#abl is ranting again

[absolutebl]

Hi ABL,

I've seen someone say that Gong Jun had better chemistry with his male co leads than the female leads in his het dramas and you made a mention of watching his het dramas and that they weren't good. I know you can't give a concrete answer but can you theorize why his acting is livelier in advance bravely and Word of Honor than in others.

❤️ Mimi

I have talked about this a little bit before. And someone in a comment once mentioned that Ohm (bad buddy and many other BLs) also said something to this effect :

If you are from a culture where male-to-female physical contact is extremely restricted (like China or South Korea for example), it’s sometimes easier to act intimacy with another man because you’re less freaked out about being accused of pushing things too far or taking advantage of the situation. 

In other words, in places where you are trained by every social moray and stricture into “ gentlemanly” behavior around women (but not around men) it’s easier to act intimate with a man, especially if you have a certain personality type. 

(The rest of this is about me and my baggage hon, not you the lovely human who asked a perfectly innocent question.) 

Begin an ABL Anthropological Rant, skip as needed for your blood pressure 

It’s one of the biggest issues I have around IRL shipping within the global Kpop stan communities. Because a lot of westerners are so uncomfortable and unused to (and internally homophobic around) men showing physical affection to each other, they assume 2 boys in a group who are physically demonstrative are automatically gay. When, in fact, it’s just men are more affectionate with each other in general at that age and in that culture. 

(This is different from Thai BL couple branding and skinship baiting, which is a can of worms because it’s: intentional, commercial, mercenary, and possibly contractually abusive to some pairs.) 

Back to Kpop ranting...

All those YT channels making videos about Kpop “gay” relationships are actually just displaying the “creators” own rampant internalized homophobia and complete misunderstanding of another culture. 

And do I think some of these idols are gay? Well yes, of course, statistically speaking, some of them must be. Just like some BL actors must be. Yes, even the ones in China. But that’s so entirely not the point. Frankly, the gay ones are more likely to be reserved about showing affection, BECAUSE THEY’RE SCARED OF THIER FANS. 

Let’s call a spade a spade shall we? (rather than a not-gay a gay). 

This is touch shaming men, which is frankly disgusting, given how many problems we have (in the western world particularly) with men being touched starved. Should I make the correlation between this and toxic masculinity, incel behavior, and higher rates of suicide (and violence) amongst men? Well I COULD, but I’m not gonna, because it’s an incredibly complicated issue. And I’m exhausted by the whole conversation. 

Frankly, being queer means we gotta deal with higher rates of abuse, violence, and suicide ourselves... I don’t got a lot left over to worry about the straight boys, except on an anthropological level. 

In conclusion: IRL 

don’t assume sexual identity from the physical contact or physical comfort levels you observe, especially within a different culture 

ask permission for whatever you wanna do to someone else

don’t touch shame, celebrity or otherwise

and don’t let or teach your kids to do any of this, either, no matter how young they are 

Yes, as a breeder, it IS your responsibility.

It’s not complicated. 

BAH. 

This is supposed to be a happy blog. 

Anygay... 

I talk about this a lot in this particular post on skinship and Thai BL. 

#MOOD

[spielzeugkaiser]

hi, first off i really love your art. the h/c and warmth really hit me where i live and your illustration style is fantastic. lately i've been obsessed with the post where an unwell milek thinks geralt will leave him behind. was that an ingrained insecurity, assuming his super-witcher dad wouldn't have time for a sickly human kid?

[MASTERPOST] - Ahh, thank you for the ask! Yes, this scene.. I actually saw this a bit differently! It's not about Milek fearing Geralt will leave him behind, he actually wants him to. They need to find his Pa!! I think he often feels like a burden; Jaskier knows this, but Geralt isn't aware of this yet. Milek just wants to pull his weight, especially with Jaskier. A little sneak peak to their struggles regarding this:

Meanwhile Jaskier continues to struggle with his omega status.

[gxtzeizm]

i truly hate to rant about my current situation rn but

ngl i can feel that this whole period of this semester will be the thoughest one for me in terms of my self financial stability, or honestly saying that this is literally in my lowest point ever rn since it's involving money and it's the most crucial time for me to need it :(((((((

thanks to all you guys, i was able to cover up for my last month's expenses. but right now, i'm still struggling financially to pay for my study fees for this semester and i'm trying to get enough money as possible before january next year, or else i can't able to register for my courses next semester.

i mean i'm trying to looking for some jobs inside my campus but i truly afraid that it might losing my focus on my studies. also i want to consider to find some side income online but ngl i found that almost of it is untrustworthy plus my dad also not very keen about me to do all this kind of jobs 😔😔.

i mean idk but this whole entire thing rn is being fucked off for me personally 💔

