#y’all i have so many emotions about these timelines

[magicofthepen]

so @presidentromana and I have been working on a Toby Daye AU where Liz and the Luidaeg have a kid. and when I say an AU, I really mean three variations of that AU.

the fic so far:

Bound in Shallows and Miseries by @presidentromana: Elizabeth Ryan is pregnant and no one will believe in her fidelity, not even her dear Annie. T, 4k.

(cw: major character death, unplanned pregnancy, childbirth, suicide)

This one is a standalone fic.

Against Your Peace by @magicofthepen: Antigone of Albany lost all her children. When Faerie decides to give her another, she will do whatever it takes to keep her daughter safe. T, 4k.

(cw: unplanned pregnancy, childbirth, kidnapping, suicidal ideation, mention of (canonical) suicide, presumed child death—but no actual child death)

This one is the start of a series, Broken Oaths and Distant Shores—we have several fics already written in this series and many more planned! (This is a different timeline than Bound in Shallows and Miseries.)

There will also be a third timeline of the kid!AU at some point, which will have its own series. But all fics in all versions of the kid!AUs are collected in A Thousand Fearful Wrecks.

[truthandadare]

Y’all, what is up with Season 2 😬

The writing, tone, and pacing are a mess. I walked away from Season 2 Act 2 feeling entirely devoid of emotional connection. What I can still marvel at artistically from an animation triumph I’m left puzzled by the story choices.

As much as I adore seeing flash backs of fresh starry eyed Silco, The timeline is a minefield of plot holes. The decision to have them extremely chummy with Felicia entirely cheapens both his and Vanders choice to take the girls in.

….did Jinx know Silco beforehand? Did he take her in because he recognized her and still felt guilty for her mother’s death? But oh wait Silco and Vander didn’t have a falling out until after Felicia’s death (don’t get me started on how the animation of Vander isn’t consistent with this messy timeline) so how did they NEVER meet Silco before their parents died?

Adding this knowing-the-mom detail in (*cough* retconning), is a single droplet in the lake of writing choices that undercut so much of what I loved about the sweeping emotionally grounded and character driven season 1.

The most egregious plot “twist” and timeline disaster for me, is Vander’s motivation for attempting to murder Silco…I’m meant to believe these once emotionally complex characters are reduced to motivations of our mutual friend died so now I’ll shave and bring my dearest friend and comrade down to the river to drown him? All after my redemptive act of taking in our friend’s children?

(Take a break and look at how lovely he was ❤️‍🔥)

There is SO MUCH I’m struggling with this season: JesusVictor (all of it. ALL OF IT), Isha as a vehicle for Jinx’s redemption (yikes) without a single drop of emotional connection to the audience, Mel’s journey feeling entirely inconsequential to our usual character driven storytelling and simply there to set up Riots next project, Caitlyn—good god what are any of her motivations, Jinx’s character feeling disjointed and not in the usual way.

Everything is lacking in emotional weight.

To sum up how I felt yesterday, when Jinx called Victor a “fortune cookie” three times in an episode, I had to pause and go for a walk. Literally went to touch grass. The use of an anachronism? Seriously?

The writing in Season 1 was nearly perfection, it’s why I got back into writing and finished my first damn novel, but this….is lazy and I feel on an endless loop of confusion, disappointment, and anxiety for the end.

Were they rushed? Was there an overhaul of writers? Too many of them pulling in different directions? Are our beloved characters simply victims of Riot building their expansive Netflix universe?

Anyway, that’s why there’s fanfic, thank VictorJesus I guess 🥲

[matt0044]

“y’all couldn’t even handle the moral complexities of steven universe”

You've probably seen this type of post make the rounds every so often and either agree or disagree with it. I'm of the former camp and have often pondered some of the reasons why this thesis holds water.

To start, Social Media has really changed the game in Fandom for better and for worst (the latter being too often the case). Namely in how on platforms like Tumblr and Twitter (Musk can shove that X up his ugly a-), we get fun fandom nonsense along with a 24/7 news cycle of whatever's trending.

Which means we have constant intrusion on our timelines about how the geopolitics across the globe are pretty crap. Many of us retweet things we feel may be relevant, especially when misinformation has become a vertiable economy we need to be aware of.

We also have people raising awareness of social issues that our world still endures such as sexism, racism, every kind of bigotry you can imagine. Ironically, this brings about those railling against the notion that they either still exist or need to be worked on at all in a display of said prejudices. #Gamergate didn't just spring from the ether.

Many celebrities of various levels of fame were turning out to be… pretty bad. Social Media would empower them to speak their minds and not all of it was just “their beliefs.”

To keep this focused of when Steven Universe was coming out, the end of the Obama era and Trump planting his stanky ass in the Oval Office, this was when people’s trust in each other was at an all time low.

Hell, I remember when Trump’s campaign and Brexit got many bigots to feel like they can be prejudiced without consequences. Whole reason he made it to the final two at all.

As such, how else would Uncle Andy Demayo come across as anything other than a MAGA hat wearer? How else would the Diamond Authority come off as but the powers that be who “need to be stopped?”

Steven Universe came at a time when fandom was intermingling with the real life. Fans were starting to feel insulted whenever something like fighting the government or interacting with problematic family member wasn’t answered with “Burn it to the ground!”

Notions of compassion to those who are troubled or maybe in need of a shoulder to lean on were disinterpretted in the least favorable light possible. How could SU even humor the notion that narrowminded family members or even people of power could be redeemed let alone humanized?

Essentially, it didn’t speak to the emotional climate at the time for millennials or Gen Z. It’s why we’ve celebrated Big Jack Horner and those who harken back to classic Disney villains. The kind you cheer on to be taken down a peg.

Lily Orchard didn’t start the fire. The flames were already being fanned.

[saphira-approves]

Alright buckle up y’all, I’ve got a book series recommendation and propaganda under the cut for any fans of the Inheritance Cycle.

If you read our beloved farmboy-turned-dragon-rider books and had a particular fondness for: the idea of an order of individuals chosen to be both partner and rider to powerful and beautiful magical creatures; Snowfire; an immortal evil that resurfaces in disguised and unexpected forms (specifically referencing the Draumar cult which we now know had influence in Galbatorix’s rise to power); and/or the juicy juicy drama of complicated parent-child relationships, then oh boy do I have a recommendation for you.

Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar series, comprising of many, MANY individuals novels, trilogies, and short story anthologies. I don’t currently have a count for the exact total of published books, as I’ve been getting most of these from my local secondhand bookstore, but she’s been publishing these books since 1987 and is still writing them today in 2024.

Since this is such a huge collection, it can be hard to know where to start, so first of all I’d like to assure you that you can start pretty much anywhere, with any of the individual novels or series, so long as you make sure to find the first installment of that series. Personally I started with The Black Gryphon, which seems to be one of the chronologically earliest books; Arrows of the Queen of the Heralds of Valdemar trilogy would also be a good place to start, being the first published Valdemar book, though I haven’t actually read it yet—I only just got my copy today, actually!

At any rate, wherever you start, there’s a lot to look forward to. Lackey has a knack for writing characters with depth and complexity, giving them flaws that are so well balanced by endearments that even at their worst, you can still understand and empathize with them; she absolutely refuses to write idiot-plots, allowing her characters not only to remain consistent with their established characterizations, but also to communicate with each other and allow their relationships to evolve as the characters do. Characters are allowed to make mistakes, be vain and stubborn and prideful, get angry, get jealous, get scared, and yet afterward still be received with love and forgiveness when they apologize. The magic is beautifully described and, at least for me, easy to understand; the schemes are clever, diabolical, and exciting to watch unfold. There is true, pure evil in the villains, and satisfaction in their endings.

There’s also a decent amount of diversity, which may or may not be surprising, depending on what you’ve read of 80s/90s SFF. Of the handful of books I’ve read so far, here are my observations: Lackey writes fantastic and complex women full of depth, emotion, and ingenuity, each as different from each other as their backgrounds would demand. There are several canonically queer characters across the timeline, including a main protagonist. Lackey’s worldbuilding establishes several unique and disparate cultures, drawing clear influence from many non-European real life sources, with featured characters of those cultures given, in my opinion, respectful and appreciative spotlights. There are characters with disabilities, respected both by the narrative and the characters around them. There are also non-human cultures, characters, and protagonists!

As fantastic as I have been finding these books, it would be remiss of me not to add that these books will not be for everyone. They are firmly adult fantasy, and Lackey does not pull her punches when she wants her characters to suffer. There is torture, sexual assault, suicide. Not all of this is graphically described, but some certainly is; most of the graphic stuff I have so far read is of about the same intensity as the torture scenes of Inheritance, but some of the abstractions are much more intense, and I get the sense that some of what I haven’t yet read may be both graphic and visceral. That being said, if you could handle Game of Thrones’ graphic violence and assault but disliked the persistent pessimism of that series, this one might be right up your alley!

