#Mickey Zhao

[kdram-chjh]

Cdrama: Love Like the Galaxy (2022)

Gifs if Intro of cdrama "Love Like the Galaxy”

【Multi-sub】 Love Like The Galaxy EP01 | Leo Wu, Zhao Lusi | 星汉灿烂 | Fresh Drama

Watch this video on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDvUn2Vm-EE

[wu-kongs]

Are the generals tight knit? Or do they just put up with each other?

mickey makes the four generals into full characters

the four of them are very tight.

well... originally, there were five of them.

ma and liu were not always marshals. beng and ba were not always generals. ma and liu were generals. beng and ba were lieutenants.

zhao was the single marshal appointed by wukong, and as such, he was the leader. he was charismatic and reliable, extremely likeable and talented. ideal, right? the others felt quite inferior to him, it was a very sad sight to behold. next to zhao, why were any of them even chosen?

so, satisfied that his people were in good hands, the monkey king decided it was time to travel to lands beyond their own without the restraints of mortality. he was sure his officers would do well without him. and they did, for a while.

but wukong was gone a good while and the officers each developed a certain way to act in his absence, and with zhao as the leader, it... sort of went to his head. wukong would be back, sure, maybe, but in the meantime, if zhao was in charge, then who was allowed to say no to him?

there'd been moments where ma and liu were both like 'hold on, maybe reconsider...' and in the beginning, zhao heeded them, but as the going got longer and more people looked to zhao for a guiding hand, well... he began to disregard them and their advice altogether. and the officers could see what was happening, but initially weren't sure what to do about it. in fact, they thought there wasn't anything they could do about it—but when members of the troop began disappearing, ones who spoke out against zhao's increasingly bizarre, harmful behavior, they knew they couldn't stand by anymore.

beng thought maybe the best first course of action was approaching zhao rationally and bringing up the concerns of the other officers and the troop—and zhao seemed receptive at first until he asked, is that all? which... startled beng to say the least. then, zhao said, if you can dominate me in combat, little lieutenant, then i shall consider your words. and poor beng, so naive that this would work, accepted.

beng was strong, but zhao was cunning. he beat beng within an inch of his life. that was the turning point. zhao had become entirely tyrannical, fancying himself regent and rapidly devolving into megalomania.

ma was to the point where he was going to challenge zhao himself in mortal combat, but liu had a better (and safer) idea—they would celebrate zhao. ba and ma thought liu was out of their mind at first and called them a traitor, which upset liu greatly, but with the situation, they forced themself to take it with grace. instead, they explained their plan: let zhao think they've accepted him as their regent—their true king didn't seem to be returning anytime soon, and his righthand wasn't around to witness what they would have to resort to.

with zhao in that false sense of security, a private banquet in his honor was proposed, one that would "proceed a much larger, public banquet." the officers had been careful and strict on themselves to not show any signs of rebellion, otherwise zhao would catch on regardless of how sunk he was into his madness.

so they held the banquet, and you guessed correctly: it was a trap. zhao was served the most refined alcohol (ba calling in a favor from an obscure old friend from who-knows-where) by liu (who insisted, entirely aware of their physical appearance) while ma put on an entertaining and awe-inspiring display of fire performance. zhao was so distracted and drunk that he didn't notice ma's "mistake" in flicking fire into zhao's cup, and, well—the alcohol on his tongue, down his throat, in his belly—and they say that salamander's wool is fireproof, so when beng lets zhao know he has some...

the wool becomes white. it covers zhao... or what's left of him.

it's a traumatizing event, and one that stays with the generals for all their days, but it did bring them closer together, give them others who understood what they had to do.

before wukong would return, they spread rumors that zhao simply wanted to cultivate himself in penance and would return someday... instead of being scattered into the oceans beyond their home.

and anytime after that they had to resort to such drastic (maybe not as), they'd keep it among themselves.

the fact that wukong's righthand, liu'er, knew everything, heard everything, did not matter—because his interest in keeping wukong where he was had been just as strong as the generals'. on this, they could always agree on.

so yes, you could say the generals are tight knit, the four of them.

