#you can tell that I have every other episode in different quality

[tanadrin]

There's this big gripe I have with a lot of television shows that are dramas, which is that they take the formal elements of modern prestige television--very good cast, high-quality cinematography, terrific music, often even a pretty interesting premise--and just fall completely flat-footed on the execution, because the plot has the structure of a floppy spaghetti noodle.

Plot can be just one damn thing after another, but in general this is not a satisfying way to approach plot. Satisfying plots usually have some kind of structure, build logically to some kind of climax (or even series of climaxes, in serial formats like television), often leveraging diverse dramatic techniques so that even if the plot temporarily veers off into some cul-de-sac or subplot, you feel like the overall momentum of the story is moving forward, is coming to some conclusion. In short, you feel like there is a reason for you to be watching this story in particular, that it has some weight or consequence for its characters, that each sub-element of the overall plot, each chapter or episode or what have you, is in retrospect a necessary element in the story the creator wants to tell, and the audience wants to watch.

(Obviously, for more episodic structures, which a lot of perfectly great TV shows have, the rules are different, because the plot of each episode is partially or wholly discrete; but a key element of modern prestige TV is a serial and not episodic format. I don't know why this is exactly, but I assume it has something to do with the long shadow of The Sopranos and the notion that episodic formats are for cheesy sitcoms or cheap science fiction.)

But almost every prestige drama and quite a few other shows I have tried to watch in like the past--I dunno. Ten years? Maybe not that long, but it sure feels that long--has the floppy spaghetti plot problem. The plot really is just One Damn Thing After Another, usually fuelled by characters having to hand off the Emotional Idiot Ball to one another to generate conflict. Hell, one reason Game of Thrones stood out was that it wasn't this: for all I have ragged on George R.R. Martin, I think he has some notion of structure, and though in a long-running book series you can let that structure expand and breathe, the parts of the show that followed the plot he laid out in advance benefitted strongly from having that structure to guide them. Most showrunners these days seem to think only as far ahead as the next episode, and boy, it shows!

I'm not saying all writers need to be J. Michael Straczynski, and plot their shows out five seasons in advance with multiple escape hatches for various characters in case their actor has to leave the show, but I do think I haven't seen a well-structured serial drama television show since around the time of The Wire. And this lack-of-structure problem has even infected a lot of episodic, decidedly non-prestige TV shows that have tried to incorporate overarching plots into their seasons, which I think is in part due to the idea that serial storytelling is somehow, I dunno... like More Serious Television? Anyway, I wish it would stop. I wish writers and showrunners would care more about structure!

(There's also a related problem where a show will start out with some interesting premise or concept, and abandon it like three episodes in to focus on side plots, despite the premise being the whole draw of the show.)

[alwaysthequietones]

What do you think is 1 thing she gains from Steve & Jonathan you find influencing your portrayal of Nancy? ('After Hours' interview july 2022)

Quotes about stancy (1/2/3/4/5)

Shout out to thinkerjancy on twitter! :D Whom I've been made aware of seems to lack an astounding amount of creativity to the point that I thought, at first glance, they had screenshotted my post. lmao

I feel like it's general graphic making manners to at least credit inspo when you copy&paste style/placement/everything from someone else? I do! Don't be a dick! :D Also:

[musical-chick-13]

Oh not me avoiding a wildly popular piece of media that I’d probably actually like out of sheer spite.

[acstation206]

I messed up. /j

Introducing...

THE AMAZING DIGITAL ARCADE PARTY!

Yeah, that's right, I caved in.

Basically the exact same show except its established lore and setting is more largely inspired by archive compilations of popular vintage arcade games of the 80s and 90s such as Pac-Man’s Arcade Party, as well as the different takes within the sci-fi / fantasy genre by the likes of Wreck-It Ralph, Tron: Legacy, and Infinity Train. 

==

= BACKGROUND (in a nutshell) 💿 =

In an attempt to save their dying business, C&A developed and manufactured the first hybrid arcade game of its own kind that combined other popular arcade games and home console games with virtual reality. However, just as the company’s luck was turning around, numerous lawsuits from game companies by the likes of Nintendo and families were filed against the company for their product, from apparently “ripping-off” Super Mario Bros. in its entirety to causing many children to either inexplicably fall unconscious or suffer from amnesia after the cabinet’s headset was put on. Just then, as C&A announced they’ll be temporarily recalling the product to fix its issues, a shocking discovery was already made by investigators that would soon bring the company to its demise: the game’s AI had gone rogue, and once a human mind dies from losing one of the games in any way, they are either permanently reincarnated as a personified cartoon character of themselves or just straight up die in real-life depending on the outcome.

==

= ART N’ STUFF 🎨 =

(might wanna make a separate masterpost for that in the future but oh well)

NES Ragatha

Pomni and Caine redesigns

==

= Q&As and BOUNDARIES (sort of) 🎙️ =

"Are there any plans to make a full webcomic out of this?" - Uhhhh, mayyybe? I'm not entirely sure, honestly. While there may be a few side comics and artwork from my head I want to get out sometime, I don't really have much plans for this AU that'll be worth telling a full story right now since I feel there is plenty of things that I've yet to figure out and develop in a matter of time, particularly the setting and characters (especially considering the OG show itself has only 2 episodes out as of writing and I only have mobile apps like ibisPaint X to make this all possible at the moment).

"Can I make fanfics and OCs for this AU?" - Of course! I've seen a lot of incredible things from the community, especially in regards to alternate universes, so you're absolutely more than welcome to share whatever's on your mind as long as your heart's in the right place. I can't really guarantee I'll see every bit of it since I do have some personal biz of mine to take care of at any moment, but I'll be happy to reblog them whenever I get the chance. Just tag me and we all good. :)

"Are there any canon ships in this AU?" - Yes. Yes, there are. Well, only BunnyDoll (Jax x Ragatha) to be specific. HOWEVER, you are free to ship whoever you want here! Showtime (Caine x Pomni), ButtonBlossom (Pomni x Ragatha), it's all okay. The choice is yours, a romantic buffet! (Plus, depending on the quality of my writing, I'm not even planning to dwell too much into it for now, aside from the side comics that will.)

==

That's all for right now. Enjoy! :)

[spitdrunken]

i am absolutely insane about your headcanons with the vee's, my mind is so full now... this is exactly what i was hoping to find when searching through the hazbin x reader tag after watching the episodes 👁️🙏🏻 please i'm so!! the being a writer for the vee's imagine is such a good idea, val and his.. comment especially got to me..

also, for your consideration:

Val — or all of the Vee's, really —, but, in the beginning, he's really not convinced about the quality of your dialogues, despite all the lines he's read (or, well, has had Vox read to him), so naturally you have to read your previous stories out loud to him, cheeks flushing and squirming when it gets to particularly graphic scenes and his gaze on you is so very heavy, smoke caressing your jaw while you stumble over your words.. It's worse if you've written about them and a character who resembles you, and Val's smile widens when you skip from story to story, mentioning the character — definitely not you — sucking Vox off, bending over willingly for Val and begging for Velvette to touch her, or even take all three of them at once, greedy...

Also the. love potions Velvette makes have me feeling things.. Her or Vox but they might end up putting a drop or four into your glass — purely accidentally, of course! —, and...

this is terrible.. my mind is too full now... i might have to post writing for hazbin now and it is your fault alone.. (affectionate; truly, I've enjoyed your thoughts so very much!! thank you for sharing!)

I'm glad you enjoyed it so much :D!! I had an absolute blast writing it myself, and I've been thinking about it lots!! Your ask made it even Worse (/pos) and I simply had to write more!! Please please please let me know if you write something for Hazbin, I can tell from your ask already that it'll be wonderful! And if you ever wanna chat about these guys, feel free to message me again, haha.

Notes: power imbalance, sexual harassment, heavily dubious/noncon due to love potion usage.

The fact Vox even bothers at all to take the time to sit Valentino down and read to him is already a show of your quality— He really wouldn’t go through wrangling him like that for just anyone, especially not with Val getting a bit pissy when being reminded your works were being compared to his. He needs to be told that, obviously, Val, some mere written words are never going to compare, especially not in earnings, to his creations. This placates Valentino. But all Vox gets for his efforts are a lazy flick of one of Valentino’s four wrists, his eyes not even looking at him. “Look, I still think it fucking sucks. But if you wanna hire them so badly, whatever. I’ve got better shit to do than listen to daddy’s horny story-time.” Suffice it to say, he becomes a lot more… Amiable (poor you) once you’re actually working there, and he has a face to attach to the stories. He can tell upon first glance that you’re one of those pathetic little hermits, too scared to leave your own shitty apartment, barely scraping by— He’s recruited plenty of those types as whores, after all. So easily pushed around that it shouldn’t give him nearly as much satisfaction as it does.

