#Framing My Perception - EP

[zephyrusswinds]

RANT on Lionpeach; Analysis on the pairing.

** PLEASE read the full thing before coming up with an opinion, thank you **

The irony of how Azure gaslit and manipulated himself- and eventually most others- into being that he was the Hero and having the lmk FANDOM believe him is... genuinely hysterical.

The continual narrative that either Macaque or Wukong were somehow horrible within their respective pairings entirely undermines the fact that AZURE started the brotherhood, and AZURE actively sought out Wukong for the sole purpose of using him to finish his own grudges against Heaven.

I'm gonna say this right now, lionpeach is an objectively toxic ship so riddled with abuse and exaltation that I cannot reasonably understand it.

The following quote is about to summarize literally everything I'm about to say;

"The hero and the warrior"- Season 2, Ep 7

Many people in the fandom recognize the theme of a Hero and a Warrior throughout the show, the show itself even brings it up a lot in the following seasons. Now, the shadowplay is used as a thematic tool for Macaque's rage and anger towards Wukong- it's focused on Macaque believing that he'd been forgotten and his disassociation from who Wukong actually is as a person.

What does this have to do with Azure?

Well, Season 4, Ep 8

"I knew here, was a WARRIOR with MY ideals"

The warrior is lower than the hero; as well as how Macaque chooses to keep his morals ambiguous.

But the Hero is meant to be as obviously "good" as possible, what does Azure call Wukong? The warrior.

That leaves Azure as the Hero of this story.

To quote Macaque, "Everyone thinks they're the Hero of their own story. Azure's always been good at convincing people that he's the good guy, he's even fooled himself." (Part one of the Season 4 Special.)

In the original shadowplay, Macaque portrays him and Wukong's relationship as something very close and personal, only severed by Wukong being, quote "handed everything".

Azure was handed everything.

A position in Heaven.

A brotherhood.

A warrior.

I, personally, am very fond of the jokes of that one frame of Wukong being in the center of Azure's eye (around the same time of the season 4 quote, mentioned above). The whole, "HE WANTS HIM AND HE WANTS HIM BAD" thing is quite funny. So, do not interperate this as hate towards these kinds of ships.

But regardless, Azure immediately turns on Wukong when he can't take down the Jade-fucking-Emperor. I mentioned Exaltation earlier.

Exaltation has two different definitions (technically 3) as a noun; to put it succinctly, it either means great joy or the act of elevating something or someone higher than it actually is.

He held Wukong- exalted him- to a position that he was unfit for.

Perhaps I'll make another post breaking down how Wukong is very obviously mentally and emotionally unstable, but in the meantime, Azure, very subtly encourages this.

Wukong is very dillusional, it's born from his fear of mortality. And if Azure, who the entire brotherhood (aside from Macaque, of course) looks up to him for guidance, what would it imply if the suicidaly-impulsive monkey is encouraged to almost get himself killed?

Also, friendly reminder that Azure has never been stated to visit Wukong when he was trapped under that mountain. Only Macaque did. While I have my own thoughts about this scene and Macaque's emotional immaturity when dealing with Wukong's psychological instability, I wouldn't think it's crazy to think that Azure seriously didn't care about Wukong at that moment beyond "he failed and betrayed me,".

This is not to say that Azure never cared about him; however, I'm willing to argue that Azure physically couldn't view him beyond his wildly bias and false perception of Wukong.

There are more points to be made here; I'll see if making a part two is worth it.

Tldr; Lionpeach is just.. not a good ship and the lmk fandom has begun pissing me off with the lack of both nuance and media literacy shown within character analysises of these two.

I'm off to go eat some lovely pomegranates with strawberry yogurt and some honey, feel free to either agree with me, disagree with me or call me a creative slur! Goodbye my lovelies <3!

[ennn]

Initial Agatha All Along Ep 7 Meta Thoughts + Reactions

This ep was a work of art and my brain is buzzing while my heart is in awe.

YELLING at how the show is just leaning into the gay now that we're in the endgame. This is the current star TV show product of Disney Marvel and I am stunned and delighted. Two of this show's lead characters flat out saying they're not straight / queer.

I can only hope this spills over to more open marketing and interviews. Yes, I'm still shook about it and will be for the time being.

"I'm your mom's ex [forever pause] best friend." Congratulations Wanda-Agatha shippers, I'm happy for you. Also Agatha's "oooh" at possible epic Maximoff drama? Nice.

We've hit Doctor Who levels of time shenanigans! And timey whimey storytelling is a sure-fire way to hit the feels. There's something so powerful and tragic about Fate.

I keep drawing parallels about how the show feels like such a spiritual successor to DW with the Agatha-Billy team up, and the incredible layers (and theatrics and cunning and drama) with Agatha. Now we're directly playing with time and it's glorious!

As much as Billy is giving Agatha a hard time now, it's probably a good thing and healthy this conflict is in the open. Billy's expressing his hurt and anger and making it super clear he doesn't trust Agatha – which of course, structurally means he will of course have to trust her by the end of this story.

Them snarking at each other attempting the trial? I enjoy these bitchy dumbasses.

What an incredible writing feat in how they did the time skips, with the focus centered on Lilia so we can experience her tragic journey. I can't wait to hear more about how Schaeffer and the writers plotted this out. A new masterclass in executing a series reveal, with stunning cinematography to match. (the colours! the framing!) This episode embodies how it's really the craft and execution that delivers, less of the idea or the plot point.

Patti LuPwn effortlessly grounding this episode with her performance. I'm glad a wider audience gets to experience this Broadway legend's talent. My only regret is we never got more of her singing.

Agatha's back in her active leader-y role in driving the trial to succeed (and of course saving her own skin): tackling Lilia so she doesn't get impaled, reminding them to hurry up, and ultimately saving them crucial seconds by putting down the Death card.

Congratulations to Agatha officially joining the monsterfucker club. The way everyone looked to her (look, everyone saw Rio's dumb scar confession) was gold.

Vindication for my Death's missing heart theory -- although now it looks like the wound is more likely self-inflicted? I wonder exactly when and how.

Vindication for my perception of Rio as not a liar (as I do love the contrast with Agatha's duplicitous nature and tendency to run). She literally told everyone she's The Green Witch. In a scary voice no less.

Excited to see how they tackle Rio being the original Green Witch. Death being a witch is certainly a new take? And I'm still not sure how human or not this makes Rio, which makes the last two eps rather unpredictable. Yes, she's got a skull face and can do weird shit with her body. But the Scarlet Witch was able to pull off some inhuman things in MoM.

[ipractical-joker]

The Odd Man Out; Generation Kill, RPF, and HBOWar

What's been bugging me since having finished watching all 4 of the HBOWar installments has been how out of place Gen Kill feels when you lump them all together.

The obvious of course being the fact that Band of Brothers, The Pacific, and Masters of the Air are all WW2 (ETO & PTO) and GenKill is very much not, being focused on OIF in 2003. The difference are near endless, Tom Hanks vs Ed Burns, the time frame, 2-3 years vs ~3 weeks, the public perception of the war that they are fight/ invasion they are launching, even the names/number of episodes (BoB/TP -10, MotA-9, not having ep names, GenKill -7, having ep names ).

The names of the shows themselves even evoke very different feelings from the viewer. Band of Brothers and Masters of the Air are triumphant, unity, brotherhood, and victory, which I feel like reflects the view of the general (american) populace on WW2. Generation Kill on the other hand is ugly and direct, and outright violent and diluting from the jump (imho). It's a reflection of the people (men in this case) that fought it, where for some joining up was better than jail, fresh off the surge of American patriotism/Nationalism in the wake of 9/11, trained into red-blood American killers and 'liberators'. They came in and they killed, Operation Iraqi Freedom ringing severely hollow and ironic. It lacks the nobility of the prev 2 titles, its gritty and has an immediate negative connotation compared to BoB and MotA. The Pacific (w/ knowing the context of ww2) is a negative connotation but generally considered neutral (imo). The Pacific is a unique case for my point about naming conventions, because it covers stories about the 1st,5th,& 7th Marines, it has to be more general. The books subtitle "Hell was an Ocean Away", does help, but this is the show we are talking about.

So therefore --> You know what you're getting with each show, it's right on the tin. BoB is brotherhood, MotA is triumph, TP is the horrors of the Pacific, and GenKill is the result of the pressure cooker that was the War on Terror and American patriotism. Then again how much stock can be put into the names of these shows when they are based of books that were name by others, based on the stories that they were telling and vary, intentionally or not, at least somewhat from their source material. I guess I can take it up with Ambrose^2, Miller, and Wright on that point.

Even in their similarities the differences are still very stark. There are marines in TP and GenKill - but one group are volunteers, boots, and draftees (mainly regular people), the others are mainly highly specialized reconnaissance men. Ones beaches, jungles, mountains, and islands, the other is dry af desert in the Cradle of civilization. There is the idea of patriotism in all of them, obvs, and the idea of joining up after a foreign attack on American territory (Pearl Harbor/ 9/11) is present in both, but this is hardly unifying in meta as it's not especially the focus in any show from the point in time where the viewer joins the story, just the means to getting us there, the catalyst (both implied and stated) to the launch into their respective wars.

In the long and short, American patriotism is not the reason these shows are classifed together, though it does serve as a thread connecting them.

Culturally, the expanse could not be greater between shows that similarities begin and end with HBO (& AppleTV) and being about war (w/ BoB/MotA/TP vs GenKill).

So where does the RPF part come in? What I think is the biggest distinction between GenKill and the rest of HBOWar is proximity. It's the idea of historical research vs first hand journalism. 'But Sep!' I hear you cry, 'They [BoB/MotA/TP] are based on first hand accounts!'. Which, I agree! That is true! And I love that we have Parachute Infantry and Helmet for My Pillow, With the Old Breed/China Marine, and the like. I consider them invaluable. But I believe that GenKill is a far more direct page to screen adaptation, with literally word-for-word recitations of recorded conversations, with one of the Marines LITERALLY PLAYING HIMSELF (I can't even wrap my head around that one,,,Rudy Reyes, the man that you are).

That being said, this is not an attack on any of the shows! I love them all so much!! However because of the distance, in the time between the war and the accounts and the creation of the show, it allows a little more wiggle room for creative liberties to be expressed. Just ask Tom "rpf is fine" Hanks!