[dontmindmyopinion2]

8 Cute Height Difference

8 Cute Couples & Ships

(my personal favorites)

8 | Percival & Gwaine

[NON CANON SHIP] Merlin

Ship Name : Pergwaine

7 | Alex Mercer & Willie

[CANON COUPLE] in my opinion

Julie and the Phantoms

Ship Name : Willex

6 | Jack & Zhao Li An

[CANON COUPLE] History 3 Trapped

Ship Name : Unknown

5 | Ian Gallagher & Mickey Gallagher (Milkovich)

[CANON COUPLE] Shameless

Ship Name : Gallavich

4 | Isaac Lahey & Scott McCall

[NON CANON SHIP] Teen Wolf

Ship Name : Scisaac

3 | Raymond Palmer & Leonard Snart

[NON CANON SHIP] DC Legends of Tomorrow

Ship Name : Coldatom

2 | Sam Winchester & Gabriel

[NON CANON SHIP] Supernatural

Ship Name : Sabriel

1 | Eliott Demaury & Lucas Lallemant

[CANON COUPLE] Skam France S3

Ship Name : Elu

[cheap-pack-of-cigarettes]

30 Day Bl Drama Challenge

Day 21 - BL drama you don’t get tired of watching

Skam

2gether the series

TharnType

History3: Trapped

Until We Meet Again

I know it doesnt really count bc i dont like the show but i watch Gallavich clips a lot too🤡

[dustedmagazine]

Michael Rosenstein 2020: Seeking Sojourn

What was I doing in 2010? What was I listening to? Honestly, without doing some digging, nothing springs immediately to mind. I’m guessing that ten years from now, thinking back on 2020, that won’t be the case. In mid-March, my wife and I took off on our annual winter/early spring sojourn to Provincetown, Cape Cod. When we headed out, the state of the world was tenuous. But over the course of four days, we split our time between idyllic, cold walks on the Outer Cape beaches and tracking the pandemic slide into lockdown and mayhem. We came back home to an entirely different world which has continued to spiral and swirl. This was a year where I spent far more time walking in a woods near my house, searching out a pair of barred owls and their four fledglings than I did listening to music. Focus for listening has waxed and waned and online video streams just haven’t resonated with me. But still, music has brought me some sense of solace over the course of the last year.

AMPLIFY 2020: quarantine

Without a doubt, most of my listening over the year was spent following the AMPLIFY 2020: quarantine festival. Organized by Jon Abbey, who runs the Erstwhile record label along with musicians Vanessa Rossetto and Matthew Revert, the online festival kicked off on March 20 and ran through September 20, presenting 240 newly-recorded pieces and 80 hours of music by musicians from across the globe. Most were solo contributions, with seven “blind overdubs” where two musicians with established working relationships chose track lengths in advance and submitted their recordings which were superimposed with some light mixing by Taku Unami. While the pieces are all available as free downloads on Bandcamp, that only reveals part of the story. Over the course of six months, the Facebook group grew to 3000 members, acting as a virtual gathering place for online conversations and musings with countless posts a day. Additionally, Abbey tirelessly posted an ongoing playlist which he dubbed “atmosphere” with cuts that ran the gamut from Albert Ayler to Funkadelic to Keith Hudson to Al Green with an extra-heavy helping of DJ Screw. Just tuning in to those choices and jumping on conversations was enough to save some days.

While anyone following the Erstwhile label caught some memorable submissions by expected participants, the organizers and some guest curators had more in mind than that and sub-threads developed early on. Yan Jun recruited fantastic submissions from little-known musicians from China while also contributing two pieces of his own. In addition to delivering three strong pieces, Revert brought in an Australian contingent. Rossetto delivered a festival highlight with her piece “perhaps at some time you have acted in a play, even if it was when you were a child” while also inviting a wide network of sound explorers constructing intimate sonic investigations. Abbey himself cast a wide net, probing for both established and little known musicians who had caught his attention over the years. (I’ve known Jon for a long time and was honored to be amongst those invited, contributing a piece assembled from field recordings from my Cape Cod trip.)

A number of musicians who hadn’t put out solo recordings in years, some who hadn’t had any recent releases at all, were lured back, with highlights by Greg Kelley, David Kirby, Joe Panzner, Annette Krebs and Sean Meehan. There was also a somber thread of homages to musicians who died over the last year, starting with a dedication of the entire festival to Australian percussionist Sean Baxter as well as a stirring tribute to bassist Simon H. Fell by Rhodri Davies, a dedication to Keith Tippett by Mark Wastell, and pieces commemorating Cor Fuhler by Dale Gorfinkel, Marcus Schmickler, Jim Denley, Nick Ashwood (recorded with Fuhler shortly before his death), Clare Cooper and Reinier van Houdt (whose six monthly missives delivered throughout the duration of the festival are all well worth spending time with.)