When Valentino practically demands you join him in his room and read your previous work to him, you sputter out protests, heart skipping a beat. Every employee in the company has something bad to say about this man, and so he’s about the last person you want to be caught alone in a room with. Especially not his bedroom.

“Ah, sir, I’m not really sure—“ But he’s already wrapping one of his arms around your shoulders, pulling you flush against his side as he drags you through the halls. The first thing that strikes you is how different the texture of coat is than you were expecting. It doesn’t even feel like anything at all. “Oh, sweetheart, call me Valentino. No need to be so unfamiliar with each other.” He practically purrs, a single finger tracing up the contours of your chest. “I feel like we’re going to get quite familiar.” If all the alarms weren’t ringing in your head before, they most definitely are now. But there’s nothing you can do. His grip on you is tight and, underneath his red coat, you can feel the hard metal of a pistol pressing against you.

He takes you to his room, walls covered with posters featuring himself, and you hardly have the time to look around before he sits you down on one of his red couches, still caught underneath one of his arms. It’s hard to think, much less speak, as Valentino starts to prod you to pull out your phone and start reading. “No need to be shy. You’re such an artista, aren’t you? Don’t keep me waiting.” It’s easy, at first. When the scene hasn’t grown explicit yet, and you can pretend you’re only reading the text out loud to yourself like you always do, making sure the sentences sound right. But Valentino makes it hard for you to distract yourself entirely. He rubs circles on the skin of your thigh, and the smoke from his pipe has long since been the only thing you can smell. The red smoke makes your head a little hazier, tongue a little looser— Though that all just might be because you’re not getting enough oxygen. Your every muscle is tense and, you think, this is what being a prey animal must feel like. The first time you stutter out the word ‘cock’, Valentino barks out a laugh, loud and sudden, entirely contrasting with the sultry demeanour he’s been putting on the whole time. You jump, gaze flickering from the screen to his face, before continuing. It gets worse when you realise exactly what story you’re reading out loud to him, one of the ones you’d never even posted anywhere, so utterly self-indulgent and poorly thought out that you regret it with every ounce of your being. (Unbeknownst to you, Vox has already read every draft you’ve ever typed up, but that’s neither here nor there.)

“Sorry, can I maybe, um, read a different one?” You practically squeak out. “I realised I have some better drafts, and…” “No,” Valentino shuts you down, tone temporarily harsh. “Don’t get too fucking cocky now, you’re already taking up enough time as it is. Shit’s about to get interesting, finally.” He’s saying all of this as if he wasn’t the one to drag you there in the first place.

So you trudge onward, reading as fast as you possible can, just trying to tough it out. As you read about a scared, unaccomplished demonic main character catching the eye of a trio of some of the most famous demons in town—through entirely unrealistic circumstances—you can see his grin grow wider from the corner of your eye. His nails dig into the flesh of your thigh, the smoke surrounding your face turning to caress your cheeks.

“So, let me gets this straight… You wrote about a trio of powerful demons with matching names, taking turns fucking an absolute nobody silly. One of them’s a pimp, the other a fashion designer, and the other a business man.” Valentino doesn’t give you the chance to respond. “Greedy little slut. You even chose this one specifically to read out to me, huh? Seems I got you all wrong,” he hisses out. “This must be a dream come true for you, isn’t it?”

Let’s just say that you got enough ‘material’ to write another four or so stories, just from that line alone.

----- A drop of love potion, and models always behave the absolute best, or so Velvette thinks! (As long as you don’t put in too much. It’s very hard to take good pictures when the girls keep trying to kiss you.) No bitching, no whining, only an easy to pose, cute demon to work with. And if she dresses you up in clothes that reveal more than they obscure, purely for her own enjoyment and usage, who’s going to blame her?

Certainly not you. You won’t remember a single damn thing. Not even the parts where you babble on about how pretty and gorgeous and cool she is, and how you’ve admired her for so long— All things she’s heard a million times before. Normally, she wouldn’t care less about it, but such words coming from someone with only a drop of her potion in her system means they’re all the absolute truth. She thinks it’s almost cute when it’s coming from you, really. ------------ Vox, on the other hand, would be more likely to use his hypnosis on you than a love potion. Just to have a few minutes in the middle of a meeting where you’re practically putty in his hands, all of your usual anxiety and shame having slid right off of your shoulders. He doesn’t feel any guilt about it whatsoever. Having read all of your works, he finds it safe to say that this is the exact kind of scenario you would enjoy…

And even if you didn’t, he still would. He gets a bit of a thrill out of the loopy, relaxed smile on your face as you nuzzles your cheeks against his arm, professing all of the thoughts you had about him before working at VoxTech, and the ones you still have today. It’s during one of these exact moments, that he’d likely find out that Valentino had fucked you already, something he hadn’t found necessary to mention. They’ll have a bit of a discussion about that later!

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 某某 / Mou Mou / The On1y One

The On1y One is a 2024 Taiwanese coming-of-age drama about two high school students who fall in love, but more importantly, become friends -- and oh, they're also living in the same house now, because their parents have decided to get married.

Let's get this part out of the way: Yes, they're (almost) stepbrothers. No, that is not a kink thing at all, especially since they meet and start having complicated emotions about one another before they know their parents are together. Look, I had a childhood acquaintance promoted to stepsibling when I was in high school too, and I can tell you that your feelings about someone do not immediately jump to close family status just because your mom likes their dad. This is a show about how becoming a family; it is not a show about fucking your family.

Here are five reasons I think you should absolutely watch this twelve-episode drama -- and they're going to be as spoiler-free as I can make them, largely because...

1. Holy shit, it's ... actually good?

Believe me, no one could be as shocked as I was to find out this was a thing of actual quality. I first found out about this as 'hey, the handsome doctor from House Haunters is in a Taiwanese BL about high-schoolers' -- which of course sold me on it immediately, as I thought Liu Dongqin was the absolute highlight of the beautiful disaster that is Psych-Hunter, but which also, you must admit, sounds more like a novelty than a real thing of objective value.

Thus, I was prepared for trash! More accurately, I was prepared to enjoy trash. I am clearly on record as a trash-enjoyer. I was going to tuck in and gleefully laugh my way through awkward antics just to see that handsome boy kiss another boy.

Which means I was not prepared to be knocked off my feet by how thoughtful, intense, well-acted, and damn beautiful this series is. It's good. It's actually good. It is, like Beyond Evil, a thing you could put in front of Your Average American Television Enjoyer Who Can Handle Subtitles (And Boys Kissing) without having to apologize every five seconds about the jank. It's stunningly lit. It's chunked into episodes that have reasons to be episodes. It's well-written in a way that even comes through the translation.

Here's a clue to its quality: It's directed by Liu Kuang-Hui, known for Your Name Engraved Herein, an explictly gay film released in 2020 that won, like, all the awards -- which it fucking deserved to. (You don't need to have seen Your Name to watch this, but I think if you have, it adds an extra layer of meaning.) This is a BL made by someone who understands how being a teen boy in love with another teen boy is like being expected to walk around with a knife in your stomach while you pretend everything's fine.

But this is not a show about misery! It is a show about building connections, learning to trust, getting over yourself, and finding joy in taking care of other people. Maybe that sounds a little grandiose for a tiny Taiwanese BL, but it's not an exaggeration. When this drama bills itself as a coming-of-age narrative, it means it's going headfirst into the beautiful hell of being seventeen.

Keep those tissues on hand. You'll need them.

2. What if you fell in love with someone you also liked?

This is a true cat4cat relationship -- but different cat personalities! Finally, diverse cat representation!

Jiang Tian is a feral kitty who has spent so long telling everyone he hates them that he has no idea how to convey that he likes someone, and thus spends the first several episodes basically dropping dead birds at Sheng Wang's feet. Don't let his stoic nature fool you -- he's exactly as into this as (and much sooner than) the much more demonstrative Sheng Wang. Episodes end with little scenes you saw earlier, but recontextualized from Jiang Tian's perspective. So don't ever worry that Jiang Tian's being taken advantage of or coerced in any way. The boy has agency, and he uses it.

Meanwhile Sheng Wang is like a pampered little housecat who only eats wet food and sulks about everything -- but he's earned at least some of it, as he's clearly dealing with some major life upheavals. New city! New school! New friends! New house! New stepmom! New stepbrother! New and horrible things his teenage body is doing to him! So it's not surprising that he's clinging to what familiar comforts he has, even if it means being a total bitch about it.

And they become friends. That's the great part. This is a love story, but it's a love story where the love is friend-shaped. If anything, the friendship is the more important (and visible) aspect of the dynamic. It's not saying that one is more righteous or correct than the other -- it's saying that friendship is part of romantic love! Maybe it's even the best part of it! Maybe the only thing better than falling in love is making your crush your best friend and then falling in love with them.

