems as "evil" have done in her favor to get what she wants. She believes this is the only thing she can do but doesn't want to admit to herself that she's the same as those people if she uses the same methods they have, so she covers it under the excuse of this being "justice" and tells herself that this is for the better of everyone and that she's actually helping all those poor weak victims who can't protect themselves. She can't admit that she's doing this out of a sense of self-satisfaction and to make herself feel better, so she uses "justice", a concept that she considers corrupt and dead, and uses it in her favor, to disguise what she's doing as being the "right" thing to do, which is represented by the wolf's skin seen at the beggining of Harrow coming back to life once Kotoko looks at the audience.

Kinda similar to how Mahiru fogave Kotoko for what she did by thinking: "Kotoko was doing what she believed in and what she thought was right for her so if i admit that what she did was wrong it'll be like admitting that what i believe in and what i was doing was also wrong", Kotoko probably thinks: "If i admit that what i'm doing is for myself and my own satisfaction and not for justice and to protect other people then it'll be like admitting that i'm the same as those people who do evil". She's killed and buried any doubts she may have had with all her vigilante work because she doesn't want to deny herself, she won't allow to doubt herself anymore because if she does then everything she has dedicated a big part of her life will seem meaningless.

Which why i believe Undead Alice would fit her really well especially in this trial. Especially as a follow up to Anti Beat, which imo touched more on Kotoko's doubts and frustrations with what she was doing, and Undead Alice could showcase her slowly convincing herself more and more that she's in the right and that she shouldn't doubt so much.

"“Live by feeding on me, since you can’t die even if you want to” Everyone except us is crazy, even though your echo can be heard by everyone

Every time I ask for ideas to hurt myself, I breathe in happiness and breath out poison The ideal junkie, doesn’t it feel good that only the two of us are normal?"

She's using ideas and methods that she considers bad and corrupt under when other people use them but she's using them in her favor as well, and she can't admit that what she's doing is wrong, so these things are ok if she uses them against those who do evil. But even if she revives that dead wolf skin, it was still the same wolf to begin with.

"The disease that makes me want to hide wanting to see you, an overflow of a LOW mood because I can’t see you

They ended up becoming close, this is torture Starting to hate the butterflies, please die before I kill you"

"The instincts of being good, and the fat of being bad, They ended up becoming close, this is torture Superficial actions have become a habit, I’m dead before I kill myself"

These two lines could highlight her contradicting stances. Her need to deliver justice clashes with the methods she's using, so she kills all these doubts so that they don't weigh her down, which is also highlighted with the main bridge of the song

"It’s ok to live for yourself, It’s ok to cheat a little It’s ok to break it, it’s ok to be scared

Let’s bury this cowardly love here, Let’s stop and forget this

It’s easier to hate But it’s ok that you chain me down with your love"

It's ok if she uses underhanded methods to get what she wants, it's ok if she uses the same methods the people she's trying to hunt have used, she's doing it for a good cause after all right?

Right...but even with all of this and with how much i may dislike Kotoko, this next part of the song could especially highlight a part of her that she doesn't really show much

Undead Alice

"I thought we would be able to keep dreaming together, just like this But what did your smiling face look like again?

It’s an illusion to think that everything will go back to how it was after saying bye bye

This is pretty painful, slice open the chest and crush the heart"

Harrow (Kingsleigh cover)

"Now that I'm prowling through the haze and Crawling through this maze I Can't go back to who i was

Feeling myself fading Burdens i've taken Weigh me down but drive my soul to go on"

Harrow

"Becoming light-headed again, it all becomes crazy

The normalcy sought for, Fading away, Everytime death comes The soul moves forward"

She's dedicated so much of herself to this hunt and her justice that it seems she's lost herself. Thinking about this more i am reminded of the Clock Over Orquestra collab comics. Which i think is important because that's the only time we ever see Kotoko genuinely smiling. For once when she's not thinking about her ideas of justice or her plans for revenge she's having fun, she's doing something she likes: excersising, and she's genuinely having a good time, and it just makes me think that...maybe this the side of herself Kotoko lost. She's killed and buried all her doubts about what she was doing, and using them to fuel her hunt. Her "normalcy" has faded away the moment she decided to revive that wolf. Now she can't go back to who she was, even if she misses how she was, she's killed that part, she's buried that other her, she's done all of this for her goals, and if she doesn't achieve them then all the she's discarded, all the time, her morals, her regret, her self, all of that...would've been for nothing.

Anywayyyyys it's kinda weird how long this got but um. Yeah. Please go listen to Kingsleigh's covers

[sleepymccoy]

Fic writer ask: 5, 10, 20, 21

5. What’s a fic idea you’ve had that you will never write?

Never is such a commitment! I have a bunch of ideas that I haven't started writing, but looking at my previous behaviour I know there's every chance I will start one day. I never thought I'd start posting triage cos the ending is so emotionally complex, but I've started. Never thought I'd write my arrange marriage good omens au, but it's got so many words now that I'm having to restructure the docs. I don't think there any never.