I find myself still catching up on the overwhelming array of contributions but here are a small sampling that caught my ear, though if I were to assemble this list a week from now, the choices would certainly be different.

Zhao Cong – “Homework”

homework by Zhao Cong

Yan Jun’s choice of musicians from China was uniformly superb and all are worth checking out. But Beijing-based Zhao Cong’s entry, in particular, has continued to hang with me. Her piece, constructed from two bass guitars and objects with its scrabbled detail of electronic hum, grit and glitch shot through with ringing bass strings popped out on first listen and continues to deliver.

Rie Nakajima – “carpet”

carpet by Rie Nakajima

Nakajima’s approach to sound-making, utilizing motors, mechanical devices and found objects proved the perfect tonic for pandemic listening. Her piece for AMPLIFY was recorded in her home in London “with all familiar objects I have been using at home.” The percussive piece is shot through with timbral depth, clattering along with a barely-contained momentum. Her release Karu Karu for Café Oto’s digital Takuroku lockdown series is also well worth checking out. And while I tended not to connect with online video over the course of the year, I found myself returning to Nakajima’s seven days bird songs which unfolded over the course of a week, multiple times.

Ivan Palacký – “Sanctuary”

Sanctuary by Ivan Palacký

Czech-based Ivan Palacký’s “Sanctuary” hit early on in the fest and remained a favorite. Palacký spent the first day of quarantine exploring his flat with an electromagnetic sensor, capturing the buzzes and tremors of everyday electronic devices. A few weeks later, he pulled out three knitting machines which he contact mic’d and used to improvise with the electromagnetic recordings. Palacký deftly interleaved percussive patter with wafts of static, grit and crackles, creaks and sputters and resonant thrums into an immersive piece.

Martin Kay – “Bath Time (2nd Edit)

Bath Time (2nd Edit) by Martin Kay

Through the festival, a thread developed of the pieces constructed as sonic response to the physical surroundings of isolation. Moniek Darge's gutting “Quarantine Child,” assembled from interior recordings and the desperate wail of a child, Mark Vernon's “The Dominion of Din,” woven together from field recordings from outside his Glasgow flat, cataloging exterior sounds that have annoyed him over the years and Kate Carr’s haunting “on every stair another stairway is set in negative” recorded using an old reel to reel tape and instrument recordings captured in her bathroom are three. Martin Kay’s four-part “Bath Time” delves in to that personal, interior realm, composed from recordings made in and around his bathroom during the routine that developed with his daughter’s nightly bath. The use of shifting focus, natural resonances of the room, the tub and underwater recordings transform the private, domestic activity into an increasingly abstracted aural study.

Distant Duos

The Distant Duos project that Mary Staubitz and Russ Waterhouse embarked on was also instigated by a sense of lost community. But here, the strategies employed were markedly different. The two are immersed in the DIY noise/improv New England community, spearheading shows in basements, bars, galleries and ad hoc venues and collaborating with musicians from New Haven to Portland, Maine, with all stops in between. They’ve also been instrumental in developing a network of like-minded musicians and bringing travelers through, some who have become frequent visitors. Unlike the duos in AMPLIFY, Staubitz and Waterhouse curated the 78 sessions, inviting pairs of musicians with a simple strategy. “Two remote artists record five minutes of sound while thinking about the other artist, unable to hear each other. The two tracks are combined into one.”

Released in sets of five on Bandcamp, the first on April 30 and the last on December 9, these bursts served as vital postcards. For those of us based in New England, these were both bittersweet reminders of the pre-COVID world we frequented and exultant celebrations. As someone who organized shows with the two and often played on the same bills, these really connected. (I was asked to participate, paired with Worcester-based Abdul Sherzai.) Some of the duos were longstanding partnerships (Greg Kelley and Vic Rawlings have been working together for over a decade). Some were pairings of musicians who knew each other but had likely never played together. Some participants were drawn from the deep field of regional musicians while others were recruited from across the US and Europe. With only five minutes at play, these served as sketches, vignettes or rough drafts. But keen curation and Waterhouse’s astute mixing and mastering made these hold together. Like AMPLIFY, these periodic missives kept me going through the last year.

Flip through any of the contributions and you’ll find plenty to encourage further listening. This batch, culled from the October 28th releases, provides a glimpse into the broad crew of musicians pulled in and the diverse strategies they came up with.

