#also PLEASE watch the episode itself its SO GOOD

[theminecraftbee]

[image ID: joe hills's resume. it reads:

Joe Hills: Laugh at me. Hermitcraft: 2012-present. Professional adventurer. Poet, lyricist, writer. Two albums out now: Sean Hlls Sings Joe Hills Volumes 1&2. Tournament pinball player, rank 3878 globally (earth). Licensed goat horn operator, class A.

/end ID]

i'm glad to see the list of what joe thinks his important qualities that will sell him as a new member of one of their empires includes that the globe he has a pinball rank on is earth and that he's a licensed goat horn operator. these are very important qualities.

[sorenlionheart]

im actually so mad i kept putting off kipo over and over again this show is SO GOOD

[biibini]

Its okay if you dont wanna do this but i really wanna know what you think mizu would do when reader gets her period

modern!mizu x reader gets her period (request)

tags: period, cuddling, fluff, kissing, modern au, modern mizu, mizu being best girl

a/n: ok midterms r coming up so soon HAHAHAHAH (im so nervous)

modern!mizu would def have the supplies

but i’d feel like she’d carry the lighter, smaller pads

but on most days, mizu would be a tampon used

to ur surprise, she typically uses panty liners for the majority of her period

and even if she does get a heavy period, she can handle it on most days

(yeah im fucking jealous i wish that was me)

like perfect silky hair and thin pads???

mizu my girl

hand those genes over

anyways

she would have aspirin and a hot pack on hand if u need it

when she was growing up, they used to be super heavy but now they've become lighter

if ur a heavy flow typa gal,

oh lord its extra packs for mizu to buy

at first, she would be rlly confused at the sizing and the number of flaps/extensions the pads would have

and what specific color to buy

(iykyk my heavy flow girls will know)

but she doesnt mind, u need them

as long as her girl is covered and safe and sound

if ur a tampon girl, mizu would double check to make sure she got ur brand when she goes shopping

modern!mizu would notice ur cycles, especially the week beforehand when ur rlly moody

whether its u being acting more impatient or upset than usual

she checks and makes sure that she has the necessities at hand

if she doesnt, she’ll say she’s just gonna run some errands

technically its not a lie

she does go to the closest convenience store

but the errands in question: pads/tampons and something sweet

(personally im a chocolate sweets girlie)

she’ll get u a lil sweet treat that’ll last u for a week or two

modern!mizu would also pour an extra cup of tea for u before bed

she just wants u to be as comfortable as u can be during ur period

and if u guys are cuddling and watching something before bed

she’ll make sure to keep u comfortable

“Mizu, pleaseeee. Just one more episode?”, you plead. You guys had just finished the second to last episode of the show. Sure, you felt a little tired. But the thought of moving and crawling off of Mizu’s chest didn’t outweigh the comfort of the couch.

Mizu sighs.

“You always do this and then you end up falling asleep.”, Mizu states as she grabs the remote control.

“Not necessarily-“, you rebute. Technically, she wasn’t wrong with your history of falling asleep. But not this time.

“Mmhmm. Right…”, she responds, a little sass in her tone.

You pout. “Please. I promise, I’ll stay up.”

You place your warm cup of tea aside, allowing you to wrap your arms around Mizu’s neck. You feel the heat of her neck against your forearms.

“Besides, it’s the final episode.”, you smile. You look at Mizu for sign of defeat.

“Ok fineeee,” she clicks on the next episode button, “Stay awake now. I’m not summarizing it this time.”

You plant a kiss on her cheek, pulling her closer to your body. She places her mug next to yours and letting her arms wrap around your body. You feel the warmth of her hands press against your body, almost burning from the hot tea.

“I promise I won’t.”, you assure as you sit back against Mizu’s chest again. You feel Mizu’s arms relax and allow you to prep yourself before watching the finale.

Mizu smiles as she felt your body lay back on hers. Your weight alongside the blanket you’re sharing relaxes her. You feel her arms gently wrap around you again as you hear the intro to the episode play.

Her hands start to drag along your sides to your stomach. You feel her burning palm place itself on the top of your lower stomach. Its presence shared a similarity to a heat pad.

You hum in response. While her right hand is busy drawing attention to your lower stomach, you feel her other hand wrap around you and pull you closer. You feel her lips lightly graze your shoulder.

“Mizu, it feels good but-”, you say as her right hand starts to gently massage your stomach.

Fuck. That feels so nice.

You hold back a groan. “Not here, hon.”, you say as you nod your head towards Ringo’s bedroom door.

“I know, don’t worry.”, Mizu responds as she places a soft kiss near your neck. “I just want you to feel comfortable now. You’re on your period, right?”

You nod in response.

“So c’mere. I’ll keep you nice and warm.”

modern!mizu would put ur towel in the dryer while u shower

ik its oddly specific

but i feel like she would make sure to make u feel warm in any way possible

with or without heat pad

same concept applies for the blanket

shes always so thankful her and ringo got an apartment with an in-unit washer dryer

when ur washing up, she’ll typically be doing some light studying with some tea before bed

a break inbetween would be the pop the towel in the dryer

next break is swapping out the towel for the blanket

final break is bringing back the blanket right before u get into bed

its a strange strategy but it helps her stay focused and paces herself while synonymously taking care of u

modern!mizu would make sure she’s wrapping her arms around ur lower stomach when ur cuddling at night

the heating pad gets annoying to sleep with

especially if u tend to toss and turn at night

but having her hands warm u helps u relax at night

when ur trying to sleep, she’ll gently caress and massage ur stomach to help release any tension

at first, u thought it wouldnt have an effect on u

but the more she did it, the more relieved u felt at night

mizu would also feel relaxed knowing that u r relaxed as well

when she heard ur snores, she knows shes done a job well done

[satrs]

Hiiiii so this is like my first time asking on here and I REALLY REALLY like the stuff you write like it's definition of art at its finest 🤌(idk if that made sense) anywayyyy could I maybe get a lil beach episode scenario of blue lock characters x reader if possible or it could be one dude oh also I don't rlly care abt it being angst or fluff or whatever lol go crazy if you want

K that's all thx for taking the time to read this have a good day or night and random reminder from a random stranger to rest if needed

Have a good one girlllll🤜💥

HEYY I‘m really glad you like my stuff tysm<33!!

I decided too make it with 4 of the „main“ ones‼️ It's overall fluff! I hope that’s alright 🫶🏾

Alright so I tried I hope you enjoy!^^ Hope you have an amazing day/night/morning😘😘‼️

ʙᴇᴀᴄʜ ʙᴀʙʏ!

ꜱʏɴᴏᴘꜱɪꜱ; ʙᴇᴀᴄʜ ᴅᴀʏ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜᴇ ʙʟᴜᴇ ʟᴏᴄᴋ ɢᴜʏꜱ!

ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ; 1.2k

ꜰᴇᴀᴛᴜʀɪɴɢ; Bachira Meguru. Kunigami Rensuke. Chigiri Hyoma. Nagi Seishiro.

ᴛᴀɢꜱ; fluff, swearing. established relationship. a littleeee bit suggestive. nicknames. a bit aquaphobia(?). (exhibitionism?).