It gets to the point where they spend most of their time not thinking about being in love with one another because they're such good friends. This is just what having a best friend is like, right?

(Jiang Tian knows it is not just what having a best friend is like. Jiang Tian is constantly chewing glass because he's sure friendship is the best he's going to get out of this, and also it's the best friendship he's ever had, and if that's all he gets -- and it will be, he's sure of it -- it'll be enough. It'll have to be.)

My favorite parts of their relationship are when Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian get to just enjoy spending time with one another as complete goobers. They're such teen boys! I mean, they're teen boys from very particular circumstances that have made them have to grow up fast, so it's great when they just get to regress around one another and act their age. The whole scene at the carnival is by itself worth the price of admission.

Look, here's some more shots of them being cute at one another. Don't let Jiang Tian's stoic face in the other pictures fool you. He's capable of making expressions, and it's so good when he does.

See?

3. This, too, is yuri

I mean, shit, you make a gay teacher and I'm already there. You make two gay teachers and I'm going to love you forever. Then you make them both gay teachers and gay owners of a little gay cafe? I don't know if my little trope-loving heart can take it!

Enter Zhao Xi and Lin Tingbei ("Benny").

From the moment you meet these two, it is obvious to you, the viewer, that they are a married couple. Except they're not. They're not married. They're not even a couple. It took me like nine episodes to realize that the reason they're acting so weird is not that they're trying to hide their relationship from other people, but that they're not in a relationship. They are mutually pining for one another and have no idea that the other one is having similar feelings.

Sorry, I have to go feral about these two sapphic-coded gay men for a moment: You two had an incredible meet-cute, went abroad at the same time, came back together, opened a cafe together, call one another "partner," have rainbow motifs on various visible objects in your life, AND YOU STILL ARE UNAWARE THAT YOU'RE BOTH IN LOVE WITH ONE ANOTHER

I can't stress this enough: When you meet them, your first thought is, oh, you two are married. MARRIED. Not just dating, but comfortably wedded. I kept expecting one of them to have a gentle After-School Special moment he tells the children, no, we're life partners as well as business partners. But they didn't! And do you know why? It's because THEY DON'T EVEN SEEM TO KNOW THAT THE OTHER ONE IS ALSO GAY

The only thing that makes sense is that they're both male lesbians. This is some Ayaka is in Love with Hiroko! shit right here. How do you unknowingly wind up in what is basically a marriage with man you've never even kissed? I don't know, but they've somehow managed to do it. It's insane. It's incredible.

I don't even feel like I'm spoiling you for anything here! Like, I wish I'd known from the start they weren't actually together, because I was baffled by their side plot for fully three-quarters of the series. Why are they behaving like this? Why are you being weirdly jealous about the hot lady teacher? Oh, it's because YOU DON'T KNOW YOU'RE HUSBANDS, THAT'S WHAT MAKES YOU HUSBANDS

WE GOT DOUBLE MUTUAL PINING HERE, FOLKS, DOUBLE MUTUAL PINING, TWO SUCCESSIVE GENERATIONS OF GAY DIPSHITS WHO ARE AS BAD AS YOU CAN BE ABOUT FEELINGS WITHOUT IMMEDIATELY DYING OF IT

Sorry about the caps lock, just ... I'll be over here screaming into a pillow about it, okay? Okay, thanks.

4. Actual Teen Feelings

So nobody in this production is an actual teenager; both leads were just on the underside of thirty when it filmed, and all the other "kids" are at least in their mid-twenties.

And honestly, I like the aged-up casting better, since ... look, I'm over forty, and I just don't find the youths as attractive as I did when I was much closer to that age. Seeing actual 16- and 17-year-olds do this would have given me the ick. So I feel kind of like, this is a teen story told for adults, and the way it does that is by giving you actors that embody how cool you thought your peers looked when you were that age, and not how gangly and awkward everyone actually looked.

I've described the behavior of the teen characters as "rationally irrational" -- like, you know that the decisions they're making are bad, and they kind of know it too, but you also get that they don't have the regulatory mechaisms to compensate for when their hormones tell them it's time to sulk, or or talk back, or lie, or do something reckless. They're stupid teens, but they're not stupid because the writing is stupid. They're stupid because the writing is good and knows exactly how stupid teens are.

And of course this is most visible with our boys, who are complete dipshits in some very rationally irrational ways.

I alluded earlier to the fact that I have stepsiblings, and that I acquired them during my teen years, so yeah, a lot of the complicated stepfamily dynamics hit hard for me. Sheng Wang's mother is dead, and he's being a sulky baby about it because he (kind of correctly!) feels like his dad both is trying to replace her and has started paying attention more to his new partner than to his son. Sure, an adult with more coping mechanisms would be able to handle it without being a dick to everyone around them. But he's not an adult -- but also he's not not an adult? He's in that awful place of adolescence where you feel all grown up, but people still keep making huge life decisions for you. I remember it; it sucks.

Meanwhile Jiang Tian's father is still alive, but that's complicated too and has led to Jiang Tian's being kind of estranged from both his divorced parents. His then becomes a story less about how to get along with your new stepfather, and more how to reconcile with a mother who wasn't always in a place to make the best decisions for you she could, as you are yourself approaching the age she was when she made those decisions.

It's just so many feelings! Just a giant fucked-up Sargasso Sea of feelings! Every nerve is raw and every emotion is like staring straight at the sun! So many characters are completely at the mercy of their worst instincts, to the point where you can't even be mad because, yeah, if I had no ability to tell my most visceral intrusive thoughts to go away, I'd be ruining my own life left and right too.

Also, you are not prepared for the parts with boners. I say no more.

bonus: LUCKY CAT!!!

When was the last time you saw a fat character in a piece of Asian media -- or a piece of any media -- who was just allowed to be fat in peace? Whose fatness was not the constant butt of jokes? Who was not depicted always (comedically) eating? Who wasn't thrown into the mix just so their sexual/romantic interest in some skinny person could be turned into gross-out moments?

Lucky Cat is the best. Her students call her Lucky Cat because she's always cheerful and she does a precious little paw thing. The name is meant to be endearing! They like her, and she's portrayed consistently as a good educator and generally nice person to be around. She's fashionable, too! She has the cutest little outfits!

And she's fat! It's just a thing about her not worth commenting upon! Shit, I wish the show's lack of commentary weren't worth my commenting upon, except, ugh, you know it is. It's even more so worth saying because I've seen her in something else where she was exactly what she isn't here, and it was vile. The contrast is incredible.

Love you, girl, one fat, overcaffeinated educator to another.

5. Delicious(ly timed) pining

I want to talk about the structure of the show for a moment, and I'm going to try and do it as spoiler-free as I can. Even so, this gets into territory that you might be better off going into blind, especially if you like the tension of not knowing where a love story is going. If you're convinced already that you need to watch this show, skip this section -- scroll right down to the picture of a pitcher and glass of lemon water on a kitchen counter.

Go on, now, get.

However, if you're still on the fence about watching it, though (or if you've seen it already and just like reading my thoughts on it!), here's a very slightly spoilery selling point for you:

Normally, BL shows are all about waiting for the moment those boys finally realize what's up and kiss one another. The On1y One makes what I think is a brilliant decision to frontload the kissing. These boys smooch twice all the way up in episode 2 -- but under circumstances that are, respectively, a dare and a faux-casual demonstration that the dare didn't mean anything.

And that's it. They don't kiss again.

I think this is such a good choice because it makes those boys spend the entire rest of the show with three thoughts in their heads: we have already kissed; it didn't mean anything to him; I think it might mean something to me. Their entire friendship is colored by the knowledge that, yeah, that happened. If anything, it makes the BL-style waiting even more glorious, because now it's not about wondering if I kissed him, what would he do? but about wondering if I kissed him again, would it still be a joke to him?

There's also some very good asymmetry in there, in how Jiang Tian is clearly already the world's greatest expert at stuffing his gay desires into a little box and not making them anyone else's problem, while Sheng Wang is having a sexual awakening in real time.

You figure out very near the end why Jiang Tian has a complicated relationship to his own gay longings, and boy, is it a hell of a reason. I know we joke about characters who are both gay and homophobic, and I don't want to call him homophobic, because that's not it. But you definitely get to see why, of all his locked-down feelings, he's locked the gay ones down hardest of all.

