#I’ve rewatched this scene so many times and I have so many thoughts about it

[celiastjamesoscar]

Wildest Dreams

Pairings: Sam Carpenter x fem!reader

Summary: you are helplessly head over heels for Sam, even though she despises you. But your relationship with her changes when you get in a lightly physical altercation with her.

Warnings: light sweating, reader accidentally walks in on Sam changing, small violence

My Masterlist

AN: if you have the time, I highly recommend reading ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ and watching ‘Carol’ <3

Word count: 6.3K

For the first time in what seemed a millennium, you finally had the house to yourself. Anika was out with Mindy for a date, and your other roommate, Luke, was doing god knows what, probably out fornicating with one of his many boyfriends, but you didn’t care. You only cared about relaxing on the couch and rewatching your comfort show, Game of Thrones.

You grabbed your phone and a bowl of popcorn and went to the couch. You curled up with the blanket hanging over the back of the sofa as you turned on your show.

Tarantula: you up? ;)

The ‘ding’ from the text pulled you away from the tv, and you smiled when you read the text from your best friend, Tara. The two of you had met on campus in the library and instantly became friends. You two bonded over your love for books and shared a passion for horror movies, even though your opinions drastically differ.

Sam lover: maybe, it depends on who’s asking

Tarantula: you’re best friend in the entire world?? Who else?

Sam lover: mhmmm, okay. What are we doing?

Tarantula: movie night, obviously

Sam lover: sure, I’ll be over in ten

Tarantula: just a heads up, you’ll have to come in through my window

You raised your eyebrows at Tara’s message, ‘Why would I have to do that? I’ve been over before,’ you thought to yourself.

Sam lover: why?

Tarantula: because Sam is watching a movie in the living room, and we are hanging out in my room

Sam lover: fuck, okay. why does she still hate me?

Tarantula: I don’t know, but don’t make any noise when you come over. Sam can’t know and don’t try and hit on her if you see her

To say that you and Sam were acquaintances would be an understatement; Sam despised you, while the woman completely enchanted you. Sam was so tall and handsome as hell. She’s bad for you, but she does it so well; you could see the end as it begins. You admired her strength, both physically and mentally, and you loved the way she cared so much about her sister. And that was also your downfall; Sam believed that you were no good for Tara, as every time Tara did something stupid, you were always at the scene of the crime. Of course, Sam didn’t know that you were always there because you tried your best to stop Tara out of respect for Sam (and a shitty attempt at winning her heart), but she never listened when you tried to explain yourself.

You scoffed at your best friend’s words. She knew of your infatuation with Sam and loved to tease you about it. At first, however, she thought it was a bit weird as you were her best friend and thought you were using her to get close to Sam, but after she saw you turn down an invite to go with Sam and Mindy to the movies just to stay at home and play Mario Kart with her, she knew that you were the real deal.

Tara found it a bit sad, though, because every time you would talk to Sam, you would either get silence, a death stare, or a one-word reply, but she would rather die than tell you that she felt pity for your shitty attempts to talk to her sister.

Sam lover: I will not be held responsible for my actions when I am around a beautiful woman with big brown eyes

Tarantula: yeah, yeah, whatever. just get over here soon and climb in through my window; I’ll leave it open

Sam lover: sounds good. I’m omw

With that, you shut your phone off, grabbed your backpack and put a spare change of clothes along with a cable to charge your phone in it, and went towards Tara’s apartment. You enjoyed walking by yourself as it allowed you to be with your thoughts, and you couldn’t help it when you started to think of Sam. The gravitational pull you felt towards the older woman was something you couldn’t explain even if you had to; you just knew that you couldn’t deny the attraction you felt. You longed to get lost in those dark eyes and don’t even get started on those muscular arms; to you, Sam was perfect, and you would count all the stars in the sky if you could call her yours for a moment.

When you reached the street Tara lived on, you sent Tara a quick message asking her which side her window would be on, and she responded with ‘the one that’s close to creepy ass alley,’ which was all of New York in your eyes.

Sam lover: that’s all of NY, Tarantula

Tarantula: It’s across from the McDonald’s, five stories up. And stop calling me ‘Tarantula.’ It’s offensive.

You laughed at your friend’s reply before sending back a quick ‘huh uh.’ You walked around the apartment until you saw the McDonald’s and then the creepy ass alleyway and looked up five stories. And true to her word, Tara had her window open for you. You climbed onto the fire escape and slowly made your way to Tara’s window before sending her a quick text telling her you were here, only you didn’t see the message she sent back telling you you weren’t at her window.

When you pushed Tara’s window the rest of the way and climbed halfway in, you nearly died; Sam was standing in a towel with her back facing you as she grabbed some clothes from her dresser. When she dropped her towel, your heart exploded, and it felt like you were in your wildest dream. You admired her perfect curves, and then the leg that you had in Sam’s room gave out, causing you to fall into Sam’s room with a loud thud.

Sam turned around with a shocked expression before she quickly turned back to her dresser and grabbed a knife. You could not seem to pry your eyes away from Sam’s chest, and you swore you could feel drool fall down your chin. You were too busy trying to engrave Sam’s naked figure into your brain that you didn’t feel the blade fly into your left thigh.

“Sam, I am so sorry,” you said as you tried to stand up on your legs, but one gave out and screamed in pain. The only thing on your mind was Sam’s breasts that you swore looked like the softest pillows ever.

“What the fuck is going-Oh my god! What happened to your leg?” Tara exclaimed after bursting into the room, disregarding her sister, who finally covered herself with a towel. At the mention of something wrong with your leg, you finally felt the sharp pain shoot through your entire leg as you stared at the blade in your thigh.

“You’re weird friend just broke into my room and stared at me while I was changing!” Sam stated as she grabbed her clothes and stormed off to the bathroom, clearly not caring about your wound. Tara quickly ran to your side and knelt beside you, “I am so sorry about this, Y/N. I didn’t know that she also had her window open.”

You shrugged off Tara’s comment as you tried to move, but the pain was too much. You watched as your crimson-red blood steeped onto the room’s flooring and stained your clothing. “Come on, we have to get you to a hospital,” Tara stated, pulling you up to the floor and leaning your weight onto her. By the time Tara had entered the living room and to the door, Sam was dressed and had her phone and keys in hand. “I’ll take you to the hospital; let’s go,” Sam stated as she moved Tara off you and took her place. It was pitiful how your face heated up when you felt Sam pull your left arm over her shoulders and hold it while her right arm was wrapped around your waist, allowing you to lean your weight onto her.

When you reached Sam’s car, Tara opened up the back row door and helped Sam lay you down on the seats before she got into the passenger door. “Do not die in my car, Y/N. I don’t need you to haunt my car,” Sam dryly stated as she closed the door and got in the driver’s side. You don’t remember much of the car ride to the hospital; the only thing on your mind was seeing Sam naked, and no matter how hard you tried, you would never be about to erase that beautiful image from your mind.

One moment you were daydreaming about the beautiful goddess that had just stabbed you, and then the next, you were in a hospital bed with stitches in your thigh. For the life of you, you couldn’t recall what had happened, just that you saw Sam naked, and then she stabbed you. You saw yourself, in hindsight, tangled up with her all night in your wildest dreams. Someday when your mind leaves you, you bet that the memory of Sam will follow you around.

“Oh, thank god, I thought I was going to have to murder Sam,” Tara said as she moved from the chair in the corner of the room and approached your bed. She sat on the edge of the bed and gently grabbed your hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “What happened? The last thing I remember was being in the back of Sam’s car,” you recalled as you looked around the room and saw Sam, who was standing creepily in the doorway with her arms crossed.

“You passed out on the drive here. You should have seen Sam, though; she was terrified you had actually died,” Tara said with a small laugh as she remembered her sister’s frantic attempts to make sure you were still alive, and she also wanted to let you know that Sam slightly cared about you.

Sam scoffed at her sister’s words as she uncrossed her arms and walked toward you. “I was worried you were going to ruin my seats and then haunt my car,” Sam stated coldly, but her eyes betrayed her icy stature. You could see the way her eyes darted across your body, subtly checking to see if you were actually okay, and how she had her hands shoved into the pockets on her bomber jacket, slightly ashamed that she had hurt you.

Within the first encounters you had with Sam, you noticed how she always hid her hands when she was ashamed of something, and right now, all you wanted to do was reach out and comfort the woman. “Eh, I’m fine,” you shrugged briefly.

You talked to Tara while Sam stood around the room, looking out of place as she watched you with her sister. When the doctor came in, she gave you painkillers and told you could leave in the morning. “Could one of us stay here with her?” Sam asked the doctor worriedly when she was close to the door. “The hospital rules say we can’t allow non-family members to stay overnight, but I’ll let you stay with your girlfriend,” the doctor replied with a smile as she looked between you and Sam, clearly reading into some tension in the air.

Sam didn’t even have time to deny the doctor’s words before she left the room and shut the door, so Sam turned around with a scoff and was met with your drugged-out smile and Tara’s knowing one. “Well, Sammy, I will leave you here with your ‘girlfriend,’” Tara joked as she stood from the bed and grabbed her things.

“No. Tara, there is no way you are leaving here this late at night,” Sam replied as she followed her sister to the doorway. “Well, I’m certainly not staying here; I hate hospitals. And besides, Mindy is here to pick me up,” Tara replied with a smile.

She hated to admit it, but Sam was at a crossroads. She didn’t want Tara to stay here after the last time her sister was left alone in a hospital, and she also didn’t want you to stay here alone. She worried about you for Tara’s sake and definitely not because she felt terrible for being the reason you were here.

With a defeated sigh, Sam nodded and spoke, “Alright. Just let me walk you out.”

You watched the two sisters open the door and smiled when Sam stopped and looked back at you, “Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.”

“Okay, girlfriend,” you replied with a dopey smile, clearly enjoying the effects of the painkillers.

When Sam returned, she said nothing as she brought two chairs together and made herself an awkward bed. “You know, you can join me,” you suggested as you scooted over to the side, allowing Sam some room if she chose to sleep with you.

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Sam replied as she got out a blanket and a pillow from the wardrobe and got comfortable on the chairs.

“Why not? I’ve already seen you naked.”

Sam rolled her eyes and laid her head on the pillow, and covered up with the blanket, “Do not mention that ever again.”

“Okay. I want to let you know you have a beautiful body, Sam. Your boobs are perfect! I mean, my god, the things I would do-”

“Please stop talking,” Sam interrupted you as she tried her best to fight off the fluttering feeling in her stomach at your words. She knew the painkillers were talking, but she couldn’t help but believe there was some truth to your comments. “Goodnight, Y/N,” Sam said after a few awkward moments of silence.

“Goodnight, girlfriend,” you teased as you got as comfortable as you could you a hospital bed before sleep consumed you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the morning, you were discharged from the hospital but had to walk around with crutches for a while. And to put it short, you hated it. Yes, having to walk around with them constantly clanking every time you walked got annoying, and how your armpits ached at the end of each day. But the worst part was that you couldn’t impress Sam with them.

Naturally, you were angry at Sam for throwing a knife in your leg, but you also shouldn’t have been staring at her while she was changing.

“Who even changes with their window open anyways?” Mindy asked one night while over at Tara’s apartment for dinner. You and Mindy had been invited over for a girl dinner with the Carpenters as you four sat around the dining table. The table had a dish of lasagna along with a salad bowl prepared, and you could not wait to eat the delicious food Sam had prepared.

“My room was hot, and I was letting in fresh air; I didn’t think someone would try and break in,” Sam stated as she made herself a bowl of salad with her lasagna.

“I did not break in. Tara invited me over and told me to go through her open window,” you said once you finished a bite of your food, “so technically, it’s her fault.”

Tara scoffed at your words while throwing a crouton at you, earning herself a scolding look from Sam. “Do not try and blame this on me; I texted you and told you that wasn’t my room, but you didn’t see it,” Tara replied.

“Why did you even tell her to climb through your window?” Sam asked with a puzzled look.

“Because, Sam, you would have told her to leave or probably stabbed her, but you already did that,” Tara dryly said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Sam rolled her eyes at her sister's statement before focusing on her food.

“I was lightly stabbed, so it’s not that big of a deal,” you said.

“You were still stabbed, Y/N,” Tara replied annoyedly. She knew that you were weirdly happy about Sam stabbing you, but she tried her best to ignore it.

“Lightly stabbed.”

Mindy chuckled while looking at you, “Whatever. I still can’t believe she threw a knife at you; me personally, I would not let that slide.”

“It’s whatever; I didn’t even notice it until Tara came barging into the room,” you said while looking at Sam, who picked her food with her fork and refused to meet your gaze.

Mindy just laughed at your response before returning her attention to her food. The rest of dinner was filled with laughs and idle conversations, but you couldn’t help but notice how Sam didn’t participate in any of the conversations. You had tried to get her engaged, but she would either respond with a nod, a laugh, or a single word.

Sam felt bad for reacting the way she did, and she wanted to apologize to you, but she didn’t know how without bringing up the fact you slightly deserved it. So, when dinner was finished, and the rest of the group moved into the living room to watch a movie, Sam pulled you aside.

“What’s up?” You asked with a smile as you leaned on a crutch. It had been a couple of weeks since you were discharged from the hospital, so now you only walked around with one crutch.

That smile you gave her, Sam couldn’t find the correct words to describe it. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, and she wanted to kiss it off your lips. “Just so you know, you’re insufferable and intolerable. And I hate you.”

“Oh, okay,” you said with that same smile, fully knowing Sam was lying. Sam, on the other hand, desperately needed to get away from you, or she might do something she would regret. “Is there anything else you need?” You asked.

With a sigh, Sam asked, “Yes, actually. What are some books I could read? I’ve been trying to get into reading because of Tara, and I wanted to discuss them with her, and I need to have a few books under my belt before I do that.”

Your smile grew ten times bigger at Sam’s question, and the older woman wanted to murder you for it. “I have been waiting for ages for you to ask me that. I actually have a copy of my favorite book with me if you want to give it a try?” You asked as you made your way over to your backpack.

Sam followed behind you and watched as you moved around your sleeping clothes and pulled out a weathered book. It had different colored sticky notes hanging from the pages, and the edges around the book looked like they had their share of bumps and drops.

Sam grabbed the book and read the cover with a scoff. “Look, Y/N; I’m not reading a book about a woman who had seven different husbands. That’s just absurd,” the Latina said with a dry tone.

“No,” you replied as you placed your hand on Sam’s wrist, holding the book, “trust me, Sam. Just try it; it’s not what you think it is.”