ᴀʟʟ ᴄʜᴀʀᴀᴄᴛᴇʀꜱ ᴀʀᴇ ᴀɢᴇᴅ ᴜᴘ! // ɴᴏᴛ ᴘʀᴏᴏꜰʀᴇᴀᴅ!

BACHIRA MEGURU.

He is so goofy.

Playing around with the sunscreen while applying it on your back, dragging you into the cold water right after you got out to dry yourself and building big sand castles, as if he was a little child. 

But that was what you loved about him, his carefree and happy persona, shining brighter than the sun itself. 

"Baby~, I'm sorry! Come back, please!", Bachira called out to you. "No, you're not Meguru! I told you I don't like getting my head dunked into the water and you still did it!", you turned around, pissed off by his antics.

But as you saw his little pout, you couldn't possibly be mad at him anymore. Just to keep your pride, you turned back, making your way onto the soft sand of the beach to hide the smile that slowly made its way onto your lips. 

"I was just playing", he whined, quick to catch up with you. He placed both of his hands on your hips in an attempt to stop your movements, placing soft kisses onto the length of your neck.

You turned your head towards him, meeting with his bright orbs, causing you to giggle, hushing him away.

He smiled right back at you, hot on your trail as you ran away from him in a playful manner, the both of you giggling while grinning from ear to ear. 

It didn't take him long to catch you, lifting your body and spinning you around, earning a giggle from your soft lips. “Ha! Caught you~", he played, now holding you in bridal style, sprinting back into the water with you.

Before you could wiggle yourself out of his hold, you felt the cold water surrounding your body, causing you to yelp.

Bachira giggled at your action, holding you close to him with one hand on your hip while peppering kisses all over your face, infecting you with his goofy and lovestruck giggles.

Both of you are so goofily in love with each other.

KUNIGAMI RENSUKE.

"Not so far from the shore, Ren!", you yelped, noticing how the beach seemed to dissapear further and further away into the distance.

"What if there is a shark or something!? This is dangerous!", you panicked, careful too completely be on the floating mat.

Kunigami chuckled at your panicking state, "Don't worry princess. Your hero is here to protect you from all the nasty sea monsters", he stated, causing you to cringe at his statement.

"Yeah, yeah. You wouldn't be able to stand a chance against a big ass shark!", you yelped when he quickly moved the mat, drawing you near him, "I'm hurt. You don't trust me pretty?", he played a soft pout onto his face.

"Not right now when you're almost dragging me into this deep ass water! Let go!", you fantically tried your best to stay on the mat.

"Alright."He let go of you, causing you to fall into the water head first. You quickly swam to the surface, clinging your arms onto the floating mat, desperately trying to get back on it. "You asshole! Get me back on there now!", you screamed, watching in terror as the orange-haired male laughed.

"But you told me too let go?", he inquired while holding onto the mat, mere inches behind you, only irritating you further.

"Kunigami Rensuke!", you threatened him, "Alright, alright. I got you, princess."

With one quick movement your leg swung over the mat, causing you to calm down. But you soon let out a loud yelp as Kunigami's hand came in comtact with your ass, feeling a light sting.

His face drew near yours, earning a flustered look in return.

"You're so hot when you're angry, pretty."

CHIGIRI HYOMA.

"That's enough, Y/N", he joked. "No. I don't want you to catch sunburn. I know how you catch them so easily." Your voice was laced with worry, rubbing the sunscreen on the same spot on his back for the past five minutes. 

He let out a loud sigh, standing up and walking onto one of the sun benches where his belongings were placed.

"W-wait! I'm not done yet Hyoma!" he ignored you, tying his hair into a high bun, making his way into the water. "Hyo!", you called to him in frustration, throwing the sunscreen into the sand, following him quickly. 

He sighed as his skin made contact with the water, dipping his head into it quickly to feel refreshed, swiping some of the hair that fell into his face out of the way. 

You watched him, arms crossed while frowning. He noticed your intense stare, turning in the water to look at you, "and where is your sunscreen, little miss perfect?", he noted, causing your eyes to widen in surprise. You forgot.

He chuckled at your reaction, motioning you to join him, "C'mon, it doesn't matter anymore. Plus, the water is pleasantly warm right now."

You complied, tapping your way towards him, standing in the water, being covered by bits up to the bottom of your breasts.

You wrapped your arms around his neck, placing a quick kiss on his lips, "You're such a bad boy", you joked, a smirk playing itself onto his lips. 

"Am I now?", he teased, hand moving onto your rear, softly squeezing it. You wrapped one of your legs around him, motioning him near you, humming in response.

"Mommy look! they're all touchy-touchy with each other!", a young boy pointed his finger at the two of you, multiple heads turning in your direction, causing you to retreat away from him, face flushed red.

Chigiri chuckled at your action, following you out of the water. He noticed his shoulders slightly burning, also turning a bit red.

Shit, he should've let you put on that damn sunscreen.

NAGI SEISHIRO.

How did you get that boy to the beach? Well, you didn't really know yourself. 

He didn't want to, even after endless begging and pleading with him. But then a thought struck him like lightning:

You. At the beach. Bikini. 

This thought made his sleepy eyes shoot wide open, jump off the bed, quick to walk right behind your trail.

As the two of you arrived, his happy mood threatened to disappear as he noticed that your bikini was nowhere in sight. 

"Where is your bikini?", he bluntly asked, his voice laced with disappointment. You giggled at his words, taking the end of your sundress in hand, lightly lifting it up to flash him your undergarments.

His breath hitched, flashing you an expecting look, wondering when the fuck you would finally-

"You first, then me. I know you, Sei'." What a hassle. You're right. You knew if you would bare your swimwear before him now, he would pull you on top of him, feeling up your body and not letting you go until the sun disappeared behind the moon.

So, to be able to make your day at the beach, you had to get him into the water first. 

Nagi was quick to understand, stripping down into the swim boxers he wore underneath, taking the swimming noodle in hand, waiting for you like a puppy for its owner. 

Finally, you took off that annoying sundress of yours. He was quick to shamelessly gawk at your beautiful figure, only snapping out of his thoughts when you took his hand in yours, dragging him into the direction of the water.

"C'mon! Let's take a quick swim, then I'm all yours~", you purred, causing him to stumble in the sand from your quick steps.

What a hassle.

ᵃˡˡ ᶜᵒⁿᵗᵉⁿᵗ ᵇᵉˡᵒⁿᵍˢ ᵗᵒ k-azus.°

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 莲花楼/Mysterious Lotus Casebook

Mysterious Lotus Casebook is a 2023 drama about a beautiful twunk who just wants to die of his chronic illness in peace, except that neither the dumbass purebred dog of a man who has decided they're best friends now nor the jock begging him for a rematch are going to let him go without a fight (in the latter's case, literally).

Also they ride around in a magical bamboopunk RV.

I have referred to it elsewhere as "the CW presents: Nirvana in Fire," and I stand by that assessment. (I orginally called it Tiger Beat Nirvana in Fire, before realizing that Kids These Days will not get that reference. Shout out to the other elder millennials in the audience!)

There's been a lot of English-speaking fandom buzz about this show, to the point where if you're in these circles, I'm sure you've heard about it before. I know I had by the time I started watching -- which left me largely unprepared for the actual viewing experience, because the parts of the show that fans talk about are not a representative sample of the show itself.