An interjection here, I've been told that S. Ambrose was more of a writer than historian,,,which doesn't instill the most confidence in his accounts towards historical accuracy. Additionally, in my own reading of him [BoB], I found it,,,underdeveloped? Or perhaps simple might be a better word. Which is good, when making military operations and jargon and further nuances of a World War palatable to the layperson 45 years after it happened. But when posed next to the rather elegant entries of David Webster, which were quoted often and at length,,,Ambrose came off as somewhat lacking. I by no means, mean to disparage S. Ambrose, he is the reason we have BoB in the first place.

So back to it. The aforementioned distance and time and rpf. It's my opinion that it allows for a certain character to be established that is, for the most part, separate from their real life counterpart. That's why there are the disclaimers on fics that establish that it's the show, the works of Tom Hanks or Ed Burns and the actors portrayals that they are basing their fic from, no intention of disrespect to the actual real life people. Because of the nature of Evan Wright's documentation while writing the articles that later formed Generation Kill (2004) and the fact that that was explicitly his job and he was not a marine or solider who also happen to document his experience in war, there is less wiggle room. That (assumed, no man is without bias) faithfulness to what he was seeing in Iraq and then the subsequent pretty dead on series adaptation makes it significantly harder, for me at least, to seperate the men that are portrayed in GenKill (2008) than the real men of 1st Recon that Wright depicted in his book. But that's just me! In the fandom space, GenKill, even if it's not explicit rpf, it does feel more like rpf than any of the other shows. I don't have a problem with rpf, I just don't personally engage with it. Certain details that often included in fics like Nate Fick's horseshoe necklace or Dick Winters engraved knife from Lewis Nixon, their signifcance is never mentioned in the show (nor the objects sometimes even shown) but is explored in fic. We are, at this point, about 20 years removed from the events of GenKill, but still, it feels a bit more invasive to include information obtained outside of that show than any of the others.

Additionally, a call back to the cultural aspect I mentioned before. There no over looking the differences between existing in war and just as a person in the 1940s and 2003. A distinct lack of Nelly in the 40s, for starters.

This had been touched on before by people far smarter than me but, BoB is pretty sterilized in its portrayal of war, it's lack of anger toward the enemy (barring Web's outburst), there 1 sex scene, and limited uncouth language (correct me if I'm wrong). This isn't the case in really any of the other shows in at least of manner or another. TP doesn't shy away from violence and is considerably more gory, but that tracks with the purpose of the show. In my Pacific rewatch I was promptly reminded the stark anger and racism towards the Japanese there was. The Pacific also potentially has the most sex featured in it.

GenKill is in a league of its own for bigoted language and considerable rauch with a distinct lack of both sex scenes, with the exception of combat jacks ig, and named female characters

So what is it? Is there one defining factor that makes GenKill the odd man out? Is it not being WW2, not being done by Tom Hanks, not having Dale Dye, the propensity toward rpf, the presence of Nelly?

What it really comes down to, is of course, the obvious, timing of release and subject matter. BoB was 2001, GenKill 2008, TP 2010, and MotA 2024 and they are all about war and on HBO (except MotA but it was adopted as it has Hanksian parentage). There doesn't seem to be a single unifying thing that holds everything together nor any entirely isolation that makes it so you can't draw parallels between all 4.

In the resurgence of the HBOWar fandom with the airing of MotA, I feel like GenKill has become the ugly stepchild of the fandom, even tho it was the 2nd aired show. Being relatively new to the fandom, I would love to hear from members of the HBOWar pre-MotA and how the dynamics between the shows worked previously. Was GenKill always the odd man out? Was it just with the addition of MotA that it got pushed to the side? Was it a dead fandom and got its own resurgence?

All this to say, PLEASE GOD LET ME TALK TO SOMEONE ABOUT GENKILL. I FINSIHED WATCHING IT AND ITS CONSUMED BY BRAIN PLEASE

[muninnhuginn]

TBHX Episode 4 Thoughts

So, finally approaching the end of the first arc, curious to see how it resolves itself. For previous liveblogs, check here, but otherwise, if you'd like my thoughts on episode four, see below the cut!

Starting with a recap and the perspective from the branding side: essentially, so long as they stay silent, Nice/Moon shippers will overwhelm the narrative and let them retain control. Yay mob mentality? (Not that I'm expecting it to work out as branding would like)

"In one hour, I will kill Moon." I don't know if it's because I have marketing ideas already in my head for this show, but *classic* sales tactic. Adding time pressure to force action without having chance to properly think.

pictured: the power of cnet. But huh, actually I hadn't considered that the will of fans would extend that far. That them just wanting him to act in a particular way would make him do so. It makes sense, given what else we know, but it's not even an existing misconception, so much as them willing this result from thin air.

"I've already sent someone to deal with [Moon]" I'd ask deal in what capacity because I'd usually take that as code for killing her, but given that's what God Eye already 'wants', I'm presuming it's some other tactic to try and wrestle back control. Unless they could kill her *and* turn the story their way. Idk idk.

Huh, that's actually more callous than I'd been taking it. Comes back to the way that the fans clearly don't see 'Nice' as a person. They want him to 'win' within the parameters of the game. Moon was already subsumed to be part of Nice's legacy rather than her own so Nice taking 'priority' makes sense to fans within the Trust framework, because on the most basic level, Moon was always just a 'prize' for Nice anyway.

"chains you must endure" relating to the consequences of fame being contrasted by the swing...

Hm, okay, so they're claiming this new hero is in to save Moon. Clean-up specialist??? That's... not reassuring

"He can also destroy his opponent's memories" <- well that's a brand new pack of worms.

And destroying the memories of those who know Lin Ling is Nice, at that. Essentially locking him into the role. His past has already been taken when it was framed as a suicide, but this would also rob his future. Lin Ling is already pretty isolated at this point, after all.

Using truth to destroy perceptions, similar to the previous episode with Firm Man. Of course, even though this is the truth in this case, it's less about what's true vs. false and more about what information is able to spread. What narratives pick up steam and are latched onto by believers.

2d art!

Am liking the transition through art styles and periods of his life here as he's stripped back to his past.

Back to the promo vid from the start of ep 1 and it's immediately derided as 'crappy', rip.

Ah, his hair is fading back. I'd sorta thought when they were just showing his lower body they were going to pan back to his head as Lin Ling so I was... a quarter right?

Two thoughts here. 1) Seems he's able to cast away some of the effects of the beliefs by disowning the role of Nice (promo vid presumably reminded him). 2) Looking very nervously of that 14m (including ending) left of the episode. Wait, I lied, three thoughts. 3) Big fan of his character design here retaining the one strand of white hair.

"What I wanted to become from the beginning wasn't Nice, but a real hero" Aha, yes, it was the promo vid! ...and also Moon.

Things are Going Well.

"I didn't think his powers would diminish that quickly." Technically, that's not what--

Yay imagery

aww more than one person realised he 'died'. Take that, the one hit on the news article of Lin Ling's 'death'. There were actually maybe two hits.

Smh, tried to get a good screenshot of the cool x-ray shot at the moment he punches him, but couldn't pause at the right time

Not the fans accusing Lin Ling of being parasocial about Moon. I mean, to be fair, he kinda was, especially at first, but have they looked in the mirror lately? Oh? "So the one who cried for her at the wedding" ...the power of shipping has returned to the game?

Got the X guy on the building behind God Eye and all the other buildings are calling Lin Ling FAKE. Also, is that a KFC? Sorry sorry I should be focusing on the motive rant. He does kinda have a point honestly (even if one wrapped up in envy). Plus, "all you in the audience" is fun on a meta level. We don't have the same conflation of fiction and reality as the audience in-universe here, but something something treating real life as a spectator sport can definitely be relevant.

Welcome back, arc words.

More calling back to episode one and inadvertently answering my question from back then about whether he had anyone in his life as Lin Ling to protect back then. (The answer is 'no' apparently)

Headbutt attack breaking through. Lin Ling is staying in 3d for this.

"Vulnerability detected" appearing all over God Eye's screens because Lin Ling's strength *isn't* in perfection. He's doing this entirely imperfectly.

And there's the 2d, as he gains a Trust value as Lin Ling.

Ooh I need to go find some gifsets when I'm fully caught up of the sequence with the explosion onwards. Sakuga.....

And we're back to recruitment going on in the background even mid-fight. Even without being tied down to the Nice role, Lin Ling is still being subject to the pressures.

"What is the truth?" Well, it's what you make it, clearly. Next question.

"Going to pin everything on Enlighter" etc etc. You know when there's a big disaster and it hits the news and everyone else uses it as an excuse to clear out any bad-looking news that on any other day would make the headlines?

"You're an anti-fake and yet you used a fake?" Ends justify the means + it's what information *spreads* not whether it's true or false that matters.

i-it's not KFC, it's XFC

Belated title card:

Something about Moon seeming to make her escape only to still be 'trapped' just the same as Lin Ling 'escaping' the role of Nice only to still be in the same Trust system. <- crossing this out because. well. Like, I knew something was coming and there weren't enough minutes left for there to be ending credits but.

Ugh, sick of them pulling this kind of thing. ('Them' can be general but can also specifically be LH0) At least this time had the foreshadowing in the end of ep 1, but overall, really not a huge fan of such blatant fridging.

Another timeline to keep an eye on. (The other being the x years after commission)

Misc:

Overall, episode four did a good job calling back to the threads laid out previously especially in episode one

Guessing this heroes tournament is going to be overarching plot

I think Lin Ling's arc itself was... relatively well-rounded? Moon had some decent moments too, but given how unceremoniously she was taken out at the end there, I'm retrospectively thinking she didn't have enough actuall--

This show has a tendency to toss out a lot of genuinely fascinating questions about the systems inherent in its world building but then not really answer them? (The PR aspects/Trust value system/most of God Eye's ranting tbh) It could be that it's going to go into these aspects more in future arcs, but I think Lin Ling would have been the obvious entry point to thoroughly explore most of them given his own background in marketing. I guess we'll see

Visuals still really strong. Seemed like less of the symbolism stuff this time, but more than made up for it with the action sequences

Oh yeah, am also presuming the whole Fear deal will continue throughout the arcs. If the aim is to tear down the Trust system it's almost hard to argue against that given that from what we've seen thus far, it punishes the heroes beholden to it. The methods of inflicting Fear itself are obviously exploiting people's vulnerabilities and airing a whole load of dirty laundry in some kind of hyper cancellation, but Trust vs Fear isn't a black and white scenario, at least.