Meanwhile Sheng Wang is popular, has friends, has surely been on a number of cute and chaste little dates, has probably even kissed a couple very nice girls -- and has clearly never had a horny thought in his entire life before now. He is both falling in love and figuring out what makes him hard at the same time, and oh boy, that is some rough shit to hit at seventeen. You get to see him recontextualize those kisses several times, slowly putting names to the emotions he didn't know he was having. And when he does finally understand the extent of what he's feeling, he makes a stupid decision about it, because of course he does. He's seventeen. Stupid decisions come with the territory.

Anyway, once they finally get to fucking, Sheng Wang is going to be the lord high king of the bratty bottoms. Just an absolute menace. He's got Jiang Tian's number so hard, and Jiang Tian is going to love suffering through every minute of it.

~

Okay, did you scroll down? Here's a little more spoiler buffer! Hi! How are you doing today? I'm having fun writing this. I hope you'll like watching it. There, that should be enough.

caveat: This is not an ending.

I need to stress how much this is clearly made to be a part one of more, and also how a second season has not been announced and thus is not guaranteed. I am being optimistic based on a) how good it is, b) how much clout the director has, and c) the fact that it's so new, it makes sense that further installments might not be announced yet. But if an unfinished (and possibly never-finished) series bothers you, maybe put this one in your pocket for later.

But oh, this show needs a second season. I am burning incense to the television gods in hope that it gets a second season.

Want to tuck in for some actual good television?

This one is wonderfully easy to find. We watched it on GagaOOLala, but you can also find it on AppleTV, WeTV, Viki, and iQiyi.

Back to the Your Name Engraved Herein connection: The On1y One reads to me in many ways like a celebration of how far Taiwanese culture has come about gay people. Like, things still absolutely aren't perfect in 2012, when this show is set, but at the same time, it's no longer 1987 -- which was the homophobic, hopeless world Liu Kuang-Hui grew up in. If Your Name tells the story of what actually happened, this series tells the story of what the person that all happened to imagines things could be like today. It's so hopeful it makes me choke up a little thinking about it.

Bah, just go watch it. Do it! Go! There's links right up there!

Gay thoughts say peek-a-boo.

[scientia-rex]

Hi Dr. Kristophine, do you have any advice on what kind of information doctors need for medical issues that are more nebulous than "my knees hurt"? I've been feeling Weird and Bad in a way that has me concerned, but I'm afraid to make an appointment because I don't know what to say that will get the Weird and Bad feeling across in an actionable way. Going to the doctor takes SO much energy that I don't have to waste and I don't want them to just take a blood test and say everything's fine go home (again).

The best thing you can do with medical information you're trying to prepare for your medical provider, as a lay person, is be as specific as possible.

-Location: Is it one place in particular, or everywhere? Does it stay in one place, or move around?

-Timing: When did it start? Did it come on suddenly or slowly? Does it happen continuously? Does it come and go? Is it always there to some extent, but it gets better and worse? On a scale of 1-10, with 1 being fine and 10 being the worst you can imagine, how bad is it at its best, and how bad is it at its worst? How much time does it spend really bad vs only kind of bad?

-Quality: If it's pain, is it aching, burning, stabbing, dull, electrical zap, etc.? If it's not pain, what is it? Is it discomfort? Is it weakness--i.e., you can't do that thing? Is it fatigue--like maybe you can still push through doing the thing but it feels like you're trying to wade through mud to do it? Is it a racing heart, sweating, pressure?

-Triggers: Does something in particular set it off? A time of day, a food, an action, a medication, a thought? A surprisingly common trigger for migraines is sitting still with your neck in one position. (New research suggests that necks are critical to migraine formation, to which I yelled out loud at the paper, no duh!) There may be triggers you haven't noticed; try keeping a symptom diary, where you note down when you have episodes and what you were doing beforehand, what you ate that day, menstrual phase, etc. Any detail that you can remember, whether or not it seems relevant at the time.

I cannot tell you how many times I've dug deeper into a chronic issue only to discover that the patient can, in fact, tell me what the trigger is, but because it's something important to them, they simply haven't noticed. May subconsciously even avoided noticing. Do you get migraines every time you DM? Do you need to work a stretch break into your D&D session?

There can also absolutely be multiple triggers--I know I'll get migraines if I don't sleep, if I'm sick, if I sit still for too long, if I have dental work, etc.

So bring in all the info you can. Write it down if you're afraid you'll forget. Don't hand it to the MA, too many doctors will go "oh my GOD they brought a LIST how high-maintenance" and tune out. Hang on to it but tell them about everything.

I don't expect patients to be able to tell me "I believe I've had a left radial styloid fracture" but I do expect them to tell me "I fell and tried to catch myself with my left hand and now my wrist hurts," and that's good enough. The rest of it is my job. When it's something more vague, like "I started feeling different and bad about six months ago," any other information helps. Did you start a new med around then? Are you going through menopause? Do you struggle with anxiety? Do you have first-degree relatives (parent, sibling, or child) with genetic disorders, autoimmune disorders, etc.? Do you have a history of anemia? Are you vegan? Have you started having night sweats and unexplained weight loss? Did you recently travel internationally? This can go a lot more different directions than a hurty wrist, so bring in all the info you can.

And keep in mind that modern medicine is very limited--much more so than most people think. There is an excellent chance that medicine will not be able to diagnose your condition. It may still be able to offer treatment. It may fall on your shoulders to manage it as best you can, knowing that doctors don't have answers. Nobody can tell me why I have chronic pain, and I don't mean as in "I've asked doctors and they don't know," I mean "I've personally scoured the literature and had the relevant and appropriate tests and no one can know at this phase of medical knowledge." So I deal with it, I've stopped trying to push myself past my reserves because people who can't admit to ignorance tell me to, I keep my painful body moving because that helps, I do PT, I take a multivitamin occasionally because I know my diet sucks. I manage.

There are not always right or wrong answers--I don't take gabapentin, because I don't want the sedation and kidney exposure, but patients with my exact symptoms might find it helpful and may find the risks and costs worth the benefits. My mother, who has whatever it is that I have, right down to the tricky stomach, from whom I presumably inherited it, has taken medication at different points in her life, depending on how much pain she was in and what other responsibilities she has, and that is perfectly reasonable. Autonomy matters. People have to be able to make these choices for themselves, with assistance but not paternalism from their medical professionals, because the math is different for everyone.

[weebsinstash]

Now Im interested on the "What if the 3 Vs passed Reader around like a blunt"

I kind of meant it in like a "what if you were some weird shared friend/pet" but I've seen people HC that the 3Vs are poly, although we've never seen any canon confirmation of this and on the Instas it was always Vox who was Val's explicit partner

Although to be nasty I feel like Velvette would be fucked up enough to watch Reader get railed by Val and Vox. Like in some party scenario where you're with all 3 in their house and Valentino dopes you up or something, she's just like, recording you getting spitroasted on her phone

I usually imagine these sorts of scenarios as Reader meeting Val and then slowly drawing the attention of the others, although Vox really has grown on me and I hope we see more of him these last two episodes. Anyways i'm starting to like the idea of Reader meeting Vox first. Like can you imagine you get hired on as a coder or a programmer or a product developer, and he's patrolling the facilities or checking in on a specific project and that's when you meet. He either notices the quality of your work or your manager brings it up to him, or there's some massive metaphorical fire you put out (like that woman who saved toy story 2 from being completely erased because she had all the files backed up, something like that)

You and Vox get to talking, getting along, having similar tastes. He starts giving you different projects, ones he thinks are better suited to your skills (and also put you in closer proximity to him). Fucking liar is arranging shit like company calendars or company events where there are photoshoots JUST so he has an excuse to pose with you for a photo. I mean, it makes sense right? Why would you question your boss wanting to take a celebratory photo at the release of a huge product launch? And you're happy and feeling so respected and successful and being friendlier with him the more you settle into Hell and feel safer, and then I imagine Vox's way of being "obvious" is that he's like, easily nervous or a nervous laugher , I dunno. It's all preference but I like yandere/antagonists who keep their cool a little bit but then it's also cute when they fawn over you 🥰 like the people who know him see the way he laughs around you and they Instantly Know

But then, maybe Val is perceptive enough to notice, "hey why does my man keep taking photos with this one specific person". Like maybe Vox is trying to be slick with it and all the photos are group shots but Val notices that every single photo has you in it and some of the photos are for really minor events he knows Vox wouldn't normally care about. Vox slips up one day when you and him are "sharing a car to go to a company event" which totally isn't like a catered dinner that there are only going to be SO many people at, TOTALLY NOT an incognito date that you're complerely unaware of the intentions behind, and Vox has to stop in back home to grab something, or you get pulled inside for a moment just to wait, he's gotta grab a laptop or a flash drive and, suddenly here's Velvette, "Vox I'm borrowing your nerdy employee, I'm short someone and I need a model for something" and you're getting dragged away

Vox is freaking out thinking you got swiped by Val and he's zipping through the electrical lines in the house (the electro-teleportation shit really is SUCH a game changer), and he finds you trying on things with Velvette, "oh my gosh I've never worn something this nice before, thank you for giving me the opportunity to try it on ^^" and Velvette is so pompous that any praise goes right to her head, and now Vox gets to see you all styled in... whatever. Velvette waves a finger, "now you two match!" as she puts you in an outfit with Vox's aesthetic and color scheme, and she's doing it to tease the both of you but she IMMEDIATELY notices "oh hey Vox what's that look on your face >:3c does someone have a crush?"