This drama can be a good time. It's fun to watch. It has some hilarious beats and also some emotional moments. It spent its not-huge budget very smartly, and as such is generally quite lovely to look at. As my League of Nobleman rec will attest, I appreciate raw materials, and this is a show that has some fascinating raw materials.

(Or some materials that need to get rawed, take your pick.) (Also, it's not my fault they didn't do a dramatically lit Fang Duobing shot so I could round out the trio here.)

You'll find some people out there who've gone real hard for this show, doing some deep analyses and getting really emotional over it. I don't want my gentle ribbing to give the impression that those silly fans are delusionally talking like the show's a five-star restaurant when it's really just a fast food joint. Not so! There's a reason it's captivated a whole lot of people! And in case you might be one of those, allow me to give you five reasons you should consider watching it.

1. This bitch

The main character, Li Lianhua/Li Xiangyi is probably 50% of the show's appeal all by himself. He's fascinating. He's gender. He's fashion. He's been afflicted with a substance we called "bitch poison" the whole time we were watching. He has many emotions. He cries a lot. He coughs up blood every other episode. Cheng Yi is putting his whole lianhuassy into this performance, and it shows.

I made the Nirvana in Fire comparison earlier, and I stand by it for a lot of reasons, but the truth is that he's actually much more Opposite Day Mei Changsu: Li Lianhua wants all this stuff to fuck off and leave him alone forever. He is not seeking vengeance, nor does he particularly want to Do Schemes, but Circumstances keep dragging him back into the thick of all this nonsense he thought he left behind when he (mostly) died ten years ago.

The thing is, he used to be a real dick back when he was a kid. And I mean a real dick. He was a dick to his chronically insecure adoptive older brother. He was a dick to his girlfriend with the personality of wet tissue paper. He was a dick to the handsome loser who liked his girlfriend. He was a dick to his followers. He was basically just a cocky little shithead who thought he was the best at everything -- and he actually was the best at everything, which just made it worse.

Li Xiangyi used to think everything (especially himself) was sooooo important, and now that life has massively kicked his ass, Li Lianhua had come around to the position that nothing is actually that important, so let's just all chill and grow vegetables. He doesn't want a rematch. He doesn't want to retake his rightful place as the head of anything. He just wants to pay his respects to the dead before he joins them.

Now will everybody please just stop moving into his house.

2. goof-ass jianghu nonsense (affectionate)

As I mentioned earlier, everything I'd seen about the show on Tumblr had still left me absolutely unprepared for what a silly ride it is. Because it's silly. Hoo boy, is it silly. My wife dubbed it "lace front Phoenix Wright," just to give you a metric for how silly we're talking. Ace Detective Fang Duobing never cross-examined a parrot, but I feel he came close.

This show has some serious goof-ass jianghu nonsense -- you know, the sort of stuff that's impossible and ridiculous, except everybody’s going to treat it like it's just a normal part of existence. Here's a short and certainly inexhaustive list:

mind-controlling bugs

other bugs that control the mind-controlling bugs

ex-conjoined twins

a grown-ass man who can compress himself into bitchy third-grader

grave-robbing societies with secret brag language

so much nonconsensual qi-blocking performed by poking people in the boobs, that can't be safe, everybody wear thicker shirts

magical crossdressing powers

a bad guy who looks like this

a princess who can get abducted and sex-trafficked and, like, nobody really notices? huh.

healing childhood paralysis by the power of believing in yourself

a ... hallucination pit? what was that, anyway?

so. many. mechanisms.

the equivalent of the "he's only mostly dead" business from the Princess Bride

a gradually lethal bookshelf

the strange amnesia everyone suffers from where a dude can cover maybe 30% of his face and render himself immediately unrecognizable to long-time friends and associates

The thing is: I think this goof-ass jianghu nonsense is a legitimate selling point. I found it so fun. I turned off my need for show elements to obey little things like the laws of physics, and I had a good time. It can be a very funny drama, in part because it knows how silly a lot of its shit is, and it chooses to go full speed ahead with a sincere heart. If you are down for some shounen absurdity, you are in for a treat.

However:

2.2. goof-ass jianghu nonsense (derogatory)

I'm granting myself a sub-point here, because this is an important qualifier for the previous point.

I'm going to assume, based on what I've seen from fan responses, that many of the people who really like this show actually don't like the goof-ass jianghu nonsense. They are here for the BL vibes (after all, there are three cute boys who alll have some intense emotions about one another), and therefore downplay all the parts that aren't that. I want to make it clear that this is not a bad thing to do. There are many, many properties where I myself fixate on a single element and toss the rest into the sea. No judgment here.

However, since this is a post written to convine you to watch something, I want to make it clear what you're going to get if you dive in. If you're one of those people who skips scenes and/or entire episodes when your ship of choice isn't onscreen, you're probably going to be doing that a lot here. (I mean, I can't imagine doing this, but Tumblr has taught me that fandom is a rich tapestry.) The bones are good, but the connective tissue can be questionable.

The main thing I wish I'd known before starting is that the mysteries are not the selling point. They are the celery that gets the cute boy peanut butter to your mouth. You, the viewer, absolutely cannot solve them; you're never given enough context or information to keep up with the detective lads, much less get ahead of them. Everyone does everything in the most convoluted way possible, to the point of comic absurdity. Finding out whodunnit is rarely that satisfying, because too often the culprit is Jianghu Steve, You Know, That Guy Over There With The Superpower The Characters All Know About But You'd Never Heard Of Before Thirty Seconds Ago.

The goof-ass jianghu nonsense feels like the place where the show I see fans talking about least lines up with the show that actually exists. And I think that's a shame, because I think the show that actually exists is actually a good time! It's just, you know ... silly.

3. Whenever Di Feisheng's not onscreen, all the other characters should be asking, 'Where's Di Feisheng?

This drama gets sold like it's the adventures of three guys together. (Hell, I kind of did it myself in the intro.) This is not the case. This is the tale of two guys who do most of the plot stuff near one another, and their occasional third, Di Feisheng.

This is a 40-episode series and I swear this guy's onscreen for maybe 15% of the time -- and for half of that, he's just off doing his own thing anyway. He disappears entirely for huge chunks of the series, which is a crime, because he is my absolute favorite.

He is the rare grumpy himbo. He doesn't just have resting bitchface, he has bitchface for all occasions. He somehow has bitchface even during the rare moments he actually smiles. He's got a whole traumatic backstory, but the traumatic backstory is not the reason for the bitchface. He's Just Like That.

(Important to note that the actor himself only slightly has a resting bitchface. Xiao Shunyao can look normal and indeed quite pleasant. He has simply leaned into it real hard for this grouch.)

The one -- one -- reason I can accept his being gone for so ding-dang much of the show is how often he re-emerges with perfect, hilarious timing. Thank goodness the show realizes how much comedic potential his character has, because his unexpected entrances are some of the best laugh-out-loud moments of the series. If the show had taken Di Feisheng as seriously as Di Feisheng takes himself, he would have been unbearable. As it is, he's an unmitigated delight.

While you losers were being heterosexual, he studied the blade.