[bao3bei4]

a girl is a witch: on umineko ep 4

as promised, i wrote a zine on any topic the winner of my raffle wanted. and um. bee wanted umineko. after a long time rereading it, i realized that i only really wanted to talk about one episode. here it is:

As Kathryn Bond Stockton, to whom this zine owes a great debt, writes in The Queer Child, or Growing Sideways in the Twentieth Century, “The child is precisely who we are not and, in fact, never were. It is the act of adults looking back.” (5) This is not to say that there are not people who are young, but rather that the figure of the child and the idea of childhood are culturally constructed, and have been so relatively recently. What “the child” is, is a question of retrospect, determined by adults. Ange, most precisely, and her retrospective POV on both her own childhood and the events of Rokkenjima Island in 1986 introduce this framing. The act of looking back and constructing a narrative around that past —including one of innocence and not-knowing—is central to Umineko’s overall story. It is not an overstatement then, to say that the novel is in many ways about childhood and our construction of it. This zine, therefore, is an investigation of what uncomfortable truths about childhood Umineko reveals. Or at least, some of what it says on the topic in Episode 4, “Alliance of the Golden Witch.” 

We read Episode 4 with a focus on Maria, being as she is the ultimate child of Umineko, the most “childish” child against which all the other children are contrasted. In the fashion of Stockton, moreover, we read her as a queer child in three respects: the child who is delayed, the child who is haunted, and the child who kills. 

Maria is cast as a delayed child. Let’s rewind just a little bit before we dive into her portrayal in Episode 4. In Episode 2, Eva mockingly asks Rosa, “By the way, Rosa, how old did Maria-chan turn this year?” after Maria explains witch lore. Kyrie attempts to write it off as a product of Maria’s age. But Rosa responds, “Maria has already graduated from that age.” Rosa, at various points in the story, punishes Maria for her attachment to her toys, her verbal tics, and her fantastic beliefs, all of which Rosa believes Maria should have outgrown and no longer need. And compared to other children, Maria is similarly portrayed as delayed: 

Compared to the other kids in her class, Maria onee-chan's tempo was always a little slow. Her sensibilities and ways of viewing things were a little peculiar... and a little too idiosyncratic for her to blend in.

Maria is not alone in this delay. As the narrator comments with regard to Beatrice, “Did she show absolutely no signs of lacking sleep because she was young, or because she had the mind of a little kid?” In the very same conversation, Battler is painted with the same brush. Ronove comments, "Hmm, well, that's right. That man's a bit too trusting for his age, isn't he?" He finally casts Battler in even more hyperbolic terms that highlight his simultaneous youth and sexuality: “You violated the purity of one never deceived since the time of his birth, as well as his rosebud-like innocence, all to your heart's content.” So Maria, Beatrice, and Battler are all young for their age, whatever that might mean. 

Childhood, as Stockton sees it, is a legally enforced delay, a stage in which the trappings of a normative heterosexual adult life are deliberately held off-limits. So to be a delayed child is to reject the specter of that life entirely, to borrow Stockton’s concept, to grow sideways rather than grow “up.”  

And Maria’s delay makes her haunted. Battler explains at the beginning of Episode 1: 

...I hear that everyone can feel the supernatural, but that it weakens with age. In that case, Maria, being the most juvenile of us all, still possesses that perception of something that we lost because we got older... I wonder if that something is giving her a warning.

This reinforces Maria as the most childish, but also makes childishness a source of ghostly power. The most obvious manifestation of a haunting within Umineko is Beatrice, the sinister figure that the family finds themselves tormented by. But there are others—another ghost in the novel: the 19th person, who may or may not be Beatrice as well. A ghost is the repetition of the past in the present. Might we not say the same thing about a child? The child functions as our imagination of our own pasts, made living flesh embodied by your own continuous presence as well as the living young people who exist today. So it is perhaps unsurprising that the next stranger in the family is Maria herself, who becomes a ghostly apparition too, as she haunts Ange via the diary. 

Ange begins to enter Maria’s world, learning both the story of her everyday life as well as being inducted into the alliance of witches. Maria, as a ghost child, is doubly past made present. Umineko, therefore, suggests that the past is crying out. There has been a great injustice done, and the family has suppressed it. In this view, Maria becomes an avenger. Thus she also becomes the final queer child, the child who has adult desires—to kill. 

Let’s take a brief detour into the theories of Donald Winnicott. The two that are most relevant to us are, first, the concept of the “good-enough mother” and, second, the “false self.” The good-enough mother’s task is to be good-enough, as you might guess. She must provide for the infant and mirror the infant’s face back to them, but she must also disillusion the infant so their initial impression of omnipotence is broken. That is, the infant must learn that by crying they summon the breast, which they come to perceive as part of themself, but they must also eventually be prepared to be disappointed by its absence and learn that it is part of the mother, separate from them. A good mother, a good-enough mother, must disappoint her children. 

But consider the case of a not-good-enough mother. What happens when the child must learn to manage the connection with their parents, rather than the other way around? Winnicott argues that the false self develops, as protection against the mother and the world. But “In situations in which what is expected is a whole person the False Self has some essential lacking,” he writes. The false self is not a real person. It is what you learn to become to fit what your mother gives you, rather than what you want. 

"I wasn't acknowledged by Mama either, was I...? So the broken Maria won't be fixed either..."

Why might a mother be not-good-enough? In Selma Fraiberg, Edna Adelson, and Vivian Shapiro’s “Ghosts in the Nursery,” they ask why a mother cannot hear her baby’s cries. 

The answer to the clinical question is already suggested in the mother's story. This is a mother whose own cries have not been heard. There were, we thought, two crying children in the living room. The mother's distant voice, her remoteness and remove we saw as defenses against grief and intolerable pain…

Episode 2’s Tea Party excavates some of Rosa’s intolerable pain. Beatrice asks her, “How far back must I trace the deep wounds in your heart in order to heal them?” She answers her own question upon tracing Rosa’s past: 

...This is... deep... quite deep indeed. Sometimes, wounds close up while a fragment of foreign matter remains inside. Even when such wounds appear to have healed, they continue to throb for all eternity. Sometimes, you have to open the wound once more in order to heal it completely."

Rosa describes how she was punished by her siblings for arbitrary or nonexistent infractions, both by hitting and by breaking her toys. She comments that she never understood why she was being punished. These became the same punishments she enacted upon Maria, most obviously the destruction of Sakutarou. But there is a difference between the two of them. Rosa’s abuse was at her older siblings’ hands, and Maria’s was at her mother’s. As a result, Rosa actually characterizes her own abuse as simple lateral violence: 

It's common for unfair things to happen between kids. And you mustn't hold onto grudges for such things forever. With time, those memories get buried away, and forgetting them bit by bit is supposed to be part of growing up and becoming an adult. So becoming an adult is the same as separating yourself from all those memories.

But it inhibited her development all the same: “And because of that. No matter how much time passed, Rosa couldn't become an adult.” So perhaps, at least in Rosa’s eyes, the violence she commits against her daughter is simple unfairness at worst and justified at best, the way her siblings’ might have been against her. 

Rosa’s complex relationship to adulthood comes to a head shortly after. She squirms at the cannibalistic revenge Beatrice sets up for her. But she only reaches her breaking point when Maria is next to be prepared as food. So she is ultimately adult in the sense that she is both a perpetrator of abuse, and someone who also finally chose not to continue it at the Tea Party. 

Maria also tries to break the cycle of abuse from the powerful to powerless by turning the violence back onto her mother. She becomes Freud’s child, the one with murderous desires towards their parent. At first, it seems like this might finally heal her, or at least distract her. 

Then would the repeated murder of her mother purify her soul...? Would even this wasteful murder save her soul, at least a little bit...? This endless torture... might have become a slight diversion from her sad, unrewarded life. After all, it seemed that she'd finally been able to regain her smile.

As Maria herself says, “Since it's gotten so fun, I'm somehow starting to feel that I could forgive you...! Hey, Beato, this is a veeery strange feeling...! Why? Why am I starting to feel like I can forgive Mama?!" Catharsis, in this view, could be achieved by reenacting the trauma from the perpetrator’s side. Maria simply needed to become her mother. By identifying with the aggressor, she is able to repress the negative affect that she herself experienced. So Maria comes to identify with Rosa, and Rosa’s strange in-between state. 

This is not the only reason that it is not so simple, incidentally, in Umineko as “children are good and adults are bad.” Both Ange and Maria are bullied by other children. Ange characterizes childhood by cruelness of character, actually, when she comments that her bullies are “as innocent and cruel as you'd expect from kids of that age.” Maria, as you might expect, takes an optimistic view of this bullying, telling a story about a scenario in which everyone can bully one child, who takes all the suffering that might otherwise be distributed among their peers. Even magic, associated with childhood, is not even uncomplicatedly good. Rosa is cast as a “black witch,” capable of immense harm. 

Anyway, this is a longwinded way of saying that we are skeptical that you can break the cycle of violence with more violence, that growing up or not growing up can deal with the problem of childhood as violent. And we must believe that that problem can be addressed. As “Ghosts” puts it, “Then we must reflect that if history predicted with fidelity, the human family itself would have long ago been drowned in its own oppressive past. The race improves.” Now the argument can be made that the Ushiromiyas are indeed drowning in their own oppressive past. But we also know something more hopeful. It doesn’t have to be that way: 

Truth is unfixed and changes its form every time it's witnessed. By the way it's perceived... in other words, depending on the person who perceives it, a single truth becomes different truths. And truths of the past are painted over by truths of the future…

The act of interpretation can be an act of love. My identification with Maria as a queer child experiencing a queer childhood can be meaningful in itself. Queer children are children that “should not exist.” As Max Fox writes, children ostensibly have “fixed gender but no sexuality,” so they can be cis but not gay. So if I claim Maria as a queer child anyway, if I speak her into existence, if even I want her to exist at all, something very powerful can happen. We can see childhood as life in microcosm—or even just life—rather than something that is a rupture with adulthood. 

What I want to argue here is that the end of the Question arc already answers the great "mystery" of the series by showing that there is an existential and inherent battle in the family between love and violence. Now, love, like “the child” is not an unvarnishedly positive thing. Love is also cast as immaturity, underdevelopment, and childishness. To borrow Sophie Lewis’ quotation of Madeline Lane-McKinley, “‘innocent’ is code for powerless – a way to fetishize the child as both dependent and sub-human”. Love is not an easy choice. Umineko vests a lot in “the child” and “love” without necessarily idealizing either. The story, to me, is about the myriad ways you can choose to cope with the intrinsic horror of the family. 