Anyway. That’s all from me for now. I’m off to go read about characters bonding with magical creatures somewhat beyond mortal ken and going on fantastic and harrowing magical adventures. :)

[waitmyturtles]

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: I Told Sunset About You (ITSAY) Edition

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, in a long post, I work my way through Nadao Bangkok’s cinematic motherlode: ITSAY. Thanks to everyone for your patience with this post: I did major due diligence with it, with the absolutely TREMENDOUS help of @telomeke, @lurkingshan​, @wen-kexing-apologist​, and @bengiyo​ to ensure I had facts and analysis correct. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, to these dear friends for holding me down and offering your sharp eyes.]

To dive into a topic as complicated, as beautiful, as reflective, as impactful as a macro-analysis of I Told Sunset About You is to take on...a lot. As I’ve discussed with @lurkingshan, from a filmmaking perspective, as so many of us who have watched ITSAY know -- it occupies the top spot of Thai BLs by way of pure cinematic quality. (If you follow my late-night liveblogs, you’ll know that this was the first show -- not even Bad Buddy did this to me -- where I needed to stop multitasking, to just sit and watch the episodes. No drama has done that for me in the years since I became a multitasking mom.)

As with 2gether and Still 2gether last week, this watch of ITSAY is a definite milestone on the OGMMTVC list, and I really thank @shortpplfedup, @bengiyo, @wen-kexing-apologist, @lurkingshan, @telomeke, and others in advance for what we’ve talked about in direct conversation regarding ITSAY, its many influential tentacles, and the influences that the show itself may have come from.

I’d like to touch upon a couple of frames to structure this piece, but the caveat here is that by no way will I consider myself an ITSAY expert, because there’s a tremendous fandom that knows much more about the Nadao Bangkok studio, about PP Krit and Billkin Putthipong, about the director and screenwriter, Boss Naruebet, and much more. I will have a substantial postscript to capture loose notes and learnings that didn’t make it into the main analysis. 

Inspired in part by direct conversations with @telomeke and @lurkingshan, I’d like to dive into the following: 

1) From a question that @lurkingshan posed to me: what shows from the start of the OGMMTVC watchlist -- and, more broadly, what art out there -- do I think spoke to ITSAY and its development, 2) The important story of Chinese migration to locations like Phuket, Penang (in Malaysia), and other locations on the Malay Peninsula, and how Chinese and Thai-Malay-Chinese-Peranakan cultures flavored ITSAY’s storytelling, 3) A discussion of internal and external homophobia on Teh’s experience, and how his conversation with Hoon encapsulated our understanding of homophobia, filial piety, and socioeconomic pressures in Teh’s particular life, timeline, and culture,

and more, I’m sure. Let’s boogie.

I warned some folks prior to this review that my thoughts on what may have spoken to ITSAY may turn some people off, so I offer this as a flare to y’all in advance. Acknowledging that episodes three and four of ITSAY were as emotional as anything I had ever seen in Asian BLs, Teh was just such a PERFECTLY written character. (The ITSAY supporting documentary episodes state that the show was in part inspired by Billkin’s and PP’s personal lives, and I know there’s fanon that the show was meant to deeply depict their personal stories with each other. I don’t have primary source material to point to regarding this, so I’ll leave it alone, with the understanding that there are interpretations of the show that read between the lines to bring that lens in. I acknowledge the existence of the theories, but will not dive into that here.)

So, in regards to Teh, as I chatted with @lurkingshan as I was watching the series, I just kept thinking to myself... hello, Fuse. 

CHAOS BOYS! (Fire Boys? No, no, chaos boys, ha.) 

This is where I think my analytical read might get a little controversial with folks, because to compare Make It Right to ITSAY -- from a LOOKS perspective, CERTAINLY from a storyline and narrative structure perspective -- no, it’s not there, not by a long shot.

But when I wonder about what ENERGIES and inspirations opened the door for Boss Narubet to WRITE the way that he wrote, and to DIRECT the way that he directed, Teh’s ENTIRE EMOTIONAL PROCESS AND BREAKDOWNS, his back-and-forth, his hesitations -- I saw chaos, and when I think of chaos, I think of Fuse.

I think of Fuse, and how Fuse was held back, particularly in Make It Right 2, regarding Fuse’s CULTURAL AND SOCIAL ASSUMPTION that he couldn’t break up with his girlfriend, all while being in a nascent give-and-take, back-and-forth relationship with Tee. And how that ASSUMPTION held BACK the full expression of commitment, honesty, and trust that Fuse and Tee ended up having at the end of MIR2. Fuse was being rather unsophisticated while he was struggling with this, and he was bringing Tee along, frustratingly, for that ride.  

Something that you said to me also really resonated, @bengiyo, in conversation with @lurkingshan, about comparing TeeFuse and TehOh, in that Fuse and Teh weren’t necessarily SPARKLING or GIFTED presences. As you two both pointed out to me: Teh had to work much, much harder than Oh-aew for the talents that Teh achieved, and somehow, chaotically, he managed to lose his grip on those talents and achievements as he gave up his hard-earned opportunities for the sake of the overall-better-off Oh-aew. MESSY, BRO.

Besides MIR/MIR2, there’s somewhere else where I saw chaos. @bengiyo, you pointed out to me that you felt that you saw more of Thai queer cinema in ITSAY than in BL. I don’t think ITSAY *doesn’t* speak to BL and vice versa (I don’t think there’s anyone who thinks that, considering what Nadao Bangkok achieved with this show), but when I think of chaos -- and of the structures of storytelling that allowed us to get such an in-depth experience of Teh -- I also think of 2019′s Dew the Movie, and to a different extent, the before-its-time show in 2019′s He’s Coming To Me. 

ITSAY, Dew, and HCTM have:

a) multiple chaotic leads (including actual ghosts and dudes who see ghosts),  b) overarching cultural backgrounds rooted in extremely specific Asian cultures and/or practices and/or time periods, and c) interplays of emotional revelations vis à vis those specific cultural backgrounds.

 - Fuse introduced to us, way back in 2016 and 2017, an internal holding back of an emotional engagement with Tee that was rooted in internal homophobia by way of his negotiation with what Fuse’s girlfriend expected of him, and what HE expected of HIMSELF regarding HAVING a girlfriend, while falling in love with a young man. 

- Dew featured two young men in chaos, in 1990s rural Thailand, one of whom (Dew) who had previously lived in a different city where, likely, his sexual orientation would not have been met with such dystopic scrutiny as it did in the movie. The movie made clear that Dew wanted a solid relationship with Phop, but with both Dew’s and Phop’s families and cultural expectations holding them back, they both met untimely and unfortunate ends that hammered, in extremes, the perils, in cinema, of being gay and out in an incredibly restrictive and old-fashioned Asian society.

- HCTM featured a young man (Thun) who could see ghosts, along with the ghost that he ends up falling in love with (Med). The revelation of Thun’s being able to see Med is deeply connected to Thun’s Thai-Chinese Buddhist practices, and how his family has engaged with spirituality over the course of his life. While the structure of the show has often been described as having a happy ending, I argue the opposite -- that the ending is left open-ended, as it so often is in some of P’Aof Noppharnach’s shows, with the assumed understanding on behalf of an Asian audience that Med will one day be reborn and will leave Thun’s side (unless he’s reborn into another person that knows Thun) (hello, Until We Meet Again). 

So what do all of these shows/movies -- ITSAY, Make It Right/MIR2, Dew, and HCTM -- have in common?

ITSAY, Dew, and HCTM have the common background of an old-fashioned culture serving as a MAJOR anchor to their stories. Their stories are leveraged by the micro-level, individual-level interplay between their main characters and old-fashioned worlds, complete with old-fashioned notions, assumptions, and expectations. ITSAY, Dew, and HCTM negotiate boundaries with these cultural guardrails, and we see -- Teh at the end of episode 4, Thun on the rooftop in episode 5, Dew talking to his mother -- what those expectations and boundaries have done internally to our dear young men. 

Make It Right’s Fuse, way back in 2016, internalized this slightly differently, without us seeing as deeply the WORLD in which he grew up. The directors and screenwriters New Siwaj and Cheewin Thanamin gave us a guy in school with a girlfriend. FUSE’S world, that we see, is a school world, so apropos for that time of Thai BLs, complete with very heterosexual expectations for a young man WITH a girlfriend. And Fuse struggles with his push-and-pull throughout the two seasons.

What I love about the OGMMTVC project is that by having watched these projects before ITSAY, I can somewhat predict what the journey of chaos, by way of internal revelation, will be for these characters. 

However.

What ITSAY DESTROYED for me, as compared to these dramas and movies, was the high level of acting that Billkin leveraged to get Teh to the emotional levels that he reached. Teh, episode 4, and Thun, episode 5 = handshakes. 