[helloimtired]

never being anyone’s best friend or the most important person in anyone’s life, ever, can really fuck you up emotionally

[ganondoodle]

sorry i keep coming back to totk rants, but something that utterly baffles me from a game design perspective especially is

who, in their right mind, would think to put similar objectives with the same characters in the EXACT same place as its previous game when already reusing the same exact map (no, single rocks springkled around isnt a meaningful change, fight me)

like from a purely logical point of view its just ... not logical?? and TWICE so when most players will have played the previous game, so now that the exploration, which was the main driving point of it, isnt as satisfying simply bc you know most locations and what is what, the thing you need to do is subvert it as in you go to that location and theres something else now or something that leads to a new reveal, but not NOTHING either, bc you likely cared about what youd find- the satori mountain was such a cool mysterious place, so now you head to it to see what is now and its nothing but maybe an obvious treasure chest? thats both lazy (i realy use that since its way overused by people missusing it) and just ... it might be meant as a lil nod so that there isnt nothing at all but to me it feels even more condescending as if there were literally nothing instead

satori isnt here anymore? thats weird if its always been there, so you go find a cause, maybe theres a fissure somewhere you can enter a large cave system, an hidden entrance to the underground that reveals there is something corrupting the place somwhere nearby but not exactly in the same spot- make it into a bossfight at which end satori gets cleansed- maybe it got captured and taken somewhere else, to a place that was kinda neat but didint serve a big fucntion in botw like maybe it was dragged somwhere into the big tabantha canyon, or to the forgotten temple

you try to visit rito village but the snow and cold there got so bad that you cant even reach it without special gear, and when you do reach it its utterly frozen in thick ice and not a single soul is there, the perch of vah medoh is knocked over building a bridge as a subtle hint as to in what direction perhaps, its intriguing bc clearly they have to be SOMEWHERE, maybe they tried to use vah medoh to evacuate but bc its losing power and doesnt have a skilled pilot they crash land it into the mountains, now trapped there and due to the storm not able to send anyone out to get help, maybe some did but they didnt make it and you can find them on your way and rescue them, and bc of the storm being so bad no one can get out and no one can get in (except for our special boi linky ofc) and even after the storm has weakened they dont immediately go back and act like everythings normal, maybe theres an extra mission afterwards helping them rebuild the village but not exactly the same as it was but fortified, different to account for things like this happening again, establishing the crashsite of vah medoh as a second outpost, or a temple, to thank it for bringing them out of immedaite danger but couldnt go all the way

theres so many places that are so clearly modeled around botw that are entirely unused now bc they had to remove all things shiekah for no reason, the holes they left jsut being holes where somethings clearly missing or some chest with a gem in it while the new shrine thing is within view distance a few meters away, might as well have put them in the exact same place bc it really doesnt make a difference

(like alot of those ideas im using for the rewrite which changes many things but you get the point right??)

and its even worse imo with the building stuff, bc now you dont even have to journey there you can fly glide and literally drive there instantly like a giant skip button so you cant even appreaciate the way to it, you skip to one important part to the next

and then points of interest are REPEATED AGAIN, like with shrines and lightroots and settlements and big mines- that is the opposite of satisfying gameplay, you dont have to explore shit bc its all in the same place which is probably why they only did tiny changes to those few spots and nothing else bc they knew most people would run right to those so it gives the illusion of changes (which are half reversable or barely a change at all) and even those are STILL meaningless

its right up there with having even MORE grind with less substance to it than in botw, the shrines and krogs got a lil old but at least the environment, its subtle storytelling etc were something- and totk just bloated everything with more little meaningless collectables while not changing anything meaningfully (and instead pretends that some things where never there and those new boring things were always there)

more shriens with shorter puzzles or none at all, more krogs with the same reward system, over a hundred tiny caves that all blend together bc they are all so similar and you really only do them for yet another colelctable for old gear and ONE cool new one with a bad effect after which the things collected become uselessreally, souls to collect to buy you a single armor set, rewards being largley reused old stuff from botw (imo you should have a chest in your house, yes YOUR house, that got most of the standard versions of botws armor in it so you dont have to buy it all again??? but you gotta think of going home first and dont have to use it- make new versions of them alternatively so you can choose if you want the old one or new one and also LEAVE ONE AT YOUR HOUSE WITHOUT HAVING TO SELL IT SO YOUT INVENTORY ISNT AS ENDLESSLY SCROLLING AS YOUR STUPID ARROW BAR)

theres new effects from food and armor thats largely useless (like the attack when hot?? why wouldnt you you jsut combine an armor and a potion- put on hot armor and drink an attack potion? its way more efficient no?? idk i found it to be yet another effect thing to bloat my inventory especially when NPCs keep giving you shitty effect food)