So on that note, let’s conclude by talking about Beatrice. Like Maria, Beatrice is delayed. She haunts the island. And she most certainly kills. Unlike Maria, however, she is not nine years old. But for most intents and purposes, we can say that judgments about Maria can also apply to Beatrice. Beatrice being a figure of love as well as a queer child is something that can seem counterintuitive at first. But from Maria, we know that children can do anything. Children can even break the cycle—but of course, so too can adults. As Ange speculates: 

So I'm sure... If Maria onee-chan had had children in the future... She probably wouldn't have pushed the pain that had been forced on her onto her children. That chain of pain and sadness that stretched back for who knows how long, which she couldn't understand and which she had inherited, which had been forced onto her... Maria onee-chan cut it with her magic.

What is Beatrice cutting with her magic? 

In the end, magic is more complex than love alone. To quote Ange at the close of the chapter, “Magic is made of love and sadness and anger. No matter how cruel a witch Beatrice might have been, the source of her magic is exactly the same.” To be a queer child, to be a witch, whatever you want to call it, is constituted by love in the face of suffering, love in the face of family, pain in the face of love. No matter how fantastic the events of Umineko, magic therefore exists in the world we live in. 

----------

okay also footnote just because i have anxiety: i’m NOT saying that killing people makes you gay. i would love if that was true though it seems so fun to kiss girls. 

[romchat]

My Journey to You Ep. 13 visuals: Lanterns of fate

"Be it manmade or natural fate, I want all these fates." -Thirsty Sister

No matter how many times I see them, I always love a good lantern festival scene. And when those scenes use said lanterns as a visual motif to represent the significance of Fate in our characters' relationships? Yes, please.

Sigh, such lovely framing. And I'm glad to see Jolin Jin get an opportunity to exercise those dramatic chops.

Gong Zishang's rumination about Fate really encapsulates so many of our characters' current relationships, no? Both Yun Weishan/Gong Ziyu and Gong Yuanzhi/Gong Shangjue collided into each others' lives because of nefarious, political machinations, not natural Fate.

Weishan was planted in the Gong residence by Wufeng to destabilize the clan's stronghold in the martial arts world. And yet Fate is a funny thing. Weishan probably never imagined the Sword Wielder to embody the type of soft life she has always desired but never deemed herself worthy of so it almost seems like Fate that two individuals who desire the same thing would find each other and fall in love despite living in such a cutthroat world. Ultimately, she decides to challenge the fate dictated to her by Wufeng by deciding to save Ziyu, thereby permanently changing the course of their lives (and the plot of the show).

It's also revealed in today's episode that Shangjue and Yuanzhi first met soon after Shangjue's mother and brother were assassinated by Wufeng (starting to see a pattern) and Yuanzhi's own parents had died. Through their mutual grief, they formed a strong bond, although it seems for most of their relationship Shangjue hasn't always been able to fully reciprocate Yuanzhi's open devotion and warmth despite caring for him deeply.

But seeing his cousin near death seems to have shifted Shangjue's perception of their relationship. As he cradles the new lantern Yuanzhi made to represent their relationship (independent and distinct from the one Shangjue shared with his younger brother), it finally seems like he's accepted their Fate as an inseparable found family despite the terrible circumstances that had brought them together.

[lavenderjewels]

Rewatched the latest jjk ep 18 so going to throw my random thoughts about this season here with manga spoilers

I didn’t want to rewatch this episode, but my family hadn’t watched it yet, so I went along with it. Didn’t have anything to worry about, since I didn’t get emotional this time and mostly just had fun with Mahito

Something I loved about JJK when I started it is how it set up some of its death scenes—With Junpei, Nanami, even Jogo, it’s obvious at a certain point they’re not going to survive. Junpei when he realizes Mahito isn’t a good person, Nanami the second the scene shows Mahito in the photobooth, Sukuna being Sukuna, etc. This isn’t going to work for everyone watching, especially if you don’t care for the character(s), but that anticipation for their deaths always made the scenes more tragic for me.

Mahito being a great villain also helps for those scenes. His personality and ability makes him some of the most fun to read and watch, and he’s incredibly smart, or, at least, perceptive in a way that’s sometimes hidden by how chaotic and childish he can be. I can’t wait to see the rest of his fight with Yuuji and his final words towards Kenjaku. I never noticed this in the manga, but in the anime, the look that Mahito gives Kenjaku the last time they met makes it clearer that Mahito had some understanding of Kenjaku.

Mahito and Nobara’s confrontation was gorgeous with the colors and lighting. It’s devastating knowing this is just. it for her. It’s too short and I’m still hoping for her return, but it’s been a long time with nothing

This season has been an interesting watch, since it’s changed a lot of my feelings on the shibuya arc and some characters. Had an opposite situation than with csm (spoilers for s1) where I was surprised after watching season 1 because I thought power was way more prominent than she actually was in the manga, except this jjk season was me being surprised at how much Megumi was here. It wasn’t an overwhelming amount, but he was involved in the background and at the focus more than I remembered. That and how his expressions/body language was animated with the voice acting made me like his character more

Somehow I ended up liking the shibuya arc a little less—also like with the csm anime, although these aren’t animation faults, only seeing the series in a new light and in a different medium. I was never huge on the grasshopper, seance curse users, miracle curse user (haruta??) fights, which take up a good portion. The toji fights were great, although I’ve always been neutral-ish about his character. The Mei Mei fight was surprisingly better, mostly since the comedy gag aspects with her brother were toned down (its still evident she’s grooming him to die for her but it’s not framed as comedic as the manga) and the atmosphere was unnerving and dark. Nanami is also a character I’ve always been neutral-ish on, so overall not the most interesting parts of the series for me. Love the kenjaku and curses team though.

But on the positive side, it made me appreciate what’s to come more. I didn’t care as much for some of the fights and most of my personal favorite characters (yuuji, choso, maki, kenjaku) get explored more after this arc, minus yuuji who gets time near the very end. I’m very curious to see if I’ll end up enjoying the Culling Games colonies more and less when they’re animated. A part of that will likely depend on how the future chapters handle things set up or continuing in this arc.

As of now, Hidden Inventory/Premature Death and the stretch of chapters from the end of shibuya to the Higuruma scenes are my favorite parts of jjk. For the latter, I honestly love when the characters have long talks, whether it’s about themselves, lore, or anything. The power system is fun, but when the chapters focus too much on that technical side, that’s really the only time I’m bored by dialogue or narration heavy chapters. Thinking mainly of the Gojo and Sukuna fight with that, but there’s a few minor instances in the series.

Choso and Yuuji episode is still my favorite! I am incredibly biased

Part of me wishes I watched this show first without ever reading it, but the manga is still more impactful for me, probably because I got to read at my own pace/digest what was happening and read it without expectations coming in

[godunlap]

NOTES ON EP. 8 ( part 1/? ) spoilers beneath the cut. absolutely criminal in length, WHAT CAN I SAY, she does it 2 me.

here we go again guys WHAT THE FUCK???? sorry i always have to get that out first. [ i loved it ] not everyone's cup of tea i know but 'twas mine !!!

◌ the overlapping thoughts in the beginning? that's something she's going to need time to gain control over. looking back on her childhood, she didn't hear people's thoughts right away, it all started with persuasion. once the voices did start, they were overwhelming, but it was only a few people at a time, thinking relatively calm thoughts. - then she was exposed to the truth of how her parents felt about her, with nothing to block it out. this added to her parents resilience in keeping her locked up, the voices made it impossible to participate normally in society anyway. so cut back to the present & she's bombarded with several thoughts in times of CHAOS, it's a lot for her.

◌ so much to say about the sam/cate dynamic, VERY much in connection with @riordsam's portrayal because... yeah. but the loyalty displayed in such a short time was !! it says so much about them individually for one thing, but as a duo, i really am expecting so much of them in the future.

◌ the dead student was the final nail in the coffin for g.odolkin i fear. it was a blatant & brutal display of how (in cate's mind) they will never be left in peace & almost always hated & feared for who they are.

◌ now, with the switch up in public perception [ my mind's been going crazy over this thanks to @gadflies always having the most insightful questions at the ready ] this might actually have a hand in shifting cate's perspective. seen as the hero, she'll finally know what it's like to be loved & admired rather than feared. no matter how shallow, fleeting, or uninformed that 'love' may be. that said, i don't believe she'll be a big fan of the narrative rewrite being worked by v.ought because the woods & all their sins are being buried along with it.

◌ more on sam/cate but the scene following/during sam's hallucination of luke was SO INTERESTING!!! "do you want me to help you, sam?" the specific framing of 'help', respecting his choice in the matter but urging him to accept!!! once again zawn gets me thinking, the details of that scene : her hand placement, her choice of words, even body language / tone. she touches his face in a show of comfort, her words reflecting the same. cate tells sam to feel nothing because in her mind, this is the ideal. no more pain, shame, or guilt about anything that happened to them or anything they had to do now. her body language is extremely wary because she knows he's fighting a battle in his mind & she fears the outcome might be him abandoning her or turning against her.

◌ CATE WAS A LITTLE TOO GOOD WITH THE CAMPUS TAKE - DOWN. she went in with no hesitation, the beginnings of a plan & she bulldozed their whole shit. do i love that they went off & killed a bunch of innocent people for the sake of "supe superiority"? hell to the no, but i understand the progression of their characters & accept that this is the route they've taken. i plan to explore it to the fullest extent while taking my own liberties with cate post - finale & gearing up to the b/oys s4.

◌ "you're a product to them, i'm trying to save you" in such a short time period cate has completely re - framed the past few years of her life. those people were not doing the right thing, meaning everything she ever did for them was wrong. stripping back the layers of the TOTAL denial necessary for her complacency has taken an extreme toll.

◌ the arm. . . cate had to be stopped SOMEHOW so u know, i get it. cool possibilities for the future !! (lea got my brain going again about a prosthetic arm possibly) I COULD SEE IT, definitely now after sitting with it for a bit. there's a few reasons / implications with this. 1st of all with vought money / tech, she knows she'd be very taken care of. there's also the fact that it might help in terms of safety? in potential combat, there's always the chance that an opponent might not know she lost an arm or even which arm she lost. it might give her an edge, buy her a second or two. then there's the heartbreaking idea that it might give her a new way to connect with people. one hand that wouldn't strike fear or distrust in the hearts of even her closest of friends & family to touch.