“Alright, fine. If this book is better than it sounds,” Sam said as she looked around the room with a huff, “I guess I’ll treat you with respect or something.”

Sam didn’t even have time to react before she felt the hand on her wrist pull away and pinch her cheek. “I know you’ll love it,” you said with a cheeky grin as Sam slapped your hand away from her face. “Do not ever do that again,” she warned as she pointed a finger in your face.

“Yes, ma’am,” you responded with a salute before walking back toward the living room, “is there anything else you need?”

‘I want to take you on a date and then put your head on a stick,’ Sam wanted to say but said, “I’ll let you know what I think of it.”

You gave Sam a soft smile as you returned to the living room. Sam didn’t know what she was feeling toward you, but she eventually sauntered off to her room after realizing she cared about you more than friends do.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Come on, Tara; The Babadook is easily one of the worst horror movies ever made!” You exclaimed with your hands as you stared down at the more petite girl. You had finally gotten your stitches out and were no longer walking around with a crutch, so that meant a celebration night over at the Carpenter’s apartment.

“No, it’s not! You just hate it so much because it scares you!” Tara retorted as she hit the leg closest to her, which happened to be the one Sam lightly stabbed.

You moved your legs up onto the loveseat you were sitting on after she hit you, “Yeah, and also because it scares me so much! And don’t hit me, you little shit.” Tara scoffed at your words and stood up and grabbed one of her shoes, and was getting ready to launch it at you when the door to the apartment opened. She quickly dropped the shoe and stood facing the door with her hands clasped behind her back and an innocent smile, as if she wasn’t just getting ready to throw a shoe as hard as she could at your face. “What’s going on?” Sam asked when she saw Tara standing with a creepy smile and your shocked expression.

“Tara was-”

“I was getting up to order some pizza!” Tara interrupted you and sent you a death glare when Sam turned her back to hang up her purse. Sam turned around and looked between you two and ignored the shoe she saw by Tara’s feet; whatever her sister was getting ready to do to you, you probably deserved it.

“Okay,” Sam replied as she exaggerated the word before walking to her room, but not before sending you a glare. “Nice to see you, Sam!” you said with a smile while Sam huffed before slamming her door. “You are such a charmer,” Tara joked as she shoved your legs off the couch so she could sit next to you.

You scoffed at Tara’s words while you reached for the remote and pushed Tara off you when she tried to take it from you. “No! Down girl, down!” You said when you finally pushed Tara off of you. She scoffed as you turned on the tv before leaning back on the couch and putting her feet in your lap. You pulled her feet more into your lap and let your hand rest on her leg while you looked for something to watch. Naturally, Tara made it hard for you to pick something out because she refused to watch anything you wanted to spite you, but eventually, you settled on watching ‘Carol.’ You loved this movie more than anything, even though you cried every time you watched it.

For some unknown reason, Tara pulled her feet from your lap and left the couch roughly ten minutes into the movie. “I’ll be right back,” she said as she walked toward her room with her phone in hand. “Do you want me to pause it for you?” You asked as you reached for the remote but stopped when Tara told you not to wait up on her. You missed the devilish smirk she wore on her lips as she disappeared into her room.

You continued to watch the movie by yourself when you heard a door open up. “Finally! I was starting to think that you were leaving me here to hang out with Sam,” you said with a smile as you paused the movie and finally turned around to face Tara, but your smile faded once you saw Sam. “Oh, I’m sorry; I thought you were Tara,” you said with an embarrassed tone as your eyes refused to meet Sam’s piercing gaze.

The older woman huffed at your words before she went to the couch and sat at the opposite end while unlocking her phone, trying to keep as much space as possible between you two. “Tara texted me and told me that she felt sick and she didn’t want you to leave because it’s late at night and doesn��t want anything to happen to you, so she wants me to keep you company,” Sam read aloud her text messages between her and Tara before she closed her phone and set it on the coffee table in front of you guys.

“You don’t have to; I’m fine staying in here by myself,” you said with a polite smile while looking at Sam. The woman turned her head and looked at you before giving you the fakest smile you have ever seen while she lied through her teeth, “That’s alright, I’m good to stay in here with you.” The tension was so thick you could practically taste it on your tongue, but you held your breath and muttered a quiet ‘okay’ as you restarted the movie.

It’s not that she hated being around you after the incident; the only thing she wanted to do was kiss you and call you hers, but she was afraid you wouldn’t feel the same. Especially after she lightly stabbed you.

“Wait, why are you restarting it?” Sam questioned as she looked between you and the tv.

“Because you missed the opening scene, which is arguably one of the best scenes in the movie, and you also need to watch it to understand the ending better,” you reasoned with an honest smile while your gentle eyes danced across Sam’s face.

She didn’t know why, but after listening to your explanation of why the opening scene was essential and listening to your voice that was full of only love and admiration for this movie, Sam decided that she would actually pay attention to it, rather than send you hateful glances every once in a while.

So when the tv finally stopped the introduction, and it was Carol and Therese sitting together at a dinner table in a fancy restaurant, Sam picked up on the tension-riddled scene and couldn’t help but glance over at you. She noticed how your eyebrows furrowed, and your eyes danced between Carol and Therese as if you were getting ready to jump through the tv and become a part of the movie. Her eyes finally drifted down to your lips, and she noticed how your tongue was barely sticking out between your lips as you studied the screen, as if there was going to be something small in the background, and if you blinked, you would miss it.

“Are you even watching?” You questioned when you felt eyes burning into the side of your skull, but your own eyes never left the screen.

Sam awkwardly cleared her throat before speaking, “Sorry; you just seem really invested in this movie, and I thought it was funny.” You felt heat creep up the back of your neck at Sam’s words but shook it off as her being cautious of you. “It’s a great film, Sam. I think you’ll like it,” you replied with a gentle smile as you pried your eyes away from the screen to look at Sam before returning your attention to the tv.

When you said that she might like it, Sam took her eyes away from you and actually paid attention to the movie. When the sex scene came up, the air in the room became tense, as if both of you were holding your breath and holding back from one another. Sam tried her best to fight back the blush she felt, and she looked to you for help. You had your mouth agape, no matter how often you watched this scene, you were always enchanted by it, and you whispered, “I wish that were me.” Even though she tried to, Sam couldn’t come up with a retort for your comment; she also wishes she could do that with Cate Blanchett, but she also wishes that was her with you.

Sam then turned her attention back to the screen and had to fight any urges that she might have been feeling toward you. Her eyes never left the screen until the very end; only when she had to blink back the eyes that threatened to escape as she looked up at the ceiling. When the end credits rolled, you cleared your throat, tension still left over from the sex scene, “So, what did you think of it?”

“It was certainly something. It was a lot better than I expected, just based on your taste in things,” Sam joked as she subtly wiped the tears away in her eyes. You chuckled at her words, ‘if you only you knew,’ you thought as she stared at her with hearty eyes.

You quickly snapped out of your daze when you noticed Sam shuffling uncomfortably on the couch, “Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it. And just so you know,” you said as you stood up from the couch, “I have an exceptional taste in things.”

Sam laughed at your words before standing up, “I highly doubt that.” You smiled at the older woman before making your way to Tara’s room; you had plans to murder the little shit for leaving you alone with Sam. “Goodnight, Sam,” you said with a smile as you opened Tara’s door slightly. Sam gave you a genuine smile as she went to her room, “Goodnight, Y/N.”

This was the first time you had had a direct conversation with Sam since she pulled you aside and asked for a book recommendation, and you wished you could have more conversations with the woman. She was smarter than she gave herself credit for, and the way she expressed herself through body language while talking was something you found attractive, to put it lightly.

When you entered Tara’s room, you saw the girl lying toward the foot of her bed with her laptop open, and you could faintly hear Toni Collette giving her ‘I am your mother’ speech. “So, how did it go with Samantha?” Tara questioned with a smug grin as you sat on the bed with your back propped against the headboard. You threw your legs up onto the bed and dug the heel of your right foot into Tara’s back, causing the girl to let out a small yelp before shoving your leg off of her and scolding you.

“Whatever, you deserved it,” you said as you crossed your ankles and left them next to Tara, who was still facing the foot of the bed. “And for your information, it was fine. She didn’t try and kill me again,” you joked.

“A win is a win,” Tara replied as she moved to sit next to you and put the laptop on your lap while she cuddled up next to you. You put your arm around her waist and placed a platonic kiss on her head right when Sam walked in.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I can come back later,” Sam said as she looked down at the floor and turned her back to you two, embarrassed that she had just walked in on an intimate moment between you and her sister and ignored the pain she felt in her heart. “No, it’s okay, Sam,” Tara said while pulling away from you and silently encouraging you to go after Sam even though she was still in the doorway.

“I thought you were sick?” Sam asked with her back still facing you two. “Yeah, I can’t explain that one without unveiling my grand scheme of things plan,” Tara said while getting up from her bed and turning Sam to face her, “I’m serious, Sam. Nothing is going on between me and Y/N.”

Sam looked away from her sister and saw you sitting on Tara’s bed, smiling as you sent her a small wave. The woman scoffed at your actions before returning to her room.

Once Sam was gone, Tara closed the door, walked over to you, and hit you in the stomach. “The fuck was that, Y/N?” She whisper-shouted at you, “I basically admitted to having a plan of forcing you and Sam together, and you fucking wave at her?”

“I didn’t know what you wanted me to do!” You defended.

Tara sighed at your statement; she had laid the groundwork, and then just like clockwork, the dominos were supposed to cascade in a line because she’s a mastermind, but your dumbass messed it up. “Go talk to Sam. Right. Now. Or so help me God, I will violently murder you to death,” Tara commanded as she pulled you from her bed and pushed you toward the door. “And do not come back until you have talked to her,” and with that, Tara shut the door in your face and locked it.

You sighed before walking toward the living room. You thought about sleeping on the couch, but you knew Tara would probably draw a penis on your face while you slept, so you sucked in a deep breath before walking toward Sam’s door.

Sam heard a gentle knock of three intervals at her door, pulling her away from her note. “Just a minute,” she said as she finished her writing and slipped it into a preselected page in the book.

“What’s up?” She asked once when she opened her door and saw you.

“I just wanted to ask you about the book,” you replied with a smile that Sam wanted to kiss off your lips.

Instead of doing what she desired, she left her door open while grabbing the book and handed it back to you. “This is the saddest book I have ever read. Who would come up with such a thing?”

You chuckled at her words and accepted the book, “I know. I take it; you finished it?”

“Barely. But I finished it in one sitting,” Sam said while staring into your love-struck eyes. Sam swore she could feel herself getting lost in them, and she never wanted to leave your eyes.

“So, what did you think of it?” You asked.

“It was alright. Some pages were hard to read because of the tear-stained pages.”

You lightly laughed at Sam’s words, and the older woman felt her heart might explode if she heard that soft laugh again. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. This book really gets to me, you know?” You said while your eyes quickly glanced down at Sam’s lips, wondering if they tasted as good as they looked.

Sam cleared her throat, and you knew you had been busted. “So, I guess I’ll have to treat you with respect now,” she admitted through a tightened jaw.

“Or whatever,” you said with a smile, hoping Sam picked up the double meaning, and she did.

“Yeah, or whatever.”

“Just so you know, nothing is going on between me and Tara,” you clarified after a few seconds, and you set the book down on the couch behind you.

Sam knew that there wasn’t anything between you and her sister, but hearing those words leave your lips gave Sam a feeling of comfort she didn’t know she needed. “I know, Y/N.”

“Okay. I just wanted to clarify that before I did this,” Sam didn’t even have time to react before she felt your hands grip her neck and pull her into a passionate kiss. The way your lips felt like they had been made for her lips amazed Sam, and she finally felt her heart explode when she matched your intensity.

Your lips danced together as Sam deepened the kiss and pulled you by your waist closer to her. You felt her tongue push past your lips, and an involuntary moan slipped out, causing Sam to laugh against your lips. When you felt Sam’s hands drift toward the bottom of your shirt, you lifted your arms, and Sam got halfway into taking it off before you two heard a voice behind you, “Goddamnit, Y/N! I told you to apologize, not swap spit with her!”

You pulled away from Sam and turned to face Tara, who smiled knowingly. “Sorry,” you mumbled while fixing your shirt.

An awkward beat of silence passed while Tara looked between you and her sister with a sly smirk on her lips before she finally said, “I’ll leave you two to it,” and walked away.

“I’m sorry about that,” Sam said once Tara was gone. You turned to look at Sam, and you smiled at her swollen lips and blown pupils. You said nothing as you placed a final kiss on Sam’s lips that the older woman happily reciprocated.

“I should probably leave,” you mumbled against Sam’s lips, and she kissed you once more before pulling away. “Don’t forget your book,” Sam said while grabbing it for you.

“Thank you,” you replied with a tint of blush on your cheeks. Sam walked you to the door with her hand on the lower of your back, and you only wanted to run back into her room and throw Sam on her bed, but you doubted Tara would appreciate that.

When you reached the door, you placed a chaste kiss on Sam’s lips before opening up the door. “I’ll see you around?” You asked, afraid that this was a one-time thing.

Sam leaned against the doorframe, and she couldn’t contain the smile that pulled at her cheeks. “Of course, Y/N.”

You smiled at her and began walking down the hallway when Sam called out, “It's me and you, true blue.”

You placed a kiss on your pointer and middle finger before holding them toward Sam with a smile on your face. The woman laughed at your action and pretended to catch the fake kiss and her fist to her heart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At home, you fall onto your couch and struggled to get your shoes off. Once they were off, you relaxed and pulled out the book and started reading it. When you ran your fingers over the pages, a small note fell out from the middle of the book and you moved to that page.

In the center of the page was a headline from Sub Rosa titled, ‘Evelyn Hugo and Celia St. James Slumber Parties,’ and you couldn’t help but laugh at the page.

When you opened up the note, written in the most beautiful penmanship said,

‘Want to go grab a milkshake with me sometime? I doubt we’ll find a place as good as Schwab’s, but we can try. We can also have ‘slumber parties’ of our own when Tara is away. ;)

All my love,

Samantha

Sam’

[bylrlve]

Warning! Spoilers for Stranger Things 5 mentioned,

Rewatching episode 2, and I’m genuinely staggered by how many times Mike peeks at Will. It’s very clear his mind is on Will, in fact. I am also staggered by just how many small byler details are in here.

His whole face drops after no. 4 too, as @starbylers observed here.

