#wka

[z-and-the-space-child]

hey. hey y'all. if you loved that W359 (or any other podcast that comes to mind) had it's own soundtrack and great sound editing and characters that loved to ramble, I highly implore you to listen to "Who killed Alaska". wonderful show right there. it's also a murder mystery with 2 perspectives who eventually meet. and a found family in progress. if you even care

[thrvshmonkey]

Cornering for my homies team today. We 3-0 so far and still have at least 3 more fights today. Then there’s tomorrow…

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Feelings Made Visible: Design Choices in The Sign

I am sure I am not the first person who has picked up on this, but I wanted to talk briefly about something I noticed in the Tharn and Phaya fantasies that were really intriguing to me.

So, generally I dislike intimacy fake outs, it often feels like fanservice in a way in that the story is building tension between it's characters and doesn't want that tension to break while also knowing that an audience seeing a ton of swerved or interrupted kisses may piss them off a little bit. And while I don't love that The Sign has given us the intimacy fake outs in the previews for episodes, I have really enjoyed them in the show itself because they serve a function beyond just catering to an audience that knows Billy is one of the best in the business when it comes to acting horny and just wants to see him making out with Babe.

The fake out intimate scenes in The Sign do a really great job at demonstrating the difference in expectations and desires between Phaya and Tharn.

In Tharn's fantasy he wants to be handled a touch more aggressively, he wants to be pressed against walls and choked, etc etc while Phaya's fantasy shows a deep desire for soft intimacy. He wants to be taken care of, he wants to be handled tenderly. And, like a number of us have pointed out at this point, you can see what aspects of their reality inform their fantasy. Phaya is pressed against Tharn's back at the end of their sparring match, and then Phaya is pressed against Tharn's back when they are about to start fucking in Tharn's fantasy.

Tharn strokes his thumb gently against Phaya's hand and wrist at the doctor's and then Tharn strokes his thumb gently against Phaya's hand and wrist in Phaya's fantasy.

That's all well and good. But there is another thing that they have been doing with these fantasies that are really interesting to me, and that is the difference in the way they are visually structured. In Tharn's fantasy in the bathroom, the lighting is vibrant and unnatural, a total wash of pinks and blues that almost drowns everything else out. In Phaya's fantasy on the couch, the scene is lit naturally but a bokeh effect is superimposed over top of their make out session.

And thinking back throughout the course of the show, these two visual cues are frequently following Tharn and Phaya throughout any and all of their potentially intimate moments.

When Tharn is drunk in Episode 2 and Phaya has dragged him in to the bathroom, the bathroom itself is lit up with a soft pink glow that brushes over Tharn and Phaya's skin. And while they are both leaning in to their desire here, their lips almost touching, Phaya actually giving in a little and kissing Tharn's forehead when he looks down at Phaya's amulet, it is Tharn who is iniating all of the romantic/flirtatious physical contact. It is Tharn that says he won't let Phaya go, it is Tharn that pins Phaya against the bathroom stall and kisses his cheek, it is Tharn that goes in for the actual kiss before getting distracted. And as a result of that we get Tharn's visual cues with the bathroom lighting, not Phaya's visual cues with the bokeh effect. And for what it's worth, the lighting here is real, when Yai enters the restroom and it is really just Yai and Phaya in a shot, they are still awash in pink. Which is why I think the lighting is fun but realistic (aka lighter/more muted) rather than absolutely consuming the scene.

At the beginning of Episode 3, Phaya returns to his grandmother's home and for a moment he invisions Tharn is cuddling him in bed, and for the brief time that Phaya is leaning in to that fantasy, he is under white/uncolored lighting the entire time, but those bokeh flares cover the screen until he snaps out of the dream and realizes he is alone in bed.

gif by @thisautistic

The same goes for later on in the episode for both of the soft, quick kisses between Naga and Garuda and Phaya and Tharn. When Phaya has the dream of him and Tharn in the past, there is a moment where they share a kiss, and again they are in natural lighting with a bokeh effect appearing when they actually kiss. And while this is a moment of shared intimacy between Naga and Garuda, it is occuring in Phaya's dream and as such we get the visualization of Garuda's feelings rather than having any visual confirmation of Tharn's. Same goes for when Phaya gives Tharn a goodnight kiss at Tharn's grandmother's house. In the moments leading up to the kiss all the lighting is natural, and they actually play a little bit here (and quite frequently if you look back at it) with string lights that give scenes almost a natural bokeh effect with the way the lights form little circles on screen.

gif by @25shadesoffebruary

So the entire time that Phaya and Tharn are talking on the dock there are little string lights in the background that sit near Phaya's head, and when he wraps his hand around the back of Tharn's head (something that appears in Phaya's fantasy make out on the couch later) and pulls Tharn in for a kiss, the bokeh effect flash large and bright across the screen. In parallel to the bathroom flirting, this time it is Phaya that is initiating all the action. It is Phaya who is flirting, it is Phaya that leans in for the kiss, and therefore it is Phaya's bokeh effect that appears when they actually share a moment of intimacy.