the whole sonanium (zonaite?) collecting with multiple ways to convert it into yet another currency??? huh???? AND have it be the thing for you to autobuild with?? when you need it upgrade your battery which takes an insane amount of those stones?? wells, while finally an actual well are NOW ALSO LIKE A COLLECTABLE and im gonna take a wild guess that the reward is utterly disappointing too

the fairies are all blocked by much more annoying means than in botw (like i wouldnt want to carry those NPCs three meters away in their little cart antoehr time please) and the amount of material AND MONEY NOW you need is so much higher for no reason (if its their attempt to make the game harder its the lamest way to do it)-

all while instead of expanding on the foundation of botw they ripped it out to build a new one while pretending they are both there (im so so slaty about this .... a sequel like this should expand upon the stuff of the first game, both in theme, narrative, mechanics and more and not ... replace it with slightly different versions of it while abandoning everything established before and really only using it as a way to skip having to make you care about some characters bc you might still care about them from the other game)

i could go on, as always lol, anyway, i really really dont get why this got into the final game ..

[blackkatmagic]

I know that you can technically cobble together explanations as to why in-universe, but I will never not be extremely annoyed that Filoni's Super Special OC beat Darth Maul in a one-on-one fight when she hadn't even finished her padawan training, and Maul was one of the best warriors in the series. Like. It's so stupid. I hate it.

[rustic-space-fiddle]

After exploring the EPIC fandom a bit, I have decided that I really really love it when something just jogs everyone’s creative brain in a similar way? The way PJATO did, and we just all had this nearly universal idea of what the characters looked like. EPIC seems to have done a similar thing, and we all just collectively decided a some things about the characters and I love that. Before I even saw there was extended lore and was just listening to it little by little on Spotify, I imagined Odysseus with 3 main things: longer (curly) hair, a beard that progresses, and a war-scarred face. Then I come online and see that’s what other people envisioned too! I just love the brain scratch that REALLY GOOD art and literature gives people as a whole. It’s super cool to see something like music/poetry convey such a vivid image in our imaginations. I love it sm.

[ameiniateria]

consistently I'm a little annoyed about the rift between c!Tommy and c!Dream fans in this fandom. like I like your guy too! I think he's great! actually, I think our guys have a lot in common! I'd love to see your take on this really messy, complicated relationship!

oh wait you think c!Dream is a pure evil, completely heartless villain that exists to do nothing but torment c!Tommy, who is of course a sweet innocent uwu baby who did absolutely nothing wrong, and therefore deserves to be murdered twice, imprisoned, isolated, starved, and tortured with no control over his own autonomy (but prison was actually way better than exile, which was the worst thing that ever happened to anyone on the dsmp. obviously. because c!Tommy tried to kill himself. yeah. don't think about c!Dream walking into a wall of lava and burning himself to death multiple times because he was so incredibly desperate for human connection. that was to escape, right? c!Dream couldn't possibly feel real emotions -- that would mean he's a person that -- oh no -- deserves compassion despite the terrible things he did. oh no -- that would make him -- gasp -- a lot like c!Tommy!) and actually he deserved more than that. he was never actually punished. c!Dream always won (citation needed).

also, c!Tommy was a child. do I have to say that again. well, I will anyway. c!Tommy was a child. c!Tommy was a child. c!Tommy was a child.

great.

[m0thwinged]

[qcomicsy]

I don't think we talk about Robin War as much as we should, this is insane this kid is insane. HE WAS THE LEADER OF A MOVEMENT.

A BIG EARTH SHAKEN MOVEMENT.

Yeah I get it, The Robin movement had no official leader. But we cannot deny how he was one of the most prevalent voices. How he is so good with his words that he was able to to encourage not only all of them to go home and all of them to go fight.

And fight for their fucking lives, for Gotham's safety.

And you don't understand the Robin, wasn't a team they didn't have leaders, they didn't have training, they did't had someone o be assigned to be in charge, hell half of them shouldn't be older than 25! This is a social movement, made mostly by yound adults and teenagers.

Being able to to influence this amount of people in less than what a month? In matter of minutes is absolutely fucking insane. This isn't easy shit, this isn't lightly shit.

This is fucking revolutionary.

For fuck sake he knew DAMIAN, fuckin Damian for a day and was able to get his point across into that kid's thick skull.

This random kid, with not training in martial art, who saw Damian beat up not only his fellow comrades, but Red Hood and Red Robin themselves, who may or may not be aware of Damian's reputation as a deadly Robin (if that comes to the public and knowing Gotham and Gotham's relationship with vigilantes he might) stood up on his own feet and got his ass beaten by him without even considering back down from it.

Duke Thomas was ready to die that night and this is fucking earthshaking.

[tls123]

thirty-one days of jiujiu(ly)  —  day twenty-eight  + with bonus ge !