Original work tho? I hope one day I can write my immortal lesbian witch story but I don't know if I'll ever be good/brave enough to take it on

10. Is there a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

Mm I don't have many expectations when I post, cos I know what I get out of it. But, and I know I've spoken about this before, I think it was Is It Worth It Yet I didn't that for angst cos I knew the ending was happy. Cos I wrote it, whenever I read the first chapter I wasn't too bothered cos it was much more about the silly fluff later, that was like the prologue. But someone pointed out it was angsty and deserved a hurt to comfort tag. I reread and realised that yeah, if you're reading for the first time (which obvs most people who aren't the author are doing!) It's real sad!!! I learnt a bit about my writing then, it was cool

20. What’s a favorite title for a fic you’ve written?

Honestly I'm so disconnected from the titles. I have working titles when I'm writing which are much much more basic be descriptive. When I post I quickly come up with a title that's either a word or line pulled directly from the fic or is some thesaurus definition cos I couldn't think of anything.

Perhaps Triage, it has a good amount of communication. That Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship isn't safe, they're having to constantly triage their interactions to prioritise safety over comfort. But sometimes comfort does need to be prioritised but that doesn't mean it will be next time. I think triage is a good way to summarise them

21. Have you ever deleted an entire scene after spending hours laboring over it? If so, why?

Oh yeah! Its something I do very often. Struggling with a scene means I will have spent hours writing it. If I'm not happy with what's coming out I write it out two or three times more with different intentions. I always have the if they communicated perfectly draft, which removes misunderstanding and lets me explore moving the plot forward. Then there's the worst misunderstanding possible draft which is the absolute opposite and they fuck up royally. Sometimes I also do a funny version or a version with lots of external interruptions.

So I'll often end up with four very different versions of the same scene. I usually end up blending the two best versions and make sure it still fits within the overall story and scrap the rest.

For example, the last chapter of Triage has been undergoing this for years. I'll show you my files

The one modified on Oct 3 has four dot point draft ideas as well. I'm gonna spend a whole arvo restructuring at some point. I think it's gonna end up being two chapters, cos it's a bit too much in just one rn

But yeah, the stuff I don't keep will just go. I'm not attached to things that don't work

[gulabikheer]

Honeybee Sickness

this is a wip i've been working on for a little bit, just wanted to put out a little drabble piece for future completion :) haven't betaed this so if you see something weird. my bad, ignore it :')

Dick's announcement comes with little fanfare, which is exactly what lulls Jason into a false sense of security. Things had been going well for them lately, what with Dick finally seeing him as an equal and a friend rather than a dead kid who bit off more than he could chew. It hadn't helped that they hadn't ever been brothers for each other, which gave them no common ground to stand on. They'd fought to reach a truce, and from there it took a few cases and one-on-one hangouts on the tops of bridges and high-rises for them to be comfortable moving on from allies to friends.

They were working on yet another case that had Jason at his wit's end, a slew of muggings and murders that were being carried out with just enough care to be some level of organized crime. There were too many leads to investigate, so he'd given in and called Dick to the Narrows. They're sitting across from each other, Jason on the couch with piles of organized paper on every side and Dick in the armchair. He's relaxed, lightly bouncing his crossed legs as he goes over Jason's prelim notes.

Then, out of nowhere—"I'm leaving Gotham."

Jason raises his head, a frown settling on his features. "I didn't know you had a case. Is it urgent?"

"It's not for a case," Dick says calmly, still reading the page intently.

He doesn't add anything else. Jason resists the urge to groan, used to how Dick will start a conversation and then refuse to elaborate on any part of it, but still finding it insufferable. "I'm not Manhunter, Dick. What the fuck are you talking about?"

Dick sighs, finally setting the notes back down on the table. "I meant I'm leaving Gotham for good, Jay. I won't be coming back this time."

If he'd been holding anything, Jason would surely have ended up dropping it. Leaving Gotham for good? "Getting cold feet, huh?" he sneers on instinct, immediately defensive for reasons he can't analyze yet.

Dick narrows his eyes. "Went straight to thinking the worst of me, huh?"

"Don't have much else to work with when you refuse to explain literally anything you say," Jason snaps, getting up to start pacing the length of his living room. "You always do this, saying whatever the fuck you want apropos of absolutely nothing and expecting us to, what, just go along with it?" He pitches his voice a little higher, mimicking Dick's tenor. "'Hey Jason, I'm leaving Gotham permanently, do absolutely nothing with this information.' Is that what you wanted me to interpret it as?"

He hates this, hates that he's been blindsided by it, that the only reaction he can give is an angry triage of reasons why Dick is such a dick. And all the fucker does is sit there and sigh.

"No, I told you it because I didn't want to just disappear one day. I'm sorry, but this is what I've decided."

Jason's too angry to articulate any of the other thoughts half-formed in his mind, so he merely stifles a growl in his throat and sits back down on the couch. They don't speak to each other for the rest of the night, not even to exchange theories. Dick emails him a five-page report later that night without any other message, and that's that.

A sick honeybee will leave its hive behind and venture out on its own to die.

[johnnys-green-pen]

Random E! Thoughts: S7E02 - Survival On Charter 220

Yet another movie with another new station and crew I don’t care about

This time they even have paramedics that kinda look like Johnny and Roy - or try to, anyway. The dark-haired one has Johnny’s exact season 1 hairstyle. And they are both Insufferable.

The new doctor is adorable, at least. She’s adorable in the San Fran movies and she’s adorable here. 