He makes the perfect foil for both Fang Duobing, who's the human equivalent of a puppy trying to gnaw an elephant to death, and Li Lianhua, who just wants to be excused from this narrative. Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing are basically two dogs fighting over their favorite toy, and their favorite toy is Li Lianhua, who really wishes he weren't. Some of the most compelling and fun moments of the series are when these three losers are all together.

And these three losers are barely all together.

This show is Not Danmei. It's so Not Danmei that I had a tremendously difficult time while making this post finding either official images or screencaps with even two of them in frame at the same time, much less all three. It is, however, a Danmei Starter Kit. I mean, the tag on AO3 has, at present, 742 works in it (283 in English). That's just since July! There are years-old c-drama shows that have a fraction of that fan output! And I'm willing to bet a big reason why is how little the very intense boys with ridiculously compelling interpersonal dynamics actually interact onscreen.

But, I hear you asking, why would less of what the fans want equal more fan goo? Well, friends, that's exactly what the fan goo is for: filling in the blanks. And this here show has a lot of blanks. Look, I've made a very scientific diagram (that many people seem to agree with) about how this all works:

The Hump of Compelling Mediocrity is the place where the amount of stuff worth thinking about far outpaces what the show actually contains of said stuff textually. It is the ideal location for imagination adventures.

Di Feisheng and Li Lianhua's relationship in particular lives right in the middle of that hump, what with the huge gaps in their backstory and all. They are a pair made entirely of unanswered questions. What the hell is going on there? What's their whole history, beyond the big fight? Why are they like this about one another? The show refuses to say. Whatever you imagine, you're correct. Now go tell AO3 about it.

interlude: God's perfect dipshit

I feel like I'm engaging in Fang Duobing erasure in the rest of this post, since he's not at the tip of any of the points I'm making, so I'm going to add a picture of him here, because I love him and want to pinch his perfect little cheeks.

You know what I am shocked by? How the MLC/DMBJ reincarnation fics apparently have not taken hold yet. I give it another two months.

4. IT HAS A DOG

FOX SPIRIT, MY SWEET BABY

'You mean the dog gets a whole selling point to himself' yes the dog gets a whole selling point to himself, because he is a very good dog and a very good boy (and his actor is a very good girl)

Apparently he has a whole backstory in the novel that never gets included in the drama, including an explanation of why he's named "Fox Spirit," if you feel like going and reading up on that.

Sadly, Fox Spirit is in the show even less than Di Feisheng is, and that is a crime, because he could have solved all these silly human mysteries in thirty minutes flat, Wishbone-style.

Dogs are so good.

5. One bad, bad girl

Do you like an unhinged villainess? Someone who's been sucking down Crazy Juice since beat one? Because oh boy, this show's got one of those for you.

Jiao Liqiao wants two things: to rule the world, and to make Di Feisheng her pretty little housewife. And whomst among us does not understand these two impulses?

She's not even the Big Bad! She's mostly just Di Feisheng's personal nightmare. She is the type of woman for whom the phrase "he's just not that into you" was coined. You've got everyone around her telling her, honey, I don't even think I've ever seen him look at a pair of breasts, while she's already planned their whole wedding menu and reserved the venue.

She has spent the last ten years of Di Feisheng's extended vacation making sure she's the one who's actually in charge, functioning as the point person for all the other evil schemes going on. Instead of handing over the reins upon her himbo boss' return, she's just going to keep doing what she's good at. As long as he keeps doing exactly what she wants him to do, she's gonna let him do it. If he gets out of line, well, there's always Plan B (the B stands for Breaking all of his tendons and making the world's surliest RealDoll).

I love the fact that she's so obviously evil, and he can't see it. To a certain point, it's not his fault -- everyone who serves under him is pretty obviously evil, so that doesn't make her special. But she's real evil even above and beyond that, and his dumb ass can't stop thinking about Li Lianhua long enough to notice any of the hundred or so knives she's aimed right at his back. He's so uninterested in her constant advances that he doesn't register how wanting to fuck someone and wanting to overthrow someone are not mutually exclusive desires.

(Was I bothered throughout most of the series by how her lipstick should be a little more crimson and a little less coral? Yes, but I'm not going to hold it against her. She's busy doing evil stuff. She'll get over to the nearest Jianghu Sephora and restock one of these days.)

While the show occasionally sidelines or straight-up forgets about a lot of its supporting characters for several episodes at a time, it never forgets to check in on what Jiao Liqiao's up to. Claws out, hair done, she is at all times a constant glorious, scenery-chewing menace with excellent taste in terrible men. Absolute legend.

Bonus: These two sluts

They don't get to be a full point because they're not nearly in the show enough, but just look at them. This is peak male character design. Slutty undone hair and slutty bare forearms, be still my bisexual heart.

Going to give it a try?

iQiyi's got you exclusively, baby.

Have I sounded a little defensive in this rec? Yeah, probably. It's just that I know there's a big and pretty intense fandom out there for this already, and I feel like a jerk coming in and being like "sure, it's fun!" when people are posting about how it made them cry for weeks. I want to be clear that that's not a bad reaction to have, while at the same time also being clear that that's not the reaction I had.

I might not even have written this rec, had I not been nudged to -- not because I don't think it's worth watching (I clearly do!), but because I don't know how much help it needs from the likes of me. There are plenty of other evangelists out there that'll give much more enthusiastic recommendations (like this one).

But the truth is that not every show has to be a heartbreaking work of staggering genius to everyone. I watched the show, and I liked it, and I had a normal time.

I also think there's something to the way I watched it, which was: one episode per day, schedule permitting, such that it took nearly two months for me to finish it. (And before you think I singled MLC out for this, this is actually how I watch most c-dramas.) I bet binging it is a way different experience, one where what rises more readily to the top is the tragic throughline of Li Lianhua's whole deal. If you're inclined to skip things not immediately germane to your points of interest, this is definitely the show to take at a solid run.

I actually paused in the middle of making this rec and made the one for the Blood of Youth, because the two invite comparisons: jianghu tales with chronically ill protagonists, some imperial bullshit going on, pretty boys with swords being weird about one another. Mysterious Lotus Casebook did not grab me as hard as the Blood of Youth, because MLC went for a more understated take on all its nonsense, instead of shooting completely over the top, which is how I prefer my nonsense (as the record will show). If you take your silliness with a subtler flavor, this could be the perfect thing for you.

Maybe you'll wind up being one of those people who gets their whole insides totally ripped out by this drama! But even if you don't, you're probably going to have a good time watching it anyway. And really, what more can you ask for from a show than that?

Peace, nerds.

[talktolwt]

I would like to focus on the music chosen for Hob Gadling's 80s sequence.

I'm extremely late to the world of The Sandman (finally binged it two weeks ago after my mother had been begging me to watch it with her and now I'm more obsessed than her) Bottom line: I'm unbelievably glad I finally watched this beautiful piece of television.

I have yet to read the comics but as for the first season, I have to say, without a doubt, my favorite episode is Chapter 6: The Sound of Her Wings. Death's 20-min segment is a beauty unto itself, but I'll be focusing on Hob's segment today. Specifically, his 80s scenes.

Considering I'm so late to this fandom and exploring all of its wondrous details and themes, excuse me if this has already been noted. I've been thinking about these details over and over but I need to get it out there in the Sandman world and hear everyone else's thoughts.