Adam Kohl and Mickey O’Hara

Adam Kohl and Mickey O'Hara by Distant Duos

Western Massachusetts-based Kohl (better known musically as Arkm Foam) and Worcester-based O’Hara have been performing together for a while now, and experiencing their mix of low-fi cassette manipulation and laptop generated deconstructed clatter and glitch inhabit a performance space is enthralling. This brief snapshot serves as a succinct snapshot of one of their sets.

J​.​P​.​A. Falzone and Hali Palombo

J.P.A. Falzone and Hali Palombo by Distant Duos

This mashup between J​.​P​.​A. Falzone (part of the ensemble Ordinary Affects) and composer and visual artist Hali Palombo comes across as quavering pulsations dialed in from some ethereal transmission. Listening feels like one is tuning in to an hours-long broadcast of hovering tones and fluttering waves which fuse together into shuddering oscillations.

Henry Birdsey and Mary Staubitz

Henry Birdsey and Mary Staubitz by Distant Duos

Birdsey has been developing his micro-tonal musings as part of the duo Tongue Depressor as well as his solo releases under his own name and as S.T.L.A. while Staubitz jumps from the solo sonic onslaughts of Donna Parker to a wide-ranging array of ongoing and one-off collaborations. Here field recordings of rippling water and electric pops and crackles mix with shuddering overtones of bowed metal for an engulfing sonic snapshot.

Lexie Mountain and Angela Sawyer

Lexie Mountain and Angela Sawyer by Distant Duos

Baltimore’s Lexie Mountain and Boston’s Angela Sawyer have known each other for years, so it’s no surprise that their distant connection of broken electronics and found objects clicks so well. Here, everyday detritus is elevated to a compact improvisation imbued with skittering percussive tumult, whirrs and clatter.

New Releases

When I did carve out time to listen, here’s a few that stuck with me through the year.

Toshiya Tsunoda & Taku Unami – Wovenland 2 (Erstwhile)

Wovenland 2 by Toshiya Tsunoda/Taku Unami

Working from basic field recordings, Tsunoda and Unami use the studio as an alchemical laboratory, delving into mixing and mastering tools to explore, process and transform environmental sound. In their hands, the digital artifacts of that process are as intrinsic to the results as the source material they have deconstructed. They sum it up succinctly. “Our goal is to focus on acoustic experiments. No more and no less.”

Here are some more that stuck with me in no particular order:

Rhodri Davies – Telyn Rawn (Amgen Records)

Judith Wegmann – Le Souffle Du Temps II - Reflexion (ezz-thetics)

Clara de Asís & Mara Winter – Repetition of the same dream (Another Timbre)

Takuji Naka/Tim Olive – Minouragatake (Notice Recordings)

Magnus Granberg – Come Down to Earth Where Sorrow Dwelleth –Revised version for sho, koto, prepared piano and electronics (Ftarri)

Tasting Menu – Mueller Tunnel (Full Spectrum Records)

Simon H. Fell & Mark Wastell – Virtual Company (Confront)

Xavier Charles & Bertrand Gauguet – Spectre (akousis)

Pierre-Antoine Badaroux, Seymour Wright, Jean-Luc Guionnet – Solos (Remote Resonator)

Archival Releases and Reissues

Reissues continued to pour out from record labels. Some applied studio wizardry to revive and restore previously issued material and others dug out material from the vaults that rightfully deserves to be heard. But with touring opportunities gone, the ability to collaborate in person evaporated and the monthly boon of Bandcamp Fridays, many artists also took the opportunity to dig in to their personal vaults.

Gentle Fire – Explorations (1970-1973) (Paradigm Discs)

Explorations (1970 - 1973) by Gentle Fire

This one just hit in December but quickly shot to the top of my listening pile. Working in London in the early 70s, this little-known quintet of electro-acoustic pioneers worked at the edges of composition and improvisation, putting out a single, now impossible-to-find, LP performing graphic scores of by John Cage, Earle Brown and Christian Wolff (which, in itself deserves a reissue.) If they hit listeners’ radar at all, it was due to the fact that Hugh Davies was part of the group. This 3-CD box of previously unissued material is comprised of one disc of works by Wolff, Stockhausen, Brown, Cage and Ichiyanagi, another of their own compositions and a final disc capturing an extended improvisation. Five decades later, this stuff is still essential listening.