I also want to include these @chirpsythismorning gifs from the roller rink scene, as they’re brilliant:

Mike watching Will get out of the van, and seemingly offering a hand to him.

Mike openly watching Will as they take their skates.

(X) (X)

These are very deliberate acting choices from Finn Wolfhard, and he was certainly doing it on instruction.

Some other notes on 402:

The transition from Mike and El being fake -> Murray looking up looking like he’s experiencing his Seeing Clearly -> Robin talking about Vickie laughing ‘and not like a cheap, fake laugh, but a real, genuine laugh’, right after we saw Mike hiding his genuine disgust at burritos for breakfast behind a tone of fake laughter.

Mike’s whole face just drops into an unhappy, spaced-out espression when it zooms in on El - this is after Will ignored his sock joke (video here by @buckybxarnes)

As many have observed, Mike and El look genuinely miserable when viewed from Angela’s perspective, as opposed to the shot of them skating with Will miserable behind them

It’s occurred to me that in s2, 3, and 4, the byler plot really takes off in episode 2. I’m wondering if that’s also the case with s5 - I’ve reconsidered my theory that the Mike + El rooftop scene takes place after the hospital plot in ep 2, as I’ve heard that the paparazzi at the filming site were told it was in episode 1.

The door slam/open transition between Joyce going to the bank to get the 40k random for Hopper, utterly singleminded, and Mike barging into the womens’ bathroom, being kicked out, and subsequently starting an argy-bargy with Will as opposed to continuing to prioritise El… well!

The disparity in time is so interesting. El counts off 185 days since she last saw Mike - which is roughly six months, as is canon within the show (Sept-Oct 1985-March 1986). And here Mike is, saying ‘you knew she was having trouble for, like, a year’ and Will saying ‘it’s been a year, Mike’ and, in 404, Mike saying ‘the last year has been weird.’ It’s pretty obvious the last one is Mike referring to their fight nine months earlier, plus the time prior that Mike had spent pulling away from the rest of the Party to focus on El. The second one is Will potentially referencing the time that elapsed since their fight - even if it’s moreso subtext from the writers. What, then, to make of Mike saying Will knew El was having trouble for, like, a year? What subtext could be meant by this? I’d love to hear your guys’ thoughts because u can’t quite deduce this.

Mike listing off everything Will did is so hilarious given the surveillance he carried out all day on the boy, and given the fact that poor El being humiliated publicly and assaulted with liquid before she skated off bawling did not, apparently, ruin the day. On second thoughts, I understand what Will meant… she’s in trouble having Mike’s gay ass for a boyfriend.

What’s striking me now is that this fight + El’s iconic roller skate moment, are the real emotional climaxes of this episode’s M/E/W plot. It could have been Mike finding El and comforting her before she lashed out at Angela. It could have been him talking to her afterwards. It could have been at the house - him following her up to her room and silently comforting her until she fell asleep. No, no. Mike and Will airing out their grievances (and Mike betraying which of the two truly emotionally affects him more) + El handling her own shit, while Mike thoroughly disapproves.

The way that Will just wants to be Mike’s friend, but it’s Mike making it so deeply weird.

The way, also, that they stick together at the rink even after the fight, and Mike openly is more preoccupied by Will in the van. I’ve seen it observed before: the parallel between El and Will staring out the same window in the van crying: Mike looks at Will in the shot. He does not look at El in the shot.

I think it’s hilarious that Mike ends the fight by feigning concern for El - he offered her no comfort whatsoever, actively stood away from her when she was waiting for Jonathan and Argyle to arrive, ignored her crying in the van, and of course:

She didn’t look fine.

Mike and Will are blocked together, not Mike and El

The sincerity of Mike’s concern over El juxtaposed with the rank falseness of ‘no, that’s…that’s not true, maybe I was a little upset in the moment’ etc really sticks out - the defensiveness is reminiscent of the tone he took with Will during the fight, but even then he was more sincere-sounding because he was more emotionally affected.

Bylers don’t talk enough about the insanity of ‘who… who said that I didn’t?’ In context, thinking logically, Mike is very likely referring to Will here (the bullies were shouting at her, he could hear what they were saying)- and why would his mind immediately go to ‘Will thinks I don’t love El, and has told her his suspicions?’ Why would he take a defensive tone?

Seriously, 402-403 M/W/E may well be the plot that (potentially) spells out byler endgame the most.

[nightcolorz]

thoughts on the presence of marius’ painting in dubai in the show? ive been thinking about this since episode 7 aired because louis threw a bowl of blood at a painting in one scene which wasn’t marius’, yet made me think it should have been. but its interesting that its there at all? of course they’re art collectors and dealers in 2022 but god. i feel like the painting might end up being a chekov’s gun. it cant be there for nothing, right?

(also the scene of “rashid” armand in s1 telling daniel about it keeps coming back. how did he FEEL about that especially if daniel is indeed someone he loves and has loved for years)

AHHH OMG!!! LOVE THIS QUESTION!! I’ve been thinking about this constantly since s1, which believe it or not spurned some theories about Armand’s relationship with Louis that ended up being surprisingly accurate 😭. I can’t tell u how many times I rewatched the Rashid-mand tells Daniel about marius’s painting scene before s2 aired (definitely more than any other scene in the first season 💀💀). Ughhh!! omg!! U r so right 😭😭 the painting Louis threw the blood at should have been Marius’s. The thematic implications!!! The impact!! The way Armand would feel!! It’s making me crazy thinking about it

I speculate that Armand is trying to seek out and reclaim as many of Marius’s painting as possible. I imagine that Armand acquired the painting in the dining room by searching intently for any paintings of Marius’s that survived the fire. Part of him likely feels entitled to them. Legally he’s just Marius’s slave, but the way he sees it it’s so much deeper than that. Marius is his father, his husband. He should be given his possessions, his works of art, after he’s died. And I think the fact that Armand, by both historical records, and by anyone he knows, will always be viewed as Marius’s slave, his victim, before he is Marius’s closest loved one, feels disempowering and invalidating. Technically, if they weren’t vampires and legal consideration was given to who Marius’s possessions should be given to after his death, as a slave Armand likely wouldn’t be considered. But, Armand believes that because of the role Marius had in his life, he is rightfully owed that inheritance. And the symbolic value of that fact is important to him.

I think sometimes the show fandom doesn’t realize how attached to Marius Armand actually is 😭. If they’re going by the books, Armand is longing for Marius and for Venice. Marius is the love of his life the same way Lestat is the love of Louis’s life (maybe even more so considering he’s not just his lover but his father 😭 Marius played every major role in Armand’s life, he was his father, his lover, his maker and his god). Armand is stuck on him, he is always longing for him, never able to move on. So I think for Armand owning paintings of Marius’s is partly an assertion and a reclamation of the way he perceives his relationship with him. By owning them and displaying them on his wall, not only is he allowing himself to live with a comforting reminder of Venice (which I’ll get to), but hes also asserting that Marius loved him, and he was important to Marius, and he deserves to and is entitled to owning his paintings after Marius has died because he is the person who these things should go to, he is displaying that he is the most important person to Marius, that he is the person who would be in his will.

on the Venice note, Armand is also indulging in a small little fantasy by putting Marius’s paintings on his wall. He lived with those paintings, his father likely painted them while he was in the room. He saw them in the halls in the palazzo, maybe even in his lavish old dining room. In the books Venice was and continues to be Armand’s perceived “best part of his life”. Venice was his childhood, the only time in his life he remembers being taken care of, well fed, spoiled, loved. And from our perspective it was horrible, he was being sexually abused and beaten regularly, literally pimped out and enslaved. But think about how Armand told his story to Louis, he was smiling wistfully, longing despite it all. And I think even in Dubai Armand misses Venice, feels comforted by the memory of it. So it makes sense that he would hang Marius’s painting on the wall, as a small comfort, so that maybe sometimes he can stare at it and picture he is back there, in his master’s studio, basking in the sunlight, loved.

The scene where Armand as Rashid shows the painting to Daniel is so so loaded. Daniel initiates the conversation, but Armand definitely indulges in it more than he needs to. That scene is the first time we rlly see Armand using his Rashid persona to tap into his past. He says, “I serve a God, it’s my honor to serve” which is fucking weird 😭 and no one but Armand would say that (real rashid wouldn’t💀 he definitely sees the vampires in a way that is more grounded and empathy based then god like). He’s clearly tapping into how he felt as Amadeo, a servant to Marius, rather than playing his part. It seems like Daniels interest in the painting and him talking about + bringing attention to it brought Armand back to that Venice mindset in a way. Even with this, he’s definitely pushing Daniel away, trying to change the topic as quickly as possible while remaining in character. Which makes me think that Armand wasn’t happy at the prospect of being so vulnerable with Daniel so soon. The impression I get (especially from season one) is that despite his past and current love for him, Armand sees a different person in old Daniel, and is very hesitant to open himself up to him. Considering how different (and mean) he is, and how painful and loaded their past was, it’s a very hard thing for Armand to approach, and it doesn’t seem currently on his agenda.

What I rlly am curious about is how Louis feels about Armand keeping Marius’s paintings in their home, displaying them on their wall. I imagine it would be uncomfortable for him, if not upsetting, in a similar way to how Armand feels about the presence of ghost Lestat, if not more complicated with the layer of how extremely abusive Marius was. But how can Louis judge? Who is he to give push back on smth like this when he is still actively hallucinating his dead, abusive ex husband 😭🙏there’s a lot going on there.

I rlly hope this painting thing gets explored in depth bcus omg I can not stop thinking about it either. Thank u SO MUCH for the ask I love this topic so much omg!!! Hope my response scratches the painting itch in ur brain<3

[mlmarint]

so here’s my thoughts about the “daddy issues” thing with the whole anti tommy shit

you guys are such fucking hypocrites

i would be totally on board with someone bringing that it’s not okay to sexualize someone’s trauma if that was the case. but guess whaaaaaaat???? THATS NOT THE CASE. and it’s not “terrible dialogue” either, there’s so many scenes with terrible dialogue in this show, but some of you should really stop and ask yourselfs WHY you didn’t like this one.

if eddie was the one to make a comment like that some of you’d be OVER THE MOON. i’ve NEVER seen ANYONE in this fandom talk about how a LOT of the buddie explicit fanfics have a daddy kink on it. and before any more comments, i REALLY HATE buddie fics with daddy kink because it always reminds me of christopher and do NOT want to think about christopher in that moment.

“that’s not the problem. the problem is that once again buck it’s with someone who doesn’t care about his trauma” oh grow the fuck up.

tommy LITERALLY decided to not date buck because he thought buck wasn’t ready for it, he gave buck his space, he at first didn’t want to go to maddie and chimney wedding with buck because he thought buck was acting on impulse and wanted him to take his time to be okay with who he is, and after he was sure he tried his best to be on time to his date.

and also!!!! buck is a little “freak” in bed guys, he was a literal sex addict in season 1. every now and then the show reminds us this (like the ring cutter scene), also this is the second buck’s relationship with someone who’s like older than him. i wouldn’t be surprised if buck has a canon daddy kink because GUESS WHAAAAAT some people who have daddy issues??? THEY HAVE DADDY KINKS!!!!!

but you guys wanna know what i truly think?

i think that some of you (these tommy antis) are only here for buddie. you’re not here for the show, you’re here for buck and eddie. you’re not here for all these amazing characters!!! you’re not here for the fact that buck being a bisexual man discovering that side of him in his 30s its one of the most important things that happened in this show when we’re talking about lgbt+ characters and the importance of having something like that to be on media.

you’re not here for bi buck, you’re only here if this means that eddie will be with him. you’ll won’t be here if they decide to give a eddie queer discover story non related to buck on season 8 (and i truly think we’re going that way).

you only liked buck and tommy when you could sexualize two man kissing.

if you want to talk about something that is not okay that tommy did why don’t you rewatch the older episodes he’s in? he wasn’t a nice person back then and honestly i would like for them to bring that up!!! for them to show how a person can change and grow out of their prejudice and realize that they don’t need to be an ass and be okay with who they truly are. in fact why don’t we talk about how they hinted the fact that tommy didn’t like who he was when he was working with gerard? that he doesn’t like gerard and that he was a toxic person and that tommy grow up with a racist, homophobic and sexist dad???? that’s why he wasn’t a nice person back than but he’s different now and he’s a proud gay man and that once again that’s a nice thing to have on media because it shows how it’s NEVER too late to come in terms with who you are and change the way your are for better????

tommy isn’t perfect (and no one that he hurt before seems to actually care about it cause he did truly changed), but that doesn’t mean you need to cancel the guy FOR ONE SINGLE comment!!!! part of the 911 team made fun of buck for being sexually assaulted by his therapist but no one canceled them for it, did they?

honestly i am so fucking tired with fandoms in general.

at this point i hope we don’t get buddie being canon FOR A LONG TIME cause i want you guys to suffer with tommy and buck being in a happy relationship.

just remember: eddies it’s not canonical queer yet, there’s hints of it and they probably are going on that road with the whole thing they’re saying on interviews, BUT buck IS BISEXUAL and HE IS dating TOMMY you like it or not and it’s by far the most healthy relationship he EVER had in this show, can’t you be happy for him????

you can be a buddie shipper and still enjoy bucktommy because what we should truly want more than anything it’s buck and eddie to be happy with who they are.

and I SAY ALL THIS BEING A BUDDIE SHIPPER FOR YEARS

[unvsannvs]

Okay, I was hit with a wave of realization on my rewatch of this whole scene.

Intense House MD finale analysis below the cut!

House is pissed at Wilson, but then looks at his Vicodin in his hand, giving the most hurt, distraught face I’ve ever seen as he remembers the torture that he and Wilson endured, recalling his trembling hand easing that same pain medication into Wilson’s mouth; House remembered the whole night, and most likely that particular scene, as Wilson begs for morphine, yet could only be supplied those shitty pills. Ultimately, this harsh reminder makes House decide to let Wilson do what he wants; out of guilt, out of understanding, so be it (I’ll explain what I believe it is in a minute.)

On top of this, it transitions from House looking up with that face, sighing shakily, to Wilson, alone in his dim and hollow kitchen, clearly thinking about House as well. It transitions to House again, playing the piano, and glancing up, immediately going back to Wilson, to demonstrate how they are both overthinking their entire lives with each other at the same time. As Wilson goes to grab a drink, this reveals he is thinking of House in a bad light: he’s still pissed at House and he’s looking to repress it through drinking, just as House was pissed at him before making his decision in that recent clip with the Vicodin. But, seeing the Oreos, and being hit with a wave of fondness (his weakness), Wilson then decides to let House have what he wants.