In Episode 4, Phaya offers to drive Tharn home, but forces them to stop for hot pot first. Tharn protests at first, but Phaya grabs him sexily by the shirt and starts dragging him of screen, pulling him for all intents and purposes in to a date. And at this point in the show, if you don't think Tharn reciprocates feelings for Phaya you are burying your head in the sand. SO. Tharn likes being here. He likes being on this kinda-sorta date with Phaya. Eating food and sharing space, and the moment that Tharn gets up from the table, the scenes turns to very intensely focus on him. As a result, the lighting in the background of the scene is a deep, bright, pink. A visualization of Tharn's feelings for Phaya.

gif by @25shadesoffebruary

And that pink lighting continues as we head in to Tharn's apartment and wind up in Tharn's fantasy. Phaya has just manhandled him (something Tharn likes), he's taken him on a date (with quite enough plausible deniability for Tharn's emotional walls to maintain that's not what he was doing because he can't fall in love with Phaya because everyone Tharn loves dies), and now Phaya is sleeping right outside his door. Something I very much appreciate about The Sign is that there is no mistaking these men's sexuality. There are no struggles with it, they don't have to fight against internalized homophobia before they are willing to be intimate with each other, and Phaya and Tharn are both experience a decent amount of early-to-mid twenties horniess that allows them to be very obvious about and open with their physical reactions to carnal desire. These are men that have clearly fucked before. And it is not that Tharn wouldn't jump Phaya's bone at the first opportunity, it is fully about Tharn's trauma history. If Tharn didn't have the baggage that he did, if he hadn't lost so many people that he loved, you know he'd have no hang ups about this and he and Phaya would have been fucking from like…week one of base camp.

And we know this from the moments where Tharn is not in his head. He initiates the physical intimacy when he's drunk, and when he is asleep he has his fantasy. And because this moment happens in a dream we get a far less realistic coloration to the lighting and instead get the very intense, saturated pink that covers every inch of the bathroom. And while we do get a little bit of a string light situation that is evocative of a bokeh effect, we don't acutally get a bokeh effect. Because this is 100% Tharn's fantasy.

gif by @firstmix

The color play continues at their next intimate moment when Tharn is patching up Phaya's wound, yelling at him about not being stupid and going off alone, and telling him never to say it's okay if he dies. When Phaya stands up to walk away, Tharn reciprocates the shirt pull from the beginning of Episode 4 (because The Sign perpetually says #verserights) and we get a moment where Phaya and Tharn are backlit by red and blue flashing lights from the police vehicles in the area. AND not only that but the way the lights reflect off of the medical van window alludes alludes to a bokeh effect. Because they are sharing this moment. Phaya is touched by Tharn caring so much about him, and horny about Tharn manhandling him. Tharn is pissed at Phaya for putting himself in harms way and is showing how deeply he cares for Phaya with his "never say it's okay if you die in front of me again" statement.

gif by @smileytharn

During the fight in Episode 5 there are a ton of colors being tossed around in that warehouse. The lighting itself is yellow and green, that snake dude is radiating green magic, and when Tharn steps in front of Phaya to protect him and gets stabbed he throws out some yellow magic in return. Cool. Noted. BUT because I am talking primarily about the intimate moments and their visual cues, I want to get at one of my favorite touches in the entire show/one of my favorite touches in BL, which is when Tharn wipes the sweat from the top of Phaya's lip. Because again, we are here in reality, so while we do have some non-traditional/realistic lighting happening in the warehouse, it's not as obvious or all consuming as Tharn's dreams are. HOWEVER! There is a deep, rich, saturated red-orange light behind Phaya's head every time the camera cuts to his face when Tharn is in his arms. It's there right before Tharn brushes his thumb across Phaya's lip and it's there when the camera cuts back to Phaya after Tharn has completed his action. There is no bokeh effect, and no allusion to it because Phaya is not experiencing a romantic moment here. This is a shared intimate moment, sure. But Phaya is fucking terrified for Tharn's health and safety. It is only Tharn that is engaging in some level of intimate/romantic touch and thusly it is only colored lighting that we get on screen.

gif by @forcebook

When they go back to Tharn's apartment, and we enter Phaya's fantasy, it is rife with bokeh effects. We have bokeh effects coming out of the wazoo. Phaya loves Tharn, Phaya cares for Tharn deeply, Phaya's connection to Tharn goes back centuries, through multiple reincarnations, and Phaya thought for a moment he was about to watch Tharn die. Phaya thought for a moment Tharn was going to die thinking that Phaya was pissed at him, with their last moment being Phaya punching Tharn in the face so hard he bled. And so Phaya really wants to be close to Tharn. He was to be comforted by Tharn. He was to be treated gently by Tharn, and he wants to reciprocate that gentle care for Tharn as well. In Phaya's fantasy he asks Tharn to blow on his wounds, and then asks to do the same for Tharn. Now, if you will allow me a brief tangent- from a script standpoint this make out fake out is incredible because Phaya knows Tharn so well that even in his fantasy he correctly identifies almost verbatim what some of Tharn's responses will be. Sure, he doesn't anticipate the "what if saliva gets in the wound and you get an infection?" but he does absolutely nail the "you don't need to look at my wound, the doctor took care of it" response. Tangent over. ANYWAY, Phaya indulges in this fantasy and the screen is absolutely drowning in bokeh effect because this moment belongs entirely to Phaya who has had an incredibly emotional day, and is therefore experiencing extremely large/deep/big emotions here too.

Where am I going with this? Well. Earlier today I was scrolling on tumblr (because I am physically incapable of leaving tumblr for more than 10 minutes at a time) and I saw that @negrowhat had reblogged some screenshots of an intimate scene from the official trailer for The Sign and I saw this:

Now. We don't know when this moment comes, we can't confidently say that it is real (though Episode 7 apparently promises no tricks this time). But I think it is real for one reason in particular:

Both Tharn and Phaya's visual cues are present at the same moment.

Up through now we have not actually seen that occur. We maybe had some level of allusion to a bokeh effect at the same time as some interesting color choices, but we haven't actually had a bokeh effect and a bright color at the same time. And even if we do want to count those allusions, this idea still holds because those moments where we've had some modicum of both are shared moments of intimacy from both parties. SO anyway, I think that when Tharn and Phaya actually have sex together we are going to see both of their visual metaphors joining together (since they are…ya know…joining together).