This is where ITSAY’s structure just brings ITSAY to the top of the cinematic list and runs away from everything else. I posted in my liveblogging that the ending of episode 3 blew me away with a subversion of the four-act structure of screenwriting. @bengiyo corrected me to say that it was, instead, a rare example of Thai BLs achieving a successful five-act structure. 

Just -- fuck. 

You combine this UTTERLY FUCKING BRILLIANT STORYTELLING STRUCTURE, NARRATIVE STRUCTURING PAR FUCKING EXCELLENCE, ALONG WITH BILLKIN’S PORTRAYAL OF TEH IN HEAT AND CHAOS, and I’m eating, fam. Five-star Michelin tasting menu-level. 

But before I start that meal, there’s even more that ITSAY did to really hammer in what I’m referencing by way of the anchors of old-fashioned culture to this story, which, clearly, Boss and Nadao Bangkok value, in the show’s indirect commentary on Chinese culture and migration in Thailand, and what it meant for Teh and Oh-aew to grow up in Phuket and prepare to leave for Bangkok. (If you haven’t watched ITSAY, I highly recommend that you plan on watching the supplementary documentary material, because those docs give a ton of insight into the Thai-Malay-Chinese background of the show. As a SE Asian homey, those revelations gave me the wonderful warm and familiar vibes.)

Dear @telomeke (I don’t know what I’d do without you, friend!) helped me to understand, back in my HCTM days, that I inherently know more about Chinese migration, immigration, and culture into Southeast Asia than I previously gave myself credit for as a part-Malaysian, because many of the migratory patterns and cultural assimilations are similar between Thailand and Malaysia. I appreciated that confirmation, and had my inspector’s hat on during my watch and rewatch of ITSAY. 

I’ve spoken with @lurkingshan and @neuroticbookworm about the impact of migration and diasporic existence, in that, I think, oftentimes, immigrants to another country often hold a more conservative view of the cultures they bring with them -- in order to hold onto the tenets of those cultures, and to keep those tenets from getting influenced or maybe even watered down by the new environment in which immigrants are living. (My example to Shan and NBW was that I find that South Asian immigrants are often MORE conservative than my relatives in my homelands -- so as to keep a tight grip on assimilation, or, say, moral/ethical weakening by way of Western culture.)

I think the background of Phuket and EVERYTHING it lent to the show...

- Teh’s mom selling Hokkien mee at a stall storefront and the boys eating it in Teh’s old-fashioned house, - The old-fashioned o-aew dessert shop, selling a Hokkien Chinese dessert, which is often preceded by a shot of the “Phuket Old Town” sign, - Teh’s mom’s traditional Chinese-Peranakan outfits, particularly when she’s celebrating Teh and Hoon’s successes, - The tight streets and alleys,

...all of it, visually and culturally, reminded us that the boys live in a world that was DEEPLY INFLUENCED by the way back when. I posit that Teh’s mom is the encapsulation of this kind of old-fashioned culture, from the architectural style of her Hokkien mee stall, to the clothes she wears, to the heavy decorations and rugs and furniture of her old-fashioned house -- to her old-fashioned notions of filial piety that both her sons will be successful and will help to take care of her as she ages. I posit that this old-fashioned mindset also likely led Teh to believe that Teh’s mom would not accept him for liking men, which I will delve into more in a bit.

I mentioned cultural assimilation earlier: I brought up Penang, Malaysia, earlier, because I’ve spent time in Penang -- and Penang was referenced by Boss in the ITSAY documentaries as being similar to Phuket by way of cultural structure. @telomeke educated me on the tin-trade-influenced links from Phuket to the Malaysian towns of Penang and Kuala Lumpur, all towns that experienced heavy immigration from China and feature the strong presence of Chinese-Malay-Peranakan cultures in their social fabrics. The Peranakan population developed when the first Chinese immigrants to these regions began marrying the local ethnic Thai and Malay residents, creating a brand-new culture, complete with unique foods, clothing, architecture, and much more. 

Having not been to Phuket yet, I believe Boss. As well, I want to note -- very important to me as a part-Malaysian -- that Boss referenced Teh’s nickname as the Malay word for tea. @telomeke​ noted for me this distinction as one that’s notable for how ITSAY differentiates the culture within the show -- again, a culture that’s influenced by Chinese and Malay migratory history -- against the backdrop of Bangkok, where tea is not “teh,” but rather is called “cha,” the Thai word for tea. [The most famous “teh” drink of Malaysia is teh tarik, a sweet, creamy, and strong tea drink that you see everywhere in Malaysia. While o-aew is a distinctly Chinese-style dessert, teh tarik comes from Indian immigrants to Malaysia (and is usually drunk with roti canai, another Indian import to Malaysia)]. 

In other words: we are talking a TREMENDOUS, a TREMENDOUS amount of references to cultural mixing, development, and assimilation here, all INTENTIONALLY placed by Boss Narubet and his screenwriting team -- and all of this serving as a reflection against what Teh and Oh-aew will experience as being “different” in their futures in Bangkok, where this Thai-Chinese-Malay cultural differential will make them different when they get to college. (Not having seen I Promised You The Moon yet, I wonder if IPYTM sets up Teh and Oh-aew as potential country mice, à la Ji Hyun and Joon Pyo in The Eighth Sense.)

One more pertinent note of cultural intermixing by way of the historical Thai-Chinese-Malay linkages. @bengiyo was surprised that I didn’t initially exclaim at the presence of hijab- and songkok-clad Muslim women and men eating at Teh’s mom’s Hokkien mee stall; Teh and Oh-aew’s friend, Phillip, is also shown with his Muslim parents. It’s funny, @bengiyo, as I said to you: because I was watching ITSAY with such a trained eye towards spotting the Thai-Chinese-Malay cultural mixing, seeing Muslims on screen did NOT ring a bell of differentials because -- I expect to see them there, in those kinds of spaces, anyway. (In fact, seeing Muslims on Thai television is rare, which I will get into more in the postscript.)

So we have: MANY CULTURES MIXING OVER MANY GENERATIONS. Migratory patterns intertwining. Indications of physical and emotional movement. And even though, and even DESPITE, these cultures mixing, we ALSO HAVE an OVERARCHING message of old-fashioned customs and ways of living that dominate the lives of the children in the show -- ESPECIALLY Teh. Teh and Oh-aew -- literally, their NAMES reference places ELSEWHERE than Phuket and Thailand. Phuket’s old-fashioned roots. Teh’s mom SELLS a dish that comes from somewhere else (the Hokkien Chinese population mostly hails from Fujian, China, as its origin).  

What happens with migration and immigration? Cultures collide and combine -- social mores and expectations change -- one’s standards of HOW TO LIVE ONE’S LIFE changes. 

Teh and Oh-aew, during the entire series, are facing a moment in time where THEIR lives, THEIR cultures, THEIR micro-interactions WITH THEIR cultures, ARE GOING TO CHANGE, definitively, by way of their burgeoning same-sex relationship. Teh and Oh-aew are already different in Thailand by way of their cultural backgrounds, as I’ve established -- and now, with a potential public revelation of their relationship, will they be even more different. And their families -- especially Teh’s mom, but Oh-aew’s family as well -- are going to collide with the very PRESENT present vis à vis their boys and their love. 

As this happens with migration and immigration, CHANGE WILL HAPPEN vis à vis Teh and Oh-aew’s queer revelations as well. 

Boss focused on the aspects of Phuket that were anchors to the culture that Teh and Oh-aew were raised in -- an immigrant culture, a migrant culture from China, that has had a long hold over many, many towns and societies in Thailand. We didn’t see the modern 7-11s that we know are there in Phuket, serving the tourists of these towns. 

And, just like the physical dystopia of Dew, and even vis à vis the spiritual practices built into He’s Coming To Me, the slice of Old Town Phuket that we SAW as that anchor was a HEAVY PRESENCE in Teh’s life -- it was PERFECTLY matched with the old-fashioned, conservative ANGER and DISAPPOINTMENT that we saw in Teh’s mom in episode 4, when Teh shares that he dropped out of university for Oh-aew. That anchor, to me, was meant to SMASH into, FEED into Teh’s overwhelming emotionality at his queer revelation, and at the revelation that serving his mother via filial piety would be automatically made more difficult, thus maximizing the impact of his internalized homophobia and his fear of recognizing his love and attraction for Oh-aew.

COUPLE THAT with the previous hints -- and then the SMASHING WRECKING BALL -- of the visual depths of Oh-aew’s own realizations earlier in episode 4, his own internally different place, the way he reveals himself to the world vis à vis the fast Instagram post of him wearing the red bra. And how Teh reacts to it. And how it sets off such an unreal chain of emotional unraveling for Teh, the SECOND of that episode, even before he goes to Bangkok to drop out. 

WHOA.

THIS, TO ME WAS FUCKING STUNNING

and very important to me to see as a South/Southeast Asian. WHEW.