Also, let’s appreciate that Morton is giving people shit about their bedside manner now. Character growth!

(not that it actually means shit, but fwiw the movie does pass the bechdel test! Molly and Dix are talking about apartment stuff)

Also, we get some more glimpses at Dix’ 1960′s Selectric I typewriter. 

I’d love to have one like that but they’re Expensive ™ and I really don’t need another typewriter anyway

I adore old planes, so that’s one part about this movie that’s fun

20 minutes into the movies the main characters finally make an appearance

At least they start us off with a fun conversation with these two

I do love Roy’s “amazing how a guy can become dependent upon his partner” line

Johnny borrowing Joanne’s car is Wild

First off, she let him, which. WHY.

Second, hey, Johnny finally got a dog he was allowed to keep!

Third, why the hell didn’t he take his own car

Also, Johnny apparently didn’t replace his TV set after he brought his own to the station after the whole “blowing up the TV nonsense” in season 6

Johnny’s pretty “oh shit” expression when he realized he blabbed about Roy’s TV being broken

Roy is so done

Rich Lady And Her Boytoy/Attorney wasn’t a sideplot I wanted or needed, especially because they are insufferable and we are never given any kind of reason to care about them

As insufferable as the paramedics are in isolation, the found family stuff is pretty damn adorable

I love how the kids want the guy as their new dad and they’re Gonna make it happen

Roy’s talking about it being a slow day again while they’re “restocking” at Rampart, because Roy will never ever learn. I hope his crew has his head about it until he wises up once he makes Captain

53 minutes in, we finally get to the main plot

If I remember this correctly, they actually did get permission to wreck a condemned neighborhood for the plane crash scenes - so let’s take a moment to appreciate all the amazing practical effects that E! had going on, their commitment to amazing explosions and fires and the sheer skill, work, and budget involved. The effects still hold up 50 years later, and I think that is amazing. 

Also, Morton and Molly getting to be on the triage team for this one is great

Everybody’s highlight: Johnny getting knocked out cold by a goddamn plane - essentially, anyway

In true E! fashion, they’re even more allergic to lean into the whump than usual - you can’t tell me Roy wouldn’t have been extremely concerned. The show never takes head injuries lightly, and it’s baffling that they’re starting now. Ah well, another one for the fics.

[feuqueerfire]

I Will Knock You Live Blogging

I'm really excited for this one, I love the idea of the younger guy pretending to be all tough and gangster with inspiration from old TV mafia bosses or whatever lol. I don't know how there's a story worth 12 episodes but I'm hoping I'll be delighted to find out. The visuals and bright colours look interesting too.

I also just finished Triage which was very good and well-made and had more of a focus on the plot than the romance, so maybe this will be a good change of pace.

Ep 1 (May 5)

he takes this so seriously, it's very endearing

getting the gang for moral support while he asks out his crush lol

this show is so silly and fun already, i'm kinda giggling out loud

Noey believes in destiny and only listens to the song "Destiny"

hey, be nice to the restaurant uncle! >:(

also pls how does the uncle have interest with these kids? How are they lending anybody money, you're high schoolers lol

going to get the meat his mother told him to buy :)

forced to be in close quarters on the bus lol

Noey used ter with his crush but he also uses it with Thi

omg not "You got my heart. I came here to ask you nicely to give it back" already, though it's likely about the lotus he stepped on and took away

I searched "lotus before bloom" and saw the worst photo ever, made my skin crawl and I started understanding trypophobia. made my skin crawl and kinda made me wanna throw up

kabadon

save from falling only to drop him anyway

a day to find and return the lotus

damn, this lotus is very intact, he's not even gonna tear off most of the petals?

not Noey getting some random kid to bring his crush to a designated spot so he can serenade her. let her live!

there's even a dance from the whole group accompanying it, delightful tbh

no just be like aw :( she doesn't like me :( how sad, it's okay though i will seek joy else. not "i won't give up"

Seriously, that lotus wouldn't fool anybody

kabadon 2

Noey likes the cute charm on Thi's bag, aw. nvm it's probably some religious symbol/helps with business and so his mother might want it? still cute of him to notice it and inquire

does he take it?

ah lol it's a Soulmate/love charm

heh, Noey indeed did take it and now Thi's mother's asking him if he's met his soulmate lol

oh silly Thi, thinking you can already say goodbye to Noey

user heretherebedork mentioned how Ep 1 is full of symbolism of them exchanging hearts/souls... or, specifically, with Thi stepping on Noey's heart and then giving him the soulmate charm.exchanging hearts/souls

Ep 2 (May 6)

Thi: junior in uni, high school tutor

last ep kind of focused on Noey (or rather the narration was from one of Neoy's gang members lol) but this one Thi's doing his own voiceover

I get some whining but come onnnnn, either be stronger in your conviction to not go or suck it up after a while

I must not use my brain while watching this show for real because now I'm like ?? Why didn't you get your iPad during the hours you were waiting?

last ep, I noticed that when Thi was looking for the lotus at night and Noey was supervising with the umbrella, Noey was in all blue while Thi was wearing red but this time their colours changed?

