#Culture of clouds

[toskabi]

i hate being so fucking needy.

i hate that i constantly want your attention,

i want you all by myself.

[cheekios]

I will be homeless in less than 1 hours

I have to stress that my apartment wants me gone. Why you might ask? Because I’m one of the few tenants in the entire apartment complex that pays $1300 for rent meanwhile everyone else pays $1800-$1900. They want me out to the extent they don’t accept any late fees from me, but accepts from other residents. I asked the apartment manager why, she couldn’t give me answer. It’s the norm to have until the 5th of the month to pay rent but not for me.

Goal: $775

CA: $HushEmu

PP: emuslayter@gmail.com

I have to stress I’m not lazy or useless. I had a job despite having multiple disabilities. I’m not asking for a cookie or a pat on the back but its not easy. One small inconvenience really can set you up to be on the streets. Especially if you’re not privileged to have a good paying job with benefits. Like INSURANCE. Or parents that give a crap about you.

In my case the catalyst for this was simply my glasses breaking that snowballed me to eviction. I am legally blind and I have to thank diabetes for that. I cannot see without my glasses so it would be quite literally deadly for me to be on the roads. Ultimately I lost my job from “job abandonment”

I am asking for community support to stay housed. While I make this unfortunate transition. All I have is this community. There are ways beyond financial support that can help me. $1-$2 makes a significant impact

You can:

• Post on my behalf on all your platforms

• Urge your moots with large followings to reblog/retweet my posts

• You can interact fully with my posts to add traction

With the state of the world as it is right now. We need less apathy and more empathy. Please don’t ignore.

[vaaveyylla]

[shaimaafekry]

Blessed Friday 🌿🕊️

Cairo, Egypt 🌻

[theskullindexcic]

Mainland clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) added to the site. Awaiting measurements & Data! Look at those canines!

[peekofhistory]

hi was there like a thing where specific cloud collar colors meant like a specific thing for graduation

Hello! 😀❤️

After doing some research I didn't find any specific colours for cloud collars that's connected to graduation. It seems the cloud collar colour is usually paired with the colour of the clothing being worn.

Although historically, the cloud collar could be worn by men and women, by the Qing Dynasty when it reached its peak popularity, it was mostly worn by women, particularly on their wedding day.

Historically, women were not given many opportunities for studies (the vast majority of the population (men and women) were illiterate right up until when the PRC was formally established and going to school became mandatory). Wealthy families could hire private tutors to come to the house and teach their daughters to read and write (as it was considered ill-mannered for wealthy women to leave the house) but there were no 'schools' for women to attend, so no exams or graduations 😢

For anyone unfamiliar with cloud collars, they're called 云肩/yunjian in Chinese, worn around the shoulders initially to protect the collar, gradually evolving to be a decorative garment to add some flair.

Historical records show variations of the cloud collar dating back to the Qin dynasty. It initially was designed like a wrap, draping around the shoulders:

By the Song Dynasty it had evolved into a fully circular shape, wrapping around the neck:

There are many beautiful, elaborate cloud collars, with intricate embroideries:

[galleryofart]

The Greek Lovers

Artist: Henry Peters Gray (American, 1819–1877)

Date: 1846

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY, United States

Description

Gray painted “The Greek Lovers” after a trip to Italy, where, as evidenced by the style and palette of this painting, he was influenced by the art of the Italian Renaissance. This painting was highly regarded in its day, and the subject reflects the nineteenth-century fascination with Greco-Roman antiquity.

[portrait-paintings]

Self Portrait in a Straw Hat

Artist: Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (French, 1755-1842)

Date: c. 1782

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Collection: The National Gallery, London, United Kingdom

Description

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, the daughter of a minor painter, Louis Vigée, was born and brought up in Paris. She became a member of the Académie de St-Luc in 1774 and of the French Academy in 1783. She was a highly fashionable portrait painter, patronized particularly by Queen Marie Antoinette. Between 1789 and 1805 she travelled in Europe and visited Russia.

[toskabi]

i wish you wanted, craved and needed me the way i need you.

i wish you could also feel your organs writhe when we're not talking,

when we're not together,

when we don't exist in the same space and at the same time.

[little-one-eyed-monsters]

Hello!! Seeing as we are so deep in branded pair culture and looking like it is getting more lucrative being in a CP, do you think the things will cool down in the future how far it may be? Like lakorns in thai will we ever get to a point where the people get to play in different BLs with different partners? I'm asking about CPs not being such an ingrained part of thai BL industry like Japan, Korea etc., What's your thoughts on this?

Oh bless you anon for giving me a fresh new ask that's far away from the BL meta circus of 2025. I could kiss you (but only if you want to). I swear I'm not creepily flirting with you 😅, I'm just so happy to get asks that doesn't mention WeTV or GIR in any capacity.

And the answer is Yes, 100%. GMMTV is experimenting with this already. And what a full circle moment for the company that pioneered branded pairing in BLs to also slowly shift away from this concept in 2025.

They experimented with this risky new concept in the bromance series I'm Tee, Me Too, starring all three of their BL pillars (KristSingto, OffGun and Taynew). Here, they resolutely refused to link the established ships romantically (giving Tay and New female love interests, and building the connection between Gun and Krist's characters more than their actual branded partners). They wanted to see if fans would be reciprocal to a show that didn't feature these established pairs as a brand, even though they were all acting in the same project.