And, good lord. How Hoon comes in at the end for Teh. Hoon, the eldest son, the one who has very quietly borne the financial responsibility that his mom, Teh’s mom, too, has placed on Hoon’s shoulders, naturally, through generations of family custom. (Super duper thanks to @lurkingshan for talking me through this in detail with me.)

And Hoon gives his family, his little bro, Teh, comfort. How Hoon says, listen. Mom’s gonna be mad if and when you tell her about Oh-aew and your feelings for me. But guess what? She’s gonna come around. You’re a crybaby, Teh, but I’m here for you.

Hoon knows that Teh’s mom will come around -- because Hoon is also a part of the next generation of change, much like his Thai-Malay-Chinese-Peranakan community before him -- as he brings his Japanese girlfriend home to his mother and brother. (THANK YOU, @wen-kexing-apologist, for pointing this out!)

Teh’s mom, too, will move. She will move from her old-fashioned mindset, to migrate to a new mindset, where she will accept her son. Teh needed to hear that, to know that that movement would be possible.

Just like the movement of the many swirling cultures around Teh and Oh-aew, the hustle of Bangkok before them, nipping at their lives like the ocean to the beach. 

What ITSAY captured for me was a cinematic moment of movement on so many levels. It was a pulsating reflection of change. It was meant and designed to insidiously shock viewers out of complacency. Like a beanstalk climbing from the ground, the movement begot movement to these two young men beginning to address and empty themselves of the homophobia that kept them back, Teh especially. 

GAH, THEIR MOVING PHYSICALITY, IT NEVER STOPPED -- the end of episode 2 on the boat, the end of episode 3 in Teh’s room, GAWD -- Teh’s ABSOLUTE HORMONAL DRUNKENNESS, Oh-aew’s STARE AFTER STARE AFTER STARE, Oh-aew’s SILENT DEVASTATION AT THE END OF EPISODE 3, the way Teh would nod and FLOP his head uncontrollably in desire, the nuzzles, the sniffs, the uncontrolled reaches -- GAH. It gives me the shivers. 

It was a lot.

ITSAY was just -- y’all know it. It was fantastic. While HCTM was before its time, I feel that ITSAY was RIGHT ON TIME. It brought so many elements of this GORGEOUS, HISTORIC, culturally Southeast Asian experience into the intersection of the queer lens, as well as the *migratory* lens of the Southeast Asian region specifically. It showed us, from a micro-perspective, the very tremendous macro-level implications and pressures of filial piety, of internalized homophobia, of the huge socioeconomic expectations that families have on Asian students to succeed in education, and so much more. IT WAS *DEFINITIVELY INTERSECTIONAL*, MORE SO THAN ANY BL BEFORE ITS TIME.

Yet again, for me, just like Bad Buddy, just like Until We Meet Again, I have another show in my arsenal that makes me proud to be an Asian watching these shows -- and in ITSAY, I feel particularly proud that a slice of my own personal culture, as an Malaysian, made it in there, intentionally. I will FOREVER, and ever, be grateful to ITSAY for that.

-------

I’d like to offer this postscript as a means of making some quick points that @telomeke, @bengiyo, @lurkingshan, and @wen-kexing-apologist shared with me as I was writing this review -- and I thank them all deeply for reading drafts of this post before publication. 

1) I was previously unaware of the history and current state of Islamic culture in Thailand until ITSAY and Be My Favorite included women wearing hijabs in their shows. This is an important slice of culture for me to know about, as I’m part-Malaysian, where Islam is the dominant religion. @telomeke shared with me that the majority Muslim population in Thailand is in southern Thailand (although, of course, Muslims live across Thailand), and that there have historically been separatist efforts in those southern provinces that have often led to violence. 

There are many reasons why discrimination of Muslims exist in Thailand, as it does around the world, including references to the separatist efforts in the southern provinces. As well, ethnic Thais can trace their heritage back to various towns and communities within China, thus possibly making northern Thailand, with its proximity to China, potentially more lauded in Thai culture, and contributing even more to a perception that southern Thailand, with its Muslim population, as potentially “less desirable.” (And I want to take a second to note @telomeke​‘s excellent point to me that “Chinese” as a catch-all word is often incomplete, as Han Chinese make up a sizable portion of Thailand’s population, but as we see in ITSAY, the Hokkien Chinese population also flourishes in certain parts of the country, and there are populations of Teochew and Hakka Chinese as well, as there are in Malaysia.)

All of this combined -- the geographic proximities to China, the places where various populations have settled, from the places that various populations of Thais track their heritages, plus global and/or popular misconceptions and stereotypes of “other” communities -- can contribute to discrimination of Muslims in Thailand. Of course, that is not a universal statement, as we do see Muslims beginning to show up in Thai drama art, which is heartening. To me, it strikes me as more realistic for the region to see Muslims on screen, but I don’t know Thailand well enough to say that for sure (that’s my Malaysian-side talking). I really want to thank @telomeke for taking me on SUCH a deep dive with insight into this part of Thai culture that I think is very necessary and fascinating. (Politics in Thailand is quite complicated at the moment, but at this very second, Thailand’s current Parliament speaker, from the Move Forward party, is Thai Muslim, with a Malay Muslim name -- Wan Muhamed Noor Matha. Very cool, but this is going to change soon, as Move Forward will make way for another political party to take control of the government.)

2) If you know me well enough, I cannot leave food well enough alone in our wonderful dramas (exhibit A: Moonlight Chicken and khao man gai, exhibit B: coffee/kopi in The Promise, lol), and I want to make sure that we were all aware back in 2020, and/or make you aware now, that Hokkien mee is a VERY regional dish, with styles unique to each town in which it is famous. @telomeke, I know you feel differently, but Hokkien mee from Kuala Lumpur (KL), Malaysia is my.... it’s my heaven, my soul, my heart, HA!

Here’s some linkies to get you educated. And also! Oh-aew prefers his Hokkien mee with rice vermicelli noodles, instead of the usual, thicker egg noodles. You know what I like to do if I see that a stall has the two styles of noodles available: I like to get them mixed together. Hokkien mee, Hokkien prawn mee noodle soup, curry laksa -- I like the best of both worlds of noodles in my bowl. YUM.

Phuket Hokkien mee KL Hokkien mee Penang Hokkien mee (this one is the prawn noodle soup, not the fried noodles -- omfg so good) Singapore Hokkien mee (note the lighter color -- and the m’fing mix of thick and thin noodles, hell yeah!)

(If you made it this far in the ITSAY review, I have an easter egg for you. Guess what the Malay name is for rice vermicelli noodles? Bee hoon or mee hoon. 

Hoon and Teh, two Malay names: thin noodles and tea. What Teh’s mom serves at her stall, and what Teh and Oh-aew represent, symbolically, by names and their noodle preferences, as a pairing. AND! @telomeke​ gave me one more easter egg! Teh O is a popular way to order tea in Malaysia and Singapore. It’s black tea with sugar, no milk. Another pairing reference. ITSAY never stopped with all the layered references!)

[WHEW! What a ride. Thanks to all y’all who held me down during my losing-it liveblogging of ITSAY. More to come when I get to Last Twilight in Phuket and I Promised You The Moon.

Next week, I’ll release my review of YYY into the wild -- listen, honestly. Yes, chaos, confusion, all of it. But I am not writing this show totally off. There was definitely stuff in it to chew on. And: POPPY RATCHAPONG. And Pee Peerawich. The acting was actually stacked on this show. There’s stuff! More soon.

And I also finished Manner of Death, so that review will drop in two weeks. I LOVE MAXTUL. UNABASHEDLY. Yes, I know I’m years late, yes, I know Tul is retired, sobs. Let me live my 2021 dreams! These guys are so good together, and MoD was fuckin’ great.

I have so much good stuff on the way: I’m fully in my ATOTS rewatch, and I’ve added 55:15 Never Too Late, very specifically its BL storyline. I may not give 55:15 a full review because I’ll fast-watch the rest of it, but: Khao, come to me, boo-boo! I have an INSANE August ahead of me as I’ll be moving in a month (GAH), but hopefully this schedule won’t fall back too much.

Status of the listy! Hit me up if you have feedback!

1) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 2) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 3) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 4) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 5) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 6) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 7) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 8) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 9) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 10) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 11) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 12) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 13) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 14) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (not a BL or an official part of the OGMMTVC watchlist, but an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 15) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 16) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) 17) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 18) I Told Sunset About You (2020)  19) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review coming) 20) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (not a true BL, but a MaxTul queer/gay romance set within a genre-based show that likely influenced Not Me and KinnPorsche) (review coming) 21) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 22) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (watching) 23) Lovely Writer (2021) 24) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) 25) I Promised You the Moon (2021) 26) Not Me (2021-2022) 27) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 28) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) 29) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch 30) Secret Crush On You (2022) [watching for Cheewin’s trajectory of studying queer joy from Make It Right (high school), to SCOY (college), to Bed Friend (working adults)] 31) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here) 32) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist 33) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 34) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 35) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 36) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 37) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) (Cheewin’s latest show, depicting a queer joy journey among working adults)]

[hoovesandfloorpaws]

an ode to RBB and SBB 🧸🏳️‍🌈🧸

inspired by this beautiful post by @holyshit 🌈

i just rolled around in bed again yelling to myself out loud, because THIS ALL HAPPENED!!