Essentially, their parallel scenes here demonstrate both House and Wilson making their switch in choice to value the other persons needs above all else, and worst of all, they both are persuaded by the one thing that has defined and attracted their characters to each other from the start: House’s misery and recollection of his worst past time with Wilson from seeing his Vicodin persuades him to change his mind for Wilson’s sake, while Wilson’s fondness and recollection of his best past times with House from seeing the Oreos causes him to sacrifice his last decision for House’s sake.

Yeah, that casually slapped me in my noggin. I think I have a scar. Now, you can assume from this new angle of information what you will, but House could have changed his mind for countless reasons.

One idea is that Wilson making this life and death decision for House instead of himself causes House too much grief (House spent a whole episode about furniture trying to get Wilson to do something for himself, and Amber did the same; ‘female house’ doing this as well was a way to emphasize House’s belief that Wilson needs to be more independent and value his own personal wants over others when decision-making, let alone the one that decides his fate).

Maybe, House realizes that he feels incredibly understanding of what pain he let Wilson endure on his sofa - emotionally and physically - and ergo, is scared for Wilson, and can’t stand the thought of him going through that pain again, but in the one place Wilson begged not to be. As House looks at the Vicodin, he envisions Wilson become depressed and constantly in pain like he’d been on that couch, in an awful reflection of House himself from the one person he cares for the most, and all for the sake of House alone, given that in Wilson’s view, he has nothing else to live for.

Another could be that this reminder pushed House to feel a spark of need/love for Wilson’s presence, but more for his fuller, happier and guilt-free self for five months than the pitiful, unwanted version of Wilson in a hospital bed for an extra year.

It could easily be all the above, and most of them blend together anyway. I feel House changed his mind on account of all of these and many more (please let me know what you think it is! I love angsty stuff), but to summarize, this clip leaks way too much about House’s character development, showing the emotions that drive him to make the decision of letting Wilson be, and enjoying what they have left together, against all firm opinions he has well established throughout the show, as well as it demonstrates the climax of Wilson’s sacrificial and selfless behaviour being rejected and put to rest, as they both decide what’s best for each other rather than whatever their characters were full-force dedicated to before (Wilson’s selflessness and House’s selfishness).

[thegreatnpowerfulspuukiiz]

ALRIGHTY!! i’ve finally had some time to think and rewatch the finale (and get somewhere with adequate internet connection so i could actually post rip) SOOO here are my still-sorta-scattered thoughts about the final ep!!

so first things first ahem…

NUZI NATION STAND TF UP WE WONNNNN

they’re DATING 😭😭 LIKE THEY’RE BF AND GF THEY ARE ROMANTICALLY INVOLVED IM GOING TO BE SICK I LOVE THEM SO BADDD

they had sooo sooo many adorable, heartwarming moments during this ep i felt like i was going to explodeee.

but that’s not the only thing that had me on the verge of combusting-

FREAKIN V LIVED LETS HECKIN GOOOOO

i KNEW she didn’t die last ep there was no WAYYYY. plus it’s funny to see all the fanart of her taming the sentinel being true in the show lmaooo

ALSO HER AND J’S YURI FIGHT WAS SOOOO GOOD. LIKE?? A REMIX OF ETERNAL DREAM PLAYING WHEN V SHOWED WHATTTT. but this fight wasn’t just visually but the reveal that j was knowingly working with/for cyn was something that i didnt see coming but also don’t completely hate honestly!

i saw a lottttt of people (more specifically j/jessa fans, no shade just saying what i saw🧍‍♀️) who were upset with j’s betrayal and the way she was portrayed, and while i get not liking how she was written, i personally don’t think that this was that out of left field for her?? like?? while i was shocked i was like “i mean, yeah, makes sense.”

AND I COULDN’T POST THIS WITHOUT TALKING ABOUT THE STAR OF THIS EP

guysssss!!!! cyn/flesha was literally at her best in this ep imo!! she was so expressive and silly and genuinely creepy and scary at times like omg?? every time she was on screen i was soooo hooked dude.

AND THE TEAM UZI VS TEAM CYN FIGHT OH MY GOSHHHHHHH.

my friend and i genuinely started tweaking out dude it was so amazing and animated so well 😭 from the nightcore in the bg to the choreo to the general energy of it I JUST RAHHHHH.

the general consensus i've seen regarding this episode is that it felt rushed and while i def agree that it could've and probably should have been longer, of the four times i've rewatched it now, i never really got "rushed" vibes, just- idk how to word it really- but when the episode ended, i didn't get the sense of finality. even tho i've watched it a few times now, it still feels like there's supposed to be more?? esp after the after-credits scene LIKE WDYM THE SOLVER'S PERMINENTLY PART OF UZI NOW??

ALL N ALL, i really loved the ep, i think it was pretty good! there was stuff i def wish were written/handled differently (LIKE THE WAY DOLL'S STORY WRAPPED UP) but i enjoyed it regardless.

huge thanks to glitch n everyone involved for this amazing series, it means so much to me and i'm so happy it exists <3

also stay tuned bc i'll def be making some vids on the finale soon! and probs posting on here about it more bc i have sooooo many thoughts >;3

vid creds to @/taisskko on tiktok!

[ruanbaijie]

I’ve been thinking a lot about KoD/ The Spirealm lately (no surprises there), and I think, after having watched the show two times and read the novel a couple of times, I have an inkling of a theory of what really happened in The Spirealm. And I don’t mean just the ending. I mean what was really going on throughout the entire show. Because when I was doing my rewatch, I noticed that beyond the obvious lines, this show is rife with foreshadowing.

So here’s my theory, with evidence picked out here and there from the show. Beware: this will get very long, and a lot of it might be overthinking on my part (as an INTJ, overthinking is my middle name). There will be spoilers for BOTH the novel and the show, so if you don’t want to be spoiled for either or for both, perhaps you might want to scroll on or save this post for another day.

But, if you’re absolutely curious and totally okay with spoilers… We shall press on.

When I finished the show for the first time, I went “oh god yet another open-ended cdrama ending”, and only had two theories for what that ending meant.

1. Everything had really happened, everyone that had been involved had really gone into the doors. When RNZ managed to cleanse the game, ~somehow~ time got rewound and events got rewritten, and everyone (including those who had died) went back to how they had been before encountering the games, memories wiped clean and all, except for LQS.

2. LQS had dreamed everything up in those few seconds between getting hit by the car and regaining consciousness. The games did not happen in reality at all.

The first one didn’t sit well with me, just because it seemed too damn unlikely. Even if we were to consider advanced technology and all, it just seemed too… far-fetched (for lack of a better word) for such a technology to completely rewind time and rewrite things, including the minds of everyone except LQS.

So I thought well okay maybe it’s Theory 2 which seemed more likely, LQS dreamed up everything and none of it had actually happened, and he spent the next 50 years remaking and rebuilding the entire Spirit Realm. And this theory pained me. Because it meant that after it all, LQS was still alone, and was a RNZ made up with data that LQS had input, who had never “experienced” what they had experienced together, really RNZ at all? Besides, how did LQS manage to dream the names and personalities of so many different people so accurately?

Which leads me to Theory 3, which is actually pretty close to what had really happened in the novel, and also kind of an offshoot of Theory 1, but with a but.

Now, circling back to Theory 1, it’s a chilling thought that something like this could happen in reality. But what if, what if, what we thought was reality reality is not actually reality? Could there be a technology that’s so great it could rewind time and rewrite events and minds… à la The Matrix? 

And so, Theory 3, which is the one I strongly believe (with >95% conviction) is what really happened:

THE WHOLE SHOW IS DOOR 12.

My supporting evidence, split into a few sections:

The Forum Scene

More Individual Instances

Common Motifs

What Happened Outside the 12th Door? + Unanswered Questions

A Simple Chronological Diagram

Tidbits

EXHIBIT A: THE FORUM SCENE

This was a very quick cameo of Wu Qi scrolling on the forum and then proceeding to still impersonate as a college-going girl (after the crying baby arc). There was absolutely no reason for this scene to be there, which highlights just how important this little cameo discussing the 12th door is and what it could entail.

A summary of what this says (bolded parts added by myself for emphasis), as far as I can since some parts are blocked:

A Quick Deduction: The Rules of the 12th Door

Everyone says that the higher the level of the door, the closer to reality it gets. That means that the 12th door is extremely close to reality. In the 12th door, your entire world is exactly the same as the real world, and there might even be doors within doors.

The people who enter the 12th door will lose all memories, including those of their relationships, and will exist in the 12th door with the identity of “if they had lived till then without entering the doors”. An NPC will replace the “personality” of the person who enter the doors, and other than their appearance, their personality and identity will be very similar, and the progress rate will be very high. (This sentence is quite blocked out so I don’t really get it.)

Then, the two will meet. Because after waking in the 12th door, one will find themselves in the “1st door”, then meeting place will naturally be in the world of the doors.

After that, the condition to clear the game would be to, under such circumstances, go through the eleven doors all over again.

I know, it’s a forum post, and it was titled “deduction”, but this is exactly what the novel was revealed to be about, and it also explains a lot of the foreshadowing that I started seeing throughout the show.

EXHIBIT B: VARIOUS INDIVIDUAL INSTANCES

Right at the start of the show, even before entering his supposed 1st door, LQS is shown to already have very sharp hearing. If these additional abilities are gifted by the doors to selected people, then why does LQS already have it not just outside the doors, but also even before setting foot into one? Unless, he is not outside the doors, and he has already set foot into not just one, but in fact, several.

RNZ says this line when he is directing LQS to run from the wolf. This is not just a foreshadowing for RNZ’s identity as an NPC, but also hints that the people that RNZ has been “directing” till that point (think all those people in the villa, including the twins, Chen Fei, etc.) were also not “live people”, but NPCs.

After the 1st door, LQS returns to the real world, while still wearing the jacket he had put on in the door. It is later mentioned that only selected props from the doors can be brought out and back in for special uses to be figured out by the players themselves. So how can LQS return to the real world with the jacket, which is never mentioned to be one such prop?

Ah yes, the lovely RNZ fake death scene. It’s a huge piece of foreshadowing for RNZ’s identity, but it might be foreshadowing something more. I’ve wondered, since RNZ is an NPC, if he “died” in one of the doors, would he respawn somewhere else? This quote might be referring to that. But it also sounds very much like he’s hinting to LQS that what he thought was reality was also not reality at all.

In the penultimate episode, LQS, out and about after his accident, running first to the villa to see if RNZ and co. are still there, and then proceeding to question himself if his reality is really reality at all. I think it's at this point he starts to suspect that he's really still in the world of the doors.

The final pre-time leap scene: notice how LQS says find (寻找) the point where reality and virtual world meet, and not create (创造)? Which means that here, LQS has already realised that this reality is not reality at all, but he’s still in the world of the doors. Now, he has to find the point where reality and virtual world meet, i.e. the physical 12th door.

Post-time leap: “including the 12th door”. After spending 50 more years in the 12th door, LQS has finally found the physical 12th door, at the point where reality and virtual world meet.

And when he touches RNZ’s hand, he gets restored to his younger self, because he has solved and unlocked the 12th door and the 50 years that had passed have not really passed at all.

EXHIBIT C: COMMON MOTIFS

1. Kaleidoscopes

Of course, kaleidoscopes. The original intention was definitely as nod to the name of the novel, but they’ve been written into the plot in a different way. Also a clue to RNZ’s identity as an NPC, since the only other ones that have been shown to have kaleidoscopes are the NPCs/ door gods. But, the kaleidoscopes only appeared in the doors, but RNZ has been shown to have them outside the doors. Unless… you know the drill by now.

2. Corridors

In the first episode alone, not one, not two, but four hallways of doors are shown. The first is a straight corridor that starts off the entire show (with credits and all), the second is another straight corridor and is shown to be rotating clockwise, and the third and fourth are the one we’re most familiar with: the one with the doors facing one another like a cross-section of a kaleidoscope. Here’s my theory for each: the first one is the “real” one, the one that LQS walks to get to the 12th door. It starts off the entire show and hints that the entire show is the 12th door. The second one that rotates (see next point on this motif) is the one in the bootleg game that LQS plays in the PC bang. The fourth one is when LQS enters the door world within the 12th door.

Also, this could very well just be an artistic choice, but note how in the poster of the show, the doors are also shown not in the cross-sectional kaleidoscope format, but in a straight corridor.

3. Circularity

I don’t know how to summarise this motif because it’s a combination of a few, but this show has a lot of circles, things in rotation, clock imageries, and the idea of things being in reverse.

The clue that Gao Dawei gives LQS through the kid NPC, “Flower in the water, moon in the mirror” (水中花，镜中月) is actually a reversal of an actual Chinese idiom “Flower in the mirror, moon in the water” (镜中花，水中月), which means a mirage, something that is an illusion. While this is a huge analogy for the whole real world vs. door world theme, it’s also another instance of reversal or something flipped in the show.

Some other examples are the flipped clock in the 11th door, RNZ’s quote in the 11th door about ending at the beginning, and even in the lyrics of that painful song that plays whenever someone dies: “Please don’t rewind time again, for I’m afraid I will do anything regardless of the cost” (请别再倒数时间，我怕我会不顾一切). Now… this idea of circularity, of rewinding time, of going back to the beginning to end… sounds a lot like everything restarting again after LQS emerges from the “11th door” and finding himself in a car accident. Or maybe, just maybe, it also sounds a lot like going back to the first 11 doors to finish the 12th door, doesn’t it?

4. Repeated Phrases

Now these might REALLY just be me overthinking. But Wu Qi mentioned a couple of things in his monologue (side note: this show has some SERIOUSLY GOOD angsty monologues) that made me go… hang on a second. These mentions of “light”, “the meaning of friendship”, and “path” - they were all also brought up in previous conversations between LQS and RNZ. “Light” - so many times (another side note: I find it hilarious that Xia Zhiguang also has the same “light” character in his name, so whenever RNZ says that LQS “has light on him” I get sad at the foreshadowing but I also snicker a bit for Reasons). “The meaning of friendship” - when RNZ and LQS argue over accompanying TZZ into her 6th door.

“Path” - when RNZ and LQS walk under the umbrella in the rain doll arc and RNZ mentions (also foreshadowing) that “legs are longer than paths, and paths will always have an end”. Again, these might jolly well just be coincidences, but my overthinking brain says I think not. Because, if LQS is really still in the door world, then Wu Qi and everyone else around him are really NPCs, and then it makes sense for the system to throw these words that had popped up before, in situations where Wu Qi was never present, right back at him.