◌ my feariest fear is that they're going to go the route of pulling sam back from the precipice while pushing cate fully over the edge. while sam has at least a few moments of genuine doubt, cate showed no hesitation. with every move, she was sure. what i hope is that they realize very quickly that h.omelander is not a friend & they simply lump him in with vought, part of the system that needs dismantling rather than supes vs. humans.

this is INSANELY long, thoughts on cate post - finale will have to follow, also considering an alternate verse sticking with the idea that sam & cate liberate the woods, being stealthy about it instead & hiding out at shetty's to come up with a plan focused on taking down v.ought/godolkin as entities rather than targeting the individuals within the organizations.

[mellxncollie]

okay to develop this more, especially as it sets up a potential season 2 character arc: the two scenes are 1) the very moment the night nurse wakes up inside angie with kashi and 2) the point in ep 7 where niko asks her about kashi. parallels:

night nurse in the same position in the frame

both actors facing the camera (i.e. night nurse looking away from her scene partner), with a focus shift occuring when the person in the background speaks.

(that blocking creates a definite sense of separation and deflection on the night nurse's part since she's looking away, whereas kashi/niko are looking at her, seeking out more connection, but not forcing it. very respectful of boundaries.)

the orange of the whole kashi/inside angie bit is reflected in niko's outfit, like she's somehow the manifestation of kashi's energy. even without the line: 'but you remind me of him,' the whole scene is telling us that niko is like kashi

in each of their episodes, niko and kashi sow some doubt in the night nurses' perception of her job. kashi is much less judgemental about it:

"you mentioned earlier your job involves collecting dead boys"

"have you considered maybe they're happy where they are"

"so you can't know [the afterlife is] better"

whereas niko is more upfront: "sounds like you have a really sad job"

the night nurse has clearly been at this for a long time and has become quite bogged down in the monotony of it all and has really just accepted her job as some sort of infinite reality. also my roommate (who has actually seen sandman and knows more about this whole universe than i do) talks about how the night nurse demonstrates how immortals in the sandman universe have a very different view on humanity, life, and vocation, what with them being so distant from the passage of time.

both niko and kashi serve to reframe how the night nurse views her work. it's important that kashi is immortal (or at least functions on a time scale drastically different from most mortals) and says these things first, since niko alone, being a mortal, would not have as much of an impact.

kashi first plants the idea that her job is maybe not so black and white. because of his perspective as a (maybe) immortal, the idea has some staying power. then it is echoed by someone else, shortly after her encounter with kashi. if you've ever doubted a closely held belief, you know that one encounter likely won't cause you to waver, but a couple in quick succession? that may just do it.

add this the night nurse's job being promoted/demoted/changed at the very end (it doesn't seem like change happens much for her), this sets us up really nicely for season 2 to have a character arc of the night nurse really grappling with concepts of change and of grey-areas.

okay so i can't be the first to notice the parallels here with the blocking and the colors and the framing of the shot?

[infraredmag]

GOLD, FRANKINCENSE, & MYRRH 'Framing My Perception - EP'

@TheGFMBand new EP 'Framing My Perception - EP' out on 5/27 via @RockfestRecords @WTFpublicity. Preview it now at: www.InfraredMAG.com #NewMusic #GoldFrankincenseMyrrh #GFM #TheGFMBand #FramingMyPerception #RockfestRecords #WTF #WhoaThatsFresh

GOLD, FRANKINCENSE, & MYRRH Framing My Perception – EP May 27, 2022 Rockfest Records (more…)

[kingofthewilderwest]

Your tags on the 'whose smarter' poll made me flashback to that episode of DoB. Final ep, I think, Cast Out prt 2? And anyway it literally ends with Snotlout (disobeying Hiccup) and acting recklessly with his plan. Hiccup tells him "You proved sometimes recklessness can be courageous" and I just remember being like "THIS from the kid who took on the Red Death on one dragon with a flammable tail fin. Like the similarity/hypocrisy got me--when Hiccup went after the Red Death he was a hero.

I love this. It's really about framing. The HTTYD series provides us certain narrative perceptions, lenses, by which they have us view the characters. Going outside the lenses to look at characters's actions more objectively, and there's that... bias... haha, yeah!

Hiccup constantly doing reckless things is treated as more permissible by the show's framework. His reckless and/or impulsive decisions are treated as gutsy, genius solutions rather than haybrained schemes. And Hiccup tends to be rewarded for those wild plans narratively by having those succeed.

Even though Hiccup gets semi-called out on unnecessary recklessness in RTTE - like testing a flight suit - it's portrayed narratively to viewers as humorous rather than flaws to learn from (as per Snotlout). And when Hiccup makes mistakes, the narrative treats feedback from "equals" like Astrid or people in greater authority like Stoick as what we viewers should care most about. It's not that Ruffnut, Tuffnut, or Snotlout lack feedback about Hiccup's decisions, but it's not treated as criticially. We're not "meant" to reflect on it, most of the time.

"You just proved sometimes recklessness can be courageous" is so much a part of Hiccup's choices that the phrase could be etched on his tombstone. But it's Snotlout taking a moment of gumption that's called out as so risky it's potentially "dumb." And frankly, across the entirety of DreamWorks Dragons, Snotlout brings up many points of prudent caution.

There's a hierarchy the narrative gives us - Hiccup the leader, Astrid and Fishlegs as "more competent" members of the group, and the twins and Snotlout as "less competent" members of the group (our comedic relief). The narrative wants us to sometimes treat this as a gang of equals, especially by RTTE, but the way conversations and situations get presented, solved, and saved means that this internalized hierarchy never leaves. That means that who the audience members take most seriously gets impacted.

I mean, as you said yourself, it's Snotlout disobeying Hiccup - a word that carries authority, as Hiccup is the leader of the Dragon Club during the early DreamWorks Dragons series. In HTTYD and HTTYD 2, Hiccup disobeying Stoick, while ultimately resulting in good ends, also carries consequences. Hiccup disobeying Stoick resulted in the village nearly getting killed. Hiccup disobeying Stoick brought Drago's attention onto them. But by the TV series, I think Hiccup's disobedience is usually seen as a good (by my shoddy memory), but Snotlout's disobedience is seen as him not being "as good as" Hiccup - but is that actually, objectively the case, outside the show's framing?

I don't have the Freaktastic Knowledge I did in ye olde days of analysis where I could list off three hundred specific examples to prove my points, but this is my memory impressions of the series. Snotlout balks at Hiccup's plans lots of the time - and he doesn't not have a point. In another series, Snotlout would be correctly identifying three hundred things that could go wrong, might have gone wrong, or will actually, in fact, go wrong. But Snotlout as a comedic relief character, and then a defiant character opposing Hiccup the Hero who comes up with the correct plan because he's got protagonist armor... means sometimes Snotlout's legitimate points get lost to viewers.

There's a reason why, even now, ROB's Defiant One's conversation between Hiccup and Snotlout still resonates clearly in my memories.

Snotlout: Oh, you are so smug! Hiccup: Me? Snotlout: Hiccup's so smart! Hiccup's so brave! He killed the Red Death! He trained the dragons! He's got the metal leg! Hiccup: Metal leg? That's what's bothering you? That's where you're going? Metal leg? Snotlout: No! It's everything the leg is attached to!

Snotlout made mistakes in Defiant One. Let's not forget that context. But while Snotlout yelling at Hiccup can be read as Snotlout not being "as good as" our hero Hiccup who saves the day... it strikes me because it shows the imbalance of treatment between Snotlout and Hiccup. "Everything the leg is attached to" is the prioritization of Hiccup and - by this point - Hiccup expecting to be prioritized.

Actually listening to Snotlout is a fantastic way to experience the TV series. He's bitter. He's grumpy. He's defiant. He's downer. But that's because he sees holes. He has a **PRACTICAL** side that butts heads with Hiccup. I'm someone whose thinking processes are similar to Snotlout - it's easier to shoot down a solution for its mistakes than come up with a new one - but it's an important role to have. In an actually existing friendship group, you need someone who's down to earth enough to make sure your out-of-the-box thinking friend (Hiccup) doesn't come up with something so wild it's not really going to work. We need an intelligence that sees holes. Otherwise, we start floating off into things that won't work as we expect them to, or adopting ideas that haven't been tested with robustness.

Snotlout's a legitimately smart guy. The fact that Astrid and the others shoot him down is partially because of his character, partially because sometimes he can be a dummy (as can we all), but partially because of their own flaws. Listen more to Snotlout, y'all. Some of Hiccup's plans work because Luck.

Similarly, we can talk about the framing of Fishlegs spewing facts (treated as providing information) versus the Thorstons spewing facts (treated as a novelty quirk rather than intelligence). Just because the Thorstons do it in a dorkier, more trollish matter does not negate the fact that they are BRIMMING, purely BRIMMING, with an ENORMOUS amount of factual knowledge! Does Fishlegs actually have more factual knowledge than them? No, it's just a different area. He's got concentrated knowledge on dragons. They've got in depth, niche knowledge of a large variety of topics. Fishlegs, Ruff, and Tuff are all dang smart.

From a meta standpoint, the twins's intelligence is treated inconsistently. But I prefer me my smart Thorstons who just have spacey heads, trollish senses of humor, and thrillseeking behavior.

[selya711-twiste]

male yuu x azul ashengrotto

fishy love

Azul Ashengrotto x reader Yuu staring at Azul from afar and Azul notices him each time but this Yuu is kinda shy about it! Then he finds out that Yuu actually has a crush on him!!

sal never send me anything ever again. male yuu but he's pining like a high school anime girl. JUST like you. this is how you sound like every day /lh is this before or after ep 3? maybe i should specify something like that in my pinned since characterizations and the relationship with/perception of Yuu changes as the story progresses... anyway, the answer is "perhaps."

His lithe frame, his graceful, confident movements, the way his lavender hair almost shines in the light, and the little fringe that bounces each time he walks...

You can't help but be bewitched by his presence each time he walks into the room. Whether it's in the hallways between classes, in the cafeteria with the rest of the student body, or even when he's struggling in flying class in the sports field, you always find time to gaze at the dorm leader of Octavinelle.

Unbeknownst to you, however, Azul is very sensitive to his surroundings. It's not as great as Floyd's and Jade's, but he can definitely feel it when someone is observing him from afar over long periods of time. Recently, he has finally caught on to you being the reason behind this.

You're just as interesting to him, you know? You're the otherworldly prefect of the Ramshackle dorm and by your side is your aggressive familiar, Grim.