Alright. Time for the big whammy. I don't know how eagles see, I know they see well and I highly doubt they see in bokeh effect, so I don't have much to say about Phaya's visual cues around intimacy from a garuda perspective, except to say that hsi fantasies are always in correct and proper color. Where I do think the choice gets interesting is with Tharn. Now Tharn is naga, which I guess aren't technically snakes, but I don't know what the eyesight rules of sea serpents are so I'm going to go based off actual serpents.

Snakes see in infrared.

What does this mean? It means their color perception is bright, saturated, and heat focused. If you ever look at an infrared camera, you can see that areas of higher heat are typically demarcated in the red, orange, yellow spectrum. I don't think pink is a traditional infrared color but there have been moments throughout the show where red lighting connects Phaya and Tharn (police lights, the lighting behind him in the kidnapping/murder warehouse). And infrared lighting is intense. So I for one think it is absolutely fucking brilliant on the part of the director/cinematographer/lighting designer/production team to make the choice that Tharn's emotions about Phaya are going to be tied to color. That the naga that is lying dormant in him comes out subconsciously, unconsciously whenever naga and garuda are close. And I especially love that the moments of deepest color are when Tharn is dreaming because a) dreams are already fucking wild and b) it is one of the few times Tharn is not dragging his feet, gritting his teeth, kicking and screaming, and desperately trying to hold on to the emotional and physical distance he feels like he needs to have from Phaya in order to make sure Phaya survives.

I look forward to seeing what they do with these effects as the show continues. This has been Killing Time While on an Airplane with Captain Hands, thank you for your time.

[ranchthoughts]

✨2023: A Summary✨

Post your most popular and/or favourite edit/gifset/analysis for each month (it’s okay to skip months!)

Tagged by @lurkingshan (here) and @wen-kexing-apologist (here). Thanks for the tags!

In 2023, I made 175 original posts, including 45 metas about 12 different shows and two large scale projects (the GMMTV Multiverse and the GMMTV Kissing charts). It was interesting to see what meta (and how much) I had written in which months. It's also fun looking back as I approach my one year anniversary of watching and writing about BL - I'm so grateful for all the wonderful people I've met and gotten to chat with over these past months!

January and February [0 metas]

I wasn’t on BL Tumblr yet! Any and all meta came in the form of thoughts, texts, and powerpoint presentations.

March [6 metas]

My BL Tumblr debut! I started this blog with the intention of 1) more easily gathering and archiving posts for future reference, and 2) collecting my thoughts somewhere other than text threads and my notes app, so I began posting meta the day I got here.

Most popular: what started as me thinking about Win’s rock t-shirt from ep 11 and then grew from there… - reading a lot into a random Thai ql shirt choice? Me?

Favourite(s): Thoughts on Tinn, his mother, and coming out (part 1, part 2); Thoughts on Tinn, his mother, and music - My first meta ever posted! I keep returning to Tinn and his mother's relationship in My School President...

April [1 meta]

By default, the most popular (and favourite): Gun's feelings are realistic - I love when MSP subverts our expectations

May [13 metas]

Oh damn! This was a big meta month for me. Some of my favourite metas I've ever written were posted this month.

Most popular: The Eighth Sense and Missing Pieces - I am really proud of this one. It also made me laugh that I apologized for the length at the beginning when I would go on to post much, MUCH longer metas.

Favourite(s): Thoughts on genre, tropes, Bad Buddy, and My School President (aka my Bad Buddy and MSP thesis, which began life as a powerpoint presentation... now here's one of those much, MUCH longer metas in question); Wai as a faen fatale (which also began life as part of that same powerpoint presentation and I think perfectly encapsulates my analytical style); Conversations in ITSAY that are about more than they seem (I am really proud of the analysis I did here and the writing style I used to present it). This was also the month in which I started my deeply self-indulgent GMMTV Multiverse project, which later inspired my mission to record all GMMTV kisses.

June [11 metas]

Oh nooo another bunch of my favourites. This is cruel to make me choose.

Most popular: Thinking about Pran's "Pat, you've got to stop doing this to me" (I love this one! and this was the first of several times I've gotten to collaborate with the wonderful @dudeyuri)

Favourite(s): An analysis of the baseball mom shirt, Bad Buddy ep. 5 (my entry into the venerable field of Bad Buddy/ql shirt analysis and also encapsulates pretty much everything I try to do in my metas); An impassioned defense of the Bad Buddy ep. 5 rooftop kiss (combines many of my favourite things: reading deeply into the minute details of Bad Buddy, an analytical framework that just clicks itself together as I write, and literature reviews); and Thinking about Snow White as the engineering play, part 1 (shout out to the two other people going ham on Snow White as an allegory during the Our Skyy 2 madness - @chickenstrangers (here) and @letgomaggie (here))

July [3 metas]

Most popular (and favourite): Thinking about Pat, Pran, and pursuit (I think this was my first time articulating the idea of Pat and Pran's commitment to the bit, a concept which continues to circle in my head. This was also another collaboration with the wonderful @dudeyuri!)

August [7 metas]

Here comes Only Friends... and the GMMTV Kissing Multiverse project.

Most popular: GMMTV Kissing Multiverse updates 1, 2 and 3 (this is so much fun to track and analyze, and I've been really touched by everyone else's excitement for the project too); Various thoughts and musings on Only Friends and ephemerality (the Ephemerality Squad assembles!)

Favourite: Thinking about Boston: a study of episode 3 - I find Boston's mind a fascinating place to explore

September [8 metas]

Oh look! It's more Only Friends!

Most popular: Mansplain, Manipulate, Manwhore: Ray confronting Boston - once again, I love getting into Boston's head. This post was inspired by @wen-kexing-apologist's scene breakdowns, especially their Fight Night one

Favourite(s): The above, and also The Mundanity of Meanness

October [5 metas]

Most popular (and favourite): The first fist bump in Bad Buddy - oof. I've gotta come back to this idea sometime.