5. Premonitions

There are so many of these. 

In episode 1, LQS already briefly “hears” the blades of the air vent of the room he had been trapped in with Gao Dawei, even though he’s still in the PC bang and the memory of that kidnapping is not at the forefront of his mind… unless it had already been triggered at some time shortly before that (i.e. in the “real” door whatever number it was when he had met the NPC that revealed the nature of the doors to him).

Just before LQS is hit by the car, he sees a door on the road, that is the same door as one of the two in the 11th door - the one that represents “illusory life”. How did LQS manage to conjure up the image of a door that only appears in his future? Unless, he has already seen the door before in the real 11th door.

BUT that being said, in the same flashes, he does also see the kaleidoscope cross-section style (seriously, I need a better name for this) of doors - the third hallway he sees in the first episode. This one, admittedly, I’m still trying to figure out, since technically, based on the theory I’m working out, at that point, he should not have yet actually stepped into the hallway.

LQS also encounters Li Dongyuan and Xiong Qi in the “real world” before he enters his “1st door”.

And also explains why he could dream the names and personalities of so many different people so accurately before actually meeting them “in real life” (that asshole in the hospital arc - I forgot his name -, Xiao Ke, Chen Fei, the twins, TZZ, Lu Yanxue), including the “real” owner of the villa.

This might also be me overthinking and just be the cast trolling, but the “actual” Spirit Realm game in the “real world” also seems to draw upon elements of what LQS had experienced in his 11 doors in the show, albeit in a more chibi form: from the door and Nanqiu and Toast and Chestnut on the front page, to the kaleidoscope and entering the door on the loading page, and the woman in the rain, Xiao Jiu, rain doll, nurse, and Zuozi characters on the game grid. If this was really the real world, was it really a coincidence that LQS had “dreamed” or “experienced” doors that had these very same elements? Or do we have cause and effect the other way round here, where the “reality” is actually drawing on what LQS had “dreamed” or “experienced” in the doors? I say, it’s no coincidence at all.

EXHIBIT D: WHAT HAPPENED OUTSIDE THE 12TH DOOR? + UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Now, if the entire show is about the 12th door, then what happened in the real world? In doors 1-11? Well, it could be anything at this point.

Perhaps it’s something closer to the novel, where there’s nothing game-related about it at all, and people get pulled into the doors because they're about to die a sudden death, and the world of the doors is a "gift" for them to fight for that chance to continue living. The whole business is really just a supernatural thing, and the 12th door just happened to take on the setting of a virtual reality game.

Or, perhaps it’s really more like the show, where doors 1-11 happened exactly as they did (or close to) in the show, where LQS had to save the world from the nasty game that had been sullied by the capitalists in Piao Liang Guo (an analogy for the USA, if you haven’t yet realised), but he had to sacrifice his closest friend (read: bosom buddy) for the sake of the greater good.

Again, it could be anything. But I’d like to believe that it’s the latter. Because it goes exactly with the idea of circularity (see Common Motifs), of starting from the beginning again. 

But, post that, after everything is said and done, does RNZ end up going to the real world? I really hope so, because I need my happy ending damn it. It was possible in the novel which was more supernatural-coded, so the idea of a door god stepping out of this supernatural door world and into the real one to live with his husband seems a bit more… probable. (I know we’re talking about fiction here but please hear me out it’s like the walrus vs. fairy thing.) But if RNZ is really just made up of data, how the heck does data step out from the virtual world and into the real one? Maybe LQS really does end up making a “body” for him in the real world and takes a few years (or decades) to code him from scratch? But that just kinda goes back to my 意难平 with Theory 2 - is this RNZ really RNZ? Not to mention, the pain of LQS being alone for decades and trying to make RNZ from scratch.

Another unanswered question: what the heck is with LQS’s evolving hairstyle and fashion throughout the show? Is it an analogy for LQS’s changing personality, that even TZZ’s director “friend” mentions in episode 62? Or does it symbolise something else? I really don’t know, at this point.

EXHIBIT E: A SIMPLE CHRONOLOGICAL DIAGRAM

If you’ve managed to read till here, MASSIVE kudos to you. And here’s a simple diagram that I drew on PPT just to illustrate this entire theory, because I was also confusing the heck out of myself and I needed to see it visually to make sense of it.

EXHIBIT F: TIDBITS

These don’t really support Theory 3, but I’m including them anyway because I find them… interesting.

There’s a Yuyu Hakusho book in LQS and Wu Qi’s apartment. Now I’m in no way familiar with that series (I only watched that one live action adaptation of it), but in that series, there also exists a Spirit World (霊界, Reikai), which (ahem Wiki copy and paste) is the world where sentient beings (humans and demons) go after they die; not the equivalent of heaven or hell, but a station in between worlds where a soul's fate is decided. Which sounds… a lot like the premise of the doors in the actual novel.

I also find it extremely punny that the drama changed LQS’s name to Ling Jiushi (凌久时). For one, the characters for Jiushi are the exact ones that mean “long time” - which reminds me of the final exchange that RNZ and LQS have in the show. Also, the fact that his surname is now Ling instead of Lin? Absolutely hilarious… once you realise that the Chinese slang for bottoms in a MLM pair is 0 (零)… pronounced exactly the same way as show!LQS’s surname. And, if you haven’t yet figured out the running thread through this entire damn long ass post by now: coincidence? I think not.

[neoflect]

sharing some of my disorganized jojo musical thoughts now that ive had a week to sit on it and ive rewatched it several times over. i intended to wait to publish something like this until a subtitled version was available, but im not seeing any indication that thats happening any time soon so for now youll have to deal with my loose interpretations from my extremely rudimentary and rusty japanese… so take what i have to say about the finer points of characterization with a grain of salt. gratuitous spoilers below obviously, both for the original source material and the changes made in the stage production

my feelings are OVERWHELMINGLY positive. of course there are things i can criticize or that i would have personally done differently but oh man… i have literally not thought about anything besides this fucking show for a week. im 100% confident in saying this is a better adaptation of the source material than the tv anime. sorry to the davidpro staff, i respect their hard work and their love for jojo and their dedication to what is by any metric a pretty difficult property to adapt off of the page, but i dont know if i can ever forgive them for leaving half of the first episode’s storyboard on the cutting room floor in order to fit a standard half-hour tv slot, especially considering that what they cut is some of the really crucial character-building stuff. happily those scenes are not only reproduced in the stage version, some of them are expanded upon!

with the quick disclaimer that i’ve only managed to get my hands on the final 4/14 performance with shotaro arisawa and yoshihisa higashiyama, from what i’ve seen the casting is perfect. i’m sure there’s a rip of the 4/13 performance somewhere (i’ve seen clips) but i haven’t been able to find one… every single performer knocks it out of the fucking park, the cast chemistry is incredible and even the minor characters are loaded with charisma. and mamoru miyano… my god… mamoru miyano i owe you an apology. i was not familiar with your game. of course hes been killing it for decades at this point but i had soured on him a little bit recently because i felt like he was overcast in everything and i just didnt connect with his dnt reinhard at all, so when the casting was initially announced back in august i was underwhelmed, and of course my standards for the dio role in particular were astronomically high… i’ll go more into detail later in the post because i have so so many things to say about dio’s characterization here but mamoru miyano’s performance is like, life-changing. i had impossible expectations and he exceeded them.

sorry if im gushing. i am a hater by nature. its unusual for me to be so thoroughly pleased with something. im not even a musical theater guy. these are strange new feelings for me.

just to balance things out i’ll talk about a couple of the things that didn’t really work for me: first of all, the music is just ok. my initial draft of this post called the music “bad” but three additional viewings later i have warmed up to some of the songs. i don’t know if this is a shortcoming by dove attia as the composer or if it’s just me, as i said i’m not a musical guy and a lot of the genre conventions of musical theatre are not really the things i look for in music that i enjoy, but like… even at their worst they are serviceable. nothing here is sonically unpleasant to me. high points are “resolve of the ripple” (zeppeli’s hamon training song, a jazzy swing number - it’s simply catchy and fun to listen to) and the closer “phantom blood” (a sweeping ballad that reprises the earlier “light and darkness”/”golden spirit” leitmotifs into an epic duet between jonathan and dio as they join hands and walk off into the darkness together… made me cry! i wont lie! on every single one of my numerous viewings this one got me misty eyed!)

wait i forgot this is supposed to be the part where i’m being critical. ok my most loathed song in the musical is “dio’s world”. sorry dio nation. it doesn’t really work for me. i think this might be a case of my standards/expectations being too impossibly high because it’s not even really the worst song in the whole thing. and of course miyano eats it up so it’s not really his fault. i just find it kind of underwhelming… i find the melody a little grating, it’s kind of just a generic rock number, it’s just missing a particular je ne sais quoi…. the essence of dio isn’t there… lyrically though i am obsessed with the premise of dio recruiting his minions by selling himself as a kind of social revolutionary who is upending and inverting the brutal hierarchy of post-industrial victorian society with zombie blood magic. you win some you lose some.

the second sticking point for me is the costumes. they’re perfectly serviceable… adequate… but i mean when it comes to jojo “serviceable” and “adequate” costume design obviously falls well below what’s expected, right? a lot of the outfits have kind of a boxy, almost flat-looking kind of unflattering fit on the actors, which if i wanted to be generous i could attribute to the challenge of bridging the gap between these frail slender musical theater twinks and the two-meter-tall 250lb roided-out beefcakes theyre meant to be embodying. (bearing this discrepancy in mind a lot of the insane martial arts stuff in the second act doesn’t really land with the oomph that it should, but i also understand logistically why this kind of casting is not practical, and all things considered i think shotaro arisawa does a really incredible job of embodying jonathan joestar even though he kind of looks like i could snap him in half over my knee like a twig. he’s very cute. so i’m not mad about it.) of course, again, logistically, i understand that in a stage musical production, where actors only have minutes to complete costume changes, some sacrifices have to be made to the creative vision in the name of practicality. nevertheless this is jojos bizarre adventure!! i want to see some fucking baubles!!!!!!

which is all to say that… after carefully considering it for some weeks… i still have extremely mixed feelings about dio’s grink ass feather bathrobe look. it’s not that i dont think its something he could wear (the concept of dio lounging around in his gothic vampire palace doing re-animator style body horror experiments on the local wildlife in this “officer i have no idea what happened to my husband”-ass nightgown is nothing short of hysterical to me) but then he wears it into combat and i felt a little disappointed… it has the same unflattering fit issue as the other outfits in the show, and it is just such an un-araki-like design… where are the gaudy color combinations? the bizarre geometric patterns? the tease of an exposed boob/thigh/midriff? erina gets a stage-original dress design that i have fewer issues with because the excessive pleats and ruffles have more of an araki-esque sensibility, but every time i look at dio’s robe it feels like there’s something missing.  i’m going to choose to be nice about it because it’s not at all a deal breaker and, again, mamoru miyano devours the look. it’s fine. it’s always fun to have a new dio outfit. if anything, the fact that the blu-rays are being marketed as “2024 cast version” gives me hope for the possibility of a future production with a new vision for the costume design. (although the fact that this was such a difficult production - with stunts and pyrotechnics and moving setpieces - that its entire first week was cancelled indicates to me that the prospects for a future production from a different company are impossibly slim. i guess there’s always hope?)

in terms of the writing and the changes that were made from the original narrative, honestly i don’t really have an issue with anything that was cut. sorry if there are any diehard stans of Poco’s Unnamed Sister out there who are steamed that their favorite minor late phantom blood character got the axe, i kind of understand how you feel because i’ve been malding over david pro cutting the Danny Lore for eleven years, but i think it was the right choice and the story flows so much better. the real juicy meat at the core of phantom blood as a narrative and the thing that brings it head and shoulders above so much of the rest of jjba is the character-driven drama - that deliciously pulpy victorian gothic family tragedy - and the relationship between jonathan and dio. the musical beefs up the character drama and slims down the action-driven second half by trimming out the extraneous battles. the only real downside i see to this is that the absence of tompetty and his prophecy makes zeppeli’s arc and death feel INSANELY abrupt, but tbf that’s not a deal breaker for me. sorry zeppeli. you were born to die.

okay. okay. i think 1500 words into the post is enough fucking around so let’s talk about the real reason why you and i both know we’re here

musical dio is SO fucking sad. he’s positively wretched, you guys. he was born in a wet cardboard box all alone and forced to eat cement when he was six. he cries even more than he does in the source material and even when he’s not crying he frequently delivers his lines as though he is moments away from bursting into tears. back when the musical first opened i was snooping on the reactions on jpn twitter and one commenter said they could see miyano’s tears and snot from the nosebleeds even without opera glasses, a remark i initially assumed was hyperbole but that i now think probably was not. araki’s dio is certainly tortured and a deeply pathetic crybaby beneath all the cruelty and posturing, but changes in the musical and miyano’s embodiment of the character bring this pathos to the fore. he is literally haunted: dario’s ghost lingers, a manifestation of all of dio’s traumas and insecurities that emerges from the recesses of his memory to taunt him with the reminder that he will always be his father’s son, all the way up until the very minute that jonathan breaks down the door to his vampire lair. i am OBSESSED with this - not only for the obvious reason that i delight in dio’s suffering personally but also because kong kuwata is a delight and he fucking kills it every time. also lends itself to a category 10 leitmotif moment at the top of the second act when dio emerges from the charred ruins of the joestar estate singing dario’s theme and calling out to jonathan - if i had to pinpoint this is probably the moment when this musical stuck for me as the Real Deal. they Get It.