SHE would be the fucking gossip who would tell Val honestly. Actually new headcanon lmao: the Vs rarely want to share you but will rat each other out for "having you" in a heart beat. Velvette and Vox hide you from Val, but any of them will gladly steal you from the other lmao. God, a yandere Vox who's lucid and tryna keep his behaviors under wraps, keep it to pictures, stalking and looking from afar, and then you have the other two Vs like SHOVING YOU at him as like, a joke to watch him squirm and blush. They'd be randomly bringing you along just to tease him and watch him sweat. Valentino hits Vox up for a date or a night out and the tv demon shows up and you're there too lmao

I feel like these three are the worst because they all have the capacity to be obsessed with your appearance. Velvette is an influencer, Vox is a TV mogul and tech CEO, and Valentino... obviously we don't need to comment on his penchant for having arm candy. All of them are obsessed with their appearance and their brand and one of them is literally a tailor with magical clothes changing powers. You could have something like the other two Vs show up while you're serving Val drinks and Velvette cocks her brow, "hey, why doesn't this one have a proper uniform?" And she just starts zapping you into different varying levels of exposed outfits that match the other employees at the strip club and Val's aesthetic just for kicks as the big man himself oogles you like a pervert and his boyfriend is pretending he's not interested but, his screen is totally turning red

Tbh I'm suddenly thinking of like, imagine thinking "your body is safe" because Val has never come onto you and, you aren't sleeping with anyone and, you get upset one night and do some self harming behaviors. Velvette or Valentino comes and demands you try something on or you get nonconsensually zapped into something and there are cuts hidden on your body. Velvette is furious because this affects how you look in her clothes and what she can dress you up in, Vox is you know concerned because idk I imagine he knows what it's like to be horribly insecure and feel like you aren't good enough, and Valentino probably loves having you constantly half naked and the self harm scabs? Not hot, babe. Obviously they're all upset over you hurting yourself but, these are occasional feelings on top of that

Ugh I dunno just. They all have power and influence and money and they're all crazy and I'm over here kicking my feet and twirling my hair with thoughts of being objectified in allllll the fun ways

[unfortunately-obsessed]

Bruce Wayne | Quality Time

Love languages headcanons

Pairing: Bruce Wayne x reader

Word count: 0.6k | AO3 link 🩵

This man runs a whole conglomerate, dozen different charity foundations, has to play into whatever current political ploy is to earn information, (might have, like, 20 children), is a founding member of the JL, on top of being The Batman and trying to prevent Gotham from imploding – trying to make this unfixable city heal.

He nearly doesn't have enough time for himself – heavens know how many times Alfred shoot him with a horse tranquilizer – and time to you??

All his responsibilities are half the reason why quality time is his love language.

The other half is that he didn't have enough time with his parents. They were snatched from him, a child, and this time (his childhood) is something he'll never be able to have back

Not gonna lie, he's harsh. He won't prioritize you. Not on purpose, not because he doesn't love you, simply because there's people out there that need to be saved. And, after so much time without a proper relationship, maybe Bruce also doesn't know how to cater for you – and because he's way too awkward, too dense to a detective, even if he can play cool at times.

But the tiny things are like love letters:

Strikes to me as the guy that'll be in utterly destroyed, broken ribs and concussion, and still try and get up and have breakfast with you, just to be with you

His personal quiet time is important to him. It helps him organize his thoughts. Yet he'll try to be, at least, in the same room as you.

Bruce will sit on the same room as you, in complete silence, and stay. Maybe you're working and he is there on the couch of your office, sitting with a concussion and sixty percent painkiller, statue-quiet.

I love you, so I'll take the burden of not doing this super important other thing – like resting – to sit with you in silence.

Will stare at you, motionless.

Eventually, you'll learn that this face he's making is lovestruck-ness. Don't comment on it.

And if his love language is all about undivided attention, it means he'll learn how to organize his time to have together time without all the distractions. A walk around the Manor Garden, a quiet dinner in front of the tv, cuddling; might do the trick.

Stays awake to talk with you, even if it's after a case frenzy where he didn't sleep for a week. Crash with him in the couch after a long day.

If I could stay with you here forever, I would. He can't get this words out, a lump on his throat, so he just stay as long as he can

Can't tell me he won't marathon Grey Ghost with you. At the end of every episode will dump on you all the details about the production. It's important that you listen even if you don't find it all interesting. Connection bids, y'know?

Ask him about forensics if you want to know more about the whole Batman deal. Or explain the new additions to the batmobile.

Getting to explain something he loves to someone he loves counts as top-quality time in Bruce's books.

Sometimes will find you just to start explaining a current case he can't crack. Either to see if you have any intelligent idea, but mostly because saying it aloud helps thinking.

And he doesn't know how to have the steady heartfelt conversations, so he'll listen to you talk. About your day, your plans, how much you worry about him, about what you ate today.

A great listener. Will hit you with follow up questions so you can keep talking about what you love. Never talks about him but at this point you know the drill – you have to ask for him to talk.

Regular week preplanned dates. Will do all in his powers to not postpone it. Will be completely heartbroken when this inevitably happens. Will look like a kicked puppy.

He's not distracted with you, all his mental attention on you and you only.

That's it 👍

A/N: If you like what I do, please consider supporting me and buying a coffee!

[qilingxiong]

四樓的天堂 | Heaven on the 4th Floor (2021)

One drama has crept into my life during the last days of 2024 to become my favourite one I've watched this year, and I barely know how to start talking about it. But let's give this a go anyways.

Heaven on the 4th Floor (四樓的天堂) is a Taiwanese drama starring Anthony Wong, Hsieh Ying-xuan, and Fandy Fan. I would call it mostly slice-of-life with some melodrama, as there's no strongly focused overarching plot. Rather, it follows a cast of characters and the struggles/hurdles in their lives they have to face, all of whom are helped/guided by the something all of them have in common— seeing a tuina masseuse named Tianyi (Anthony Wong).

I don't quite know how to describe the way this show develops, as everyone's arcs separate and overlap at different times, but I would say Heaven at its core is about healing. First and foremost about healing the relationship one has with their body and oneself, but also those with other people, with the past, and with the present-day world around someone. There's some interesting juxtaposition between the physical healing Tianyi can offer his clients, and the mental healing Hsieh Ying-xuan's psychologist character provides for her own, with a look at how one cannot do the work of the other. Some characters are recurring throughout the show, others you get to watch take a step forward in the span of one episode, but eventually, no one remains where they were at the beginning.

The character who has the most growth throughout all this, in my opinion, is Fandy Fan's Yuzhou, a young graffiti artist. It's by meeting Tianyi that he gradually manages to stop hiding from the past, but also start looking with hope toward a future, and find a way to be better in tune with himself, his body, and the art he creates.

Aside from healing, Heaven is also about loss, and how someone reckons with it. Past loss (the disappearance of one's loved ones, the yearning for something you never got to have), present/recent loss (the death of a family member, the ending of a relationship), and loss that inevitably lies ahead (the destruction of one's home and the fight to resist it, even if it's all in vain). Characters war with their grief and are forced to find ways to release and gradually accept it, and while my heart ached for different people at different points in time, it was beautiful to watch.

I cannot stress enough that with all this combined, Heaven is one of the most cathartic pieces of media I've ever seen. I cried an unexpected number of times, from the beginning of the show to the end, and it was never, ever in a bad way. The three leads especially did a truly incredible job bringing the viewer into their lives, taking them along for the emotional ride, and I wish all the actors had won awards for that (only one of them did, but she truly deserved it).

Production-wise, I also adore the quality of this show. It's somehow very soothing to watch, visually, and the accompanying soundtrack made me tear up several times. I had to shake myself out of a daze every time I took a break from watching; it both felt like I'd run a marathon, but also had been sitting still, head quiet, and had had someone tell me not to worry about anything else in the world for a while. (It also made me feel more physically present in my body. My shoulders haven't been un-tense in years, and I think thanks to Heaven I'm going to have to do something about that.)

In addition, this isn't the main focus of the show, but queerness is worked into it in wonderfully ordinary ways. There's more than one queer character and a trans character who show up in this, and one protagonist who is either heavily coded as or possibly explicitly aroace spectrum, depending on how much you read into it. Her arc ended up being one of my favourites; the show deals with her relationships lining up with aroace experiences in a way I haven't really seen onscreen before.