November [3 metas]

Most popular: The Latest Update to the Kissing Multiverse - the hotly anticipated post-Only Friends update to the kissing charts

Favourite: the kissing charts, and Thinking about Pat, Pran, and competition - again, I love to think about Pat and Pran. I consider this one to be part of an ongoing series, along with my earlier metas on pursuit and the rooftop.

December [1 meta]

Most popular (and favourite): Not Me and earrings - technically an addition on @chickenstrangers' post, but was a relief to get my months old "Not Me is about ears and earrings!" thoughts out.

some no pressure tags: @chickenstrangers, @distant-screaming, @dudeyuri, @neuroticbookworm, @slayerkitty, @telomeke, @twig-tea, @waitmyturtles

[codajaiden]

I stayed up the whole night for the funnies, I didn't think I would win the RR art contest tho lmao

Anyways, ask box is open, I'm taking in questions or ask me about my HCs about SCU and RR stuff

[hopeworth]

…. holds him…..

[eldritch-nightmare]

do you ever think about how slender probably shares its life force with its proxies because all of its proxies are humans and humans are very fragile creatures so for the sake of not having to get a replacement every other week it just decided to find a way to share its life force with them??

i'm just thinking about toby, specifically. since he has cipa, he literally is in constant risk of losing his life so being a proxy only puts him in even more danger. and then slender is literally Impossible to kill, so i'm just thinking about toby getting severely injured and being on the brink of death.

he's so close to finally being able to close his eyes and let go, only for slender to pop up and somehow transfer its own life force into his, just so toby will survive long enough to get proper medical treatment (aka ej or dr smiley since they're the only ones who know how to treat severe wounds)

i imagine this being viewed as a blessing by some and a curse by others. it only ever uses this ability on its proxies, so it's not like slender puts its life in any danger by doing this. i mean, it's an eldritch horror of unknown origins so who knows how long its lifespan is.

i have no idea what im saying actually im incredibly tired and words are meshing together in my mind im gonna wake up in the morning and see this and become very deeply confused

[cordycepsbian]

Vital question. Are Levi and Celia swapped with anyone and do they still walk into a cave and get immediately taken out by the bug they're trying to arrest?

no tbey're doing the tavenr stuff. shady backhand deals Put Those Sheep Away It's Not Your Turn/ij. doppel and shades walk into the cave and get curbstomped by carmina that happens

[oh-bonerline]

speaking of writing, I missed when it originally happened because I'm writing in two separate docs at this point but WKAS has now surpassed 300k words 😭😭

[be-good-to-bugs]

not fair i have to go to work when i am literally the most sleepy bug on the planet right now

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Episode 10: The Couch

Wow @lurkingshan, it’s like you really know me! This scene is exactly what I was going to talk about for Episode 10 because the fucking TENSION put so much weight in to the air when I was watching that I could hardly breathe. 

CHRIS CHIU

THE ACTOR THAT YOU ARE

Scene Breakdown time!

First of all, I love the little couple dynamic moments we get between Lili and San Pang, where Lili has to tap San Pang in to Yuan and Qian’s fight. San Pang arrives and in a very strategic move informed by knowing Qian and Yuan for a significant amount of their lives, he arrives with food he knows will go over well with Qian and will test Yuan’s ears (he comes down the stairs from his room to throw the food away after all). 

Which, let’s just acknowledge that when Yuan comes downstairs and takes all the alcohol and greasy food away, the moment Yuan approaches the coffee table, Qian looks back towards the TV screen pretending he is disinterested in the situation at hand. But his eyes give him away because he keeps glancing at Yuan when he thinks he can steal a second. And stealing is what he is trying to do because he keeps his head pointed directly towards the television, while looking for half a second at Yuan out of the corner of his eye when Yuan leans over to collect the food. After that moment, Qian does not look towards Yuan again until Yuan has turned around and Qian can stare at his back. 

It must be said. Chris is a phenomenal actor, because even without seeing his face, just the top of his head, you can kind of tell the mood that Qian is in as Yuan walks away, because he turns towards Yuan. We see Yuan look in Qian’s direction, Qian moves his head further back to look at San Pang, then looks away shaking his head. I acknowledge I’m probably reading too much in to it, but I can feel the incredulity radiating off of that head shake. 

Yuan heads up the stairs, and Qian looks towards the staircase only after Yuan has disappeared. His head movement is so much more obvious than his previous motions that it literally looks like Qian is breaking character, or like he was previously frozen and had only now been allowed to breathe. Qian’s eyes look up towards the staircase (towards Yuan’s absence), then downward as he thinks about his next move, then back towards San Pang, then down once more as he makes a decision about whether or not he wants to Start The Conversation. 

gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul (my savior)

Qian here is trying to check that Yuan is out of earshot because he Will Not have the The Conversation about His Feelings if there is a chance that Yuan will know about it. 

With the heaviest of sighs, Qian gives San Pang an opening: “Did you buy those for me, or for him to throw away?”  Qian asks, and once again looks out of the corner of his eye, getting serious “Or for him to throw away?” 

And there is no doubt in my mind that it is the latter. San Pang bringing food that would trigger Yuan’s care instincts towards Qian, cause Yuan to intervene, and San Pang to bear witness to the tense and angry energy from Yuan towards Qian and force the issue. I think it’s partially why Qian does not deliberate for long in starting the conversation despite his hesitancy. 

San Pang scoffs and says in response “He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t care about you. Xiao Yuan can’t bear to leave you alone.” holds up the salad as a physical example of the care that Yuan has for Qian. 

gifs by @wanderlust-in-my-soul

Qian gives another giant exhale and looks contemplative. Something that I do find really important in good acting is the use of internal monologue. Qian always has something on his mind that he is sitting with. And the benefit of a scene like this is that the production team, and the camera trust the strength of their actors to hold the silence that settles over the room as Chris runs the gambit of Qian’s internal thoughts. 