the first solo number in the show is dio’s disney princess I Want song (amazingly, simply titled “dio”) where he weeps for his late mother and his wretched lot in life, and then - in a creative decision that made me clap my hands and hoot and holler at my screen in real life - there is a reprise of this number (delivered, naturally, through tears) when dio is almost arrested for murder and decides to become a vampire instead. so there’s this amazing hopeful uplifting inspirational orchestral music accompanying the onstage action of dio ruthlessly slaying jonathan’s dad and then getting pumped full of lead by a bunch of cops. it is brilliant. 10/10 no notes. it’s moments like this that i think really sell the “softening” of dio in the stage version for me, even though i am historically Not A Fan of fanworks that take a similar angle - like, yes, he is sad, but specifically he is narcissistically obsessed with the spectacle of his own suffering, he is boiling over with bitterness and rage for everyone around him who (by his own estimation) could never hope to have suffered as much as he has. this sensitivity and self-pity he wallows in are not expressions of a guilty conscience or a desire to change - they’re entirely the opposite - every cruel and monstrous deed dio commits is always justified to himself because he is simply the saddest little boy who has ever existed. he has been done wrong by the world and so there is no limit to the depravity he may reasonably respond with. i’ve seen several commenters describe this as a drastically different interpretation of the character from araki’s dio (and someone told me on twitter that mamoru miyano himself has also said this, but i cba to go digging for an actual source so take it with a grain of salt?), but i… dont think thats the case! dio’s obsession with his own weakness and his self-perception as the eternal underdog (as compared to jonathan) are certainly more exaggerated in miyano’s performance, but i don’t think this is an angle to the character that’s been manufactured out of whole cloth. the genre conventions of the stage musical force the melodrama up to eleven and dio’s incredibly repressed angst is the most rich vein to mine for that. hair-trigger sadist dio is still here, it’s the same guy, he’s still killing people mercilessly, you’re just getting to see him sing a big ballad about his feelings instead of confining those to an internal monologue.

if anything, the exaggeration of dio’s pathetic/cowardly/crybaby traits combined with his megalomaniacal aspirations and bottomless well of cruelty is just right. it’s perfect. fucking around, finding out, and then trying to weasel his way out of the consequences with crocodile tears just so you don’t see him drawing his knife to cut you clean open… yeah. thats the stuff. thats my one true blorbo. sad to say i will love him for ten thousand years.

i think that might be all i have to say… or at least all i feel like saying here… most likely ill come back and edit this post later. i certainly have some additional thoughts and some more esoteric/controversial takes but they’re not suited for a public blog. real ones will understand. im keeping my eyes peeled for somebody to translate this thing but to be frank i am kind of enjoying this little corner of fandom as it is right now: just the asians and the true hardcore phantom blood phreaks. i have not had this much fun in jojo fandom in almost a fucking decade. as soon as somebody publishes an english version my timelines going to get flooded with all the most deeply annoying “kono dio da” “speedwagon waifu” reddit guys and 15 year olds and my suffering will proceed. unfortunately this is my lot in life and i am doomed to be here forever because dio put a worm in my brain

[musicalmoritz]

what are your thoughts on hananene?

I’m so glad you asked this!! Some people assume I hate HanaNene because I ship Nene with Aoi and I don’t post about it as much as Aoi//Aoi, but that could not be further from the truth. When I first watched the anime I absolutely adored HanaNene, they were my favorite ship for a hot second there (though I was saving that spot for Mitsuba and Kou, and it was also Sakura and Natsuhiko for like a day. I never expected it to be the plant lesbians lol)

My love for HanaNene tends to be more mild when I’m not actively reading about them. I have never and will never dislike them, but I don’t think about them as consistently as some of the other ships (though I think of them more than some others). Then I read a scene of them in the manga and I’m abruptly reminded of why they’re one of my favorite TBHK ships. This also applies to when I’m rewatching either of the animes or when I get in the rare mood to read fan fiction for them

The thing that initially stole my heart was how weird they are. Their whole relationship is odd, it’s like if Aladdin got with the Genie. The first chapter doesn’t have anything romantic between them up until the very end and if you didn’t know they were love interests, you’d assume he was meant to be her goofy sidekick. And then we start the gag of him flirting with her while she’s very adamant about him being Not Her Type. But her relationship with him is still so different from everybody else, she’s usually so self-centered but with Hanako she notices things about him and makes efforts to make him feel better (ex: deciding to be his friend in the mokke chapter). Sure, there are still things she misses about him, Teru had to be the one to tell her he was unhappy in the new timeline. But she’s significantly better at looking out for Hanako than she is with everybody else, because he’s so important to her. She gives him time to open up about his past because she knows he’s not ready for it, she wants to be the one to confess to him because he deserves to feel loved. With heterosexual relationships I’m mainly focused on what the woman is feeling/experiencing and HanaNene is such an interesting ship for Nene! It gives her a lot of important development and stands out from her other crushes and ships. She had cheesy romantic fantasies about him but she doesn’t act like a blushing fangirl, it’s real love and we get to see a more mature side of her when they’re together

I have so many favorite moments for them so I’m gonna list them all now because I’ve been waiting for an excuse to do so. The end of the Picture Perfect arc where Nene asked Hanako if he wanted to trap her and he said “of course not, how could you even think that?” The Confession Tree chapter as a whole, it’s my favorite early chapter by far. When Hanako told Nene she’s cute when she’s smiling. When he tucked her into bed at Sumire’s house. I don’t remember when this was but when Nene made some big statement on the roof and then she was like “as a friend ofc.” When she kissed him on the cheek duh that was so cute. That convo they had in the classroom during the Picture Perfect arc. Their first kiss but that’s like a given everybody loves that scene. Wow. HanaNene.

I will say that I prefer their dynamic with Amane’s personality but I’m not one of the people who separates those ships entirely, I think people who do sort of miss the point of Hanako’s character. Amane is still a part of him, there are many scenes in present times when he acts like his old self. Sure, he’s changed over the years, but he can’t fully become a different person the way humans often do because he is forever that same 13 y/o boy. So if you were to ask me “HanaNene or Amanene,” I’d say both. I do prefer to call him Amane tho bcuz it’s such a pretty name. Amane. Amane. Amane. Pretend you can hear it, it’s gorgeous

Similar to how I will never slander Aoi and Akane for Aoi and Nene, I’ll never slander Hanako and Nene in favor of them either. I love all the canon ships so I’ll never be the type of fan to put them down in order to justify my fanon ones. I don’t need to do this because I have good reasons for liking fanon pairings, I can back them up without having to put down another ship. If you have to put down another ship in order to make yours look good, it’s probably not that great on its own

Also for headcanons. They are t4t and bi4bi to me, that’s just how it’s gotta be. Toilet-Bound Woke-Kun. Woke-Bound Hanako-Kun. Toilet-Woke Hanako-Kun. Much to ponder

[the-unaligned]

Bravern episode 8 spoilers

EP 8 Analysis

This is going to be super incoherent and is mostly just going to be me rambling but idc, I need to post this somewhere so it’s not ruminating in my head until I assault some random human with word vomit

So this is mostly going to be focus on episode 8 but I will touch back on previous episodes for references.

Anyways Episode 8 basically just confirmed the “Bravern is Smith” theory and I am so hype

What is the “Bravern is Smith” theory?

So the Bravern is Smith theory is a theory that.. well.. Bravern and Lewis Smith are the same person.

I’m not sure who started it but (I think) it started when the opening showed for the first time and we got to the scene of Smith’s arm becoming Bravern’s. From there it spiraled, more and more evidence pointing towards it, such as: Bravern knowing A LOT about Smith, Bravern making a lot of human pop culture references and speaking English interchangeably with Japanese (Smith does this too), Bravern being a super robot (Smith is a massive Super robot nerd) and a ton of other things

Episode 8:

Now we get into why I’m finally making a post about this, I’ve been following along with this theory since episode 2 and have been taking my notes on it but I never bothered posting about it anywhere

Why now?

Because episode 8 might’ve just confirmed it.

Let’s start with the opening:

So this right here is the catalyst that started this all, Smith’s arm turning into Bravern’s. Now, we knew all that, but the one thing we never knew until now was “who tf is glowy bitch”

Well,

I think is Knuth

“But why her? She looks nothing like the silhouette”

Look here, she has plates of armor that highly resemble two pairs of wings. Who else has two pairs of wings? The silhouette. Same placement and everything. I think the silhouette is meant to be vague, as to not tip the viewer off right away that the silhouette is a deathdrive.

We’ll come back to this later, I need to talk about Bravern’s lines during this episode.

I’m not entirely sure how to explain it but this line will be important later, for now it’s just more Super Robot inspirational speech

Right here is the important line, the title of the episode (which is what tipped me and a lot of other people off to Smith dying) and the last thing Bravern says to him. Now normally when entering a battlefield, you’d tell your comrade “Good luck”, “Until we meet again” makes it seem like someone will die, this is a line usually used when you’re not sure when you’ll see someone again. Bravern used this because he knew what was going to happen to Smith, and either he can’t stop it, or he doesn’t want to.

Bravern knows because he has gone through this before, as Smith.

That is likely why he told Smith to “save as many people as he can”, likely because when he went through this, a lot of people died

(This ties into my own branch of the theory where Bravern has already gone through all of this before and went back in time to change the outcome)

Now during the fight, Bravern isn’t really focused, he’s taking hits he’d normally be able to dodge and isn’t really rushing like he usually does. I think it’s because he’s trying to stall, trying to keep Isami away from Knuth and Smith so their fight can happen, either that or he’s distracted due to knowing what’s happening not that far away (or it could be both)

Before we get to this next part I wanna point out a quote I noticed during the episode from Knuth. I can’t find it just by scrolling and I’d rewatch the full episode to find it but Tumblr is lagging like hell and burning through my battery so I can’t

At one point Knuth mentioned something about fusing with Smith, this might mean that Knuth’s body ends up being the base for Bravern, but im still not 100% sure about that, just thought I’d add that. If she is the base and Bravern did in fact go back in time, this would make sense as Knuth had mentioned that she had gone back in time a few times

Now we get to focus on the important part of the episode, Smith’s death. Let’s just start listing off things to pay attention to.

(I reached the photo limit oops)

- Smith is humming his own theme song as he charges Knuth, Bravern sings his own theme song and blasts it whenever he fights

- He straight up says “Brave Slash” as he strikes Knuth

-Smith talks DIRECTLY INTO ISAMI’S MIND and says the following quote: “Isami. Isami. Brave. Brave… Bang.” And we all know why that’s important, the title of the show is literally “Bang Brave Bang Bravern”

There are still some questions, like “how was Smith able to use telepathy?” “How exactly is Bravern created?” “Is Bravern truly a fusion between Smith and Knuth?”

I know this probably makes zero sense but I need to get this out somewhere

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk (holy shit it’s so laggy)

Edit: I forgot to mention it but the foreshadowing for Smith’s death was so obvious, legit in his introduction Isami legit goes “You’re dead, the dead don’t talk” so uhh called it lmao

[youreallyshouldtalkmore]

Infinity Castle

I haven’t even finished watching the Swordsmith Village arc yet but do you know how many times I watched the demon reunion in the Infinity Castle scene? I may have a slight obsession. 

Why do some of the best scenes of this anime happen in Infinity Castle? I even rewatched the scene with Muzan and the lower moons in Infinity Castle more times that I want to count. 

Let me shut up…. Akaza x reader, Douma x reader. You are in the middle of their fights. Congratulations. 

____________

No human or demons could enter or exit Infinity Castle unless they were summoned or had the right to be there. Generally speaking that pertained to demons, however it was a not so quiet kept secret that you, a full-blooded human, lived in Infinity Castle. The particulars of how this arrangement came to be, was something only you and Muzan Kibuchi knew. None of the demons dared to so much as breathe a question of why you were there. Not even Upper One, Lord Kokushibo, ever questioned it. Not that he cared to. Such things were not his business. As long as you existed in Lord Muzan’s good graces, you were safe from all demons. 

You heard the biwa sound from within the castle even as you made your way to the meeting. Nakime had impressed upon you that you were to at least pass through. You rounded the corner to see a familiar pot. You grinned and crouched down, trying silently to sneak up on Lord Gyokko.  But just as you went to reach out, the pot slid away from you. 

“Hehe, nice try, Miss Y/N, but I could hear you coming a mile away.” 

Although you knew you had no way of sneaking up on any of the demons, you still amused yourself to try. You pouted, “Lord Gyokko, you could at least pretend.”

“Oh! I could not possibly. As amusing as that seems, my pride as a demon would not allow such a thing. However, perhaps you would be willing to peer into my pot?” 

“Not even in the least, my lord.” 

The pot vibrated, “Such a shame! Such a shame!” 

You did not have a death wish. Although you knew you could get away with a lot, you were not willing to outright tempt fate. Who knows what Lord Gyokko might try if he was in the mood? You had seen full-bodied humans dragged into his pot before. And you even had the displeasure to view one of his artworks. You had no intention to become one. Of all the upper level demons, Lord Gyokko was the one that you were cautious of the most. 

Rumbling reached your ears, as you saw a platform slowly lift and then stop. Your eyes lit up even as you gave a bow, “Lord Akaza! Welcome back!” 

Akaza’s face softened when he saw you, “Lady Y/N, I’m surprised to see you are here. I thought this was a meeting for the upper rank.” 

You shrugged, “Lady Nakime told me to come, so I came. And I’m no lady. I’ve told you this many times, my lord.”  

“Fair enough, and I will address you how I see fit. You have the mercy of Lord Muzan, so you are to be afforded a sense of respect.” 

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Lord Akaza!!” the pot jumped up and down before Gyokko decided to exit the pot. 

You shook your head fondly as you made your way to Akaza who sent a death glare to the snake-like demon. Akaza didn’t comment on Gyokko’s “concern” for him, nor did he give Hantengu any comment either. He only tsked after they had their say before turning to you. 

He didn’t quite glare at you as he asked, “Has Lord Muzan arrived yet?”

You shook your head.

"Then do you know anything about this meeting or if Lord Kokushibo here? I have a hard time believing he is the one that is dead."

You shook your head even as you shrug just as you heard the echo of a familiar voice around you, “Whoa, whoa, whoa! You are beginning to hurt my feelings, my dear Lord Akaza. Weren’t you even a little concerned about me?” 

You bit back a giggle as you stepped away from the two of them. It never bolded well, if Douma was taking to teasing Akaza.

Ah, this was precisely why.

Although you had the foresight to put some distance between you and them, the force of Akaza’s fist, still sent blood splattering onto your kimono.

You heaved a sigh. 

Akaza blinked once realized what just happened, “Ahh, I’m sorry, Lady Y/N. I did not mean to soil your kimono.” 

“Y/N!! Did you see, Lord Akaza’s so mean to me!!” Douma cried, latching himself around your shoulders after the lower half of his face regenerated. He lowered his face into your hair and began to sob. 

“Get off of her!” Akaza snarled. 

Douma wailed, “And he wasn’t even conscious of your cute kimono!! This boy is a tragedy walking! He claims you are deserving of respect, so he addresses you as Lady, but what does he call me?” 

Akaza simmered, “Were you listening earlier?” 

“That’s the takeaway, Lord Akaza?” Douma cried, “We are the best of friends, aren’t we? Why must you treat me like this?”  