Rhodri Davies – Archif Series (self-released)

Archif #13: BMIC 17/09/1997 by IST

Currently at number 28 and counting, Davies dug in to his archives and unearthed a passel of gems, documenting live performances and studio experiments from 1995 through 2000. From solos to various group sessions, this is all music well worth spending time with. Particularly welcome are two releases by IST (Davies, Mark Wastell, and Simon H. Fell) and one by Assumed Possibilities (Davies, Wastell, Chris Burn and Phil Durrant). One hopes there is more to be unearthed.

Cor Fuhler Conundrom label

SLEE by Cor Fuhler

The sudden passing of Cor Fuhler was a tough one in a tough year. Whether as a pianist, instrument inventor or ensemble leader, Fuhler was always bristling with ideas. As part of a group effort, the discography of his Conundrom label is now available on Bandcamp with proceeds going to his estate.

Here are some others of note in no particular order:

Albert Ayler reissue series (ezz-thetics)

Phillip Wachsmann – Writing In Water (Corbett vs. Dempsey)

Charles Mingus – @ Bremen 1964 & 1975 (Sunnyside)

Voice Crack – Glasgow 20/11/1999 (scatter)

John Butcher – On Being Observed (Weight of Wax)

Derek Bailey and Mototeru Takagi – Live at FarOut, Atsugi 1987 (NoBusiness Records)

Cecil Taylor and Tony Oxley – Birdland, Neuburg 2011 (Fundacja Słuchaj)

[moviemosaics]

My picks for the top 15 film performances of 2019. How many have you seen?

1) Jessie Buckley as Rose-Lynn Harlan in Wild Rose 2) Lorraine Toussaint as Bo in Fast Color 3) Liu Congxi as Wang Jin in An Elephant Sitting Still 4) Nguyễn Phương Trà My as Mây in The Third Wife 5) Camila Morrone as Mickey Peck in Mickey and the Bear 6) Eddie Murphy as Rudy Ray Moore in Dolemite Is My Name 7) Aisling Franciosi as Clare Carroll in The Nightingale 8) James Badge Dale as Hank Peck in Mickey and the Bear 9) Carloto Cotta as Diamantino Matamourous in Diamantino 10) Emily Beecham as Alice Woodard in Little Joe 11) Eden Duncan-Smith as Claudette ‘CJ’ Walker in See You Yesterday 12) Peter Yu as Lok in A Land Imagined 13) Baykali Ganambarr as Billy Mangana in The Nightingale 14) Zhao Shuzhen as Nai Nai in The Farewell 15) Joy Anwulika Alphonsus as Joy Ogbeide in Joy

[cfensi]

Wuxia series Tingxue Tower releases opening and ending MV's

Wuxia series Tingxue Tower releases opening and ending MV’s

Super stylized and slick-looking, Tingxue Tower at least wins the award for the best-looking wuxia series of the year.

Wuxia series Tingxue Tower 听雪楼 just released its opening and ending themes by Mickey He. Starring  Qin Junjie (Summer’s Desire) and Yuan Bingyan (Ever Night) , the series is a torteous tale of a young woman’s attempt to avenge her parents in a battle that blurs together good and…

[irris30]

Yu Minghui and Zhao Lanzhi marry.

Tianshu crashes the wedding but doesn’t cause trouble.

[badmovieihave]

Bad movie I have Detective Dee:and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame 2010

[zydrwte]

[kdram-chjh]

Cdrama: Love Like the Galaxy (2022)

【星汉灿烂 Love Like The Galaxy】 Trailer 全阵容官宣！与君初见，敬请期待

Watch this video on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdNc_uXhtG0

[asynjja]

                    𝐔𝐍𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐔𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐘,  𝐘𝐎𝐔  𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐍𝐎𝐓  𝐇𝐈𝐃𝐄  𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑  𝐁𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐇𝐃𝐀𝐘  𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌  𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑  𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐍𝐄𝐑.  now,  mulder  has  to  sit  there  and  open  up  his  two  small  presents,  only  to  watch  zhao’s  victorious  smirk  grow  bigger  as  he  unpacks  the  first  one.  but  that  it’s  not  because  of  the  bottle  opener  ( as  funny  as  it  may  be ),  he  notices  only  when  he  holds  a  piece  of  baseball  history  in  his  hands.  1961  world  series,  new  york  yankees  against  cincinnatti  reds.  signed  by  mickey  mantle.  but  she’s  refusing  to  say  where  she’s  got  it  from.  that’d  spoil  the  mystery.     //     @indagatcre

[littlepondhq]