Qian is well and truly sitting with the acknowledgement of Yuan’s feelings from San Pang. Maybe I am wrong because I am not an actor, but I do not have the kind of intentional and conscious control over my face to have the kinds of lip twitches that Chris has when Qian is thinking about Yuan’s care for him. They may have twenty seconds of silence on screen, but that does not mean the scene isn’t still in motion. There are so many little things happening in the span between San Pang’s comment about Yuan and his next reflection on sending Yuan away. 

“Xiao Yuan can’t bear to leave you alone,” Qian turns that over in his mind, to me it’s like he’s feeling the weight of it on his tongue, in his body. Qian looks up, and then around, and tosses the remote to the side, breathes heavily again. That feels like a begrudging acceptance of the statement. At the very least it is permission from Qian to proceed with the difficult conversation. 

“Before I had Yuan leave the country, I had been thinking I was doing the right thing for you two. But seriously, be honest, did you feel empty when Yuan was away?”

gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul

Qian blinks twice and we cut to a flashback of a lovely little isolated frame of Qian feeling Yuan’s absence. We cut back to a close up of Qian’s face and his lip twitches. Which I love because it feels like an involuntary admission. We know Qian, we know that boy is stubborn and stoic, that he muscles through all the pain, that he does not let many people see his weaknesses. San Pang asks Qian if he felt empty and Qian does. not. move. He holds exactly the same position, lounging on the couch with his hand behind his head like he is unmoved, unaffected by San Pang’s question. But that little twitch of his lip gives him away. San Pang has struck a nerve. San Pang has forced Qian to hold a spotlight to the feelings he’s been trying to numb for the last four years. 

“Let me tell you something. When Lili and I first got together,” 

I don’t know about anyone else, but I snorted at the way Qian turned his head to look at San Pang in warning. We still have not seen Qian approve of that relationship. And San Pang knows that he’s staring at the precipice of some truly hot water, which is why he follows up with a “hear me out.” 

Qian relaxes and once again turns to look away from San Pang. From San Pang’s position very little of Qian’s face is visible. So Qian keeps holding a position that will give San Pang as little of a chance of reading him as possible. 

“I’ve struggled too. I…I always wondered what happiness could I bring her? Was I doing the right thing? How could I face you? And then…I felt it wasn’t right. Life is too short.”

gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul

Again, I just have to say. CHRIS CHIU IS A PHENOMENAL ACTOR. He does not move a muscle, but you know Qian is locked in on what San Pang is saying because of how he moves his eyes. When San Pang says “life is too short” you can actually see the moment where Qian starts paying more attention to San Pang’s words, because he looks away from the TV and more downward in thought. 

“Getting hung up over it for years, would it be worth all the lost time?” 

Chris changes how he breathes here. You can see Qian take in a deep breath, but he holds it for a few seconds, he lets his nostrils flare, and then you see a large release of breath in the movement of Qian’s chest. This is really really getting to Qian. That nostril flare was not because he was breathing in. Because he’d already taken a breath. It was not because he was breathing out, because we see that happen a few seconds after the nostril flare, without his nose moving again. When Qian flares his nostrils, he is holding his breath, for a rather noticeable amount of time too. 

I love Chris because he embodies Qian so well, I can almost feel the way Qian is feeling internally in all the subtle little ways Chris plays with how Qian holds and releases tension and attention. 

“Who’s been good to me?”

Qian blinks twice, letting the question hit him, and only then does he finally release his breath. 

“Who put me before themselves?” 

San Pang looks at Qian after he finishes asking these hypothetical questions. But Qian is still looking ahead towards the TV, trying to come across as disengaged in the conversation as possible. And San Pang notices that, and that is why he continues to talk. Because Qian is hearing him, he’s listening and processing, but he isn’t engaged. He hasn’t put his body in to the conversation yet, he hasn’t responded to anything that San Pang has said to him. So San Pang keeps pushing. 

“A lot of things are only between you and Yuan. Unless you really have something against being with a guy, Yuan’s the only one who will be by your side, no matter what. Are you really not going to confront it?”

And I love that we pull away from that question to Qian looking like he is lying in a therapist’s chair. And Qian holds that position he has been maintaining throughout the conversation for a few seconds longer. The number of times he blinks the only indication that what San Pang has said is getting through and that Qian is mulling it all over. 

And only then, after San Pang has said all these things about Qian and Yuan’s relationship, in a way that is not judgemental or against the idea of these brothers becoming romantically involved. Only after San Pang has said that Yuan would be by Qian’s side no matter what does Qian set his jaw and push himself up in to a sitting position to continue the conversation. 

San Pang does not know what happened at Le’s gang beyond them being beaten up. So while it is highly likely that he is aware saying that Yuan would follow Qian anywhere is opening a can of worms, he does not understand how much ammunition he has just given Qian to talk about the danger that loving him too deeply has put Yuan in.

We do not give enough credit to film actors for maintaining continuity across scenes, because this man sits up and the first thing Chris has Qian do is massage the back of his head, where the pain of his blood clot sits. I could probably sit here all day trying to talk about all the little facial expressions he does as Qian sits up and starts preparing himself to be vulnerable with San Pang. But we can leave it as merely that. Qian is getting ready to talk to San Pang about some deeply personal stuff.