Damn, Thi managed to not properly show Noey his face or what?

disgusting looking water rip for them having to film in that

lol Noey thinks Thi's following him around on purpose

pls shallow ass water

the view and trail to the restaurant really is quite pretty

Noey means butter?

ah indeed it's Noey's mother's restaurant, I wasn't sure

and Thi indeed was into the girl who served the drink lol

not the girl/Noey's sister just roasting Thi's nerdiness and naivete

lol, Thi's friend a real one for talking up his tutoring to Aunt Tim

Noey confused at Thi's fainting

forehead kiss

Noey really living in romance dreamland

gangster Noey fr

Something hilarious about how Noey's confidence that Thi likes him, like him giving a forehead kiss as reward and talking about "giving in" just for the night

Thi coming to O's rescue in ep 1 (and somewhat succeeding) and to Noey's rescue in ep 2 (and not ending up helping but y'know it's the thought that counts)

Ep 3 (May 6)

lmao kindhearted Noey giving Thi a chance to win his heart

crazy that Thi still hasn't uttered the words "I don't like you romantically"

not the housewife mention

Why is Thi smiling like he's into it lmfao maybe I'm the silly one and Noey's correct that Thi's already fallen for him

pls what did Thi drink from the monk's donations? pop?

Noey calls Thi Jarunee. I'd seen a post when this was airing that Noey calls Thi by names of famous' gangsters' wives/gfs?

Noey's apparently not gonna be nice like last night

ah, the gangster lackeys call Noey Phi

pls not another girl wanting to photos with Noey cuz she finds him scary but likes him still

girl, Noey's a menace, what's with this notoriety lol but how much of it is true? like pls the jail and gun stuff

aww Noay and Nid Nhoi brother-sister bonding moment

girl, Thi, please, not you now believing the rumours about Noey and so taking a wooden weapon to face him

this is so humiliating for Thi i'm gonna bury myself

Noey's main lackey manager guy is so funny and useless

damn, Thi can eat Noey's shitty/salty cooking

The foot that Noey meant to give to his crush Pam now being eaten by Thi

damn, they fr left at like 9pm and left Thi to sleep on the roof the whole night lol

literal menace Noey, being stuck on the rooftop was a grift?!

I now love this song Destiny, it's so memorable

Third person Thi was trying to protect: Nid Nhoi. Although this time he miscalculated even more than the previous 2 times. He's really unable to read the room/understand what's going on sometimes and it's funny still because we're on ep 3 but is gonna become real old if it keeps continuing on for 9 more eps.

Ep 4 (May 7)

learning about Pam? girl...

bucket hat to a new level, pot helmet

Wanlapa and Jamnien

not Noey teaching Thi to fight lol

lmfao 1 punch and running away, alright

2nd time Noey wanted to feed Thi lol it's really just his own desire

Noey's never gonna get tutored

Noey's goal to get better at cooking

damn, 4 eps in and finally we get some attempt at tutoring in the last 10 mins

Reddit post about Noey calling Thi old-time female names

I... wonder if this sort of low-plot, mostly chill, meandering show is maybe not what I'm fully in the mood for? Like I enjoy watching the show and I'm usually giggling and having fun while watching but also I feel little urge to pick up the next episode.

I am somewhat tempted to pick up Only Friends as well and alternate like 1 ep of Only Friends and 1 ep of I Will Knock You but I don't know if that'd actually work, and I've also got 23.5 which is another low-stakes, sweet high school romance that I'm already an episode behind on. Would I end up just watching Only Friends while ignoring I Will Knock You? Or should I try it just to see what happens and we're early enough in the month that I'll likely be able to finish all 3 of 23.5, I Will Knock You, and Only Friends if I'm in the middle of all 3 but 1 or 2 falls to the wayside until I finish another.

hmm... okay, I will next pick up Only Friends but maybe I'll try to limit that to 1 ep a day + the 2 podcasts I listen to that did ep-by-ep recaps and try to fit in 1 I Will Knock You ep a day as well.

Ep 5 (May 14)

Well... I'm here a week later because I ended up binging all of Only Friends and taking a 1-day break as well. I think I was just more in the mood for that kind of drama and addictive sort of storyline rather than the chill school shows like 23.5 and I Will Knock You. I have however returned to this and plan to watch hopefully all the remaining episodes or at least 4 more episodes till ep 8 before starting another possibly high-action/high drama series.

FOUR TIMES TABLES?! 10th grader? Noey's like 15-16 years old at least, right?

Noey's relentless certainty of Thi's crush on him lol

why does this whole endeavor feel fake

lol indeed it's some sort of set up and they're just eating ice cream

I was wanting vanilla ice cream in a cup to eat with a little wooden non-spoon just like as a kid but apparently, it's coconut ice cream and i want it even more now

pls I feel like I would've already decked Noey by now if he kept egging me on as if I liked him. If anything, so far, Noey has started falling for Thi lol

lol serves him right to have everybody ring his pockets dry with the ice cream

Is that the Bas gang also eating ice cream?

Is the helmet stolen or did Noey prepare it for Thi?

pls Noey wanting to go to Thi's room

and his whiny/mocking laughs lol teenager indeed

is he just throwing the seeds anywhere on the floor?!

Ai'Noey, which is seen as rude

also does the fish have some sort of resemblance to Noey's bang? he signaled the bang when he said "Are you making fun of me?" and then made Thi get his hair style

lol was Noey just looking at Thi's notes when answering

Thi Watphlu?