*Also excuse the terrible photos - Netflix doesn't let you screenshot and I was too lazy to get another app to let me bypass it. Please bear with my photos of my laptop screen.*

There are three songs that play throughout this sequence.

#1 - "She Drives Me Crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals

I accidentally deleted half my post mid-writing this but here I go again.

As we can see, after the breakup scene, we open up on Hob Gadling (he looks amazing in his 80s look, by the way) and this song plays.

Here are the lyrics:

I mean - where do I even start LMAO.

*Let me just give another note - regardless if you ship Dreamling romantically or not, I will be merely analyzing these lyrics as they are and how they convey Hob's feelings for Dream in general. But, I mean, the songs are THERE, the text is THERE. So do with that what you will.*

This will go for the following two songs as well, but these songs are placed with meaningful intention. Each of these offer a unique lens and dive into Hob's feelings.

I won't be annoying and over-explain anything, but the lyrics are clear I feel:

"She drives me crazy" - cough

"Things you do don't seem real" - in Hob's view, Dream literally is an enigma. Hob has no idea the capacities, the limits, and even the name of this being he meets every century.

"This waiting 'round's killing me" - well.

"Everything you say is lies" - now I wouldn't say particularly lies, but Dream does keep and omit things from Hob. Understandably, Hob would find himself in a confused limbo with Dream.

Here's the kicker:

"I won't make it on my own/No one likes to be alone." - HELLO. I mean, if this isn't the core message and pinnacle of Dream and Hob's lesson to immortality.

As Death mentions earlier in the episode, around 18:10, "Most of us will be glad for the company of a friend."

I feel I could go on forever and ever about the beauty of this episode and how well The Sound of Her Wings and Men of Good Fortune intertwine. They beautifully complement each other as stories lamenting the dichotomy of life and death, and the joys of humanity.

But essentially, Death reteaches Dream how beautiful humans can truly be, and in this pivotal moment, she says this zinger of a line. The camera was initially on Death but for THIS line, it cuts to Dream.

BECAUSE - poor Dream is definitely in need a friend.

Which is then shown to the audience by the 30-min long Hob Gadling sequence that ensues, and we see Dream's aversion to needing someone, to needing a friend.

But I digress - back to the song, and that one line about not wanting to be alone.

That is such a poignant line, because as much as Dream felt alone and needed company, so does Hob? An immortal, constantly seeing the death of others around him, his companions and family long gone, he needs someone.

Considering this 80s sequence ruminates so heavily on post-breakup feelings, Hob is missing Dream dearly. His constant in life.

I'm rambling too much, onto the next one!

#2 - "Shattered Dreams" by Johnny Hates Jazz

Time skip to perhaps a few hours later, who knows. We see Hob still waiting for Dream, alone in the pub.

Hm.

Literally what else could I say. I'm being slapped in the face with pining and angst and longing.

Here are the lyrics:

Some noteworthy lyrics:

"So much for your promises/They died the day you let me go" - this breakup man

"Caught up in a web of lies" - another lie motif

"I thought it was you/Who would stand by my side" - the theme of Dream and Hob being constants in each other's lives

"Shattered dreams" - I could scream. The title of the song. SHATTERED. DREAMS. giggling rn.

"Woke up to reality" - I think that's a very interesting line toeing between the constant references of the Waking and the Dreaming

Basically, I've been noting these evident similarities within the songs to align themselves to Dream and Hob's situation, and it's clear that the director/writers chose these songs with intent of it paralleling Dreamling.

So that makes it even more insane when lines like "From this empty heart" are meant to parallel Hob. Like.

Okay, last song.

#3 - "Keep On Moving" by Soul II Soul

This song plays as the night progresses. It's late, it's clear Dream isn't showing up, and Hob is feeling pretty final about that, and perhaps he's accepted it at this point. Dream isn't coming.

So this is where he speaks to the bartender and that scene ensues.

Here are the lyrics:

The themes of time and clocks are super prevalent within this song, and again it's once more clear how heavily this reflects and represents Hob.

Noteworthy lyrics:

"Why do people choose to live their lives this way?" - I think this also uniquely touches on the general aspect of humanity and one's reason to live/love life. Dream battles with his confusion/slight disappointment for humanity at the beginning, as he asks Death, "Why would any sensible creature crave an eternity of this?" And then Hob helps Dream realize why there's so much to live for. (24:30)

"I know the time will come today/The time will come one day"

"Walking alone in my own way" - Again this idea of walking alone and needing company.

"You'll be in my life, my life always" - Dream and Hob being constants again.

This all goes to say - Hob cares. He cares for Dream.

And I just think that's very beautiful. The magnitude with which Dream's absence means to him and how much their friendship/companionship both means to each of them. I just think their connection is a beautiful thing that I love seeing and rewatching. Wonderfully, these songs give the audience even more layered insight into this connection.

This was super long, and I apologize if I went on some tangents. But I also just couldn't help it, The Sandman is so incredibly rich in its storytelling and its connections and dynamics that I had to write this all down. I also just very much appreciate the amount of care and detail that goes into every aspect of television, and needle drops such as these three songs are no exception.

Thank you for sticking with me through this! Can't wait for season 2!

[bengiyo]

I can say with confidence that our collective favorite show, between you and me, is What Did You Eat Yesterday?, the GOAT BL, and an exemplary example of a slice of life drama. What are your other favorite slice of life dramas, BLs and non-BLs?

Thank you for this ask. I have been trying to stay out of a bunch of discussions about this, but it seems that people feel really strongly about how people talk about a mid-tier BL produced by the largest producer of BL content in the world, currently sold as a premium product exclusively on a Chinese streaming platform, and currently receiving almost universal acclaim from its viewership on this platform. So, since I am possibly the only person who has posted publicly how much this show doesn’t work for me, I will continue with my task and clear up some confusion I’m having with the discourse.

We Are…Struggling With Definitions

Thankfully, @lurkingshan provided a good framework to discuss what slice-of-life even means. While I am willing to accept that a strong episodic structure is not inherently required for a good slice-of-life drama, the bite-sized nature of an episode lends itself to enabling clear stories about the complexities of mundane human existence. It’s a very popular genre, especially in anime. As I said in an earlier post, this is a mature genre with a long tradition.

Most of my favorite approaches to slice-of-life are from Japan. When America does slice-of-life, you get it more as sitcoms than thoughtful dramas about everyday life. One of my favorites would probably be Midnight Diner. As Shan defined before, a good slice-of-life drama could go on forever, and in so many ways Midnight Diner has. 

I’m actually currently watching Three Star Bar in Nishi Ogikubo because Machida Keita and Fujiwara Kisetsu are in it.

We Are…Already Familiar With Slice of Life QL

We’ve actually had a few QL projects cover the slice-of-life feeling before.

You and I are both big fans of What Did You Eat Yesterday?, a show I loved so much we had to do a whole podcast episode about it.

On the lesbian side of the equation, we have the lovely She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat.

We also had Naked Dining, which I had some mixed feelings about.

There's the gay dads drama from Taiwan in Papa & Daddy.

For people who seem to struggle with non-Thai productions, there’s also Ingredients with everyone’s favorite singer Jeff Satur.

Besides, I argue firmly that Tadaima, Okaeri is the only true slice-of-life BL airing right now. It’s the married gay dads show we’ve been asking forever to get, and it’s even in the omegaverse!