HELLO, ALL !!! well, that was the toughest three hours of my entire life. so many of you guys sent in so many wonderful apps, made me fall in love with so many of your characters... making these choices kinda broke my heart, so ! if you would like any feedback on your application if you weren’t accepted, i’ll be more than happy to give it. thank you all again for your applications, they meant the world to me. 

for those of you who were accepted, please send your account in within the next 24 hours! can’t wait to start plotting with you guys. 

now, without further ado, i give you all, the big fish! 

the back field : OLIVER BRANSON, played by jay 

listen, the way i adore oliver so fucking much. i fell in love as soon as i finished the rings section. and the fact that he doesn’t even really consider elmridge a home, while everyone else around him seems to consider it so? heartbreaking. 10/10 country boy. 

under the bleachers : QUINCY “Q” DEAN, played by ariel 

there’s so much about q that i adore; that enforced isolation, that unwillingness to be vulnerable or let people in. just the fact that she’d hide under the bleachers to read instead of, like, smoking cigarettes (though she probably smoked cigarettes while she read, idk) but somehow that image really rings true to me. also her dad? garbage man. big fish beat up trent dean challenge.

the cafeteria : XIULAN “VERA” ZHAO, played by bee 

when i tell you i gasped at least twice while reading your app, that’s no exaggeration. you completely overturned my expectations with the rumor(s) you chose, and the way vera dealt with them is equal parts heartbreaking and terrifying. she’s a girl only taught how to see herself as a god, and the fact that you found the human part behind that... incredible. 

the greenhouse : DELILAH “LILAH” RICCI, played by mickey 

as soon as your app started, i was swept up on a journey. the way you incorporated the greenhouse into lilah’s identity, the way lilah was able to learn love and compassion and then had it ripped away from her. yours was one of the few apps to make me choke up, and it was well worth it. also, the home drama as soon as she comes back from school??? i was floored. lilah has everything i wanted and more. 

the library : MANDY LABELLE, played by amanda 

you had me at corrupt prosecutor father. everything about mandy’s life up until now, her family’s fall, her escapism from her father’s life of crime. i love how utterly confused her guilt is, the tangled web that she exists within, and it’s extremely clear immediately why she wants to escape, why she wants to leave. there is a palpable dread to her character hidden behind the facade of adventure and whimsy and it just made me fall in love. 

the rooftop : ADELAIDE COLETTE THERIOT, played by ashe 

first of all, leti’s app? perfectly encapsulates the claustrophobia of living in a small town, and you can understand why they would escape to the back of their head, why all her rebellions would start quietly. and her tension with her parents just hits so different like... i really had no choice but to choose them as soon as i finished. 

the science lab : LUCAS GARRIDO, played by sarah 

throughout the entire application, there was a palpable sense of determination, of constant motion, of tensed muscles and stress. your line about how objects in motion stay in motion, and objects at rest stay at rest, encapsulates lucas so, so well and i fucking adore him. he’s like a car speeding past you that you just know is about to lose control and crash. that is some top-tier vibes. 

the second floor bathroom : GRIFFIN ALLARD, played by courtney 

i love everything about griffin. i love the dirt road his family grew up on, i love the palpable loneliness that follows him everywhere, i love how there’s such a sense of emptiness to him, so much hollow pain, it’s just... this app fucked me up okay. especially the bits with his mom. stab me in the heart why don’t you. 

the theater : SABRINA DAWSON, played by molly

listen, molly, it’s nothing personal, but choosing between your apps sent me into a tailspin. though i really think i made the right decision with sabrina. everything from how she was raised to how she saw herself as the director of her own life, every moment like a scene, playing a part until there is no differentiating between the role and the actor. the fact she’s just lying about her whole college life to the big fish. it really is the little things. 

[lazulisong]

am i ever going to be free of this

They only have one fight about it, but it's a bad one: Zhao Yunlan actually goes to his mom's house and sleeps three miserable nights in his childhood bed. It's much too narrow, not to mention empty of anybody's cool body close to his to cuddle up to. He wakes up three or four times a night, and Shen Wei's never there, already awake or never asleep, watching him with fathomless black eyes, like he's starving for the sight of him.

It's too much. Zhao Yunlan wakes up and decides that today he'll go home and apologize. He'll say, Sorry, baby, I was a dick about it, I --

He opens his eyes, full of good intentions, but the first thing he sees is Shen Wei, in the actual flesh, sitting on the end of his childhood bed and staring at him with exhausted, ravenous eyes.