Ep 6 (May 14)

extremely serious silly dancing

what are they collecting?

taking shoes from the temple alksdfjalsdf for some reason Thi's banned from buying new sandals but "borrowing" them and returning a new pair later is... fine?

This show is so slow, it's kinda hard to binge since it's also not... explicitly romantic? Like the fun part about the show is how bizarre it is and the funny situations but I'm in the mood for some plot.

I watched 2 eps instead of 4 but I think I'll give Kiseki: Dear To Me a try now instead lol

Ep 7 (May 24)

I'm back 10 days later and this time, I must finish!

They were actually so cute and now Noey bringing up Pam again, c'mon kid.

Thi orchestrating Noey flirting with him to practice flirting with Pam, bruh

yaas lol Thi as Noey and Noey as Pam in the imagination

giggly Noey

man, they're being too cute and friendly while trying to help Noey to flirt with a different person, I hope they start liking each other (or realizing it) soon

...does Noey know? that he likes Thi? why is it seeming like the flowers are for Thi bruh

hah, Nid Nhoi being like is there something going on between you and Thi?

ahhhh Noey doing his homework so that Thi can be proud of himmmm

omg yay Noey being like shall I hit on you (Thi) instead?

I really liked this episode and it's not even that it's better than the other episodes necessarily, I think I'm just receptive to high school cutesy storyline again after wanting something darker or more dramatic for the last few weeks. which is great, it's way more enjoyable to watch a show while in the mood for it.

Ep 8 (May 28)

Was busy this weekend but I'm finally back again

fun how forward Noey is to both his friends and Thi about him flirting with Thi

Thi dragging his friends around to help Noey with his motorcycle, aw

a different guy showing interest in Thi?

girl, Thi's friends are gonna know what's up

Noey's so mean to Thi in front of Thi's friends >:(

ah, Noey's cooking only edible to Thi, who enjoys it a lot

Ep 9 (May 29)

you just called me (phi) and idiot? yes. oh, okay. lmfaooo

this tiny child lolll

Noey declaring his intentions to make Thi his bf in front of everyone

[Linguistics] ik Noey said he doesn't even consider Thi his Phi but he's been referring to him as Phi these last few minutes. Has he always done that and I never noticed or is it new?

Ep 10 (May 30)

nooo Noey did bad in class despite trying

ahh, the movie that shaped Noey

this shot is so similar to the BD films that take place in the village ahh on a boat in a pond full of water lilies <3

talking about the FL going abroad but this time I think Noey's the one who goes abroad

why are we competing to ride the ferris wheel with Thi, is he a prize?

oh damnn dramatic fight, and Nid Nhoi and Auntie Tim getting caught in the crossfires

Ep 11 (May 30)

It's not good how I just want this show to be over already because it's not that I dislike it or that it's bad, I'm literally just... in the mood for something different.

aww, Noey and Thiw friendship T.T

Thi's parents immediately realizing what's going on and disapproving

I wish these conflicts were happening since earlier on in the show because a lot of the earlier eps were repetitive in their 'Thi is scared of Noey' cycles.

Aw, Noey's not giving up. and like to see Thi being into Noey's plans lol

[Linguistics] Noey often calls Thi P'Thi but also is currently using just Thi in this convo

did Noey's cooking improve or do Thi's parents also just love Noey's terrible cooking? both are cute

girl why is Phayu still here and why doesn't Thi tell him no straight up

2 seconds of lesbians and I smile, imagine what'd happen if they even gave us 20 minutes. oh this makes me realize there's no second couple and I think this show could've actually benefited from a 2nd couple story tbh (though at least the family story's there but there isn't too many scenes with just Noey and family members)

? girl, "I'm gonna flirt with the real Pam now?" is this Noey trying to break Thi's heart to get him to not miss him or whatever? we should kill him

not the ending credits dancing scene being only Thi by himself D:

Ep 12 (May 31)

finallyyyy last ep, goddamn I just wanna be done bro

noble idiocy is dumb af every time but especially this time because they already discussed LDR!!

gorgeous scenery

Noey and Thiw :')

but is the gang back to being troublemakers? i liked them being nerds

ahhh Thi was with Thiw that night, not watching a movieeee

and Thi's fuckass father made Noey say that ?!

hehe the soulmate charm secret is out

They're really quite cute and charming together heh

okay, so the timeskip was just finishing 12th grade and getting into uni i guess? Idk why I was under the impression that Noey would go abroad from the spoilers but it's just Thi's Chiang Mai studies

aw, online pair dancing

Nid Nhoi's competing restaurant to her mother, I'm dead lmfao this family

literal 1 second of lesbians

i'm ignoring the marriage mention and still kiss because it's the thought that counts

aw, original lotus

I became less mad about the noble idiocy because if a 17-year-old is told this by the parents of their bf + believes themself to not have any future, I can believe that they'd indeed break up.

Overall:

Noey is such a unique character, it was a pleasure to see him on screen.

I really like the familial dynamics between Noey, Nid Nhoi, and Auntie Tim/their mother. It was fun and they were always teasing each other but obviously there was love and concern beneath it. And the gang was great too, how they obeyed Noey and were a bunch of goofballs but obviously the fighting was less than ideal.