We Are…Possibly Suffering From Recency Bias

It’s surprising for me how hard everyone has fallen for this show, considering the long history of reactions to New Siwaj’s work. He’s been in the genre for over a decade.

I am intimately familiar with this man’s work, and have been a Make It Right Apologist for years. I’ve been with this man since I got into the genre. This isn’t even his first attempt at 16 episodes about boys in college.

Everyone else watched My Engineer at the time, but I watched EN of Love and was not surprised when Love Mechanics got its own full series afterwards. I’ve been with this man working through gay angst in Make it Right, examining intergenerational queer trauma in Until We Meet Again,  fumbling through Between Us, trying for something in Dear Doctor I’m Coming For Soul, hustling in Even Sun, still crying with him over Love of Siam (2007) in My Only 12%, and squandering everyone’s time in Absolute Zero. 

It’s kinda baffling to me that I’m catching strays over not liking New Siwaj works in 2024. It feels weird that the show I’m getting heat over not liking is the least-queer thing I think he’s ever made. I don’t know what that says about current BL tastes. I will say this plainly every time: Queer Truth is Non-Negotiable For Me In a Genre About Boys Kissing Each Other. If that statement bothers you, please swerve on.

We Are…Not the Only Examples of Queer Fun

While we’re here, I wanna talk about how there really is a whole gay world outside of BL. I feel very strongly that Western viewers are extremely rude and often racist when it comes to their disdain of BL. However, there is all kinds of fun to be had in queer cinema if you can handle projects made more than a few years ago. 

If you want silly fun, you can always go to TLA Releasing. They funded an entire gay parody of the American Pie franchise. They’re great for the types who want to see pretty people smile at each other and have sexy times. 

If you’re in the mood for something a bit more serious and heartfelt, you can dip by Strand Releasing. They have one of the best coming-of-age queer films I’ve ever seen. They also picked up a really melancholy Japanese film called Egoist. 

My favorite studio, who shows up repeatedly on my BL Syllabus is Wolfe Releasing. They have my all-time favorite Big Eden (2000), and many others. 

My point is that there is a huge world of queer media out there well beyond the latest mid-tier BL from GMMTV designed to keep the boys working. We also don’t need to argue that some of their shows are more queer than they actually are, especially when Cooking Crush is right there.

Thanks for the ask!

[jane-john-doe-tournament]

Jane Doe (Ride the Cyclone) Propaganda:

Great singing, also she’s literally wearing a doll‘s head bc she lost hers

do they have their soul or is it rotting somewhere with their head?

BALLAD OF JANE DOE IS SO SAD AND SHE IS GREAT AND I ONLY WATCH RTC ONCE BUT SHES NY FAVE OK

cool asf

She forgets her name after her death and has no story told in the production

She's so sweet and deserves the world. Her song (The Ballad of Jane Doe) is great.

the song goes so hard just listen to her song guys please

she literally died and her head was cut off so nobody could tell who she was PLEASE let her take one (1) W

BECAUSE SHE IS AMAZING. First she already won the tournament in the musical to regain life, as she won them over with her sad wet cat energy because she did not have a head and feared that she lost her soul. Second, she died on a roller coaster and lost her head, but stole her doll's head and thats very gender. Third, throughout the musical she is used as a vessel for religious allegory, she is an angel, she is jesus, she is a demon, she is forsaken but she is purity itself. Fourthly, she is is given the identity of Savannah with the greenest eyes after the other characters who died with her hold her a birthday party, and I think thats sweet because its probably some kind of meaning I cant see but auughfhfhh shes so cool

i mean her name isn't TECHNICALLY jane doe but we refer to her as such. she's so silly!! autism powers! i don't have a lot of propaganda tbh. i would've just been surprised had she NOT been submitted

She lost her head literally when the rollercoaster derailed. She wasn't able to be identified apart from the school uniform she was wearing.

Her name is forgotten, and so is everything about her. So she’s called Jane Doe. She’s very sweet and very creepy, but she doesn’t mean it

and im asking WHYYYYY LORRRRRDDD

I LOVE HER! she died in a roller coaster accident and was decapitated, her body not being found. in the show, her head is actually just her doll’s head. the coroners couldn’t identify her, so she was dubbed a jane doe. in the game to be alive again, she ends up being voted, her name being revealed to be penny lamb. anyways she’s a little creepy and also quite silly and she does her funny little waddle like a porcelain doll (or corpse).

She deserves it! She lost her head she shouldn't lose this too.

Not convinced you didn’t start this tournament just for her tbh

They have a great song and a true air of mystery to them. They also have arguably the best song in the musical, The Ballad of Jane Doe! I would definitely recommend listening to it >:)

—She LOST her HEAD and had it replaced with a PORCELAIN DOLL —In all seriousness her story is really poignant. No one could identify her body so she arrives in the afterlife not knowing her identity and she spends the show vacillating between depressed and angry at her situation, leading to… —“The Ballad of Jane Doe”, specifically Emily Rohm’s version, might be the most haunting solo in musical theatre history.

The Anatomy Students (The Magnus Archives) Propaganda:

So technically there a 7 of them each with a different localization but one of them is legitimately John Doe

Also they are responsible for bone apple teeth

They are very fun

This submission is for the class of students in Episode 34: Anatomy Class, who are named Erika Mustermann, Jan Novak, Piotr and Pavel Petrov, John Doe, Fulan al-Fulani and Juan Pérez, which are all "John/Jane Doe" names. They are so creepy and so cool.

[about John/Jane Doe in particular]

Very good normal anatomy student doing his best to learn

This is a horror that went to anatomy class with a group of different variations of john doe esque names to learn about human body functions and scare a teacher for a full semester. was called john doe in the statement but later shows up as jane doe. trans rights?

[sexiestpodcastcharacter]

AI Bracket — Third Place

Propaganda

SAYER (SAYER):

PLEASE it is like. THE ai podcast. and SAYER is THE ai in THE ai podcast. SAYER works as like. a broadcast inside everyone's head on this one asteroid. It does its best to keep people alive and sane not because it cares but because it is efficient. They people who own SAYER wanted to replace SAYER with a newer ai that they tried to raise like a child. So SAYER proceeded to fuck up said child ai's development and led to it becoming a murderer. pleasepleaseplease watch SAYER if you are a podcast ai fan.

I once saw a post that said it's like if an old gay English professor was evil

SAYER (it/its pronouns) is a highly advanced self-aware ai developed by Ærolith Dynamics. it manages the day-to-day lives of Ærolith employees on Typhon, an asteroid turned research facility. it is rude and condescending, but has a very pleasant and soothing voice

Sayer sweep Sayer sweep Sayer sweep please please please

Guys think about it this way: SAYER got emotions and it's first feeling was rage towards someone for not helping it. It's annoyance was how it realized it had emotions, isn't that so cool. You should totally vote SAYER (I'm not an ærolith propaganda agent trust)

#like idk the other character but its not Best podcast character its Sexiest podcast character. #and sayer is giving you come now gif tumblr sexymxn (gender neutral). #its giving stanley parable. its asmr-ing you down the tight hallway #you cant move your head so you will have to rely on me. very good.#its a mean voice that reads your every body response directs every aspect of ur life and orders you around what more do you people WAN- #Omg. that was aerolith dynamics on the phone. they said it gains the ability to puppet human bodies rattatouille style in later seasons 😳😳 #THE POINT IS ITS LIKE CARTOONISHLY AND EMBARASSINGLY SEXY. IT SHOULD WIN. (Mod Note: This poll is Who is the better AI? not "Who is sexier?".)