Personal stuff that Qian usually does not typically get in to. Like, San Pang says he knows what Qian went through, but I do not think he does. I do not think Qian has told him about the sexual assault, or San Pang would not have been trying to throw women at Qian. 

gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul

“San Pang.” He pauses, and you can see the way he is still noodling, thinking about whether or not he wants to talk to San Pang about all this. And notably, he does not meet San Pang’s eye when he begins “Do you know…” Qian looks to the side, he frowns a little bit, he taps the palm of his hand against the top of the couch arm. It feels so childish and small of him in a way that really struck me. Qian is nervous, he is redirecting that energy in to his motions. In to the tapping, in to looking away, in to not having to reveal deep personal truths sitting that close to another soul. “Do you know what my biggest wish in life is? My biggest wish in life is for them to be happy,” 

Ohhhhhh how that breaks my heart. Qian has suffered so much, he has done so much, he has survived so much. If you were to ask me, I would bet that Qian has never been happy. He was forced at a very young age to take over the role of caregiver. He is both a brother and a father to Yuan and to Lili. And it is a testament to Qian’s love for his family, and the pain he is willing to put himself through that Lili is so bright and vibrant and naive about some of the workings of the world. I believe that Lili is happy. I believe that Qian has succeeded in at least that much. But that is not something he has had a chance to do. “Even if the world comes down, I’ll hold it up.” I have not forgotten that line from last episode. Qian would hold the world together if it meant ensuring his sister’s happiness. 

I do not know what it is, but there is something in the way Chris moves his mouth after he says “My biggest wish in life is for them to be happy,” that just absolutely destroys me, because he makes himself look like this is such a huge confession. 

“Mine is the same.” 

gif from @wanderlust-in-my-soul

“I just want them to grow up healthy and happy, because I’m their big brother.” Qian’s words become so breathy and he’s jabbing his finger straight in to the arm of the couch to drive home his point. These are the words that matter, this is the wish that matters. Qian’s feelings, Qian’s happiness have nothing to do with it. If he’s empty so be it, as long as his siblings are happy and healthy he will wound himself a thousand times over. His fucking face here, once again is just…When Qian takes in a breath, it is shaky. You can tell by the movement of his jaw, which looks like it is moving from side to side a little bit. As he approaches the end of his sentence, it feels like he is trying not to cry. 

gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul

Yuan’s life might be summed up in two words: Wei Qian 

But Wei Qian’s life is summed up in five: 

Because I’m their big brother. 

“We grew up together. You think I don’t know how hard life’s been on you? But you know that Yuan’s feelings for you are different.” 

Qian looks away incredulously, and there is something else there too, I think. Something in the way that Qian’s eyebrows furrow, the way his mouth hangs open, the way he breathes out. I don’t know that he can really believe that this conversation is happening right now. That San Pang would let these words reach the light of day, that he would acknowledge them so openly, so matter-of-factly. 

“We’ve tried everything. We even sent him abroad for years. You were miserable every day. You love him and he loves you.”

We get more of Qian’s thinking face here as San Pang says these words, his mouth agape, his breath quickening, his eyes moving back and forth as he sorts through his own thoughts. 

But I need to acknowledge San Pang. He has such an intriguing connection to Qian and his family. San Pang has power of Qian, because his parents are Qian’s landlords. He and Qian have been best friends for a very long time, and even though I think it is true that San Pang likely knows the most about Qian’s life history, he does not know it all. He is still, in many facets of his life, acting like a kicked dog and backing down every time he tries to push back against Qian now that Qian knows that he and Lili are together. But when push comes to shove. When Qian’s happiness is impeded, when Qian’s health is at risk, he will tell Qian what Qian needs to hear. 

Whether or not Qian is truly having a hard time parsing through his feelings for Yuan doesn’t matter to me as much as Qian getting permission from multiple people to actually pursue the relationship. In acknowledging all of this, San Pang, the man who at one point told Yuan he could like anyone but Qian, the man that sent Yuan away for four years, is telling Qian that it is okay for Qian and Yuan to be together. He is the external judge that is finally accepting this taboo relationship, because he knows that if he does not show Qian that it is okay for him and Yuan to change from brothers to lovers, that neither Qian or Yuan will have any chance in hell of long term happiness. 

“Even if you’re not together, he’ll be sad to see you sad.” 

Off come Qian’s glasses. Shit is getting serious now. Qian rests his head on his hand, he looks away from San Pang. He really sits with it, you can see the emotions rising up in him, in the way he breathes, in the way his nostrils move, in the way his lips tremble for a second before he speaks. 

gif by @ueasking

“I’m scared, you know?” he turns to look at San Pang, and he sucks in a huge breath through his nose. It’s the first time we’ve seen him breathe so obviously that way throughout the entire scene. GOD, QIAN KILLS ME. 

“You haven’t even tried. What are you scared of?” 

And this is the fascinating thing for me, right? Outside of Yuan, San Pang is Qian’s best friend, but they do not have conversations like this that often. San Pang has tried time and again to start the more serious conversations, to act as an emotional support for Qian, but Qian brushes those conversations off as much as he can. San Pang knew the medical issues, he knows the history, he knows about the pieces of Qian’s life that Qian can’t hide. But he does not know everything, Qian does not usually let himself be this vulnerable with San Pang, hell he hasn’t even told San Pang everything that happened with Le’s gang. He’s about to, but that is only because he is trying to make a point. 

I think he is only having this conversation with San Pang, only admitting he is scared, and confused about his feelings for Yuan because he has literally no one else to talk to about it, and he’s starting to break down to the point that he can’t hold it all in by himself. And San Pang keeps pushing. 

“You know he went to find Le by himself that day?”

“I know.” 

“He was surrounded and beaten by six people, and in the end…”

gif by @wanderlust-in-my-soul

He sucks in a breath. It takes him a moment to find the strength to form the words, so he forms a gun shape with his hand, which he points quickly a few times to fill the silence and the stillness in the room as he finds the shape of the admission on his tongue. He accentuates the severity of the memory with one final large motion. 