To him, you're just the perfect individual to have a deal with. Azul is very intrigued by what you could possibly offer despite the fact that it was glaringly obvious that you had nothing to your name.

It's always the humble ones.

So, the fact that you're already constantly on the lookout for him makes him feel that all is going well. He's careful not to catch you staring, lest it makes you turn away as it's happened a few times. Azul initially disliked being stared at constantly, due to the fact that being stalked over his position and deals isn't new. As soon as he found out it was just adorable little you, things softened over time and he didn't mind your surveillance. His appearance in public is perfectly tailored, after all. There is no way he would present any aspect of himself in an unsightly way.

Azul is in the most pleasant of moods as he thinks of how to meet you over things. Just to prepare you for your eventual encounter with him, he sends the twins over to your side every now and then to ask you about him.

"Is there any wish you'd like granted?" "What'cha think of Azul, shrimpy?" It's things like these that make your head swirl with expectations. You answered all of them earnestly the more they showed up to you, even if Ace, Deuce, and Grim were all vocally against them being near you and them. For a while, it felt good that you were most likely being noticed by Azul in this way when all Jade and Floyd would come by to talk about how great he is. You tossed aside all doubts as you felt giddy about the chance of becoming closer to him. You didn't think you'd come to regret this decision.

One day, they invite you to visit Mostro Lounge's V.I.P. room.

You only simply had a crush on Azul, but as you connect the dots, you begin to realize that maybe you have been misinterpreting things. Given everything else about Azul, you instead start fearing for your life.

As suave as he is, Azul is also incredibly secretive. Your innocent staring might have been perceived as stalking. You begin to think that you might have accidentally discovered something hidden and he sent the Leech brothers after you. You fell for their trap. Maybe you should've listened to your friends after all. You begin to overthink everything that has happened over the past two weeks. It's not your fault your mind races to the worst-case scenario given the nature of this school and everyone in it.

"This way, shrimpy!"

As friendly as Floyd was in escorting you to Octavinelle along with Jade, you feel like you're being sentenced to death. Your mind races towards every single interaction you've had with these three from Octavinelle. Did you notice anything off about Azul? Did you see something you shouldn't have? Did you laugh too loudly as he stumbled down from his broom a few days ago?! Did you give out some personal information that he could use against you?

The twins keep giggling about how much you were shaking on the way to Mostro Lounge. Your heart fluttered at the thought of coming face-to-face with your crush, but there was the prospect of the three of them literally crushing you. You might not have actually committed any crime, but everyone's warnings about the Octavinelle trio weren't mere jokes.

"Come in, come in."

There he was, the object of your affection. You're so stiff that Floyd suggested carrying you over to his desk, and you almost wouldn't have minded.

Your heart pounds in your ears as you try to keep your palms flat against your thighs as much as possible, yet you can't help but grip the fabric between your fingers from the sheer anxiety of being here. Before you know it, you're already seated in front of him.

Azul is composed and is even smiling at you while his chin rests on his hands. "You seem to be troubled, may I know the reason?" He asks in his voice you adored so much. He doesn't seem mad at all, but you know you couldn't let your guard down. You don't know what he knows.

On the other hand, Azul already knows everything about you up until this moment, but he was still anticipating your very presence. Certainly, there was something only you could say to him.

When you look, you find that his face is very beautiful up close. You can almost count the eyelashes behind his glasses, the mole dotting his face, the softness of the surface as well as the curve of his lips as he looked at you so gently. You take a deep breath and gaze at him in awe, even for a little bit. He looked like any other student in the school uniform, but seeing him in his dorm attire gives him that additional air of formality that was just so attractive to you.

"I... I, you..."

Azul makes a gesture, and Jade comes up from behind you to pour tea into the cups on the desk. There was one for you and another for Azul, the guest and host respectively. The chamomile calms your nerves and you finally think clearly of a valid excuse in case he's upset about something until he speaks again.

"My dear, sweet-"

"It's because I have a crush on you!"

...

What was that? You were certain you were only going to say you didn't mean to stalk him. Why did you skip past your first point? In fact, where did that even come from? That wasn't part of your script at all. You watch the way Azul's expression contorts slightly in confusion until Floyd immediately captures everyone's attention from bursting into laughter. You feel like you're being made fun of. You wish that there was something you could crawl into and hide in right now as you bow your head in embarrassment.

Azul, without any hesitation, makes another gesture to have the twins leave to give you two some privacy. You could hear Jade affirming him as he escorts Floyd out, who doesn't miss on telling you to "Go get him, shrimpy!"

The door closes shut, and the room falls silent.

"Is that all?"

His voice was so gentle, you feel relieved that he didn't react some other way to such a botched confession. You nod your head and he leans back into his chair. "Having admirers isn't new to me, just so you know. This development is rather amusing, don't you think?" He keeps his attention on your hunched-over form and feels great pity for you.

You feel a weight off your shoulders when he assures you that your infatuation with him won't change how he sees you. Azul tells you to look up, then shares with you how he still looks forward to making your dreams come true. You can feel yourself fall for him even more with the way he was so passionate about his craft. Azul lists down every small thing you remember telling the Leech twins.

None of them are grand, they're all mundane, everyday things that you wished were easier in your school life. As a star pupil, Azul is more than capable of helping a poor, simple soul such as yourself.

"Now, onto the subject of the payment."

Oh, right.

You should have seen that coming. How could you forget something so crucial, actually? It's such a huge chunk of Azul's reputation. You had nothing valuable to give up, and you definitely weren't going to put down your own dorm building. You try to think if your talents are good enough, but you also fear giving up parts of yourself for him, crush or not.

"Don't be so tense," he smiles. "I'm well aware of your predicament, more than anyone, maybe. Since you love to see me all the time, I propose you start working in Mostro Lounge in exchange for all that I can do for your academic requirements."

"R-Really? That's it?" There wasn't anything wrong with the café at all. In fact, the vibes of the place were right up your alley. You just wished you had more to your allowance to come by more often. Seeing Azul every day... doesn't seem so bad. You're now certain that it's going to be worth the labor.

"It's a deal!"

Azul readies your contract. Unbeknownst to you, he congratulates himself for keeping it cool after what just happened earlier. He should have seen that coming. The way you innocently looked for him in the crowd every now and then was endearing, but all he thought about those days was what he could possibly gain from you. He could tell that you wanted to do nothing more but leave the room now, so he kept it brief as it was for his own sake as well. He didn't get to learn any more of your secrets today, but surely he will over the next few days.

If nothing else, you definitely fit in the dorm uniform for Octavinelle.

[ladyintree]

working through the 1x03 script now, the tai ep of all time truly

tai's discomfort around religion is one of my favorite things about her and if i could properly discuss religion in a way that didn't make me personally feel uncomfortable then i would but.... until then. i love that she knows this detail about rachel because rachel only just recently moved to varsity, they all said they barely knew her - but tai at least knows this much, and even though i'm sure this is as much about her own discomfort rather than it is about defending rachel, it's still important to me.

there's such a stark difference between the tai we know now (both in the teen timeline and adult) to the child she was who was comforted by religion and her grandma's beliefs - which is ultimately where tai started to disconnect, after her grandma passed.

tai has such a complicated relationship with death because of what she went through with her grandma, and i don't think she's experienced a lot of it since her grandma, but it's coming back to her now as they bury coach, rachel, and a bunch of people they only knew for a few hours, which still hits just as hard.

"taissa (burying her feelings)" yeah of course she's not going to stand there and reflect with everyone. she's going to do something she deems useful and purposeful and not waste her time dwelling, because keeping herself busy and active is the only way she can get through it - especially alone.

talked about this here, but taissa has a habit of suggesting exactly what she wants to do and framing it as a joke to protect herself from simone's inevitable rejection. tai sees a smear ad for her and immediately jumps to how she can hit back - but she knows simone won't agree. she still just has to say it anyway because that's who she is, and if she can frame it as a joke, then she can rid herself of the accountability and act like that's all it was.

"taissa waves her off, just too frustrated." she never intended to stick to that original plan; she always hoped that she would eventually maneuver as she needed to (which she does, even if it means going behind simone's back).

also, "go enjoy your son" / "off taissa, trying to 'enjoy'" - always obsessed with the script calling her out.

always obsessed with jackie-taissa beef because they have different reasons for beefing with each other that aren't even really as relevant as they think they are. jackie's resentment for tai seems to have come from her newfound friendship with shauna and the way shauna starts to confide in tai when jackie doesn't know about the baby. but tai and shauna weren't friends before the crash; tai's resentment for jackie comes from a lot of assumptions and her own perception of her. to her, jackie is the girl who gets everything she wants just handed to her, she gets prestige that she hasn't earned. she's the girl everyone likes, everyone wants to be friends with, and tai hates that. in the pilot episode, coach martinez implies that tai is the better player but he gives the captainship to jackie -- something that taissa is all too aware of, and those feelings come up here now, because she has the opportunity to give them a win, to move forward from the events of earlier in the day, find a little bit of hope. and it's obvious to her that they should take it, but she's a little harder on jackie because she needs the win over her, specifically, because she always craves that.

"taissa clocks jackie's bitchiness" and then immediately uses that to her advantage to extend an olive branch to shauna, who agreed with her, which means all the more to her.

i actually like that they removed man with no eyes from this scene because the implication is still enough for me. it's important that tai sees things in general and it doesn't have to be something specific, even though we know what it might be, but it really sets up her arc well imo. "if he had eyes, he would be looking right at her" gives taissa + eye symbolism so much more.

also, van and tai aren't even together, together at this point, but van can still clock when she's not telling her something.

this whole thing is just so nasty of her but i love you taissa <3

"then she kicks into political mode and turns toward the oncoming mom with charm and sympathy--" usually i think she's pretty good at the political mode charm but in this scene, even the mom doesn't seem to buy it.

also the parallel of this to her breaking allie's leg, with her trying to process whether or not she did it on purpose and cope with how she's capable of that -- to sammy admitting outright that he did it.