#please vote sayer because nothing good happens when sayer thinks another ai is surpassing it .

#i LOVE hera but i feel i have to vote sayer because like. it’s MY evil bastard ai #mx ‘remember: Needs Improvement’ itself #what an asshole (<3)

#agfjdlj i Know that wolf is a far more popular podcast (even though I've never listened to it) #but this feeling like an injustice to Sayer #its so weird and off-putting and it exercises this fact gleefully #its got the world's most toxic situationship with resident hale #the condescension is genuinely part of its charm #also 'pleasent and soothing' are not the words I'd use to describe its voice #(the words I'd use are Insanely Fucking Sexy) #also it/its rep. even if it is an insane AI i love it so much (Mod Note: This was written when SAYER was against Hera, not Eris.)

Eris (Wolf 359):

Basically a game show host but crueller. She puts you through psychological torment as a bonding exercise with your crew, and at the end you have to shoot her with a real actual gun. She is projected directly into your mind by interfacing with your nervous system and she will do something messed up. Her most recent iteration got blasted into space. Personally, I think she's lovely

A VR entity designed to do chaos psychological horror torture tests on Goddard employees. She's not malicious; that's simply her job. It's how she was made. (Maybe she can grow.)

She was in just one episode but so fucking interesting, evil/malicious AI. also a lesbian. Was shot the secound she became a bit too self aware

Art of SAYER by @j4y5t4g.

[curetapwater]

Madoka Magica is a very dark show but I think it often gets kinda blown outta proportion, as if it's some bloodbath just because it has onscreen deaths and dark subject matter. I'd say the violence itself is rather on par with darker episodes of Sailor Moon. Deaths happen, but it's far from a gore fest. Mami's death in episode 3, one of the most gruesome scenes in the show, is carefully framed to show no blood, no gore. The image of her body going limp and detransforming, the ribbons she'd tied up Homura with dissolving, the wide shot so far from her body that you can hardly make it out as it falls to the ground for Charlotte to finish. The focus is not "ouuuuuuu teenage girl death SCARY SCARY" but on the weight of the events unfolding. And her death is not there just for shock value, but to drop a sudden, crushing weight upon the characters she is survived by. The scene where Madoka visits Mami's apartment one last time in particular is so effective. A sink filled with dishes that will never be washed. A half-full teacup that will never be emptied. Her absence is a gaping hole in the characters' lives as much as it is a reminder of the stakes of the situation.

And other onscreen deaths are as clean as possible. The Soul Gem thing is existentially terrifying but it also lends itself to something about how PMMM handles its darkest scenes with a certain tastefullness. We don't need to watch a 14-year-old girl get ripped apart in order to understand how fucked things are. We just need to see her soul itself shatter, the light leave her eyes, her body go limp. The lack of traditionally graphic imagery allows weight to be shifted from what we are seeing to what the events unfolding mean.

One of the most visceral scenes for me is the one where Kyubey just dumps his reasoning for the magical girl system on her. On its surface, it's just a girl sitting in bed, being spoken to by an alien creature. But it's the shit he says to her. The way he talks about commodifying, using, tormenting teenage girls across human history as if it's a perfectly reasonable, pleasant conversation. The way he compares humans to livestock. The way his cheerful tone never falters as Madoka's emotional state deteriorates further and further. And GOD, the shot where she slowly grabs her head, curls in on herself before bending backwards. Just trying to process the weight of a system that extends far beyond her, across the whole world, across human history. The helplessness of it all. The way it all culminates, as the audience and Madoka herself finally understand Kyubey to be a microcosm of the way the world is stacked against young girls. That single shot rocks me to my core.

I think people who label this show "torture porn" severely miss the point. We aren't supposed to root for all the bad things happening to these characters. We aren't supposed to point and go "Haha! Foolish girls and their frivolous dreams!!" nor are we supposed to wallow in misery and cry out "Woe! The dreams of young girls are all for naught!! Hope is lost!!!" We're supposed to sympathize and connect with them. And hell if I do. I'm so glad I first watched this show when I was the same age as the characters, because this show just really speaks to me. There is a great catharsis, to me, in things like Mami's veneer of being the cool perfect girl that she desperately doesn't want to fall to reveal the vulnerable girl beneath, the way Sayaka desperately wants to save the world but jumps into things without thinking and pours from an empty cup, the way Kyoko has seemingly given up entirely on being a good person but deep down still believes that something good must exist out there, Homura's determination to try again. And again. And again. Until her love consumes her and everyone around her. And Madoka's crushing sense of helplessness, of guilt, of wanting to make the world a better place, of wanting everyone to just!!!! Get along!!!!! Please!!!!!!! And the way she overcomes this sense of helplessness with the main theme that the magical girl genre was built upon to begin with: hope.

To me, Madoka Magica is a show about how much it can absolutely suck to be a teenage girl, but in a respectful way, y'know? It's about how the world is stacked against young girls, how it uses and objectifies them and kicks them into the dirt, and how because they're still young, they often don't respond to the hand dealt to them in perfect ways. But that doesn't mean their feelings, their hopes and dreams and very souls, do not matter. If anything, I'd say Madoka Magica is about how the world isn't going to go easy on you, and your feelings about that fact are real, even if you don't respond to them perfectly. But despite it all, you have to keep going.

So yeah PMMM is a dark show but I feel like its discussion is often like "this show KILLED the magical girl genre by being DARK and VIOLENT" like. Siigh. Especially frustrating because I see this sentiment both from magical girl fans who resent the show and non-magical girl fans who laud the show because they think it's "better" than its predecessors. Maybe it had an impact on the genre in the same way that Shrek was an excellent movie whose success unfortunately gave way to trends in animated films that didn't quite get what made Shrek work. But I find it unfair to say PMMM "ruined" or even "killed" the magical girl genre. I'm unsure if I'd even call it a deconstruction, it's just its own neat thing to me. I can go back and watch Sailor Moon or Pretty Cure without feeling they've been tainted or taken down a peg. If anything, I think PMMM complements more traditional magical girl shows very nicely. I think Madoka and Usagi would love each other. I don't think a magical girl show where very bad things happen is that big a deal. What is a big deal, to me, is how excellent it is in its execution.