I realized toward the end that this show should've had maybe a second couple which maybe had a faster or more intense relationship while we were slowly, slowly, slowly inching toward the Noey and Thi romance lol

I wasn't obsessively watching the next episode but I was usually smiling while watching the episode. I think it was half me not being in the mood for a cute high school romance where nothing much happens and half on the show for dragging out the Noey and Thi stuff for so long in the first half, like the tutoring didn't even start until 1/3 of the way into the show.

It should be a 5.5/10 because of how much I dragged my feet while watching but I'm giving it a bonus 0.5 because of the great cinematography and also because me barely watching was more due to me than the show itself.

Rating: 6/10

[scentedchildnacho]

The musician wanted to stop and talk to me so I told him his beliefs are of jails and so abnormal....I kept asking him if he formulated his beliefs in jail but he said no he hasn't been in jail so I asked if a high school then his beliefs are tribal and of a jail and he should evolve and elevate his consciousness because all he did was interrupt my dinner

He kept talking about capitalism being evil so I said no the states is true emigration can come here and live a good or better or made themselves life or the other America truth is san diego is just under riot seige by something truly evil

San Diego is just much grosser and meaner because it wasn't cold enough here

He asked me about communism and I said the rise of communism in China is maybe about how repulsive rampant anti repression is....its truly pornographic and disgusting in San Diego all the time so communism does present interesting solutions

Getting rid of private insurance about criminality would way improve pacific beach if it was a matter of forced public process to offer triage services to event crises a lot more of this documented as rape crisis intervention would way improve sanitation and international aid if these occurances were getting appropriately filed

I mean the criminality is just so high and all the time it would be way better if mental places were removed for county triage facilities and people were allowed to research how bad light terrorism has become

Then all sorts of weird beliefs like indigenous people steal my land....so I told him to evolve his life truth is white and indigenous have......lived in the North America's for over 500 years with mutual disciplines and survival and it's a lot more interesting then a history let's you get an erection killing spanked Catholics

All of that intertwines with emigration into really interesting people and mixed cultural forms your life is a belief in getting to rape based off a history so you shouldnt ever be allowed history....

Then he claimed there is no evidence of six million Jews killed in Europe and they just killed palestinians randomly

So I told him it was a war....and that mormons are evil.....so he has needs to rape and kill other fair people to steal their life if it's indigenous black or whatever their the reason he mass murders

Then he told me being the only person with an instrument or The Master....as what controls reality is a slave to him....

Then left before I could explain no slavery was slavery a slave had no rights at all to artistic activity they had to sit and use a leaf to fan the master or suffer death or other tortures

Then he told me they just make Russians out to be really and so I said no they don't they make Russians out to be like African emigration those weren't accurate genetic studies and it really hurts kills goes missing naturalized citizens here to have soviet achievement worship Russians don't practice biblical law about age of achievement and so steal position

I explained all jobs have to be tribal Putin aid systems because the russian financial analyst is 22.....that's what they give her to do what is to be financialized about eye white light tumors....no one ever paid like a few decades for her to network and secretary and actually know people here no one paid any university for her and thats why everything is fucked and stupid...humans of new York Russians present Edward bernays people with impossible fantasies about illegal labor

Russians allow people fantasies of a.i. not humans

She doesn't actually know anybody here

I don't know I wouldn't want to have a title that presents like dissertation like files if I hadn't secretaried with a firm a long time till my name became that official

Then there is kind of the dark side of things about Russians.....there is apparently hidden work populations like illiterate hidden construction work so I think it is a war the states is really capable of being very savage and unforgiving and really just enjoying the brute physicality and athleticism of war

Well a lot of naturalized born in the states citizens just go missing in the drug war on children then stupid bitch is your financial analyst.....so it is a war

Putin as a younger executive did get profiled like a nigger in how he would give resources to the Russian poor

So that's also the constant illegality of the library solar project those experiments were already called pornographic in the 1970s so dead white men already filed Russian 22 year olds work....

Yes she does look really competent and out of this world impossible because she just re submitted dead white men's portfolio

They go rape children with high voltage and it inspires pesticides and torture with tools then I get stalked with access program food stamps....access programs have been illegal a long time under indigenous women may seek inherent status here

Thats why its more that Vladimir Putin is the problem

Well I'm maybe speaking too conflagrated but I wouldn't like people who stalked me with so much voltage I started really actively running and bending or physically involving my body with the park stuff I wouldn't want to feel that disinhibited

So that's what I think MLK jr is talking about in being annoyed by a white terrorist.....I think a hells angel is nicknamed discord and he acts like a nigger the way Putin did....