So I want to talk about Rainbow Bondage Bear and Sugar Baby Bear (RBB and SBB) for a little bit. (link leads to a post of all pictures of them that had been posted to their twitter account @Rbbsbbofficial, before it was deactivated)

A timeline for RBB and SBB going up to Dec 12th, 2015 can be found here: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 (i might add links here, because I'm sure a timeline post with screenshots exists here on Tumblr, too)

The second picture?? I had forgotten there weren’t just blue and green stickers with the daily emojis :) or :( on it, but also always TWO GIANT BLUE AND GREEN LIGHT BEAMS POINTED DIRECTLY AT THEM. like, you see how dark it is pre-show start. and those blue and green beams shine down there on those queens in the fur like the second coming of gay jesus - that was so iconic!

and then THIS happened???

and then the official RBB and SBB Twitter account tweeted this??

and then the number remained active for years!

PR-Louis: "Honestly, i'll tell u nao, hOnEsTlY! god's honest TrUth [...] no, honestly! i don't fink i've ever seen it in the.. in the flesh?" LMFAO Louis, love, if you say honestly 3 more times you might summon HIM:

but for real real -- i will never get over RBB and SBB and everything connected to it and this post is absolute emotional whiplash in the BEST way.

Harry and Louis (and everyone who helped them with it), y’all are legends for that. They knew we support them and they did ALL THAT and went those extra miles all the time to communicate back to us - to people who see them; understand the signs they send; who love them for who they are and support them through it all, in whichever small or bigger ways we can.

and I want to highlight, that sourcing all these different small props while almost constantly being on tour in different cities, countries, and continents took time and dedication. knowing tour life myself, the people who usually have the most (but still not much!) free time, are in fact the artists, not the crew. I want to make a point of this, because I saw some people back then saying Harry and Louis "wouldn't have time to do all this". They did.

In the entire context of Harry&Louis' relationship and within the inner workings of who and what One Direction was back then and still is - the queer legacy of RBB and SBB needs to be remembered.

The bears were so obviously something only between Harry&Louis and us. It was always clear who the bears wanted to communicate to. If you watch interviews of them being asked about them, you quickly realise -to this day-, they don't want to discuss them in this way.

Always ask yourself really why.

Always look for the things that are not being said; not being done.

Ask why the bears were clearly visible and there at so many shows and ALL of 1D completely ignored them, when they were so busy reading fan signs and picking up on writings on arms or flags in the crowd, making lighthearted jokes about it all, or Harry reading the "LARRY" on the arm of a fan and signalling his own arm to them like 'this, here!' and then giving multiple thumb ups? Harry and Louis (who were still very active on Twitter in 2014 and 2015) didn't Retweet or Like a single one of the bears' tweets, even though RBB and SBB were clearly linked to their shows, their locations, personal friends, live band members.

Most importantly, on Twitter and at shows, RBB and SBB were always referencing things that demonstrably exclusively tied to Harry&Louis' interests and personal lives. Sometimes even before it was made public.

RBB and SBB were an enigma that conveyed a powerful message. And they were one of the most fun and sweetest ways for Harry&Louis to communicate with us. I'm really grateful for their existence.

It should remain their personal choice to address them. I personally don't ever need to hear Harry and Louis publicly explain them to the world.

The people who know, know.

We know. 🧸🏳️‍🌈🧸

[glorfys-glorioushair]

Story in the Castlevania Games

Buckle up this is a long one!

I understand that there is often a divide about which of the Castlevania game types are better (Classicvanias, Metroidvanias, and the 3Ds) but I think this is kind of shallow because they each offer a different perspective of style. 

Personally I love the Igarashi era because the first game I 100% completed was Symphony of the Night (I started with Super Castlevania on a SNES). I also connect with the style because I’m a terrible gamer and you can easily scrape through those (yes I went as mist throughout a lot of the inverted castle don’t @ me) as opposed to the classicvanias which make you pay for it (I like the tough concept and the reward, but I can’t tell you how many times I have screamed about falling off stairs). I haven't had a chance to play the 3Ds yet, but I have watched the Curse of Darkness cutscenes in 4K numerous times!

My own preferences aside, we all know that despite gameplay, every Castlevania game (the ones that follow the timeline, bc idk anything about the Lord of Shadows series) have the same simple plot with the sole purpose in defeating Dracula. And I sometimes see in the gaming community that their simplicity of plot is marked off as terrible and shallow. In a surface level view this can be true if you just play games to play games. But in regards to Ernest Hemingway’s Iceberg Theory that “emphasizes the idea that a writer should only reveal a small portion of the story, with the bulk of the meaning and emotion implied or hinted at”, the Castlevania games explore such deep concepts of love, human struggle, identity, gender roles, sexuality, good vs. evil, religion, and other philosophies. 

By having the same basic objective, the writers are able to explore the different avenues in going about the completion of the task of defeating Dracula and point to the ideas of what it means to be human. Some examples under the cut:

Symphony of the Night has the debate of how evil and even good can have radical ideology evident with Dracula obviously, but also in Richter who got so consumed with being the force of good he was manipulated by darkness. Thus Alucard, who is a product of both good and evil is the only one who can reinstate this balance and leave behind the quote from the Sega Saturn version, “However, you must never forget this: the one with the power to destroy this world is not him... Humans themselves possess this power.” The dialogue is actually good and complex in this game when you compare the different versions. 

CVIII: Dracula’s Curse is argued to have one of the hardest gameplays (outside of the original Japanese version) and couldn’t this have an impact on the fact Trevor Belmont and the gang are the first ones to take down Dracula? It had to have been hard for them to achieve such a feat! Also the different motives for all of the playable characters. Trevor and his family’s fealty to fighting the night and who was once Mathias Cronqvist. Grant Danasty who seeks revenge for getting temporarily turned into a monster and fights for his country’s safety. Alucard who wants to stop his father from tormenting humans. And Syfa Belnades who was a female magic user for the church in a time where that mysticism could be deadly, but was necessary to preserve humanity. I think Syfa is interesting in terms of hiding versus showing true identity (something Yoko Belnades eons later talks about). 

Curse of Darkness. Y’all this might be the most complete and obviously complex story (supplement material aside) that they have ever produced, yet it’s the one that’s the most sidelined. And for what?? Hector is an outstanding foil to Dracula even to the point of the goal is to use him as a vessel to resurrect Dracula. Like that is so interesting!! Even Isaac and Julia have great characterizations. If you want more stuff about this game, check out @beevean they have great content. 

My second favorite game, Aria of Sorrow explores how Soma is actually a reincarnation of Dracula and it’s a battle of the self, temptation, and his love for Mina that can defeat the evil within. Also Alucard’s change in terms of approaching the situation of defeating his father under the guise of Arikado Genya. Now that’s a can of worms right there.

Order of Ecclesia and the discourse of cults, Harmony of Dissonance regarding how the Belmonts are just as cursed as Dracula, friendship and more in CV: Bloodlines, Simon Belmont’s battle with outward and internal strength, Lament of Innocence and how the women are fridged for both good and evil, the list can go on.

Now I won’t say that every single Castlevania game achieves this well, most things are left to speculation and interpretation like deeper information of what happens between games and what the Belmont lineage canonically looks like. But the fact you can draw these intense and deep messages from pixels and gameplay is incredible!  

What may be my biggest frustration with Konami sidelining the Castlevania series is the potential of a complex story within a well-thought out gameplay and style. Grimoire of Souls may have failed with repetition and it being a gacha game, but the story was interesting because they explored what it looks like with the characters from different games comparing and contrasting themes. It shows that there are people in the writing room who still care about the games because of the story. But money seems to be the problem for Konami which is stupid because they would make bank with this game franchise imo

Anyways my real point here is that taking a minimalistic approach to the story-telling within a game isn’t a bad thing because there’s always going to be deeper meanings. Perhaps this is why I myself gravitate so much towards this series. For me it’s not always about how good I can get through a level or boss fight, but the subject of what speaks to the human soul.

TL;DR: don’t get hung up on what gameplay is better, pay attention to the fact that all the games share a simple plot in order to explore complex themes of humanity, saying that less is more.