"our son just assaulted another child, and you're talking strategy?" again she jumps to the suggestion that they hit back, this time relieved that she has something to actually back it up - even if it means their son might've done something bad. she weaponizes it for her own benefit to try to convince simone. she's also so quick to say it wasn't a big deal because she doesn't want to unpack any of it. it's too familiar to her.

something about taissa still reflecting on what she saw earlier, still scared and freaked out, but she's taking the moment to try to just focus on her friend while also finding peace in watching van. van being referred to as the life of the party and that's why taissa is just so infatuated watching her. akilah noticing that she's soft for the moment and immediately clocking her, as she always has and continues to do, saying something that might not have been well received if it was anyone else. but tai has such a specific relationship with akilah that it's okay coming from her. "taissa grins, actually appreciating that," because she knows she's intimidating and that people are scared of her - part of that is intentional - but it also does scare her sometimes that she's taking it too far, so it's nice to hear some kind of validation from someone she trusts.

again she's still sitting here trying to figure out what she's going to do with it -- still not taking into account how simone feels about it, because she already knows and she thinks simone is wrong. she's also not quick to betray her trust, she just can't get the ad out of her head and she needs the attention off herself.

re: nat, tai has spent years being afraid of calls like these, whether nat is in the hospital or in jail or if this is some news that she's gone. she's always done her best to try to keep her out of these situations ( though mostly with money, rarely with any real relationship beyond that. ) but in a moment like this, when she's already pissed off simone and she's genuinely struggling with how to handle her campaign, it's even more frustrating to hear from nat now.

"i never asked you to pay for rehab" is one of my favorite lines between them. nat was never the one going to taissa begging for her help; it was always taissa seeking her out and trying to do what she can to her. again, not by actually having a real relationship with her that might've helped them both in the long run, but by at least trying to do what she can to help in different ways.

the mention of travis sets her off because she's likely picked nat up and helped her out multiple times after they exploded in the past; she has such a skewed perception of travis because of it, and deep down she knows their problems aren't one sided, but she's so used to helping nat in the aftermath that she's learned to resent travis for it. but now, hearing that nat sought him out again frustrates her because she knows how it goes, and she at least tries to take travis's side by knowing he doesn't want to be found ( considering her season 2 arc, she obviously understands why someone would want to get away - she pushed van away herself. )

"easy to judge the rest of us from your perfect life" is such a good response from nat because that's exactly how tai sees it, that she has the perfect life, she's the one who is making it out better than the rest of them. she has "won" survival. but nat knows that it's all a lie anyway, more than tai allows herself to realize.

"to try to do good in the world. ever hear of that?" being her answer to why she's doing what she's doing is such a calculated response because it's not why she's doing any of it; she's doing it for power and greed because she's got away with so much already that she thinks she can keep advancing without it backfiring.

"taissa struggles for a beat, but no. no fucking way." obsessed with this line and the way she nearly gives in - because it's nat. because she always gives in with nat. because nat is one of the few people that could ever make her sway her opinions or her actions, but she has to stand her ground this time, still assuming that this is just her chasing travis in a way that'll blow up in her face again.

taissa going from assuming that MWNE is the angel to seeing what she sees is likely a big part of why death is so hard for her to process now and how she gave up on religion shortly after her grandma passed. this is her last interaction with her grandma before watching her die, of course that's sticking with her forever -- especially when death is surrounding her in a situation in which she likely shouldn't have survived to begin with.

"why don't people like you?" "taissa absorbs the cold dose of reality. then she shrugs, making light of it." this being in the same episode of akilah telling her she's not that much of a bitch is so fascinating to me. and tai 'trying to make light of it' because she is just so used to it, people not liking her, especially now that she's running for office and is wearing so many masks, giving people such a perfectly-crafted version of herself that still bleeds through the cracks.

"you're not the bad one." / "sammy, is someone else the bad one?" she doesn't know yet, she can't fully commit to accepting that this other version of herself may be back, but deep down she knows, and he's making her start to question it. "disturbingly, shakes his head no, the oddness hair-raising" because he's talking about her, and he's trying to cover for her, and she's still trying to take it out on him / blame him, but she knows something is off with her.

one of her hottest scenes to me. of course she immediately leaves her son's room after that conversation and makes the decision to hit back. she has to protect herself (while under the guise of being a good mother and wife) because she can sense that something is wrong with her, and the only way she sees to protect herself is to get the attention off of her and that, to her, might just stop whatever it is that sammy just implied.

"dark electricity pulsing through her" taissa turner the woman you are....

taissa is trying to be a leader even if that's not how everyone looks at her. she's making note of everyone's safety and clocks it when someone is missing. the way she approaches lottie so softly at first, trying to take care of her, and then quickly switches her reaction once lottie says something she doesn't want to hear is so telling. it's because she has a bad feeling too, but she's trying not to think about it - so lottie admitting to it outright, to her, sets her off.

i'm so obsessed with this three timeline parallel for her, showing her how connected she always has been to death and how hard it is. also the implications of the adult timeline hinting that she'll experience some kind of death there too -- this time at her own doing, because of those experiences she had in the past, because she's still affected by it.

as a kid, she opens her dead grandma's eyes and is terrified what she finds. as a teen, she sees the dead guy's empty eye sockets and is terrified again, bringing her right back to that moment when she was a kid. as an adult, she discovers that she's ripped the eyes out of her son's doll ( the doll that looks exactly like her son ) but she doesn't yet know why.

she first meets the man with no eyes when she's a child, then sees her grandma without them -- then she sees him in the wilderness and later finds the dead cabin guy with no eyes, surrounded by the symbols that are eventually foreshadowed by her adult timeline, when she finds the eyes that were taken by the doll. taissa + eyes you are so famous to me

[romchat]

My Journey to You Ep. 11 visuals: Peering through paper doors

Something I love about historical (-esque) dramas is a director's ability to use architectural framing to represent character emotions and change. Episode 11 gave us some interesting character moments for the two main couples and each happened through paper doors.

This was one of the first episodes where I finally felt Gong Ziyu intentionally stepped into his leadership position as Sword Wielder by not giving in to his natural impulsivity and naivety. He's made aware of Yun Weishan's possible betrayal, and while he's clearly trying to give her an opportunity to explain herself and join him, he's also refreshingly cautious.

Him keeping the door closed is both a political and personal choice. Ziyu can't reasonably let her go without addressing the medical records, but he wants to reassure Weishan that he won't recreate the political cage he believes her to be trapped in. They both desire freedom and the soft life, but she needs to articulate what she's going through so that he can politically maneuver the situation.

Ultimately, she (literally) opens the door to that possibility—and (literally) steps into the light of her true feelings.

Now, returning to our favorite emotionally repressed and overly cocky couple...

(Side Note: I'm obsessed with this pool in the center of Gong Shangjue's chambers and really hope they make more use of it in future episodes. Think! Of! All! The! Metaphors! I'll take a suggestive shot of dipping her hand into those still waters for $400 dollars, Alex. Please, show, give me something to hold me over until the sexy bath scene from the trailer. Anything.)

Do I sense a disturbance in the Force or is Shangguan Qian actually starting to feel something other than blood-thirst? Of course, she's angry at having been bested by Weishan (and probably a bit wary of having to recalibrate her perception of the other assassin), and Lu Yuxiao is doing some lovely acting letting that jumble of emotions play out on her face. And then she turns her gaze to Shangjue. It's in that shot through the open door that we start seeing the stirring of something else. Whether it's guilt, concern, or just a healthy dose of empathy who knows but it's there.

What I appreciate about the architectural framing of the scene's last shot is that it works on multiple levels:

Shangjue's isolation and shame after obliterating his reputation with the clan's elders. This man wants to be the Sword Wielder because he truly believes he would be a more capable leader. Being seen as having to rely on petty tricks is incredibly humbling.

The depth of the shot through multiple doorways—barriers—makes it seem like Qian's master plan for Shangjue is even further from her grasp now that he is less secure in his plans to depose Gong Zuyi.

And yet...she is also seeing him through the door. Usually, the camera films Shangjue to look powerful: he's shot to look tall and untouchable, looking down from his horse or surrounded by regalia. But here, blocked in by these two doors, he's stripped of all of it. I could imagine Qian feels vulnerable seeing the man whom she has envisioned as larger than life since he rescued her years ago tucked away like this, and so I'm super excited to see if and how she attempts to cross this literal and metaphorical threshold to get closer to him to execute her mission.

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - 2022 is the Year of Cheaters

Sept 2022 Wk 4

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs. Organized by which ones (in each category) I’m enjoying the most.

Ongoing Series - Thai

The Eclipse (Fri YT) Ep 7 of 15 - Screw you GMMTV, that was a dream kiss? That’s some Kdrama bullshit, that is. Still Aye is such a good character, so perceptive, I ADORED his interaction with Kan. Neo is doing an epic job with that role. That was that softest achey stolen kiss in the world. Also this ep = Beach frolic trope and a Make It Right moment.

Vice Versa (Sat on YT) Ep 11 of 12 - DOOM EP was not very doom for an ep 11 (except for the acoustic guitar). Pluen goes back because of what Tun did accidentally, not him, which honestly I kinda like as a twist. I was very confused about the “month long tidal inaction,” did the alt universe have extra moons or something? 

My Only 12% (Fri iQIYI) Ep 7 of 15 - a tear jerker this week and likely next too. Also piggybacking across a bridge, two tropes in one. We about to get the time jump which is going to be interesting. 

Work from Heart (Thurs YouTube) pulp office drama featuring lots of couples starring Gameplay. Started dropping on YT so I picked it up and stuck it into rotation. Poor Dee, his gramps is so overactingly bad, mean, evil, and homophobic. Still there is a sweet little masked meet cute. There’s a bunch of drama around a workplace and other couples all over the rainbow, so that’s fun. Sort of SCOY goes to work. There’s some nifty linguistic stuff going on so I’m actually enjoying this pulp trash. Shocking. Truly TERRIBLE wardrobe tho. And I don’t love Nammon w facial hair. 

Love in the Air (Thurs iQIYI) Ep 6 of 13 - Not a bad episode, I wasn’t mad about it. But that’s kind of how I am with MAME, it’s always up or down and last week’s a cappella counter liftt situation rough, so I’m glad this one was a bit of a break. DUMPSTER FIRE TRASH WATCH ALONG HERE.

Fahlanruk (Sun GaGa) 2 of 12 - I do not like the narrative framing technique of the female blogger/whatever. Her character does not belong in this show. What she hast to say is unnecessary, pat, and boring. In other news we got into KP bathroom territory really quickly. “Do you really like him or do you just want to win?” would appear to be the premise of this show. Both characters are players, cheaters, flirts, and anti-heroes. They better both be deeply wounded or the narrative can’t save them. I’m assuming Sher made himself this way after some similar player type broke his heart. Not sure about Fah. That said, I do like how very gay, switchy, and verse these two are. Although a complete change of underwear in the middle of a sex scene was weird to say the least. I like the side dishes. No surprise there. Still I’m not sure I can take 12 episodes of this nonsense. I contemplated a trash watch but I’m not feeling snark-inspired just sad about it.