Anyway I told him beliefs in a prior genocide don't make sense because realistically the world is over populated

Truth is humans prefer to be alone and their not good at doing communal moral things they should sometimes most people lie to themselves that they shouldn't own weapons and have pride in that

Lies people tell themselves is that they may be at peace instead of helping the good cause population control

People don't like telling other people what to do and truth is serial killers like you man have European union health care that can stop your genetics from reproducing in safe and healthy and enjoyed ways

People could have naturally lowered your libido and taught you sit stay be kind listen don't reek and they just kind of let you get horny

I met this past menopausal woman and she talked to me like twelve years a slave she told me now that all that is over she may truly enjoy the twilight of life here and all that doesn't happen to her anymore

Anyway discord is very real....lots of young pale men offered easy jobs in public medical drugging the nation to death especially mentals....mentals don't have any physical health care rights

Discord is everywhere around you California jewelry bling...constant I can't breathe nicotine cigarettes

You as a serial killer could have been made comfortable and happy in your lowered libido and boss prestige and discord called you a nasty naughty retard

That's white people white terrorism functions because people don't believe white people could be elected to lead the nation you expect so little from white people and always prefer whites that are crack dog shit gross

You could be trained to not be so materially greedy cannibalistic and disgusting you could ask white people for higher level reasoning and you always prefer greedy battery

Everywhere you go there are white or European walks and their just obstacles to you and any of them listened to could have told you how to stop yourself from that embarrassing of an extroverted problem

Biden called putin a son of a bitch.....unipolar....I think its Putin's tendency to blame americans for what nazis or baltics did like murder the Messiah......or blame Americans for his intense relationships with weapons China so i think peace starts with accurate trials

[inviba]

Our Chemistry - Part 2

Mark Sloan x LexieGreysTwinSister!Fem!OC

Masterlist

warnings: death, dying, blood, slut shaming, OC has dating problems, sloan being seductive, death of a parent, burn victims, surgery

Me and the other interns run after Yang and a couple other doctors.

"What do we got?"

"A gas main blew in an apartment building. Five injured, some badly." Dr. Torres explains.

"Excellent." Yang says before seeing their faces.

"Horrible. It's horrible. Sad." She corrects.

"Marla Kristler, 34-year-old female, abdomen blown out, skull fracture, third degree burns over at least 40% of her body." The paramedic rushes the woman inside.

"Okay, I got this. Open O.R. two. Page Dr. Shepherd, Torres, triage the rest." The chief says.

"Yes, sir. Yang, you're with the chief. Go." Torres yells.

"One, three, come with me." Yang points to one of the interns and then Lexie.

"What about us?" I ask.

"Help Bailey in the clinic." She responds.

I blow Lexie a kiss and run over to the clinic.

-

I scribble things down in my notepad as I follow Dr. Bailey.

"Rooms one and seven are private and should be used for private conversations with patients, not for closed-door socializing. All carts are set up the same. Memorize where everything is."

"Will we be able to do procedures on our own?" The guy with me asks.

"No. You are interns. You are in charge of nothing. All procedures will be discussed and overseen by an upper level. All charts will be signed out by an upper level. And all patients will be looked at by someone other than you!"

"What if we can't find anyone?" I ask.

"You page them."

"Right." I say as she walks off.

-

I look up to see Meredith walking in the clinic.

"Hey. Are you working here today?" I ask her.

"I don't know."

"Great. We have no idea what we're doing. Plus, I was really hoping we'd get a chance to speak."

-

"Dr. Grey. I was wondering." I say as I stand next to her.

"Do you know where the thermometers are?"

"Do you really not know where the thermometers are? Or are you just looking for an excuse to talk to me?"

I go to speak but she cuts me off.

"It's a simple question. Are you an idiot or a stalker?"

I don't say anything, and she gets a sympathetic look on her face.

"Okay. That was a mean thing to say. I'm aware of that because I'm generally not a mean person. But I'm a person who just doesn't want to know you. And you are two people who are making that very difficult. So please, just stop making it so difficult for me to not know you. Okay?"

After a few minutes, I talk again.

"We're nice people. Okay? We are. And I don't know what it is that we did to you, but, you know, we have the same dad. So we were just thinking that a simple conversation—"

"We don't have the same dad. We do not have the same dad, Lizzie. My dad disappeared when I was 5 years old, and I never saw him again. Does that sound like the daddy you grew up with?"

I shake my head.

"I kicked a man out of my bed in the middle of the night. The world's most perfect man, who loves me, and I can't let him. And it doesn't take a shrink to figure out why. Because our dad chose you. So I'm sure you two are very nice girls. But I hope you can understand. You aren't people I ever wanted to have to know."

She walks away.

Definitely a fail.

-

Lexie and I are doing our charts when Meredith walks up to me

"Hey, I'm filling in for Cristina. So, how's it going?"

"I pulled a splinter out of a guy's toe." Lexie says.

"And now we're writing about it." I follow.

"Okay. Well, if you have any questions—"

"We have a lot of questions, just not about a splinter." I say.

Just then, someone barges in the E.R. with a gurney.

"40-year-old unrestrained driver in a rollover M.V.C."

"Trauma one." Meredith blurts out.

"Lost vitals on the scene, and we were unable to intubate."

"Lexie, Lizzie, come on!" Meredith yells, and we follow her.

"Open the intubation tray. How long's he been down?"

"Took ten minutes to load him, fourteen to get here, so twenty-four."

"Push another epi."

"You know how to intubate?" She asks me.

"I've never done it."

"But you've seen it done?"

"Yeah, a few times."

"Okay. Come do one now."

I go up to the patient.

"Visualize the cords, pull straight up, watch the tube go through the cords." She talks me through it.

"I can't see the cords. You should do it." I panic.

"No. You can do it, okay? Just don't rock up against the teeth. Just pull straight up."