Look at their poster. The branded pair partners are DELIBERATELY placed away from each other to highlight the show's concept.

It proved to be a minor hit, so I reckon GMMTV wanted to experiment a bit more but in shorter bursts. Their second test was in the BL series Only Friends, which combined established pairs (FirstKhaotung and ForceBook) with an outlier: Mark and Neo, with red herring partners for both Mark and Neo's characters throughout the series. The show was also a minor hit, but it seems OF didn't make the numbers GMMTV wanted it to make, because not only did they eschew the idea of non-pair branding by putting Mark Pakin in a BL ship of his own (after years of being independent), but their season 2 for the show, OF: Dream On, will ONLY feature branded pairs:

They even replaced Ohm Pawat and Leng Thanapon with another pair-- AouBoom-- after the dissolution of that ship, showing that GMMTV *may* be backtracking a bit with the mix-and-match partners concept. However, they ARE slowly trying. We'll see these baby steps in the upcoming OffGun vehicle Burnout Syndrome, which will give Gun a concurrent romance with another actor who isn't Off, in the same show:

Thus, GMMTV is more than willing to do it if enough fans clamored for it.

To be clear, ALL of their BL actors have already featured in other shows absent of their branded pair partners (the pillars often had male AND female love interests in other shows. Singto even had a male love interest in two seasons of the GMMTV het-mix show Friend Zone that ISN'T Krist). But they ALWAYS return to the pair branding for events, activities, and yes, the all-important fandom. GMMTV has NOT done a BL show starring two actors who do not belong in the same branded pair (gosh imagine an honest to God OffTay romcom? It would be sweet AND hilarious, why is no one making that? And First has MAD chemistry with Mix, why is no one considering a Moonlight Chicken spinoff?)

I honestly thought Be On Cloud would be brave enough to launch BL shows with non-pair branding, as they also experimented with the ship TaBarcode in Dead Friend Forever (Barcode is *technically* pair branded with Jeff Satur) and BasFuaiz in 4 Minutes (altho Fuaiz was running his actual pair brand JJFuaiz concurrently in that show). With DFF and 4 Minutes not turning in the returns they had hoped for, and with the departure of Ta, Barcode, and Bas, it seems Be On Cloud may be more hesitant to push forward with the mix-and-match concept now. But they'll need to experiment again eventually.

The thing is, though pair branding is a common occurence in most Asian countries (for het pairs in particular), it isn't actually a stable industry technique due to its short shelf life. Excluding paired actors who fell in love IRL and got married/engaged (like Yaya and Nadech in Thailand), branded pairs only have a career lifespan of 10-15 years on average. Here's a published research study of pair branding longevity in Philippine pop culture, which shares techniques and trends from its Asian neighbors. The 10-15 average lifespan is mentioned here:

Even Hollywood has learned to move on from pair branding, DESPITE originating the whole concept in the 1930s and bringing it to their Asian colonies.

This is primarily because audiences are actually very fickle-- they tire of the same faces, materials and dynamics fairly quickly. Branded pairs are usually typecasted, because their roles are often blended in with the dynamic of the ship in real life. If you're bright and spunky, chances are you'll be playing that same character and all its iterations for many years. If your ship dynamic is shy and coy, the love stories you'll star in will also feature shy interactions. Once the actors or the fans (or both) lose interest, the ships die a natural death.

What this means for the Thai BL industry is that they'll definitely shift to non-pair branding in the future because they HAVE TO. The oldest branded pair in Thai BL (and queer media really)--OffGun-- is only as old as the genre itself at 10 years. They haven't reached the max. average lifespan of the pair branding concept yet, so the following years of OffGun will DICTATE the future viability of this concept for other couples. But I definitely believe we'll see non-pairs star in projects soon, similar to Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

And to end this on a spicy note, do you wanna know which non-branded pair I wanna see star in a BL? FORT THITIPONG and LEE NOEUL 🫦

Fort ADORES Noeul and thinks everything he does is cool, while Noeul finds Fort so damn amusing. Same tastes, same sense of humor-- they'd be perfect for a light and breezy, but also damn sexy, friends-turned-unlikely lovers BL. I'd even want to see a Boss Chaikamon and Peat Wasuthorn show, too, just because Boss and Peat's acting styles actually complement each other. Hey Mame, wanna try that? I swear you have one fan already.

This got long but thank you for the ask! Would love to hear your thoughts, too. Stay kooky, folks!

[vaaveyylla]

[shaimaafekry]

Beautiful morning 🕊️🌿

Cairo, Egypt 🌻

[mythical-redon]

By Odilon Redon (French, 1840-1916)

"Two young girls among flowers"

[allegorypaintings]

Allegory of Self Control (Temperance)

Artist: Karl von Blaas (Austrian, 1815–1894)

Date: 1859

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria

[artandthebible]

Christ Escapes the Pharisees

Artist: Johann Friedrich Overbeck (German, 1789-1869)

Date: 1866

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, Belgium

"Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp." (John 10:39)