[whaliiwatching]

How DO you think universe signatures work? I don't think I've seen many theories or discussions on it but I also haven't been looking for them either

HOHOOO UNIVERSE SIGNATURES. ok. as i was rewatching scenes so i could write this, my theories fucking blinked out of existence :) there is as much consistency to universe signatures as there is to the atsv timeline.

alright lets see how incoherent this gets

btw i’m not using the word ‘dimension.’ incorrect scientific terminology in an animated spider man comic movie franchise about the multiverse? couldn’t be me. i already let them keep their holograms*

itsv came out in 2018 and is reported to have taken four years to make. in 2014, we couldn’t have made atsv; the technology hadn’t been developed, because there wasn’t yet a movie to demand it. (usually when the question comes up during production, the team has to invent an answer. like animating violet’s hair in the incredibles in 2004, or water in finding nemo in 2003, or fur for sully in the monsters inc movies, or the entire animation process of 2019’s klaus, or reflections on the cars in cars—) this, combined with itsv being set entirely in miles’s own universe, means that the b team’s (noir, peni, ham) universe signatures changing between universes can be attributed to 1. less worldbuilding than atsv and 2. lack of technological ability in 2014-2018 (no diss to the og animators obviously, itsv is fucking gorgeous)

but that’s a boring doylist analysis. i wonder if we can get watsonian. atsv, which was likely produced from 2017 or so to 2023, explores four more universes, rather than sticking to miles’s. surely it’ll have more answers!

i went through the entire movie to see what changes. not gonna bore y’all with a scene to scene analysis, so i’ll summarize: the only person who substantially differs between dimensions is gwen (abstract in E-65, solid but still pastel in E-1610, slightly more painted in E-50101, abstract again in E-928 during emotional scenes). hobie’s collage changes to match the tone or color palette of the universe around him, but doesn’t take on its signature. other than that, the only effect any universe has on every character is with its light, and the only effect to overpower a universe signature is a portal.

let’s pretend that in an infinite multiverse, such a thing as a standard can be set, and that standard is Comic Style. comparing it to itsv, where peni and ham gained depth from previously 2d-esque universes, it seems as though some things don’t change—general color palette and extreme stylistic divergences from the aforementioned standard, eg when atsv peni is styled in 2d—and some change universally—like universe-specific volumetric light, eg in itsv when E-1610’s halftone-style light gives peni depth and in atsv when E-928’s holographic-style light does the same in a different way.

then portals. they distort the space around them in their style of origin: organic portals always have miles’s universe’s signature because that’s where they were born; any portal opened with an E-928 watch has miguel’s orange holographic hexagon, no matter who uses them or where they open to; portals opened with hobie’s homemade watch are always collage, though they take on the color palette of the universe they’re opened in. that means portals have to be watch-specific, prolly based on the materials’ universe of origin, but in that case, hobie’s would look a lot like miguel’s since he harvested most if not all of the parts from E-928. so it has to be specific to either the person who made it or the universe it was made in.

but neither of those make sense! the degree of separation from universe/person that apparently applies to the watches doesn’t apply to items left in other universes. E-1610’s rubik’s cube retains its color and volume in noir’s universe, but the sweater gwen leaves on miles’s bed isn’t abstract, and the shoes she nicked from E-138 aren’t scrappy. even hobie’s watch is rendered in strangely crisp 3d, brightly colored and noticeably not collage.

and of course, both universe-specific light theory and portals-overpower-all theory aren’t totally consistent. hobie’s only properly illuminated when he’s in his base colors. but maybe that’s a quirk of atsv? he doesn’t glitch like paper in the radius of a portal—renaissance vulture didn’t glitch like paper either, maybe that’s just how glitching works! maybe it’s always that tv-signal-bright blocky mess! maybe there is one concrete rule in all this!!!!!

noir’s universe (during his intro scene, at least) comprises of three solid colors: black, light gray, and white, and volume/shadow is communicated through the intensity of halftone used. in itsv and in atsv he’s always in black and white, no matter the color of the light around him. he’s also the ONLY CHARACTER who glitches differently. noir breaks down in black and white!! when the team is lit up by gwen’s portal in atsv’s final scene he’s the only one not distorting in color!!!!! what the fuck man!!!!!!!!!

there isn’t one cohesive multiversal rule for how universe signatures act and interact with different universes, much as i’d love to have one. it raises too many questions and doesn’t give quite enough evidence to study. the closest i can theorize is color/style generally sticks and lighting/spatial physics generally doesn’t, and since that’s relatively simple, i’ll use it. gwen gets her photo-booth-app watercolors and peni/pav/ham/noir get just a little more rendered.

theories i have seen floating around that i also enjoy

gwen’s universe requires people to be in tune with it, to reflect their emotions—implying that the floaty abstract art during her scene with her father is diagetic. so when she’s not in her universe, she’s not like her universe.

hobie’s universe signature necessitates that he doesn’t conform to any other style

on that note, so would ham’s, because cartoon logic defeats reality logic

hope you enjoyed!! or at least were amused by my suffering <3

*do not get me started on holograms

[iwrestledavongonce]

Question time!!!!

📜"how did you get started on your WIPs?"

🖋️"what inspired you to write your WIPs?"

❤️"what are your favorite scenes from your WIPs?"

‼️"what has stayed consistent across all drafts?"

⁉️"what do you do when stuck on a scene?"

❓ask anything you want!

Has how you envisioned your story when you first started writing match where it current is? Has it changed a lot?

Thank you my friend for asking and especially so many questions. As you and y’all know me, dis one gon’ be long.

📜"how did you get started on your WIPs?"

I think I already told the story how the idea for IBWFY once hold me. It started with the image of the Senshi on the ground and LAAT/I suddenly coming out of the sky to help them just jumping into my mind one day, and I was like that would make a cool story. Next thing that popped into my mind was Ami as a Pirate Captain standing on a boat. It took months from there until I even began to make notes how things could be written out.

But then it just began, and in the first few months the ideas just rushed in and my drafts and notes began to grow. The idea for the breakup came relatively late for example but then I thought, hey this is beautiful on a very bittersweet note and that’s just how life is. It also opened the door for so much more, like the extreme long Suntsuna-Slow-Burn. Even nowadays it can happen that i start writing on a chapter and I’m like woah, this particular thing would be great in it. It’s all a process I guess.

🖋️"what inspired you to write your WIPs?"

Music was and is such a great inspiration. Elements of both SM and SW are. Life is. So many things that I draw inspiration from.

From deep within, writing a love story living up to a Cleopatra-Marc Anthony-level is also an inspiration (not that I could ever voice/ write on such a level, but I think the thought is beautiful to tell such a story).

❤️"what are your favorite scenes from your WIPs?"

I wrote about the most favorite already but there are many more and they can differ. Declarations of love, some sentences or actions were I think to myself wow, the musical character some scenes have are a favorite too. And the most emotional ones, those hit too.

‼️"what has stayed consistent across all drafts?"

The rough outlining/ timeline I’d say. And this affects the smaller side fics as well.

⁉️"what do you do when stuck on a scene?"

I got two ways to deal with that. Either really putting myself mentally into that scene, often music or other fitting formats to think about how to put it or I start writing the next scene until I can figure out how to connect the dots.

❓ask anything you want!

Has how you envisioned your story when you first started writing match where it current is? Has it changed a lot?

No, never, it’s crazy how far it went, how long it got, in what I developed. I thought it would be just a small story. Maybe some telling of scenes. A short story maybe and not this behemoth where the first of three main stories is already longer then the whole Harry Potter Saga.

I was thinking this would be a small cracky little Space Opera with questionable humor and musical interludes. And now it turned into this Epic diving into so many meaningful and deep topics like anti-war, loss of love and broken people. On a very personal note, I don’t have kids (and I’m not sure if I want to have kids in this crazy world) so I consider TOTFS as my legacy to the world. The one thing I want to leave behind, that’s also my motivation to one day end it. Who would ever thought it would come to this from a small thought of alate fantasy

[h-worksrambles]

Rare moment to rant but it’s genuinely so tiring how often I get Final Fantasy VII ship discourse on my Twitter feed. Especially because it tells me a lot of folks out there have the same understanding of romantic relationships as a 12 year old.

The biggest element that sticks with me is there is such shockingly low understanding of what’s honestly a fairly clear cut love triangle. Like sure, Cloud, Tifa and Aerith have a fair amount of romantic chemistry but it’s confused and uncertain. Cloud isn’t really sure what he feels towards either of them even if there’s definitely something there, and they’ve all kind of got bigger fish to fry anyway so it goes unsaid (until it’s too late in Aerith’s case). Instead, it’s turned into this bizarre mental gymnastics where instead of engaging with the fact that a lot of these characters aren’t sure what they feel towards each other, it’s turned into a petty debate where you ‘win’ by proving that two characters have only ever loved each other and have never do much as looked at another person.

There’s this really juvenile idea among many Cloti and Clerith shippers that if either character has had other relationships prior, then it makes their pairing a runner up or sloppy seconds or whatever. Or that if you loved one person once, and then lost them for whatever reason, then it’s a betrayal to ever have feelings for anyone ever again. When that’s just…not how relationships work.

Some of y’all do not understand the concept of having complicated emotions toward someone or having feelings for more than one person in your lifetime. This idea that you can only love one person over the course of your life and anything else taints it is so childish. It also makes the dynamics between the characters so much more boring to only focus on one character dynamic and only look at it from a purely romantic lens.