"Pulse ox is down to 86."

I take a deep breath and do as she says.

-

"It wasn't bad." She says.

"What?" I ask, staring at the body.

"That wasn't bad for your first intubation." Meredith repeats.

"Is that some kind of joke? The guy is dead. He died."

"He was dead when he came in here. He was dead on the scene. He was dead for 15 minutes in the ambulance. He was dead before I asked you to intubate."

"You're pretty cavalier, don't you think? They brought him here for help." Lizzie says as Meredith looks up.

"They brought him here because they're legally required to. I had Lizzie intubate because I'm required to teach you, and that is how you learn."

"No. No, you should have done everything that you could." She continues.

"That was everything that I could."

"Well, what kind of doctor are you?" I yell.

"What is this about?"

I pause.

"If you don't want to learn from me, that's fine. But I have to cover the pit today. So why don't you do all of us a favor and go help Bailey in the clinic?"

"Fine." I whisper and walk off.

-

I turn a corner to see Bailey.

"Dr. Bailey. Dr. Grey sent me down here to work with you."

"Oh, she did, did she? And why is that?"

"Honestly, she didn't want to work with me anymore. She kicked me out."

"You can go tell Dr. Grey that the clinic is not a dumping ground for strays. We are not the island of broken interns. Please go tell her that." She finishes as she grabs a bag and walks off.

I follow her.

"Please don't make me do that. I can't work with Meredith Grey. I can't work with her because I can't look at her. Because she hates me, she hates my twin sister, she hates my dad, and she obviously hated my mother. Please just let me work down here today. Please, Dr. Bailey." I beg her with tears in my eyes.

After a moment of thinking, she speaks.

"Kid in curtain three needs stitches. Go."

I silently thank her and walk off.

-

"Hey, Lex, what does this word mean again?" I ask as I point to my paper with a pen.

She quickly jots down the definition under it and I smile at her.

When Meredith walks up, Lexie is annoyed.

"What?"

"I have your mother's death note here. Everything that happened on the day she died is in here. And I know because I wrote it. So? I'd like to go over it with you two if that’s okay."

"Yeah." I whisper.

"Okay, first of all, let me just say that everything that happened that day— every setback— there was a one percent chance of each of those things happening. One percent. And your mother was the one percent."

She pauses for a moment before flipping a page.

"She came in complaining of persistent hiccups. We did an endoscopic fundoplication."

"You did it endoscopically?" I ask.

"So it would be an outpatient procedure. We wanted to avoid major surgery. For what it's worth, I was very fond of your mother. I was very fond of her." She says as we share a sympathetic look.

-

"Yeah. This is a third-degree burn. You said you were cooking with hot oil?" I ask the woman in the clinic bed.

"Yes. It all splashed onto me."

"You'll be just fine. To make sure you don't get any type of infection, I'm gonna go ahead and page our head of plastics."

"As in plastic surgery? I don't want plastic surgery."

"He does handle plastic surgery, but he also works on burns like yours, and with it being on such a big area, I don't think you want an intern like me to handle it myself."

-

"You're the Grey that paged me?" I hear a voice from behind me.

"Yes, Dr. Sloan. There's a woman in bed four with third-degree burns. I've never tended to them myself."

He gives me a look before walking me over to where the woman is laying.

"Wendy, this is Dr. Sloan, our head of plastics."

"Grey, go get a burn kit." Mark says as he puts on gloves.

"Yes, sir."

-

"Your burns weren't too bad, but the bandaging may be uncomfortable." I explain to Wendy.

I undo the roll of bandages and begin wrapping it around her torso.

"Are you two a thing?" She asks me with a look on her face.

"Me and Dr. Sloan? No. No, no, no. We're not a thing." I laugh.

"I saw the way he looked at you. Don't lie to me, girl. He's is a good-looking man, and you seem like a very sweet girl." She laughs back.

"Uhm, I just met him a few days ago. It's not like that."

"You're blushing. Do you like him?"

"I don't know, ma'am. I don't know." I say as I finish her bandages.

"Ms. Bauer, you should be good to go. Come back to the clinic in a few days so I can check how you're healing."

"I will if you make a move on him." She jokes as she grabs her purse and gets up.

-

"And he kept putting his hands on mine and whispering in my ear. I felt like I was boiling in my skin." I say tensly.

Lexie sits at the end of the bed I'm laying on, eating an apple.

"Sounds like you have the hots for McSteamy." She jokes.

"I'm not ready for this, Lex. After the last guy."

"The last guy was the first guy."

"Yeah, I know. But I told him because we had gone on six amazing dates, and I thought he would understand. I woke up the next morning to a note of him calling me a whore."

"I know, Liz. It's gonna be okay. Not every guy is like him. Sloan seems nice, and I don't think he would do that. He seems to have the hots for you, too." She slaps my leg.

"You're hilarious."

"Did I tell you that the guy from the bar is Dr. Shepherd?"

"That's the guy from the bar? Your luck is shit, Lex." I laugh before covering my face with my arm.

"No. He's a good guy. He really, really loves Meredith. And he's good for her. He wants kids with her. He wants to marry her. When he didn't know who I was, he said no because he loves her. I know she doesn't like us, but she still deserves a good guy."

"True, true."