Overall, I'm absolutely going to rewatch Heaven in the future, when I feel that I need to return to that story. If you want a grounded, very character-driven show to get gently lost in for a while, this is it.

(Though admittedly, I know this drama definitely isn't going to be for everyone. It's a little bit sleepy-going, and not everyone is interested in or is braced to deal with the emotions of the story. Normally even I'm not, but here I am. However, if you're interested, here's the trailer for Heaven on the 4th Floor:

And I don't tend to do this, but I'm also going to toss out two tracks that sound how this show feels, to me: In My Breath Again from the soundtrack of After Yang, and 披星戴月的想你 by Accusefive. Sit with those for a while and see what you think, if it helps you decide whether to watch or not.)

Note: Unless you have Taiwanese Netflix, you're gonna have to jump on the pirate ship to find this show. However, as far as I'm aware there have never been English subtitles made for it on any site, so if you can't read the Traditional Chinese in the episode raws, then you may have to sit this one out for the time being.)

[hard-times-paramore]

Houseki no Kuni - a summary

Since I've been posting nonstop about it, I might as well let my mutuals in on what it's about!

The manga is heavily Buddhist-themed, talking about repeated cycles of violence, death and rebirth.

It's not actually that similar to Steven Universe, from what I heard. It's indeed a serious story with a lot of trauma, and it has genderweird gem people, but they take different routes.

The manga is now finished and there's a 12 episodes 3D anime, that encompasses roughly the first 35 chapters of it. But Studio Orange has no intentions of continuing it, so you have to read the manga to finish the story.

The summary is under the cut!

Millions of years ago, the apocalypse happened. Every species on Earth was wiped out by 6 comets that later became 6 new moons in the sky.

But after millions of years, Earth is recovering. There is one island, after the flood brought by those comets, that started bearing life again.

The intelligent species are the Gems, sexless, genderless people made of precious minerals.

They're cared for by Adamant Sensei, a huge buddhist monk-looking guy. He raises them like his own children, teaches them to read, write, fight, etc.

They have a small society, always in small numbers, because of how long it takes for new gems to emerge (they come out from a cliffside in the island). And because there's a race of people from the moon, called the Lunarians, who seek to harvest the Gems for their precious crystals. Often, Gems are kidnapped to the moons for this reason.

This is why they learn to fight and to patrol, because they have to fight the Lunarians.

They can break, but even if they do, they can be put back together. They're essentially immortal, what makes them alive are microscopic lifeforms in their body, that feed off sunlight, called inclusions.

Millions of years passed like this. New Gems are slowly formed and emerge from the cliffside, Sensei takes care of them, they find a place in society to contribute, and some eventually can't outrun the Lunarians and are taken to the moon.

Until Phosphophyllite.

The youngest of them, only 300 years old at the start of the story, starts on a journey that brings change to the Gem society.

And change to themself.

Some more thoughts:

I wouldn't be reccomending this story if I didn't love it. And I love it so much. At least 70% of it is genuinely good quality. But mind you, I do have some criticisms to it, so I'll say it now so whoever decides to read it is warned. I feel (and many peoole agree) that the narrative really sabotaged itself towards the last 3 volumes, flattening all characters ane plotlines for everything other than the protagonist.

Not only that, the manga is a nightmare to read, for design reasons. Because of lore, all the characters have the same clothes, body type and skin color, only changing their hairstyle and hair color. Which in a black and white manga can be impossible to tell apart.

It helps if you watched the anime first and know everyone's colors, but oof.

Either way, I feel like it was worth my brainrot. If you wanna come on that journey with me, then let's take ibuprophen together!

[zhuoyichenpretty]

ep 24 commentary (brain fried edition)

my head is a little empty after ep 24 tbh!! brain is not braining after all the zyc hurt no comfort (-:

some scattered thoughts here and there, painstakingly corralled like cats out of my vacuous brain and into a list (spoilers):

ZYZ is really emo this episode poor dude like he is having a hard time keeping it together it seems. Every other word out of his mouth is depressing as shit, which is saying a lot considering how depressing he usually is already (': I kind of wanted this episode to pick his brain more, give him room to emote in the aftermath of all that. But it almost feels like the character refuses to be alone, like he might spiral if he has too much time to get in his own head. I'm still so curious to know, though, what he thinks about the state of their promise in light of how far ZYC went trying to save him. “He has us,” ZYZ said to WX. When the time comes, I wonder how he'll reconcile that with what he’s asked of ZYC.

PSJ and Ying Lei bonding! shenanigans! I did laugh thank you guys. Also, not that the team didn't operate separately before, but I really get a sense of how much ZYC held things together with how apparent his absence is. It's obvs heartwarming seeing how hard everyone is working to save him (PSJ especially for me bc I love their mutual tacit trust and respect and all the ways they're alike and different), but ultimately it's still so angsty (':

Kind of love the couple instances where ZYC has been referred to as fragile/weak/of delicate constitution (depending on how you wanna translate it) like that's a very interesting quality to assign to basically the tank of your team. Even if the comments are made facetiously, it just reminds me of how often we witness his mortality, and of course how everything about the styling, aesthetics, and content of the flashbacks to his childhood reinforce a characterization of vulnerability at the very heart of him. I saw someone mention how the Cloud Light Sword responded to ZYC's tears and to that vulnerability rather than brute strength, and I totally agree. I love how this "fragile" characterization plays into the whole fate weapon deal. ZYC's strength is (imo) unconventional, and it is his sensitivity, his compassion, and his deep capacity to feel that the sword acknowledges, resonates with, and empowers. Almost like it protects his tender heart rather than making it something he needs to overcome to get stronger.

One thing I will never get over is how incredibly they styled TJR as baby!Yichen, adult ZYC, and Bingyi. What do you mean this is all from one drama and not three separate productions. Insane. I'm out of my mind with how gorgeous every change in costuming is.

A tangential note is I've seen people mention (paraphrasing very much here) ZYZ's demon form being nicely subtle in its eerie inhumanity and tbh I have a similar feeling even just about human adult ZYC imo. Especially when his hair is down and he's got that thick eyeliner on and we get a close up of his contacts, if you told me from the start that he's half-demon half-human or something I'd believe it. Along the same vein, baby!Yichen reads completely human to me, and Bingyi of course completely demon. Something something the Cloud Light Sword bridges the gap something. This point is unintelligible and not narratively based but I had to make it because I've been thinking "wow ZYC elven" for days now.

Saw a tag about yuanyi getting us through some dark times but man they are PUTTING me through some dark times rn help?/

Been trying to put off talking about the baby Yichen scenes because wow I cried immediately. Well, no, I was like "yay! I love seeing baby Yichen!" and then they crushed me into demon dust lol. And then WX had to tell that absolutely precious story about when she got sick and ZYZ had to go like "actually ZYC was probably lonely as fuck" and yeah that's fine I didn't need my heart anyway.

Ending on this point so I can put a pretty screencap here: There is so much gravity to just the short scene of Bingyi removing his mask and dropping to his knees with that anguished and fatigued expression. TJR's acting is the gift that keeps on giving (me angst).

so sorry if anything here didn't make sense, i currently have the same thousand-mile-stare as Bingyi the more i think about how this all might end and how long I'm gonna have to wait to find out.

[velvet-vox]

Why Doll perfectly exemplifies all of the strengths and flaws of Murder Drones as a series.

From the amount of posts present on my blog about the specific individual, it is rather obvious to assume that Doll Yurikova (I'm still convinced the fandom made up this surname) is my favourite character from Murder Drones and you wouldn't be wrong.

She just simply tickles my needy scratch for weird, cool complex villainess characters.

However, eventually I also realised that she more than any other character embodies everything that makes murder drones a great show and everything that detracts the show from being genuinely amazing.

Let's start off with the good, anything I say applies to the both of them:

Doll/Murder drones are generally cool, unconventionally attractive, have great potential (this point will be elaborated upon) and are very complex in both the themes that they bring to the table and the philosophical standpoints discussed.

Coolness factor is mostly subjective, but I am sure any Murder drones fan will tell you that the sci-fi/horror/mystery/romance/comedy show about sentient cannibalistic robots who fight against eldritch atrocities with Portal 2-esque music is an absolute blast conceptually and visually. In the same way the russian robo vampire who was previously a cheerleader before deciding to commit cannibalism to avenge her dead parents has swarms of fans simping for her.

Unconventionally attractive is determined by unconventional people, said people also have rewatched the show seventeen different times.