Zhao Yunlan yells and flails off the bed, and Shen Wei's effort to catch him only ends with him tilting over as well, falling on top of Zhao Yunlan in slow motion, like a cartoon.

Shen Wei is very heavy. He looks like a nerd but he's packed with solid fighter's muscle. He catches himself before he crushes Zhao Yunlan entirely, but he's still braced over him, eyes wide. "Are you --"

The door crashes open. "ARE YOU--" begins Zhao Yunlan's mom, and stops.

Just to make things more awkward, Zhao Yunlan's dad comes too. He looks at the scene, and then at his wife, and then says, with surprising calm, "I didn't know you gave him a key."

Zhao Yunlan hadn't known that either, actually, but there's no way to suggest Shen Wei had just ripped a hole in the fabric of reality like fucking Mickey Mouse and appeared without making things worse, so he just says, "Uhhhh--"

Zhao Yunlan's mom goes, affectionately scolding, like she never fucking does with Zhao Yunlan. (Because Shen Wei is her favorite, fuck him.) "Xiao Wei, even if I gave you the key, what are you doing just sneaking in? I would have made your favorite breakfast!"

"MA," howls Zhao Yunlan, in outrage. The past two days he'd been lucky to get a sniff from his mother and a bowl of specially-bought off-brand cold cereal slammed in front of him. Then he takes a deep breath in and says, "Ma, I'll talk to him about it, so can you two--"

"Oh, all right," says his mother huffily. "Properly make up, you two."

[sagechan]

A:TLA & Forgiveness

I think what gets me about Avatar: The Last Airbender (because, yes, I still think about it daily and engage in critical debates with my own inner thoughts) is that while, in a sense, it’s a love story, the typical “romantic” love story takes a backseat to a much more important type of love: forgiveness.

Take the show on a microcosm level. Since it was geared for a younger audience, each episode (especially in the earlier parts) usually involved the characters learning some type of lesson. No, not how many hot dogs they can fit in a picnic basket; you could flip over to House Of Mickey on Disney Channel for that kind of lesson. It was more like the characters learned lessons about their own human failing, and being able to own up when they did something wrong. How many times throughout the entire series has each character ended up apologizing to the others for doing something stupid, or acting a little nasty, or putting the group in danger?

A:TLA is a show about being able to forgive, especially since none of these kids really have much of a family to return to. Aang’s entire people are lost, Sokka and Katara’s father is at war, and Toph’s parents neglect her. Each face a form of familial loss, and they come together, form bonds together, become their own family. And in a family, you need to be able to forgive when someone screws up. One of the most important aspects of forgiveness isn’t just the person doing the forgiving, but the person who is forgiven. How do they change? How do they become better?

How do they redeem themselves?

Sound familiar? A:TLA is famous for having one of the most well-written redemption arcs on television. Forgiveness works two ways: one person accepts that another messed up, and the one who messed up strives to do better. When you strive to change for the betterment of yourself, to become good, you are earning people’s forgiveness. And who is it that goes through this intense arc of self-doubt, insight, turmoil, and eventual redemption?

I think one of the most common misconceptions about this show is Zuko’s redemption arc. It’s not just about Zuko redeeming himself. Someone can prove their worth again and again, but unless the person they want to prove themselves to is open and willing to see how they’ve changed, they’ll never earn that long-sought forgiveness. Remember in the scene of this exact gif? How many times the group berates and rejects him? He tries to prove himself, but they’re not ready to accept him. They’re still hurt by what he’s done. They still don’t think they can trust him. They aren’t ready to forgive.

Zuko and Aang always reflect each other throughout the show. It’s most obvious in “The Storm” and “The Avatar and The Firelord” episodes, but it’s a prevalent theme across the board.

Some reflections about their ability to forgive:

1. Zuko finds it hard to forgive. He never forgives his father, even encouraging the Avatar to kill him. He can’t forgive himself after he betrays Iroh. And he can’t forgive Azula, deciding he needs to take her out in their final Agni Kai for the throne. Forgiveness comes hard to Zuko, probably because of his twisted and abusive family members.

Aang may not find forgiveness “easy” (see: the debacle with the sandbenders after he finds out they muzzled and stole Appa), but when he’s thinking clearly and has his morals at heart, he is more ready to forgive. He forgives Katara for stealing Appa. He refuses to kill Ozai, acknowledging that he may be a horrible person, but “He’s still a human being.” He forgives and he forgives and forgives, because (as we established) forgiveness is a form of love. And Aang is a character so full of love.