“Eh!! Quit it!! I will not be in the middle of your fight!” you cried. You had seen Akaza’s right eye twitch, and although he was nothing if not respectful towards you, you had no desire to be the middle if he should lose his temper. 

You would have stepped away but despite Douma’s lazyfair attitude, his grip was iron-clad. His hands only slid around your middle as he hugged you from behind,“Y/N!! I missed you!!” 

You heaved a sigh, “You saw me last month. I do visit you sometimes, you know.” 

“Yes, and what fine visits they are! We have great fun….” Douma cried before his lips were inches from your ear and whispered, “...don’t we?” 

You knew he was looking dead at Akaza, whose nose flared once. This time you managed to snatch away from Douma who chuckled. You knew it was only possible because he allowed it, “You play too much, Lord Douma.” 

Douma pouted, “How many times must I tell you to call me Douma. I don’t need formalities from you. You are our favorite human, after all.” 

You gave a mock bow, “At least once more, Lord Douma.”

“Some people have manners.” Akaza stated, stepping up to stand beside you, even as he glared at Douma. 

“I am the epitome of manners!!” Douma cried vehemently. He glared at you when you suddenly had a wheezing fit. 

You waved away the cloud and got yourself under control. With a serene smile, began inching away from Douma.  

Nakime spoke up then, “You do know that Upper One was summoned here first, no? He's been listening the entire time.” 

You were glad of the interruption, not sure you were liking where it was headed. It seems no matter what you did lately, you always seemed to land in the middle of one of Douma’s and Akaza’s tug of war. 

You weren’t exactly sure why though. 

You all looked behind yourselves to see Lord Kokushibo sitting calmly from a small room, “Yes, and I did not get summoned here for such foolishness.” 

“I apologize, Lord Kokushibo.”, you spoke with a low bow towards him even if his back was turned to you. 

“You are not the one that needs to apologize. But this will have to keep, Lord Muzan has arrived.” 

—

You kept your head bowed to your hands, even as your eyes widened. Upper Six were dead? Both Gyutaro and Daki had frequently visited you when they were able. Daki had been like a little sister to you. And you found Gyutaro to be charming in his own way. He always thought himself ugly but you were touched by his kind heart, as evident of how he handled his sister. Though that was the humanity that Muzan Kibuchi so hated. 

So you never understood why he kept you around. Muzan Kibuchi never tried to change you into a demon and kept you locked in Infinity Castle. You found you didn’t mind.  Being here was better than the cruel world out there. You learned that when you were only nine years old. 

You didn’t really expect Lord Muzan to address you at this meeting, and he didn’t. His eyes only passed over you before he gave his final orders to the others and disappeared. Not two seconds after Lord Muzan’s disappearance did heads begin to roll. 

And hands too, apparently. 

You heaved a sigh as you watched. 

Lord Kokushibo turned to you and beckoned you over. You stood and made your way over. His six eyes were riveted on you. It was a bit chilling to look at but you had long gotten used to it. However, you never figured out exactly which set you were supposed to look at, so you ended up being constantly distracted by all of them. 

“No one is causing you any trouble?” 

You shook your head, “No.” 

“Eating well?” 

“Yes.” 

“Hm. Anything you need?” 

“No.” 

Kokushibo gave a nod, “Good. It would not do for Lord Muzan’s human to rot in here unless he chooses it, nor for others to bother you.” 

You just bowed once, using this time to lower your eyes. If Lord Gyokko was an upper rank you were most cautious of, Lord Kokushibo was the upper rank you tried hard to give the utmost respect. Although Lord Gyokko would humor you, or perhaps it was you humoring him, Lord Kokushibo was to the point. Your interactions with him were always say what you need, get what you need and get out. 

“You will tell me if anything becomes amiss.” 

“At once, my lord.” 

Then Kokushibo disappeared. 

“You don’t have to rely on him. He’ll be dead soon enough. If anyone bothers you, let me know.” Akaza spoke a minute after Kokushibo disappeared. 

“Oooh, bold! Lord Akaza!” Douma harped. 

A smile toyed on your lips. You were well aware of the fact that their protective nature would last only as long as Lord Muzan said so. Maybe one day you would become food for one of them. A shiver ran down your spine as you dropped your head in thought. It used to keep you up at night but perhaps being around them, slowly in a way, your own human heart had changed despite the fact that you were still human. 

“Are you okay?” 

Your head jerked up only to realize that Akaza was gazing down at you. At some point, he had made his way over, standing so close to you, you could feel the heat from his skin. 

“Ahh…” you went to step back instinctively only to step wrong. You would have tripped but Akaza reached out and wrapped an arm around your waist, steadying you. Your hands ended up on his biceps. 

The pink-haired demon scowled, “Don’t become clumsy on me, Y/N.” 

“F-forgive me, Lord Akaza.” 

You peered into Akaza’s yellow eyes. You felt him pull you in slightly. 

“.....Whatcha doin?” 

Akaza scowled as Douma’s head popped up besides you both. You went to step back and Akaza released you. A playful smile was frozen on Douma’s face. You tried to quietly extract yourself but before you could get any further, Douma used one arm to pull you to him. Still the frozen smile on his face didn’t change as stared at Akaza. 

You saw murderous intent flash in Akaza’s eyes as he balled his hands into fist. You ceased breathing. But then you blinked as you saw Akaza’s form from behind once as he moved out of Infinity Castle. 

You were breathing again, only for that to cut short when Douma’s rainbow eyes swung to you, “My dear little human….” 

Nerves ran through you. You never liked it when Douma sought to play too much. He used his free hand and reached up to cup your chin, bringing your faces inches from his. 

“I think you are due another visit with me, hm?” 

You barely heard the strum of the biwa or Gyokko requesting an expeditious exit with Hantenka. 

“I think we need to have some fun, no?” Douma asked. 

“Lord Douma…I have things I need to do.” 

“Do you, now?” He dipped his head lower.  

“I believe you have things you need to do as well?” 

“Do I, now?” His lips hovered over yours. 

Then the pluck of the biwa sounded as you blinked. 

You were back at your own house in Infinity Castle. 

You heaved a sigh.

First, let’s change and wash your kimono.  

[waitmyturtles]

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: KinnPorsche, and Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist Edition (Part 2)

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I conclude a two-part series on my thoughts on KinnPorsche, my very first Thai BL, and the impact that I think KP has had on the Thai BL industry since 2022.]

Top of the morning (or whatever time zone you're in) to ya! Yesterday, I ruminated on KinnPorsche's foundation in regards to how the show wasn't as innovative as newbie members of the Thai BL fandom, like myself, may have thought in 2022 -- but was rather a great example of a show that derivatively used a lot of excellent past Thai BL influences in order to make a newly stylized show that I think, for the most part, worked well.

Harkening back to the outline for these two pieces that I laid out yesterday, this post will concentrate on:

3) How I think KP has impacted how other studios approach, market, and write Thai BLs now, and 4) A quick passing thought on BOC's own continued influence on the Thai BL genre and industry since 2022, particularly by way of Dead Friend Forever.

Before I get fully into point 3, I wanted to take a second to offer one more thought on an element about the KinnPorsche series itself that I didn't unwind on much yesterday, and one that'll connect with point 3 in a second. I mentioned yesterday that I personally (in my own opinion, I am accountable here) don't think that some of the VegasPete elements of the show helped the show's flow and continuity at all times. After my rewatch, I think the show could have stood for more episode editing to better its flow. I very much know how beloved VegasPete are in much of the KP fandom (thanks so much to dear friend @wen-kexing-apologist for the conversations about this during my rewatch!), so I don't want to pooh-pooh very hard, because at the same time, I think Bible as an actor was valuable to the show regarding Vegas's interactions with Porsche -- that side storyline offered intrigue and depth particularly into Porsche's mindset at the end of the series. At the same time, I think the VegasPete scenes contained enough questionable takes on trauma and attraction that I think now contribute to the show's legend and status as a uniquely heaty drama, but (in my opinion, people, I own this!), I think some of those takes could have been removed, smoothed, or tamped down for editing's sake, vis à vis those questionable takes in particular.

Taking VegasPete's trauma-and-kink-driven storyline, and KinnPorsche's romps and unravellings, into consideration, along with the show's excellent use of comedy as a plot driver: I think that KinnPorsche has clearly had an impact on how subsequent "heat" BL dramas have been created and marketed since KP's run. I'm thinking in particularly of some big ones (heh heh), including 2023's Only Friends, and 2023-24's Playboyy (which I did not finish, FYI).

Heat -- and the increasing use and management of it -- has long been an important element of the Thai BL industry. Like I said yesterday, MaxTul (my beloved) were pioneers of it in Together With Me and Manner of Death, and MAME consecrated episodic heat in 2019's TharnType, and even introduced enough of it notably in 2018's Love By Chance by way of those awesome spicy AePete scenes. And the WONDERFUL Lovely Writer offered meta commentary about the dependence that the Thai BL/Series Y industry has on heat in order to drive in fans, oftentimes to the detriment of more interesting and/or fulfilling and/or emotionally complicated plots.

KinnPorsche's lengthy marketing, from its Filmania days in 2020 and 2021, to its eventual 2022 premiere through Be On Cloud, certainly helped to drive interest and intrigue in the show, from the debut pairing of MileApo, to the clear use of heat that the show was promising before its airing. (Red Peafowl could never.)

Looking at the moment we are in right now -- early spring of 2024, with the ability to look back on the conclusions of both Only Friends and Playboyy -- I see the influence that KinnPorsche had on these shows being HUGELY marketed as cutting-edge-entrées to a high-heat and high-interest slice of Thai BL, particularly for Only Friends, which was GMMTV's own first step into really high-heat territory.

Both of the shows ended in meh territory (and both shows were written by the same writer in Den Panuwat, who may very well have a monogamy kink). Both shows ended up putting pure monogamy on a pedestal, and seemed to judge extra-monogamous sex as a "mistake" that was worth rectifying through "true," i.e., monogamous, love.

I posit, and I'm glad, that KinnPorsche did NOT go this route. Extracurricular sex wasn't even in the show's genes anyway, but -- the heat that KP marketed at the time of its premiere was solely associated with the centralized romances of the two main pairings. KinnPorsche didn't have to get extra-monogamously messy in its bones (huh huh) in order to be hot -- and it makes me curious to wonder why shows like Only Friends and Playboyy felt the need to promote relational messiness as a way to hype up their heat, all of which kinda putzed out in the end run of both of those shows.

Of course, we've still had heat in many other shows since KP's premiere, including in directions that roundly surprised the larger fandom, such as Pit Babe's take on omegaverse, and maybe even the vets Earth and Mix getting hot and heavy in Moonlight Chicken, a direction that Aof Noppharnach has been known to not take for the sake of keeping the ratings on his shows kid-friendly. But I do find it interesting that the heavy promotion of Only Friends and Playboyy led the fandom to think that these shows were going to have progressive takes on sex and sexuality, when they ultimately did not (I'd even argue that both of these shows ended up being judgemental of sexual experimentation). And while I don't think KinnPorsche's takes on heat were necessarily progressive, I do think the marketing of their actors getting into that, particularly as compared to Apo's previous career path in leaving acting for a while, was notable -- and as well, the care that the show took to depict heat scenes with excellent cinematography makes many of those scenes so memorable today.

I want to make one final note about KinnPorsche's and Be On Cloud's general influence on the Thai BL industry, in that I'm impressed by their investment in generally good-to-great writing and directing. As I overviewed yesterday, KinnPorsche heavily featured veterans from across the BL landscape, and Be On Cloud's latest serial offering, Dead Friend Forever, continued that trajectory, having an OG BL director in Ma-Deaw Chookiat partly take the helm of that show. Very importantly, Ma-Deaw Chookiat has been the screenwriter and director of a number of seminal Thai queer films and shows, including 2019's Dew, and more impactfully, 2007's The Love of Siam, which is considered a harbinger of the television Thai BL industry, and a film that has notably influenced important Thai BL creators, especially New Siwaj, who doesn't hesitate to include references to LoS in many of his shows, including Until We Meet Again, My Only 12%, and more. Chookiat has also screenwritten and/or directed three shows written by the notable Thai Y novelist, Sammon, in DFF, Manner of Death, and Triage. Sammon has been on a tear recently, as she will be the screenwriter for BOC's upcoming drama, 4 Minutes, as well as Spare Me Your Mercy, the hugely anticipated BL drama starring Tor Thanapob and singer Jaylerr.

Going back to my thoughts earlier about big marketing of big BLs: we've seen some duds recently from shows that were marketed at a big tip, from OF, to Playboyy, to Idol Factory's The Sign. From what I've gathered from the Tumblr tag regarding The Sign -- it seems that show suffered mostly from a lack of editorial context and plot sensibility and tightness, and that there could have been a good show, if the show had spent less money on CGI, and more money on the script.

Be On Cloud seems to mostly be putting its money where its pen is. I say "mostly" as a caveat. Was the ending of DFF fantastic? No, and I totally admit as much: while the show mostly stuck to its slasher genre conventions (thank you so much to @lurkingshan, my genre guru, for explaining this to me), the show seemed to poop out in the end by giving us a PheeJin BL ship, instead of Phee's and Jin's gruesome deaths. Womp womp. The pull of BL, and the need for clean-ish endings for the fujoshi crowd, may still be too economically enticing for studios, including Be On Cloud itself.

But I'm optimistic for BOC's upcoming shows, with the talent and money they're putting into scripts and directing. And we know that BOC's first film, the non-queer Man Suang, was an important artistic point for the studio as it continues its investment in MileApo and experimental content to market within and outside of Thailand. It was important enough that Dead Friend Forever, emanating from the Thai BL world, took on an entirely different genre instead, and literally presented that back to BL fans on a silver platter. I hope 4 Minutes can tread similar experimental territory. And I'm glad to see Be On Cloud being able to invest in high-quality writing and directing after the publicly major obstacles the studio experienced last year during the Build Jakapan scandal.

From the time I discovered Thai BLs in 2022, to now: I would not have expected KinnPorsche and Be On Cloud to start such a journey in my personal drama fan life. As well, considering how many damn shows I've now watched from Thailand, I also didn't expect this rewatch of KinnPorsche to be so much fun. AND, I truly didn't realize I had this much to say about it -- but there was a lot of say, especially by way of how referential the original KinnPorsche series was, which touched my little nerdy BL heart.

With that, I say ta-ta to my entrée to this fun world of Thai BLs, and move on to the next one!