Now, regarding the great potential, although I've also elaborated the previous points, this is one that will carry over when discussing the negatives of both the character and the show, but as for positive, you can just feel that Murder Drones is so much different from anything else you have ever watched, it truly gives me haunted Ghibli vibes in the way the story plays out. It could really be amazing. As for Doll, every time I watch her in the show up to her death I just get really sad thinking about what could have been if she had a redemption arc or just a better life in general.

Murder drones has abuse as his main theme and how it circulates into destructive chains and Doll is definitely one of the more interesting examples of said theme, being part of the abused and mauled drone designation that became an abuser herself. I say one of the more interesting examples because her story is fleshed out better than someone else's, say Tessa or Alice.

And now for the negatives, we need to bring out the big elephant in the room:

The show is only 8 episodes long and they are writing the season one finale in the same way you would write a series finale since making Murder drones costs Glitch a crap ton of money when they could just lower the animation quality and allow the story more time to breathe (mind you this is also Liam Vickers fault). I just hate the 8 episodes 20 minute long formula, it has, in my opinion, destroyed modern show telling and I honestly can't bear it any longer.

Besides that, 8 episodes of 20 minutes means that Doll's arc has to be paced quickly in order to get all the other characters (particularly the main ones) and elements to shine and that unfortunately leads to the fact that both Doll and Murder drones lack the one thing that separates Doll from being a human being and Murder Drones from being an amazing show, and that thing is (drum rolls) the tissue.

To explain, they have the (exo)skeleton, the organs, the mandibles and all the things that would make a piece of fiction feel truly human, but without the connective tissue, the skin, they both end up just short of those standards and as a result I can't confidently say that they are truly evocative individuals. Tissue of course is a metaphor for quote on quote "filler" in regards to the show and "villain at rest" moments in regards to Doll and her arc. And let's talk about the ending of said arc because of its possibility of paralleling the conclusion of the show;

You can say a lot of things about Doll's death but one thing that's impossible to deny is the impact of her death in your mind, everything about its execution is just so brutal that it leaves you a lasting feeling in your body; in a similar manner, the show could end with an absolute gut punch that remains impressed in your mind for months to come.

Want more?

[becauseimanicequeen]

I've used a lot of purple in my work today, and some yellow, and it got me thinking about Wandee Goodday (tell me I'm obsessed with Wandee Goodday without telling me I'm obsessed with Wandee Goodday, lol)...

Purple and yellow are contrasting colors (also called complementary colors) because they are on opposite sides of the color wheel. Contrasting colors are the definition of "opposites attract" when it comes to color because they are completely different but complement each other very well. When placed next to each other (or, as in my profession, somewhere within the confines of the same canvas), it creates high impact and contrast. They pop.

So, what does that tell me about Yak and Dee in Wandee Goodday? That their contrasts complement each other.

Dee (purple) is more mysterious and (let's be honest) a bit cold. Yak (yellow) is more clear/direct and warm.

Dee enjoys luxury. I mean, neon lights (at least the quality stuff) are expensive and we've seen how much he likes neon lights.

Yak seems to enjoy the simpler things in life like just being around the people he likes and having fun with dressing up in different costumes.

(I could be wrong about this, though, considering he can, somehow, get his hands on all those costumes and props he uses to disguise himself when he goes to Dee's place. Maybe that's a very expensive hobby/kink he has, lol.)

Anyway...

What's interesting about purple and yellow, in particular, is that they also have overlapping traits, and (not so) surprisingly, so do Dee and Yak.

Purple (Dee) is associated with wisdom while yellow (Yak) is associated with intelligence. But even with this overlapping trait, Dee and Yak's wisdom/intelligence is different and complementary.

Dee is a doctor and it has surely taken him a lot of studying to get to where he is now. The kind of intelligence he uses every day (because of his work) is scientific and analytical.

Yak's intelligence is, I would say, more of an intuitive and emotional kind. He took what Taem said about people not always being able to be strong, saw it in Dee, and was able to empathize with it.

Even though they're both wise/intelligent, they are so in their own ways.

(Yes, Dee shows empathy for his patients as well, but I feel like he lacks some of the other aspects of EI at the moment, like self-regulation, for example.)

Another interesting aspect of purple and yellow is that purple is the color on the color wheel that's closest in value to black while yellow is the color closest in value to white.

In other words, purple is the color on the color wheel that reflects the least amount of light while yellow is the color that reflects the most.

Even though black and white and purple and yellow have different qualities and symbolism, the contrast between dark and light is there in both pairs.

Black is often associated with the night while purple is associated with mystery (one of the reasons being that pure purple is so dark it was likened to the evening/night in the past). White is often associated with light while yellow is (in the West) associated with the sun. In Thailand, yellow is associated with Mondays, and Mondays are associated with the moon (the light in the night sky).

With this in mind, it could be that Yak (yellow) is coming into Dee's (purple) life to shine some light.

There was that hint (in the 3rd episode) of a car accident that (most likely) took Dee's parents' lives. Considering what we saw in that flash of his memory, he saw them dead. Whether he was in the car with them or not doesn't matter, the trauma was evidently deep either way.

While I don't believe in other people being able (or having the responsibility) to heal your trauma (you have to work on that yourself), Yak might still be able to give Dee some light through another perspective on life. Perhaps to work less (so he'll have the time to change the lightbulbs, lol) and make more time for fun and play (like their FWB relationship).

With the whole contrast in values between purple and yellow, combined with the reasons they're in this FWB/fake boyfriend relationship, I also feel like Dee might end up hurting Yak.

Yak seems to be the one who is mostly into this FWB/fake boyfriend relationship and it feels like that because he wants to be there (he clearly likes Dee). Dee, on the other hand, is mostly in it for his own personal gain (at first to prove that he isn't vanilla and then to show Ter and the gossipy idiots at the hospital that he’s not into Ter).

And let's not forget that he likes to win...

And will probably do whatever it takes to win over Ter (since he admitted that winning at all costs is a bad habit he has).

The question is how much Dee will hurt Yak on the way to winning (because I'm pretty sure Dee will win the scholarship) and how far he will go before he realizes what he's doing/what he's done and what Yak actually means to him.

Eventually, though, Dee will realize his feelings because I'm sure he will see the light that Yak has brought into his life (literally and figuratively).

Anyway, that was my rant about color. I'll shut up now...

[aihoshiino]

seeing takes saying ai is a selfish liar while ruby is a selfless liar who does it for the sake of the fans as if she doesn't turn out to be ai 2.0 at the end LMAOOO

and even then that's wrong lol. at least ai tells her lies with the hope that they'll come true someday. ruby's motivations for going on are... what, exactly??

"to the future that mama and aqua illuminated" as if they both weren't victims that had their lives tragically taken away (aqua's case is different, yea, but only akane knowsbthat)

minor detail also, but as a fellow ai wifeguy, aren't the two pics of ai at ruby's bitchass merch shrine rehashes of prev art?? ai when she first takes off the hat in the hospital (this one is especially obvious to me) & the pic of her in the shampoo commercial but just edited a bit. same goes for thr aqua pic, looks like his cover art from vol 3

anon before i say anything else i need you to know that the combo of the words "fellow ai wife guy" and "bitchass merch shrine" took me out so hard. i was eating spicy noodles when i read this ask and it almost killed me. ig i don't blame mengo for reusing the linework for what are just throwaway background elements but it is kind of funny. like. yeah, girl. i wouldn't have put any extra effort into this chapter either lolo

Anyway yeah lol the idea of interpreting Ai as 'selfish' in that sense is kind of incomprehensible to me because tbh one of Ai's major issues as a character is that she isn't selfish. She feels obligated to endlessly contort herself to match the shapes other people want her to take - I mentioned it in my episode 1 liveblog but there's this constant underlying theme in Ai's arc of her doing her best to be every single contradictory thing that was asked of her, succeeding against all odds and being punished for it anyway. She doesn't value herself and her own happiness enough to choose it over continuing to be the version of herself other people ask her to be. TBH, that's another way that Ai and Aqua parallel each other - they both view not just their happiness but their entire lives as being ancillary at best to the people around them. Ai is at least able to understand that she wants and deserves to have happiness when she decides to have the twins, but she still undervalues herself to a shocking degree.

As for Ruby.............. honestly, Ruby's endgame characterization is so undercooked that I don't even really know what to make of her. But it's not as though she's a pure selfless angel who's getting nothing out of being an idol - this is the dream she's had for two lifetimes now and she's at the peak of her success. She's talked all series about wanting to be famous, etc etc. I'm sure it's hard and she's not always having an easy time and that it's probably frustrating for her to have to compartmentalize her feelings, but like...