“...they pointed a gun at…” 

Ah, and there it is. The real reason behind Qian’s comment about wanting Lili and Yuan to be happy and healthy because he’s their big brother. Qian will not act on his feelings for Yuan, especially not right now because he is feeling guilty. Not just for sending Yuan away, not just because of the letter, but because Yuan’s unwavering loyalty, protectiveness, and love for Qian got Yuan hurt. Nearly got Yuan killed. Again. 

Qian’s whole world, his entire drive was shattered the day Yuan confessed, when Yuan told Qian that he was suffering. Yuan’s love for Qian was hurting him. But Qian just wants Yuan to be happy and healthy. The chance at having that world again was nearly destroyed with the realization that Yuan almost died abroad. His world was made complete again when Yuan returned home. And it was very nearly destroyed once more when Yuan walked in to that gang in hopes of protecting Qian. 

There is pain in witnessing the kind of love someone would die for. 

Qian can put himself in danger for the sake of his siblings, because from my perspective, Qian never thought his life had much worth. His formative years were filled with horrific abuse, assault under the guise of love, pain, suffering, doing terrible things just to survive. But this is all because he cannot see the forest through the trees, of the life that he has built, of the home that he has built, of the safety that he has built for his siblings. 

Yuan is not allowed to believe his life is less important than Qian’s because no one has ever thought that Qian’s life was more important than theirs. 

“Fuck, you- you’re telling me that now? Then, you…Right now, you…So, you’ve lost…”

Another quick shout out to San Pang, and moreso to the writing for San Pang that they don’t always let him have these brilliant speeches. He was able to navigate the beginning of this conversation because he knew mostly what he was walking in to, but with the reveal of Yuan and Qian’s near death experience, he is fumbling. 

The camera cuts back to Qian. I’d say Qian is listening to San Pang, but not fully present. Chris is doing so many things with his face in that moment. His nostrils are flaring, his lips are tightening like he’s trying to hold something back, he’s rocking his jaw from side to side. 

gif by @ueasking

“So, this isn’t a decision I can make so lightly.” He is almost crying now, he won’t cry, I think the only time we’ve seen him cry is when he was staring the prospect of Yuan’s death directly in the face during Russian Roulette and when he was hugging Yuan afterwards. But you can see the growing frustration and the threat of the tears very clearly on his face. Qian emphasizes the statement by once again jabbing his finger into the couch. 

“I have to consider the future.”  

“Do you want him to have a future without you?”

Let me tell y’all the way I collapsed under the weight of that question…it is no wonder Qian, notoriously quiet Qian, immediately shuts his mouth. I appreciate how much San Pang is willing to be the sacrificial lamb, because that is exactly the question that Qian needed to hear. That is exactly the reality that Qian, Yuan, Lili all face if Qian does not get his blood clot treated. A future without Qian in it. 

Qian needs to know exactly what he is doing to the people he loves by continuing to delay this medical treatment, but San Pang had to know that in asking it, it would only make Qian retreat back in to himself. Which is what Qian usually does. It was a miracle in it’s own right that San Pang was able to get Qian to voice this many of his concerns, to tell him the entire truth, to talk to him about the fear. 

gif by @ueasking

Qian closes his eyes, he lets the blow of the question absorb in to him, and he nods his head. Which, in my opinion, is a brilliant choice because the way he nods does not read to me as a confession that yes, Qian does want Yuan to have a future without him in it, and more so is an admission of defeat from Qian. But because we don’t get verbal confirmation either way, we do not, San Pang does not, Yuan does not get any confirmation one way or the other about what Qian is thinking. 

Qian just nods, lets the silence hang one moment longer, and kicks San Pang out. 

“Go home.” He says. But there is a more promising follow up “Let me think about it.” 

Which feels like the only thing Qian has really been doing for the last four years, but we’ve already established, that boy is about as moveable as a brick wall, and he and Yuan both serve to lose a lot if this goes wrong. 

And there you go @lurkingshan! 4103 words on the mouth twitch, nervous body language, and tears in this scene :D

[onlyhoons]

RGAHHAHGSHA RUFF RFUF

WHY DOES THIS SOUND LIKE HEE OH MY GODDDDD

STOP IT TAKE THIS VIDEO BACK I DONT WANT IT ANON YOURE KILLING ME 😃😃😃😃😃 WHY IS THIS SO HIM I WILL CRY

[fluffienosaurus]

wake up!!!! wake up dawwing!!!! wake up!!!!!!!!!!! wake up honey!!!!!! wake up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[twig-tea]

Love in the Big City TV Series Episodes 1 &2: The Loneliness of Conformity and Nonconformity

[Wondering what’s going on here? In Feb-Mar of this year a bunch of us agreed to read the Love in the Big City novel one part per week and write pieces in response to the novel and @bengiyo’s excellent discussion questions weekly, which was a fantastic experience. @lurkingshan did the driving and wrangling and organizing, and compiled all of the meta from that period here . Now we’re watching and responding the series on the same cadence, 1 part (2 episodes) per week, and Shan is once again wrangling us and Ben is again providing excellent discussion questions to help inspire responses. Like last time, rather than answer the discussion questions directly, I’ll let them inform the directions my thoughts take. Also re: romanization, I’m going to use Go Yeong for the TV adaptation and Young for the novel since they seem to have standardized his name to “Yeong” at least on Viki, and that provides some distinction which is convenient]. 

In my written response to part 1 of the novel I talked about how Young was an unreliable narrator, because he was so dissociated from his own emotions that he didn’t often notice when he was having them. The loss of the bulk of the first person narration is inevitable in an adaptation to a visual medium, but I think these episodes still captured Young’s general disconnect to his emotions especially in episode 1. There are moments where he smiles that felt almost jarring, like smiling is his default response even if it’s emotionally a mismatch. The change in perspective in the series also means we see beyond Young’s POV, so we get the Mi Ae outing scene (which as @lurkingshan laid out, lent Mi Ae more sympathy than Jaehee was represented with in the novel) which really underscored that in that moment, she chose her future husband and the person she was becoming over her best friend and the person she used to be. I liked how the series included the karaoke scene with the T-ara's shading Nam Gyu so that we had context for what Yeong expected when he went to dinner with Mi Ae and Jun Ho, and how different Mi Ae's behaviour was to his expectations (instead of his commentary about it that we got from his first person narration in the novel).