You know who else Aang was ready to forgive? Who he reached out to, before anyone else?

This scene is one of the most undervalued parts of the entire show. Aang isn’t just spouting hypothetical optimism here. He’s recounting a story of his actual friend from the Fire Nation from before the war. He connects Zuko, the one who has been hunting him literally since he woke up from an iceberg after 100 years, to his former friend. (Also, notice the similarities of Kuzon and Zuko’s names; take from that what you will.) He forgives Zuko so many times, and so readily, it borders on ridiculous. Really, Aang? You’re gonna save the guy who’s trying to capture you by bringing him out of the snowstorm? Okayyy.

Now, some people will say Katara was the first to trust Zuko because of the cave scene, but let’s put that in perspective. By this time, Zuko was already wavering on the knife edge of good and evil. He had undergone his “metamorphosis,” but clearly it wasn’t enough, and he ends up betraying Katara, Aang, and Iroh at Azula’s pressuring. While Katara and the others may not have known what Zuko was going through, in the city of Ba Sing Se it was clear that Zuko was no longer the dogged pursuer. He’s running a tea shop with his uncle, and this is where Katara first sees him. To reach out to him then and trust him is not that inconceivable.

Also, in the third season, Katara is the bitterest towards Zuko, becoming the last to accept him into the group. It’s not an accident that the last “canon” episode before the quartet of “Sozin’s Comet” episodes is Katara learning how to forgive not only the Southern Raiders captain, but also Zuko. With that moment, Zuko’s redemption is complete, and Katara grows as a character. She can finally forgive.

But, and let’s acknowledge this, Aang did it first. Then, in the first season, after being captured by Admiral Zhao and then rescued by a mysterious masked figure who turns out to be the same enemy who has pursued him since he learned about the war, Aang asks for friendship. In the woods, beaten and bruised and alone with the one who has sworn to capture him and bring him to the Firelord, Aang looks at him with compassion. There is no conflict within Zuko at this point in the series. There is only the drive to capture the Avatar, no matter the cost. And still, Aang is willing to reach out into that mire of self-hate and doubt and anger.

He cuts through all of that with a simple question: “Do you think we could have been friends too?”

Avatar: The Last Airbender is a show about more than one form of love. While the romantic love is important, there is another, equally awesome and powerful form of love that’s almost so obvious we forget it: forgiveness. The power to forgive is hard, but almighty. Think of the expression, “To err is human, to forgive is divine.” Of course Aang is ready to forgive Zuko. Zuko is only human, and he errs again and again. Aang is the Avatar, literally the “One” who is connected with cosmic, near-divine power. When we forgive, we accept that people are human, and they make mistakes. But our love can overcome that, our compassion and our humanity can reach into the darkness of another person’s torment.

When we forgive, the darkness always yields to purifying light.

While the romance is important, it’s really given a backseat to the main form of love in this show, forgiveness. Pay attention to how often characters say they’re sorry and acknowledge they were wrong. Pay attention to how each of the characters forgives. But especially pay attention to how Zuko and Aang interact, how they learn to forgive together. Their interactions are those of love: Aang is always ready to forgive, and Zuko is always striving to change.

[trexanddrago]

Nathan Smith and Mickey's original design when I used them as my entry for Deviantart 17th Birthday. They both aren't named yet at that time.

Nathan Smith is a lonely 12 years old boy, and his only friends are his prehistoric animal toys named after "Romance of the Three Kingdom" such as Guan Yu (Tyrannosaurus), Zhang Fei (Triceratops), Zhao Yun (Ceratosaurus), Ma Chao (Sabertooth Tiger), Huang Zhong (Archaeopteryx), Xiahou Dun (Deinonychus with an eyepatch), Xiahou Yuan (Deinonychus), Lu Bu (Liupleurodon) and Wang Yun (Megalosaurus).

One night, when his uncle, aunt and cousin fall asleep, he decided to ran away from his uncle's house.

Bringing anything he belonged, he managed to ran far away from his uncle's house.

In his way to find a new home for himself, he saw something that look like an object that only him who noticed it.

Once he touched it, the object sent him to a world…, a parallel universe where earth inhabited by anthropomorphic prehistoric animals. In that world, he meet Mickey, an anthropomorphic Sinosauropteryx.

They both quickly became friends and Mickey is following Nathan in his adventure, being his guide.

In their adventure, Nathan meet some anthropomorphic animals who share the name of people from "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".