[ribbed-vault-heart]

i’m so overwhelmed by things that shouldn’t be overwhelming...

[makanioverlord]

just a heads up, if you get a dm from nobugdev, this person is trying to scam you and will tell you to kys r slur (then deleted the specific kys message before I could screenshot it lol) when you tell him you don't want to be paid under federal minimum wage :)

this is just a small sample of the lovely conversation I had with this guy. it didn't last long because I didn't actually plan on taking the commission, and wanted to give this guy a wake up call as to how shitty it is to expect a grown ass adult to work for a wage that can barely buy a single candy bar in our current economic climate.

I've had an influx of scam artists and underhanded clients like this in the past 2 years, partially which I blame on AI art making ppl undervalue every creative profession out there. I'm fucking exhausted from having hours long conversations with someone only for them to tip toe around the fact they think my art isn't even worth a single grocery trip. not to mention people think artwork can be mass produced by a human like a machine now- it is not possible to do 10 cleanly lined images in "an hour or two".

even when I was working as a caricature artist, I was paid a base hourly rate on top of tips and was given much more time to work on black and white illustrations than what this guy was offering me. I usually block immediately and move on, but I'm tired of putting up with this type of shit on a daily basis.

tl;dr: know your worth artists, don't let these scumbags try to force you to do what is essentially sweatshop labor!

do NOT take this weirdo's commissions, even if the diary of a wimpy kid art style is simple you shouldn't be charged under federal fucking minimum wage for that type of illustration!

[ofthehands]

I think the thing that endeared me to Lefty's character the quickest was how much he cared about Franklin.

The whole first movie Franklin was ignored, abandoned, and ultimately killed. Nobody treated him like he was worth the time of day, all his "friends" were annoyed with him the whole film because he was in pain, scared, and disabled, and dared to say something about it. Tons of fans were happy when he died, and Franklin's death is sudden, swift, and the most gratuitous of the movie save for maybe the Hitchhiker. In the first movie, Franklin's life and struggles and pain never felt like it mattered.

But in the second, here comes Lefty, absolutely wrecked with grief over not only Sally's fate, but Franklin's. His whole character, his arch and his motivation, is built around the idea that Franklin did matter. That what happened to Franklin was a tragedy. That Franklin was loved, and that he was worth fighting for and worth avenging and even worth dying for. When Lefty found Franklin's body he knew him right away, in the dark, after 13 years of decomposition. And the tragedy of it all brought a fast paced wild scene to a stand still- everything slowed down to show us Lefty reacting to Franklin's death, kneeling down and telling him it was alright, that he didn't need to cry anymore, that this nightmare was over.

It's just nice to see someone value Franklin, even if it's too little too late. There was no time for it to logically happen but I wish we could've seen them interact at some point.

[ganondoodle]

you know, a plothole (kinda, its one to me) i havent even talked about before is .. how is there basically no sonau tech in the past, or isnt shown nor used; the only thing i remember is that weird half assed way to try and make us care about the apparent time zelda had spent there and tell us in a tiny text you have to find scattered above the sky that she "tamed a construct beast" which .... could be anything bc its so vague and non-interesting and .. maybe one or two non-combat constructs in the background in a few of the cutscenes

but given how many constructs there are alive in totks present, and more are broken down that were probably working back in the past, did they even use anything of it against ganondorf? like, i know its called a war but we only see ganondorf charging on that badass horse we never see again and that bit lasts like .. 5 seconds? and he just ... somehow ends up in that cave so far below the earth with the other sages? HOW did he even get there

the constructs you find in the game can be pretty tanky and packing quite a punch, theres auto-targeting mini tanks, lasers and fire/electric/ice throwers, bombs and otherwise explosives, couldnt they have easily fought against some bokblins even if they were miasmafied

or am i supposed to believe ganondorf became THAT strong just through that little magic pebble (isnt that a little insulting too?), while all the other stone having people are so much more inferior AND have gans bossfight not be that hard is kinda ... weird? i know link is special an all, but he doesnt have a stone and the sages dont really add to his powerlevel, the msot they do is distract gans little clones for a bit

doesnt that, and how irrelevant the whole sonau tech actually is to the plot, feel even more like its a thing put in there just to showcase that they could do it (like ... a tech demo) and like its an unfitting sandbox element just for some very dedicated players to build entire war maschines for viral videos out of but the vast majority will not have that kind of patience nor fun with that (i for one do not care to laser explode or otherwise terrorize little enemy camps with otherwise overly ridiculous weapons bc its not fun and really not worth the effort to me)

[faramirsonofgondor]

Jamie’s the type of friend who actually tries to pack himself in a suitcase so he can go on trips with you. Or he just genuinely considers kidnapping his friends so they don’t leave. I’m pretty sure half of the team would be happily kidnapped too.