And that’s without getting into how it leaves so much of the rest of the story and themes unexplored to just get into petty fights about who ends up with who but that’s just ship wars in a nutshell.

I do not usually bother with ship discourse. But I had to get this out there because this infests my timeline and it really bugs me.

[my-strange-attraction]

We don’t talk enough about the shame that comes with being a “late bloomer.” Even if I hadn’t come out as ace pretty young (high school junior year, I was 16) I would’ve been, and was, perceived this way, and people treated me different  (innocent little cloudy, we musn’t talk about s*x in front of them!) because of it. I think I’ve talked about this problem on here before (worded differently), but I’m thinking more about it now after it’s been revealed to me that I actually am, at least in some sense, a “late bloomer.” With the ace label I was able to kind of brush it off as aphobia (albeit unwitting and coming from a place of love and respecting my assumed boundaries) but now I’m thinking more about how so many people have so many different experiences on different timelines and with different outward expressions of these experiences and it’s so sad that learning or experiencing things later in life (or appearing to) is something we’ve been made to feel shame over.

Especially in relation to queer identities, this is becoming more prevalent in recent years. It’s so wonderful that society is changing and becoming more accepting, and we’re able to question and experiment and come out earlier now, but there’s something kind of comforting to me about the stories of queer people who didn’t realize until they were much older and maybe didn’t have as many obvious signs when they were younger. I feel kind of embarrassed to only be recognizing my childhood signs now even though I’m only 20 and grew up with religion and in a midwestern public school (which is to say: shit sex ed) and I’m neurodivergent and struggle in general with pinpointing my emotions, because I’ve been growing up also with such a vast source of knowledge at my fingertips and I’ve thought really hard about sexuality and gender and what labels might fit me, and this blog was only made after I was pretty confident in one of those labels but it still showcases so many years of this introspection in which my brain was able to completely skip over every sign that I am a lesbian.

This is, in essence, just another “we live in a society” post in which there’s nothing much we can do about it, but it is something I’ve really struggled with in the past (being perceived as a “late bloomer”) and that I’m struggling with now (knowing that it is at least a little true) and I thought some of y’all might relate.

[kitkatt0430]

💖👨‍👧‍👧🌈🍰👩‍🏭:)

💖 What do you like most about your own writing?

I really like the character interactions the most. Sometimes that's just dialog, sometimes it's dialog combined with describing what they're doing at the time. I think specifically I just like finding different ways to convey the emotions of the moment and how it plays between the characters.

👨‍👧‍👧 Do you tell people in real life that you write fic? 

Yes and no. Some of my friends know I write fanfic but they don't read it since they're not really in the same fandoms as me... or as into reading fanfic as I am. My parents know I used to, but to avoid them actually anything I've written since high school I've let them have the impression I only read fanfic these days. Because I definitely do not want them reading my fanfic.

🌈 What inspired you to write [insert fic here]?

Since no fic was specified, I'll pick one. :D How about the recent fic, Electric Connection.

So it started with me re-watching the start of the episode Power Outage because I intended to add Farooq to Timeline Poker (I really need to finish editing and post the next chapter). I really loved Farooq's interactions with his friends, Jake and Daria. (I did have to look up their names on the Arrow wiki.) Since the episode is Farooq's roaring rampage of revenge over Jake and Daria's deaths, it got me thinking shippy thoughts and the next thing I knew, I had a new rare pair.

Gotta stop doing that to myself.

So while they're included in Timeline Poker, I wanted a story that was all theirs and thus Electric Connection was born.

🍰 Name one of your fave comfort fics (doesn’t have to be your all time fave).

I have many comfort fics, so while I already answered this one here, I have more recommendations to give. :D

Atlas ~ by distractedKat

An eventual Kirk/Spock fic set in the Kelvin-verse, only including the 2009 movie in it. It's respectful of all the main characters, re-aligns Kirk's characterization closer to his Original Series counterpart, includes Archer and his dogs, and it's got some great found family vibes going on. I really love the take on Nyota Uhura in this one - though she and Spock break up early on, they remain dear friends through the whole thing. And the friendship she develops with Jim is quite fun too.

👩‍🏭 If one of your fics was going to get you arrested, which one and why?

Maybe Road Trip? I'm setting some not so legal shenanigans in a real hotel in Salt Lake City (that I visited once myself a few years pre-pandemic) though I haven't gotten that part posted yet.

I can't think of anything I've researched for fics that's particularly illegal/would get me side eyed too badly. So Road Trip definitely comes to mind first.

[royalblogarts]

KIMI NO NAWA

Guessed who JUST watched "Kimi no Nawa"..... Yeah, that's right, "JUST". I honestly can't believe that I haven't heard from this AMAZING movie, any sooner. Like..... how did this masterpiece hide from me for so long!!? This movie stirred up so many emotions inside me. Aside from the stunning animation, the plot was pure PERFECTION. Ok so instead of me using vague words to describe this movie, let us actually analyze what makes this movie a MASTERPIECE!!

Written and directed by the genius Makoto Shinkai, Kimi no Nawa or "Your Name" is a Japanese animated romance film. If by some ASTRONOMICALLY slim chance you haven't watched this film yet, what are you waiting for? WATCH THE MASTERPIECE!

Your Name is THE movie to watch if you wanna feel ALL the feels. Picture this: two teens, Taki and Mitsuha, living totally separate lives—Taki’s in the hustle of Tokyo, and Mitsuha’s out in this super chill, sleepy town. They don’t know each other at all. But then one day, BAM! They start randomly SWAPPING BODIES. Like, one minute Taki’s himself, and the next, he’s suddenly a high school girl living in a tiny village. And Mitsuha’s now a guy in Tokyo! TOTAL CHAOS, right?

At first, it’s a TOTAL mess. They’re messing up each other’s lives left and right, leaving HILARIOUS notes to fix everything when they swap back. But somewhere along the way, they start really caring about each other. They’re basically falling in love without EVER meeting face-to-face! But then… PLOT TWIST ALERT! Taki figures out that Mitsuha’s actually living THREE YEARS IN THE PAST, and her whole town is about to get hit by a comet. It’s an END-OF-THE-WORLD-level disaster! He goes ALL OUT to find her, risking EVERYTHING to save her and warn the town. It’s INTENSE, y’all.

And it works! Mitsuha and her town are saved, but—this is where it gets HEARTBREAKING—they lose ALL memory of each other. POOF! It’s like the universe is saying, “Sorry, but you two CAN’T remember each other.” But they’re both left with this empty feeling, like they know they’ve lost something important. YEARS go by, and they keep crossing paths, feeling like SOMETHING is there but not knowing what. And then, FINALLY, on a staircase in Tokyo, they lock eyes and ask, “Have we met before?” CUE ALL THE TEARS!

This movie goes BEYOND just romance. It’s all about FATE, CONNECTION, and how we’re weirdly tied to people we don’t even know yet. There’s this GORGEOUS concept called Musubi—think of it like MAGICAL THREADS connecting people across time and space. And the music by RADWIMPS? It’s like the CHERRY ON TOP that makes you feel EVERYTHING SO much more.

Your Name is all about finding those DEEP connections and being your TRUE self—even when fate and distance seem totally impossible to beat! It’s this wild story of two lives that seem totally unrelated but end up CRAZY intertwined.

The storytelling? It’s NON-LINEAR, so we’re flipping between Mitsuha’s past and Taki’s present, which keeps things SUPER MYSTERIOUS and suspenseful. And then there’s the COMET—it’s the big cosmic force shaping both timelines, showing us just how powerful FATE can be.

The body-swapping isn’t just for laughs; it’s what drives the WHOLE story and lets them grow in ways they never could have alone. This movie just screams, “Some connections are MEANT to be!”

So if you’re looking for a movie that’s FUNNY, SWEET, totally EMOTIONAL, and a little MIND-BENDING, Your Name is IT. It’s the kind of film that’ll leave you staring at the screen, hugging a pillow, and just saying, “WOW.”

SO.....? Stop whatever it is you're doing, wether you are taking a dump, eating breakfast, or even if you are driving your children to school, STOP IT. Grab your self some popcorn cuz you are in for one CRAZY AMAZING RIDE.

[docholligay]

Oh man, I am one of the world’s PREMIER haters. For as much a hater as I am, you have no idea how much hating I keep to myself on a daily fucking basis. I was FAR ahead of the curve on hating Harry Potter, long before JKR showed her ass. I was not team “Don’t read Harry Potter because JKR is a shitbag.” I was team “don’t read Harry Potter because it’s bad.” And I am a PETTY hater, to be sure.

ANYWAY, taking aside those obvious answers above--all of which i agree with--I have to think about ONE thing that I would take out of the timeline, only one! When there are SO MANY things I hate.