Linguistics corner:

Fah is using phi/nai or nong (in a belittling way) with Sher. Sher is using guu/mueng with Fah, Which is highly inappropriate and rude with a phi. These two are linguistically combative, to say the least. Also the show has all the wifey language your a little heart could possibly desire.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Takara-kun and Amagi-kun (Japan Thurs GaGa & Viki) 6 of 8 - No new Ep 6 this week. Have a lovely Shūbun no Hi if you celebrate. Otherwise it’s a good tome to be self reflective and contemplate about life balance etc.. around the Autumnal Equinox. 

Once Again (Korea Fri GaGa) 3-4 of 8 - It’s a little bit more creepy than it is romantic, but it’s also weirdly amusing (this strange kid just keeps hugging him - that’s like 1000x even weirder in Korea than most places) and more enjoyable than it has a right to be. It’s a really interesting take on the childhood crush trope among other things. JaeWoo must seem like SUCH a weirdo to JiHoon. I guess what I’m saying is, it’s odd but tense and well acted, which is a nice change for BL.

More Than Words (Japan indie subbed by furritsubs - TIP ‘EM if you like em!) Adaptation of Etsuko’s two mangas In The Apartment + More Than Words. Has a violent crazy beginning but it is necessary for the story. About a lonely neglected/abused girl and a cheerful kindly popular boy who go to school together and become besties. When they get part-time work at a restaurant, a cute older gay boy enters the picture. This is classic Japanese close-filmed melodrama, and it isn’t a BL. But it is excellent. Can’t be relied on to resolve happily, or even resolve at all. I’m engaged even knowing this, and I love this subber so I’m gonna stick with it.  

It’s Airing But I’m Not Watching It

War of Y - too hard on my soul. Will I watch it eventually? Maybe? Probably not. I think we have and ITSAY situation going on here. Also BL Express was not best pleased, and I while we rarely share taste, in this instance I trust their reporting.

My Tempo - a Thai BL movie about the Thai music industry. Yeah, no thank you. 

Oh My Sunshine Night - I’m scared it’s gonna be sad, so I’m waiting for spies to tell me it’s safe

180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us - ditto above 

Finished This Week

Coffee Melody (Mon Viki) Ep 10fin - (I am assuming episode 11 is a bts or music video.) The family dinner with the new bf was endearing awkward. We had a classic Korean one year time jump in the last five minutes of the final episode. (Which shoudl be left to Korea. Actually, even Korea should get to have it anymore. We’re done with this trope. I say this on behalf of the international viewing public.) My side crumbs got a cute little mutual kiss, unfortunately ALSO multiple sing your feelings tropes. (Will I ever get a week of BL without this trope?) It will be a long time before I forgive this BL for muffling Pavel’s light this way, I know he can do better. Very disappointing. Ultimately this show is so forgettable I’ve pretty much already forgotten it. 5/10 JUST DULL

Papa & Daddy 2 (Mon GaGa) Ep 8fin - It was a standard execution of the “marriage finale” endemic to most romcoms, just v. gay. I do like that my second lead syndrome got a little prospective action. Did I tear up at the wedding? Of course I did. We have established this before, I am a sap. All in all, this was a serviceable follow up to the first installment in the series, if riddled by unbearably unlikable parents, lack of story, and sappiness. 6/10 WORTH WATCHING BUT FLAWED 

About Youth (Taiwan Mon GaGa) Ep 7-8 of 10 - I thought this was a 10 episode arc so I’m a little sad to find it ending this week. Are we ever going to get an explanation about what happened with the side dishes Taiwan really likes a romantic “one boy balances another boy on wheels” thing. I really wanted Guang to leave his awful parents but Im glad he at least threw the test. And I really appreciated that he sent a video since it was a way for him to accurately communicate his feelings without being interrupted. Cute final kiss! Very squee-worthy. Rainbow was a little on the nose. tho. All in all it was great little BL. Classic YA low drama but high angst, I didn’t even mind the singing, and that’s saying a lot. I wish it had been given a bit more space to breathe, but all in all a great edition to the Taiwanese Bl lexicon which was in dire need of a good sold high school BL. Full review here. 8/10 RECOMMENDED 

Everyone say “Thank you Taiwan, may we have another?” 

Gossip

In a Forbes interview the executive producer of Semantic Error (and CEO of AXIS CPP) revealed that AXIS production will be opening Blue by Blue, a drama label whose first BL project is about vampires. Interview here. 

Kimmon and Copter are reported to star on their 7th BL together, a romantic comedy series, Boy Never Smiles. KimCop aren’t the longest running pair (MaxTul, BoomPeak, OffGun, and KarnNut trade that crown around) but they may now have the most BLs under their collective belts. 

New Thai BL from Uncommon Studio Midnight Fortune adapted from a Y-novel by wickedwish for 2023. The MDL and tag lines are bonkers so I’m not dignifying them here. 

Cutie Pie is getting a least one special episode, The Wedding, we assume. 

Next Week Looks Like This:

Starting: Tomorrow Sept 25, 2022. 

ErthMix’s Cupid’s Last Wish special spin-off mini series Oishi advertisement Ep3 of Magic Of Zero: Zero Supporter on GMMTV’s YouTube. 

Male Entertainer (movie?) from Wayfilm, about a young man who works as an escort to support his family, on their YouTube channel (Trailer)

Monday Sept 26, 2022 

Ai Long Nhai (Thai Mon 10 eps iQIYI) About a man expelled from foreign university who returns to a Thai univ in disgrace and meets A Boy. Adapted from a y-novel, directed by Nob (La Cuisine, Gen Y). Secondary couple Nan & Sippakorn are IRL husbands Arm & Porsch (Together with Me). Familiar faces include Gun (Love Area’s Valen) and Jom (Nitiman’s Jin).

Ending: Vice Versa 

October line up coming soon, still waiting on distribution for some. 

This week’s best moments?

Heartbreaking but so good, My Only 12%. 

About Youth giving us a seriously classic old romance trope 1950s style. 

4th wall breaking snarky bestie in Work From Heart. 

And even more snarky queers. 

They were shiny crumbs in a sea of dull, Coffee Melody. 

This week’s worst fashion? 

OMG Work from Heart with the HELL? 

(last week)

Current earworm? Blackpink’s Shut Down  

[divinekangaroo]

S1 teeters on overly dense but relatively entertaining, and despite the density of action/fact also feels quite shallow? Potentially the standardised plot/romantic expectation?

S2 by contrast feels like it doesn’t know what it is, but is way more entertaining.

Sabini (Noah Taylor) is utterly not my cup of tea and his Aussie-Italian accent should be cut from his mouth brutally because it’s awful; but S2 also sets up sooooo many good arcs for later on, and also contains a lot of truly hilarious moments (the glass of gin lolllll; a racehorse is a good investment lolllll, almost everything Tommy says to Campbell including calling him up about Grace’s booty call my God). I also wonder about Alfie and this fannish perception of his perceptiveness; from what I can remember of later series, and now this in S2, Alfie is nearly almost always losing total control of his business, and it’s Tommy that manages to somehow manoeuvre this self-destructive wildcard of a gangster into positions where they can mutually profit.

I feel, better than S1, S2 also shows the boundaries that Tommy consciously crosses and disrespects to get what he wants. The final ep pre-execution scene and his screaming at the sky was so honest, and even though he repeats these themes in later series as his motivation, in S2 I really believe it. He is fucking angry. S1 often felt like it was trying to sell him as a mostly good, petty criminal style man making the most of an opportunity gone complex and wrong; S2 clearly paints him as consciously choosing to abuse, albeit not entirely without sympathy/empathy, just not enough to change his path. And that scene in London where the brothers smash up a club, just the three of them, then go out after on the street absolutely high and bonded on the violence, uh the best. Let’s not forget that side of them, too.

I adore the thematic structure of that S2 final episode where Tommy fails all three of his women (four if you count Polly and that he had to let her sort it out herself).

I adore the emotional swings and roundabouts he has with Arthur’s suicide attempts, which also feels very, very real.

I felt that the sex scenes with May seem to have the camera focus on her orgasm/s, when pretty much every other sex scene in the series, the camera’s very focused on Tommy, and what that means in framing their brief and odd relationship.

I like Michael’s honest hunger for the life and the power.

I also find interesting that end of S1 had Danny (Flashback-Partner #1) die, and the start of S2 had Freddie (Flashback-Partner #2) die, and that all of S2 then has Tommy leveraging the good things war gave him — connections, colleagues, reputation, weaponry skills and tactical skills. He also says to Arthur that comment about ‘closing the door on the war’, which yes, starts to roar open again for Tommy in later series, but right now in S2 the war is almost put to bed for Tommy; part of that being S1 Grace let him see he could sleep/live without it for a bit, but I also think it has something to do with Freddie and Danny now both being deceased. The constant reminder of Danny’s volatility and Tommy’s sense of responsibility to him; the constant moral and ethical battle he had with Freddie about their mutual moral trauma, and Freddie’s constant quasi-suicidal language around Tommy (but putting the onus back on Tommy to execute him) suddenly gone.

In S1, what I carried away more of was character and symbolism rather than plot or theme. Polly hits Tommy around the head a lot, including once nearly with a poker; he allows it. In S2, he’s not allowing it any more. Tommy’s nearly monk-like at the start and there’s lots of symbolic monk references (eg, Monaghan means monk, red dust in Buddhism); in the whole of Episode 1 he doesn’t manage to get a single drink in; yet he’s human and vulnerable and drunk by S6. His white horse (his opportunity for balance against the black horse) and having to kill it himself because he did something not moral to win the horse, sacrificing his potential for balancing light and dark. The whole Monaghan Boy scam and how it’s structured to represent exactly how Tommy plays himself in scams (Tommy takes a hit/pays out so more people buy in; Tommy takes a bigger hit/pays out more so even more people buy in; then turn the tables and cash in when everyone’s gone all in).

Also I quantified the S1 guns in current day pounds:

Tommy’s original scam of four stolen motorbikes - about 50-60k in current day pounds

The value of the guns he finds - about 2.1 million current day pounds

Can totally picture him sitting in the yard staring at his unexpected loot just sweating bricks trying to work out how to turn it into actual money.