[OKAY! We are kind of back of the grind, although my ability to watch dramas has really been hampered by real life obligations and schedules. BUT: I'm trucking along through War of Y, and I have some fun rewatches coming up in The Eclipse (my first-ever GMMTV BL), as well as two new-to-me dramas in GAP (the first GL on the list, WOO!) and My School President, which I can't wait for.

I've made a few tiddly adjustments to the list below, including adding Dead Friend Forever as an important addition, and I'm deep in my giggles with 23.5, which I am LOVING. ONWARDS! For more details about the ongoing list, please checkity-check here!

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 5) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 6) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 7) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 8) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 9) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 10) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 11) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 12) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 13) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 14) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 15) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 16) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 17) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 18) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 19) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 20) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here) 21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 24) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (review here) 25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here) 31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 32) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: preamble here, part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4) 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) (review here) 35) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here)  36) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist (part 1 here)

...interrupting the OGMMTVC list here to watch War of Y (2022) (watching) in chronology to decide if it gets listed...

37) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 38) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine “Genre BLs” and Internalized/Externalized Homophobia in GMMTV Shows  39) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) 40) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 41) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 42) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 43 La Pluie (2023) (review coming) 44) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 45) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 46) Only Friends (2023) (tag here) (not technically a BL, but it certainly became one in the end) 47) Last Twilight (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as Thailand’s first major BL to center disability, successfully or otherwise) 48) Cherry Magic Thailand (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as the first major Japanese-to-Thai drama adaptation, featuring the comeback of TayNew) 49) Ossan’s Love Returns (2024) (adding for the EarthMix cameo and the eventual Thai remake) 50) Dead Friend Forever (2024) (thoughts here) 51) 23.5 (2024)]

[rambyol]

Analysis: The Blood🩸& Lipstick 💄 💋

Let’s look at the symbolism, subtext, and suggestions behind Bruce’s blood stained shirt and John’s ‘borrowed’ lipstick from Harley.

1) 🩸 Blood on Bruce 🩸

Symbolism

John and Bruce’s much anticipated confrontation in the Bonus Brothers Carnival ends with a pivotal question, which is, does Bruce trust John? John who is covered in blood, surrounding by bodies, and acting erratically. If you pick ‘Yes’, John embraces Bruce which leaves the vigilante with a bloodied shirt.

Many people have picked up on how Telltale utilises visual storytelling to indicate the shift in the narrative here, and more so the shift in Bruce’s character. Bruce has ‘blood on his hands’ both literally and figuratively— now this symbolism alone depends on how you interpret John’s character as a whole in addition to what you think actually took place off screen between John and the Agents.

But aside from the idea that the bloodied shirt symbolises how Bruce is now complicit with John’s crimes (‘murder’) I thought about how it also plays into the ‘same stitch’ mantra which John says throughout the narrative.

Blood holds a lot of meaning; It can symbolise tight connections between people, for example when we refer to terms like 'blood pact/blood oath' as gestures of trust, loyalty, and commitment. These associations are very intimate and how they link to John's mantra is through the very forced nature in which the blood is transferred onto Bruce. John pulls Bruce in for a hug, taking him by surprise, as is evident by Bruce's stiff posture. And that's important because from the very minute we meet John, we see how he ‘pushes’ idea's onto Bruce, or subtly forces him to make tough decision. (relative to how you play Bruce, in this case, I mean when you play Bruce as a 'good' guy).

Let's look at Lucius's funeral; John tries to pressure Bruce into meeting his 'friends' by either guilting him into it, “Please, I’ve got a lot riding on this.” or incentivising Bruce to do so via the reveal that John has links to Riddler, “I’ve got this enemy. Calls himself, the Riddler”.

In a way, the blood on Bruce's shirt is also an attempt to reaffirm John's belief that they are “two threads in the same stitch”.

Theories - Was it an accident or was it intentional?

I've thought about how John may have deliberately hugged Bruce so that the blood on him would imply that he was also involved with 'killing' the agents, and you could see it that way when rewatching the scene. Especially with the above image (left) where we get that shot of John's face. That expression occurs directly after he apologises for getting blood on Bruce.

John's expression doesn't look apologetic and we know how he looks when he genuinely regrets an action, or is in a tough position.

So his face looks otherwise neutral to me. Or at least the shot seems to linger just slightly. To top it off, there's no response from Bruce because John quickly reminds Bruce that they need to catch Harley, which is interesting because every other option during the Hug scene seems to take its time, and there's no sense of urgency from John like there is in that moment.

So maybe it was intentional.

However, since it's never brought up by Waller, or has any real consequences to the plot, I just consider it a fun theory. Mainly because I think it could've also been a genuine moment - John looks visibly surprised when Bruce says, "I believe you" and it seems like a knee jerk response from him especially considering how often the game makes you doubt John by making so much of his words and actions look ominous. (Although that could all still very well be true, that he isn't always to be trusted) For the sake of Bruce and John's dynamic, I like to believe it was a genuine moment of tenderness between them, especially if you choose the option where Bruce apologises for doubting John during their hug.

2) 💄 Shared lipstick 💄

When John goes down the Villain path, the events on the bridge is where his transformation occurs, hence the lipstick he gets from kissing Harley.

It even foreshadows Joker’s look. [refer to this.]

Now, one interpretation I had of this scene was that John and Harley were finally on the same page because throughout their time together there was always this uncertainty surrounding their relationship, John himself questions whether his relationship with Harley is contingent upon whether or not she succeeds to get the virus.

In another sense, this could also be seen as the moment John steps away from Harley’s influence. John is the one who initiates the kiss with Harley here, and in contrast to when they make out during episode 5 at the dinner party, Joker doesn’t have residual lipstick from Harley there, so I like to think that he was more forceful on the bridge with her to intentionally get lipstick on him.

Since he’s been second to Harley and her plans so far in the narrative, I like to view the kiss/lipstick as an act of independence - a sort of taking - from Harley, and reclaiming a sense of identity for John.

[curio-queries]

I’m loving your production breakdown posts, they are so interesting and insightful.

I think you mentioned it maybe in the first ep breakdown but it was about expenses. I just thought it was interesting in ep4 when JK mentioned at the chicken place, paying in cash, and he solely has this conversation with Tae, not Jimin. Would there be an arrangement do you think? Or was that scene cut and he’d have asked Jimin too? I’ve noticed in comparison to Bv where they were usually only allowed a certain amount of money between them, with one usually being in control, or a sum for a task, in AYS, Jimin and JK have been whipping out their cards, be it their own or a company card, in Big Dicks store, in Walmart etc.

I just found it interesting

Hi anon,

The finance bits are interesting in the most boring corporate sense if that makes any sense. 😅 Trust me on this. Let's dive in:

In my opinion, it really boils down to two concerns: taxes and sponsorships. Taxes to insure the company receives every possible benefit for every dollar they spend. Sponsorships because some brands can have fussy rules about how individuals interact with their product and especially any competitor's products while they have an active agreement.

Obviously I have no actual insight onto how the finances and budget were managed for any of these specific shows and I know absolutely nothing of the intricacies of taxes in South Korea but in the US, there are many regulations when it comes to how companies can claim expenditures for tax breaks.

Every company that has had me travel for work has gone to a lot of trouble to insure that I was aware of exactly all of the requirements on my part regarding expenditures. I'm 100% sure all of the BTS members are aware of their requirements as well so I don't particularly think there's any motive other than as a cute convo for the moment between JK and V. Imo, the only reason it made it to the final cut was JKs endearing tone in his response.

Let's go through some examples though:

Receipts: in both AYS and Bon Voyage, we see the members be very specific in getting Receipts. JM and JK talk about it as they're leaving Walmart. In BV, it's all of the shenanigans with the money pouch they acquired in Malta and continued using in New Zealand. This is usually documentation required for any operation that's going to be claimed as a business expense for tax purposes.

Personal Spending: off the top of my head I can think of several clear instances where we know that the members are using their own money for purchases we see them make on the shows. In Run BTS ep.70 in Toronto, JK pays for the member's clothing purchases himself. In BV4, JM pays for the member's clothing himself a couple of times (remember the drama of his lost wallet? 😅)

Budget as Content: BV 1 & 2 mostly only include finances as part of the game-ification of the show. The members had to earn money as an allowance for the activities and determine the best ways to spend it. (I do vaguely remember some members wanting to negotiate for more when buying souvenirs? Was that just in the extra scenes? It's been so long, I've been holding off on rewatching until I'm done with my Run series).

Thankfully, the success of BTS has basically nixed the budget games. I think the last time we saw something like this were the Run episodes of a hotel staycation? But the prices were ficticious and not necessarily about real-world spending but rather determining the secret number to not exceed. (If I'm misremembering and there are more recent examples, please share!) Imo, it would just be too tone-deaf to continue portraying the members in that context. I know we all joke about them being broke millionaires, but there's a reason why celebrity game shows always make it clear that the money involved is for charity.

Anyway, back to AYS, the interesting bit to me is wondering about the inclusion of Taehyung from a budget standpoint. How was that reconciled? None of us can possibly know the answer, but it's interesting to think about. Some costs wouldn't have changed at all with one extra participant, like the house rental, or booking the climbing gym or yacht tour. But there were a few extra concessions, getting the extra mattress likely was more a logistics headache on short notice rather than an impact to the budget. And most Korean meals are served family-style so there honestly isn't a huge difference cost-wise. Except maybe the omakase. That I can imagine was noticeably more expensive with an added individual.

But really, the most expensive item per person would likely have been travel. Did someone say Tae was already in Jeju prior to filming? If he wasn't, did the show cover his flights like they would have JK, JM, and the crew? Or is the budget on these shows big enough that it was just another drop in a bucket? Also, the intent likely was for JK to zip around on the motorbike and JM to be on the scooter. I'm curious if they weren't logistically able to get another such vehicle with the short notice or if the budget/sponsorship constraint didn't allow for a third one the day. Or it could be that the scooter exists because of the 3 member count and production thought one of them could be JKs backpack. That bike has the space for it. But perhaps the difficulty to get coverage and/or converse wasn't appealing. Or maybe there just wasn't a third radio-enabled helmet prepared?

I know the various shippers are using this in their arguments. I'd like to firmly state that I am not building a case for either side here. Go do that on your own and leave me out of it. Lol.

There are so many questions and it's interesting to theorize how the finances could have impacted the development of the show. Maybe we'll get some more insight with the remaining episodes and bonus footage but I doubt it. Finances don't usually make for engaging content.

Thanks again for the ask! It's one of the points I want to discuss when I start doing my BV and ITS posts but who knows when that will be!

[misty--nights]

And finally, episode 8. This rewatch has been fun. It really forced me to pay attention to the details and I’ve found so many interesting thing I’d missed before. I think by now it’s more than safe to say that this has become one of my absolute favorite shows, and I can’t wait for my brain to insist I should watch it yet again.

Edwin's reaction feels so fair to me. I also did a double take the first time I saw Crystal swallow the memories. Love that Charles is trying to be supportive and stuff, but I agree with Edwin on this one. Those things are so big, how is your first instinct to swallow then whole?

Charles' face when Crystal is explaining her name is kind of similar to the one he has in episode 3 and 5 when Niko is doing something amusing. It's a mixture of endeared and a little baffled that I find so charming

Can Esther understand Monty in crow form or is she just pretending to have conversations with him like how you do with pets? Honestly, I'm not sure which one would be better. Both options have a lot of potential

Someone please give Crystal a hug. Or two. The way her voice breaks when she's talking to her parents, how her eyes get dimmer and dimmer the more she realizes that they suck and didn't miss her, how she sounds when she tells the boys about it, ugh. It breaks my heart

Back to another intro detail, but doesn't the surface of the mirror the skelletons go through kind of look like the mirror Charles sees himself in in episode 7. Like the frame is different, but the surface with the grid lines reminds me of the one in hell

I love the rooftop scene so much. Edwin and Niko have such a precious friendship and I wish we had even more of them interacting. Now I know I've seen people mention how Edwin is so comfortable with Niko's touch and how ge lets her cuddle up to him in that scene. But also, up until this point we haven't seen him truly iniciate touch with others (besides Charles) but he bumps Niko's shoulder when he's joking about Monty and offers her his hand to take. I just think that's neat

Crystal looks tiny next to Niko when they're talking to Jenny

"The whole thing was such a mystery" and "no rest for the wicked". The tone the officer uses for these lines? Chilling. I'm telling you, there's something weird about the people in town at times and the Port Townsend police are walking a line btween purposefully useless and downright sinister

There's something to be said about Crystal offering to wipe Jenny's memories, if she wants. We've followed her the whole season trying to get her own memories back, so it's huge that she's willing to take someone else's if that could help. Because she cares about Jenny, in that same, quiet way that Jenny cares about her and Niko. Also the way she emphasizes that she can take the memories only if Jenny wants that is actually so important to me

For some reason I always assume the girls are going to hold hands in that scene where they're looking for the Cat King and Crystal gives Niko her cleaver back. Even though this is the third time I watch it, I always expect it, and I'm always a little disappointed when all Crystal does is change what hand is holding her own cleaver

Not to question old dark magic or anything, but I am so curious as to how Esther's snake works. Did she already have the snake? Did she find it and make a pact with it? How does it transform little girls into youth for Esther? Also, the Cat King calls it Esther's snake, but then later on Esther says "I never thought I'd be eating kids to stay young and beautiful" so I don't know. Many questions about this

Tragic Mick makes a point of saying the bear figure is a gift and is on him, but the girls very much leave the store without paying for the salt so... Two gifts?

Niko keeps insisting she's not brave, but she was ready to charge into Esther's house after hearing Edwin's scream

Litty and Kingham's coats in the igloo have a dandelion decoration on the chest

[9w1ft]

it’s been said in many ways many times before but i was rewatching the klossy video about her 2017 capsule collection for express and it follows her through the design process making the collection, beginning in early 2016 and going into 2017 and once again i was just struck by how it was designed in and around the timing of when reputation promo would have been conceived as well.

and how elements of this collection went on to appear in lover era, in folklore era.. it’s just so.

and for all this time i’ve often thought, why this photoshoot? why this collection for… express? seems sorta random to reference again and again? idk? but watching the behind the scenes video i realized that this is a project karlie worked on before and after the 2016 election and then all it made sense… that this was an important moment. this was a period of time where everything changed for them and they made some of the foundational decisions that brought us where we are today… and im realizing this while watching and im getting very teary eyed when all of a sudden—