Obligatory you’re allowed to like whatever you like I’m not insulting you as a person I think you are lovely and a supergenius and your hair smells like roses and fresh rain. This does not mean you should stop talking about the thing you like. You could spit directly in my face while saying, ‘If you talk about Overwatch again, i WILL scream” and I would carelessly wipe it off my face while going, ‘I was thinking last night about whether I think lena would prefer jaffa cakes or Jammie dodgers--” and I encourage you to have the same energy. Have I soothed you enough? Okay.

So, a sampling of some of my long list of things I can’t stand/think are fucking stupid/am so ungodly tired of hearing about: The whole the Ninth thing, Pokemon, Miraculous Ladybug, anything to do with Kiera Knightly, Ace Attorney,  The meme that mostly implies y’all don’t ever read the fucking news, and tumblr’s reading of any psychology text.

But the thing I would destroy? The thing I would nuke from orbit, then burn, then salt the earth for?

Critical Role.

But Doc, you may say, this seems so very weirdly chill for you to be so mad about.

I am a person with limited time on my hands. I don’t even like to watch TV much because of the time involved. I don’t watch videos because this meeting could have and should have been a fucking email--write a goddamn article that I can actually reference.

I wasted 16 hours of my LIFE, because people were telling me the story was SO AMAZING. I could neither confirm nor deny that! Because in 16 hours we got fuck all NOWHERE. I am convinced that if a tabletop RPG is not the worst storytelling medium ever conceived, it’s right up there with interpretative perfume collections. And I even play tabletop games! (Which in fairness means I should have known better) This is not me hating on the concept of playing a game.

But Jesus Christ, how do y’all have the emotional energy to microdose a story over 2874649 hours while simultaneously reblogging how modern life doesn’t leave us time for anything? And people don’t just listen (I tried this! It was more successful, but still bonked) they fucking sit there and watch people sitting at a table talking to each other in voices while the story arc has moved .56% over three hours. I am too ADHD for this shit. I cannot.

And that was one thing. I can just be privately mad that I wasted my own personal time.

BUT THEN, I COULD NOT FUCKING ESCAPE IT. Matt Mercer’s face was everywhere, his voice haunting my nightmares, fucking drawings of their characters everywhere, and just when I thought it would wrap up, they just started another one, and, with my Premier Hater Goggles on, I can only hope that the fact that everyone is turning on D&D means that I get to stop hearing about someone’s fucking game night.

So yes, if it were up to me, Critical Role would never have existed, thank you and goodnight.

If you could delete one mainstream media movie/book/series/intellectual property from existence, entirely removing it from everyone's memory and cauterizing the timeline so it cannot reemerge, what would it be?

Mine would be Minions.

(Answers more interesting than JKR/Star Wars/MCU/GRRM are more fun. What PERSONALLY just makes you FURIOUS to have to look at it?)

[killerandhealerqueen]

Love is Written in the Stars...I’m glad I watched it, I surprisingly enjoyed it more than I thought I would.  MangoTV is the god of fucking with my heart strings, that’s for fucking sure.

But anyways.  I originally started watching this just for Patrick and Ian but then as the episodes went on, I got sucked into the plot and the story and the characters.  Did I skip many a kiss/romantic scene?  Yes, because I don’t do romance but again, I still enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

As for the characters, I loved Ian and Patrick’s characters, oh my god they were delightful.  Little shits (affectionate).  I swear, Ning Lan was like if you took Chen Yuzhi’s body and shoved Jiang Yuelou’s feral personality into it.  That’s exactly who Ning Lan is.  As for Pei Yin, he’s the complete opposite of Yu Tangchun but he was delightful and I loved him. 

Wei Qi and Zhou Yuan both grew on me...I had more affection for Zhou Yuan than I did Wei Qi, and that’s mainly because him and his jealousy problem got on my fucking nerves.  Like my guy, chill. 

Li Mian and Xingyue were so fucking cute.  So cute.  And Li Mian’s character growth from being some playboy to being the most loyal fucking husband I have ever seen in my god damn life was just *chef’s kiss*. 

Lin Yan also grew on me.  Her relationship with Ning Lan was cute and her Ink Reading powers were quite interesting.  At first I thought she was going to be just some spoiled rich girl who was going to be the second female lead but then when you find out about her backstory you’re like babygirl, oh my god.  (I’m glad her shitty father is dead, jesus)

And I can’t forget about Xue Deng.  This motherfucker...this motherfucker, I thought he was going to be the fucking villain but I was wrong.  This boy is my poor little murder meow meow.  I love him.  He just wanted love and I’m glad he got to experience it through Wei Qi’s older sister and Wei Lin (and even passed on his powers to Wei Lin so that his death wasn’t for nothing).  This fucker grew on me so god damn fast...ugh.

Cui Ying...I still don’t like her, I’m sorry.  I just don’t.  I don’t have much to say about her other than I don’t like her.  I think I’ve said enough about her in my liveblogs for y’all to know why I don’t like her, so I won’t say it here.

Also, because it’s MangoTV, I thought they were going to pull an ep. 37 and they kind of did...they kind of did and it fucking hurt when we and Wei Qi realized that no one knew who Zhou Yuan was and that they had never heard of her...but I am glad that everyone sort of got their “happy ending” in the “fixed/normal” timeline.  Still hurts tho.  My heart and emotions were played with and I don’t much appreciate that (fucking emotional whiplash).  And it was quite a twist at the end to realize that the whole drama...was pretty much the story of Wei Qi and Zhou Yuan’s meeting and falling and love.  That was clever.

Would I watch it again?  No, probably not because again, I don’t do romance, but I would definitely jump around and rewatch scenes with Ian and Patrick because they were a delight.  If you like romance and comedy, I think you would enjoy this drama.  The angst will come out of left field sometimes though and it will hurt because it’s MangoTV. 

But I did enjoy it.  Surprisingly. 

[moobrvoobl-moobmoob-oobmpoobroom]

time for Thoughts™️

I will always rant about every member of the disaster lineage but I just got very very especially sad about Dooku and Qui-Gon. 

how did I not realise how late he left the Order??? I always thought it was idk, some time earlier than the Phantom Menace but this is just. they really went for the peak angst potential didn’t they

we now know what happened to Yaddle, but at what cost…

As always, fuck Sheev. look what he did. he took a bunch of perfectly good light-siders and fucked them up is what he did.

SNIPS AND SKYGUY ARE BACK Y’ALL IM SOBBING I MISSED THEM SO MUCH

I feel like Anakin really does Not know how to Handle Child at the time of that first training montage. he does his best to be a good teacher and train her the best he can but I definitely got scary chills watching him say “again” so many times in a progressively darker tone

I’m fine I’m just crying over how all that training, no matter Anakin’s downfalls, saved Ahsoka’s life in the end

Rex!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

my first reaction to Rex mentioning Jesse was basically just “oh hey it’s my dude!!!” and then I realised that Anakin and Jesse both trained Ahsoka in ways that she then used to survive their attempts of trying to kill her and now I’m not okay

that handful of Obi-Wan scenes was a nice bonus

Caleb getting all excited about Ahsoka doing the droid training exercise he’s so precious-

The funeral.

no because the fact that Ahsoka would have been chased down and possibly killed by the Empire if they found out she was still alive but she went to Padmé’s funeral anyway to pay her respects because Padmé was so important to her-

“She was my friend” feelings. so many feelings. i cried here.

Rex sticking with Ahsoka until after the funeral makes me have a lot of emotions and a lot of thoughts; iirc we don’t actually know how long they were together after the Tribunal crash before they split ways

SO LUCASFILM IF YOU COULD JUST NOT TEAR MY HEART OUT FOR ONE KRIFFING SECOND THAT WOULD BE GREAT

*insert that one textpost that was like [me every second Bail Organa was on screen] ‘that’s Bail Organa’*

anyone else feel a little iffy about the whole “we have a duty thing” he was saying to Ahsoka? maybe I just wasn’t paying enough attention, but it felt a little to me like he meant she had to/was obligated to join the Rebellion. it doesn’t seem very in sync with Bail in general, but if someone has a different interpretation that makes more sense, please share with me.

the only other thing is I’m just confused and a little irritated about the section with the farmers and the Inquisitor. like, when in the timeline exactly did that whole encounter take place? and if they wanted to show a storyline like that, why didn’t they just animate some key moments from the Ahsoka novel? I feel like it sort of gives it more weight in a way to have Ahsoka’s big return to the good fight and the Rebellion set two years after the end of the war, and given how similar the setups are, I have to say I would have much rather had at least some scenes from the book in animation than a whole new separate thing that kind of replaces it.

me when the girl’s brother went to tattle to the Empire: every town’s got a Timm 😔

ngl I really thought she might be Kaeden at first but it wasn’t too bad I suppose.

especially since I will never, and I mean never, get sick of watching Ahsoka kick Inquisitor ass

all I want to do is wrap all my faves up in a blanket and hug them very tight yk

in conclusion: I am just screaming. so hard right now.