Ruby could quit! She could just walk out!!! Hit da bricks!!!! It's nothing at all like Ai's situation where the combo of socioeconomic and interpersonal factors that contributed to her success also essentially trapped her in the entertainment industry with no safety net and nobody to help her find her footing in everyday life. If Ruby wanted to quit Tomorrow, she could and she'd have an endless amount of people who would help her adjust. As such, I can only assume Ruby is an idol because she still wants to be an idol. Which is fine! But this selfishness vs selflessness stuff is just not in the text.

And even if it was..................... again, who cares lol. Selflessness is not and inherently morally righteous quality and neither is selfishness inherently bad. Aqua and Ai again are both prime examples of how self destructive selflessness at the cost of the self is.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Idk if you already discussed this but how do you feel about Adrinette being canon when there wasn‘t a reveal yet? Because I think the show just took all the exciting aspects of the love square away by making one side canon and the others strictly platonic.

Sure, they‘re cute and whatnot, but I don‘t think they‘re exactly interesting without the identity shenanigans and stuff? Especially because (to me at least) Adrinette always felt like the weakest side. It‘s a school crush romcom type of love, which is great and all, but like…. You have superheroes in your show?? Hello??? Why not combine the two elements more effectively???The others are either badass superhero couple (I loved the Ladynoir dynamic in the movie for example) or one superhero hangs out with the civilian and they bond. That‘s literally all of fanon Marichat, and I personally think it works with Ladrien too. There‘s different aspects of those relationships that can be explored and create problems that they have to overcome (like the power imbalance with the civilian x hero ships, how do you handle that while dating?)

I wish the writers would use the square more effectively

I'm not against pre-reveal dating, but I agree that Adrienette is the worst side to chose from a story telling perspective because - as you so rightly pointed out - it's arguably the side with the least identity shenanigans and the side that has the least ties to the superhero stuff that's supposed to be the show's main focus. Adrienette is the side you chose if you're focusing on civilian drama which, to be fair, was season five's main focus even though Gabriel had stolen the miraculous and we were all expecting that complication to be the focus of the season five plot.

Instead the focus was "will Marinette ever have the courage to say a kind word to Adrien's face instead of just telling others how much she loves him even though she knows that he explicitly returns her feelings, making this plot kind painful on every level" which was... a choice.... Five seasons and we're still doing this shit? Really?

This may mean that the writer's plan in season six is to continue to focus on civilian drama or it could mean that they didn't think further than season five and we're about to get a lot of awkward writing. Who knows? I have no idea how they're going to handle civilian dating plus secret identities for long since the writers chose the only side of the square where running off to fight akumas isn't a given thing that the couple-in-question knows will happen. My best guess is that the writers will probably just avoid putting Adrienette in the type of situations Adrigami and Lukanette were put in, I guess?

No matter how they handle it, I don't expect major identity shenanigans because the show has never done much with identity shenanigans probably because quality identity shenanigans require you to be able to draw out plots over multiple episodes and then resolve those plots. This show cannot have that kind of plot progression given it's formulaic nature and the "there must always be a secret between Adrien and Marinette" rule, thus the identity shenanigans being so limited.

This means that the side best suited to the show's writing is probably Ladynoir. Still room for the minor identity shenanigans that the show limits itself to, baked-in-yet-low-stakes tension from having to keep the relationship a complete secret, and a much more logical result of the writing in the first four seasons. While Adrien is far from perfect and has issues to rival Marinette's, his crush always felt like the stronger one given that he actually spent time with Ladybug and had a true relationship with her.

Marinette, on the other hand, barely talked to Adrien because the show literally has a rule that she can never successfully confess her crush, so they needed to keep her and Adrien from becoming close to make those continued failed confessions somewhat plausible. Given all that, it's hard for me to buy that Adrien's crush flipped to this girl that he barely knows. Meanwhile Ladybug's crush flipping had a pretty strong setup given that Chat Noir has been her loyal support in her darkest hours.

But that's not what they went with! Instead of having the secret be the low-stakes identities secret, the secret between them is, "Your father was a super villain whose minions killed you on multiple occasions and whose death you were arguably involved with. While were on the topic of your messed up family, you're an artificial being whose creation killed you mother. Oh, and we're also hero partners, which feels like a minor thing compared to all of that, but we might as well mention that, too."

...choice were made folks. Choices were made. This is so not how you write a formula show! You never go this serious!

Since you mentioned the Civilian/hero pairings, let's talk about those both to end on a lighter note and because that's where my personal favorite lies as I am here for identity shenanigans. That's right, folks, I am once again here to sell you on my Ladrien supremacy agenda.

While I have nothing against Marichat, it is not a good fit for canon. It's simply too limiting because Marinette is not a celebrity. There's a reason that of Marinette's canon hangouts with Chat Noir (and almost all Marichat fics) start on her balcony. That's really the only place they can meet up without drawing attention, which should be a major concern for them.

I physically cringed when the show had them go to the movies and on an ice cream date because Chat Noir was being so irresponsible! He cannot be shown to have a close relationship with a civilian, which is the excuse he should have given at the end Elation since that the episode included Gabriel discovering their relationship. The excuse Chat Noir actually gave feels pretty dismissive of his canon relationship with Marinette. She has canonically spent more time talking to Chat Noir then she's spent talking to Adrien and the same actually goes for the amount of time Ladynoir spends talking about non-hero things, so this feels off:

Cat Noir: I’m sorry about what happened, Marinette. You’re right, you have the right to love anyone you want. Even a superhero. But it’s easy for a person to mistake idolization of a superhero for love. So, even if I like this person very much, I could be taking advantage of the situation, and I just can’t do that. It would be wrong.

Evil Illustrator, their heartfelt talk in Glaciator, the movie date in Glaciator 2, and a bunch of other little moments add up to somehow make Marichat the deepest side of the square, which is painfully bad writing given how little screen time this side gets, but it's still what canon gave us. Marinette is not just a fan who only knows him from a distance. They are friends and even occasional teammates. The only reason this pairing doesn't work in canon is because there's nowhere for the relationship to go until a partial or total reveal happens.

Prior to that, it's just these two hanging out on her balcony or maybe going on secret dates around the city. Cute, but not suited to a silly superhero romcom aimed at kids where every story needs to be told in about 20 minutes. It's best left to long form fan content that is allowed to be more about drama and romance than the actual show and also a little more spicy than the actual show because - let's be real here - those rooftop dates would not just be talking. I don't know how you'd write this pairing in a way that's both genuine and well suited to the intended audience. It's simply way more suited to a teen drama than a kid's show.

Ladrien, on the other hand, could work if canon wanted to go there. I don't think it would be a good fit for more than a season*, so Ladynoir is still the better pick for canon's format, but Ladrien could be a nice bit of pre-reveal padding to draw out the reveal and add some fun comedy if the show were allowed to have a reveal.

Because Ladybug and Adrien are both celebrities, you can have them interact in diverse settings without anyone thinking twice. This allows for a good amount of hijinks where Ladybug is trying to protect her boyfriend at public events without revealing their relationship while Adrien is trying to get her to let him run off and transform.

You can also do things like the public seeing them together, thinking they're a couple, and having them both deny it because they aren't, leading to Ladynoir comedy where Ladybug cries because she wishes they were and Chat Noir is like, "Wait, what? You what? ...My Lady, as your loyal partner who is here to support you in all things, I will get you your man even if it kills me!" The thinking-they're-a-couple thing could also be solved via Ladynoir by Ladynoir going public while Adrien remains "single". There's just a lot of potential for the show's style of absurdist humor here.

*Ladrien does eventually fall into the same issues as Marichat where it feels like the reveal needs to happen otherwise you're just repeating the same plots or going too spicy for a kids show via bedroom-based meetups, thus me saying that it's only good for about a season. There's also the problem that Akuma fights and supervillains are endless fodder for Ladynoir issues, but the only issue Ladrien could possibly address is Gabriel and Marichat's got nothing save for maybe Lila? So if you don't want to let a reveal happen, Ladynoir really is the best pick by far. Adrienette can work, but it's way less fun since they have to keep all these secrets while Ladynoir really only has one major secret or, at least, Ladynoir should only have one major secret (the identities). Canon has really dropped the ball on this one.

Now that I've written all this out, maybe the spicy issue is why canon went Adrienette? It's a lot easier to limit their alone time than it is to limit the alone time of any other side. I maintain that you could get away with it in pre-reveal Ladynoir by just ignoring the issue and giving them things to fight any time they try to have a date. You could also end episodes on them starting their date, leaving everything to the imagination but also keeping the setting relatively public (rooftops and the like) unlike the civilian/hero sides whose dates are going to be way more private. I fully understand why a show aimed at 5-to-12-year-olds wouldn't want to go there. That is far more suited to the teen drama Miraculous so desperately wants to be based on the ill-suited plots the writers keep going with.