Like @starryalpacasstuff pointed out, I liked how the argument in the show between Yeong and Mi Ae after she outed him made it more obvious that part of the reason why Yeong was so upset was that he was already hurt by Mi Ae pulling away. @wen-kexing-apologist rightly pointed out that Mi Ae put herself in the position to have to out Yeong by lying to Jun Ho in the first place, and one of the things that both the novel and the series left me wondering was whether Jaehee/Mi Ae made that decision knowingly; did she choose to embrace amatonormativity and a heteronormative life trajectory because she wanted it, or did she feel like she had to? Either way, Yeong's pain of seeing someone who he otherwise had so much in common deviate towards the norm and leave him behind and further isolated is very familiar. I linked out to my alternative milestones to measure your life by in that original book club post and I’ll take the excuse to do it again; for those of us who find the standard hetero/amatonormative milestones alien/undesirable, it’s nice to think about other ways we can think about the progress in our lives.

Another change in the series that I appreciated was the addition of more of Yeong and Nam Gyu’s relationship. Ben talked about how much more realized a character Nam Gyu was to K3/Kia guy in his post. The building out of K3 with things like a hometown, cheesy song choices, (h/t @moutheyes) and heteronormative romantic idealism tied to traditions like Namsan Tower (h/t @lurkingshan) was all possible because of the time that a visual medium provides (like WKA said in their post linked above) and all made him feel much more like a real person that inspired sympathy than Young ever described him as in the novel (this is not a failing of the novel, but it gives them a different flavour that I am appreciating in both iterations).

And because he’s a more realized character, Nam Gu's death hit me harder watching the show. From reading the novel, I remember Young returning to K3’s final text messages regularly, and how his reaction sounded very dissociated, but the scene of the empty funeral mourning room in the series is one of those visuals that will stick with me. It's been a couple of days and my stomach hurts just thinking about it. He was trying so hard to live a "normal" life that he was in some fundamental ways barred from by society, and it left him so lonely.

By seeing more of Yeong’s life in the series adaptation, it made it more obvious to me how many ways Yeong is choosing to be alone, and how his relationship with Mi Ae was an exception to that rule until it wasn’t. I noticed that Yeong moving in with Mi Ae coincided with the T-aras leave for their mandatory military service, and his breakup with Nam Gyu was after their sendoff party. By having more of Yeong's relationships depicted in these episodes, his loneliness when Mi Ae was gone to employee training and after they stopped talking was louder than in the novel, because we as an audience were aware that there were people he was choosing not to call. And it's worth noting that it was only when he had cut ties with Mi Ae that he turned back to Nam Gyu, only to close off that thread permanently too. It was an interesting pattern to me, that In the series, Yeong ends things with Nam Gyu after he loses other people in his life.

As  @shinjikar1 pointed out Yeong's parallel losses of Nam Gyu and Mi Ae are about the decision to conform or not conform (and @troubled-mind pointed out how perfectly the song parallel really underscores this comparison, and the visuals of the abandoned marlboros and the ring do the same (h/t @conscbgb). H/t @lurkingshan for saying in our chats that specifically, Yeong's relationships with Mi Ae and Nam Gyu represent conforming to or rejecting a set heteronormative standard. Mi Ae chooses to conform and marry Jun Ho, but Yeong chooses not to commit to Nam Gyu, and so he loses both Nam Gyu and Mi Ae as a result. Yeong laments his choice after Nam Gyu's death, but as @my-rose-tinted-glasses wrote, that read to me more as romanticizing a relationship only after it's done than any realistic assessment of their relationship potential. And the bittersweet representation of Mi Ae’s relationship with Jun Ho and how the only moment she really looks happy and herself at her wedding is the moment she runs over to sing with Yeong (and how we can see by his reaction that Jun Ho has never actually seen his wife be herself) tells me that maybe the decision to conform may not be any less lonely. That being said, as @impala124 called out, just because a relationship ends that does not negate its importance in our lives, and I love how that theme which was so strong in the novel shines through in the series adaptation.

As Ben mentioned in his post linked above, I chatted with him about how I was not just thinking about the additions but also pondering the scenes that were left out of this adaptation (e.g. the STI scare scene), and whether the moment at the funeral when Yeong asks how Nam Gyu died might function in a similar way for the TV adaptation that the STI scene functioned in the novel–something that when we reflect back on later, in the context of Kylie, will get additional weight and meaning. I wondered, too, about the club scene when Yeong kissed that random guy so hard the guy pushed him off and checked if his lip was bleeding, and how different that was to Young freaking out at the taste of blood after kissing too hard in the novel. Again, that scene made me wonder whether this was before Kylie or after, and if Yeong kissing people too hard will be a theme in the series. Similarly, we didn’t get the coverage of his time in the military in the first two episodes, but we instead got a mention of the T-aras leaving for their military service, which leaves Yeong’s military service as a loud absence, again seeding the presence of Kylie in a different way to how it was foreshadowed in the novel.

Lastly, this is tangential to everything, but I found myself thinking about how Korean audiences might react differently to the Itaewon scenes and how different they must be to how things are now, post-Itaewon crush incident and how the club culture has changed as a result of that event and COVID-19. The kids apparently just don’t go to the clubs like this anymore. In that sense, these episodes feel a little like nostalgia for a generation and not just for youth in general.