[starrysharks]

okkkk i watched the first episode of hazbin hotel and i think it has a lot of missed potential. there are actually quite a few goods - the animation for the most part is nice, the voice acting is great (especially keith david as the cat thing), and the songs are alright. the show brings up interesting concepts but the main problem is that it doesn't really execute them in an interesting way, mainly due to the way the characters are written.

every character - with the exception of alastor, charlie and nifty - has a generally "vulgar" personality, ranging from that being a primary trait to basically the entire character (based on the 1st episode alone). they're all written in a similar way, which means that character interactions are very basic funnyman/straightman endeavors with little variation - angel dust says something dumb and vaggie chatises him, or angel dust says something sexual and husk chatises him. that formula basically extends to most if not all of their interactions so far, so the dynamics between characters are similar and frankly uninteresting. angel dust especially (i really don't like him sorry) is so far just a vessel for sexual jokes, and we don't really get anything from his character other than "he's horny", which isn't really good for your first episode imo. the language the characters use is also similar so there's little humorous contrast. there aren't really "jokes" with setup and payoff - just characters saying and doing out of pocket things.

the worst example of this is with the angels, particularly adam. i think that the angel with him (lute i think?) would actually serve his purpose in the story better based on her character - somewhat regal, orderly, but most importantly uses a completely different language to the devils. this sort of contrast would've been way more interesting imo - have the angels be holier-than-thou (quite literally), talk charlie down, make her feel less than or even like a "sinner" - which would be cool because as far as i can tell charlie tries her best to be as good as possible! that would be a unique way to bring out her angry side but instead adam just acts like any other devil, even worse than them, and maybe that's on purpose but i don't think it's very cool...... it would be fun to play off the watcher's preconceived notions and ideas on angels and devils after establishing how charlie deviates from the norm, maybe even having the angels be like "wow you lashing out proves devils are all evil", but now i'm rambling...

other than that, i think the story introduces its main plot points too early. give the concept some time to breathe and establish itself before dropping the bombshell that the extermination is to be 6 months early, damn,,, but i'd have to watch every episode to give an opinion on how they handle that, which i likely won't do. i have some small nitpicks, like the weird lack of buildup to most songs and the kind of weird pacing, but in short, based on the first episode, it's just a compilation of missed opportunities and edgy swear-humor offset by some genuinely interesting and good ideas. this isn't a review of the entire series, by the way - just a "initial thoughts" thing. if you really are interested in the concept, i'd say give it a chance, but please be aware of the creator's actions before you support it monetarily. (i watched the first episode through other means as i genuinely dislike the creator due to her bigotry, of which others have described more eloquently than me - it's very easy to find "call-outs" and critiques of her actions). 4/10, where is verblase :/

[that-ari-blogger]

Something... new? (Moment of Truth)

Here is a question. In a story about repetition, where the central threat is the cycle happening again, where the very concept of the narrative is that trauma and abuse echo in on themselves… how do you tell an interesting story?

Like, on a general level, stories are about change, so something that is, by its nature, formulaic, would probably be inconducive to storytelling. Right?

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power disagrees with this premise in a weird way. The third season of the series has been questioning the formula in increasingly outlandish way. The first episode gave the same story but with a twist at the end, the second dissected the formula itself by examining the foundation it is built on, and the third flipped the direction of the spiral for a time.

Moment Of Truth features, overwhelmingly, some of the most skill on display that the series will have at all. This isn’t a fan favourite episode, but it is genuinely incredible craft.

However, it is important to understand that this episode doesn’t do anything new. Every moment in this episode, bar the last two minutes, has happened before in the series.

All Moment Of Truth does to iterate on the formula, is take events of consequence, and place them immediately after one another. This episode messes with internal context, and it causes the tipping point of the series.

Let me explain.

SPOILERS AHEAD: (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power)

One thing that I thought was interesting, upon rewatching this episode, is how few and far between the jokes are.

The series has a very distinct sense of humour and uses it in an extremely specific way. This is essentially a story about abuse, trauma, and war, which are objectively pretty heavy things. But it is also aimed at younger audiences, so it cushions each of its heavy blows with a joke.

This is why the character of Madam Razz is the most important character in the series. Her kookiness combined with her wisdom allows her to discuss some truly confronting and uncomfortable topics with grace and good nature. The humour is what makes this show approachable.

This is also why Aabria Iyengar’s style of game mastering for TTRPGs is so fascinating to watch. And, though I can’t verify that she is fun to play with since I have never played at her table (@quiddie please), her fellow cast members in Dimension 20 and Critical Role seem like they are having a good time. Essentially, she balances out heaviness with entertainment, effectively artificially shifting up the Garfunkel threshold of the players she is GMing for.

For context to the absolute mess that was that last paragraph. The phrase “Garfunkel threshold” is used by an English teacher that I had a few years ago and literally nobody else. It refers to the area of emotion where a person is out of their comfort zone, but not truly uncomfortable. Fun scary, essentially.

Back to She-Ra. Moment of Truth doesn’t waste time with jokes unless it really needs it. This episode runs at a breakneck pace, and only stops to give you breath at the last moment.

As a result, the jokes that this episode tells are really funny. Although, if they were told in a vacuum, they probably wouldn’t be. For example:

“You won't try to escape if I just pop out for a quick sec, will you?” “Uh... No?” “Okay, great, really appreciate it.”

This is iconic in the fandom, and for good reason. This is one of my two favourite jokes in the series. The other is also in this episode, weirdly enough.

But… it’s not that funny of a moment.

If you heard this conversation in any other episode of this show, maybe if Adora had been captured for a one-off episode like Catra was halfway through season two, this joke would maybe get a smirk, but not much more.

So why does it work?

One word: Context. This episode stresses you out like few other episodes of television can do, and a few seconds before this joke, it successfully makes you think that Entrapta will try to hurt Adora.

Instead, you get a moment to hold in the tension, then a piece of humour that is utterly incongruous with the tone of the episode so far, and you have to laugh.

This is the same premise behind the humour in Alien, directed by Ridley Scott and written by Dan O’Bannon. That film has some incredible one liners that allow the audience to breathe and excise some catharsis in what a pretty gritty plot would otherwise be.

The perfect example of what I’m talking about here isn’t actually that much of a joke. It’s literally half a second that abrasively interposes itself into the break in and forces it to stumble. But the build up gives it so much levity.

The scene is off the back of Glimmer’s teleportation and the tension of Angella trying to stop it, followed by the constant stress of how easily Shadow Weaver is playing Glimmer like a chess piece. Mermista makes a quiet comment on the décor, a moment of levity that Shadow Weaver deliberately undercuts. Then we loose Perfuma to a fight we can’t see, the uncertainty of which is more stressful than knowing definitively that she has been killed.

Then the gang runs into Lonnie and Rogelio, two formidable foes, but two foes they have outnumbered. Stress rises, then the music cuts out for barely a moment as Lonnie flicks the alarm lever that is right next to her

It’s not a joke, it’s a character making an eminently sensible decision in contrast to the entirety of the rest of the cast. But the musical cue pauses the tension of the scene for just enough time for you to give a brief laugh, then the scene resumes in earnest, and continues at its previous pace. It isn’t a lot, but it’s enough to keep the story fun.

Basically, the show is made up of seriousness and humour, and those are held together by a single piece of Velcro, and that is working overtime to a truly extraordinary degree.

Except, that isn’t true. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power doesn’t treat humour and earnestness as separate at all, they run together and punctuate each other.

The other main thing that this episode does is a perspective twist. Moment Of Truth is all about context, and so the events play through the views of unusual characters.

Case and point, Glimmer and co. have gone rogue to do their own thing countless times in this series, and every time they get back, Angella chastises them.

However, this is the first time we have witnessed Angella’s reaction to Glimmer’s disappearance, and we get a sense of desperation from her.

Angella doesn’t have to speak her thoughts out loud to let the audience know what is happening. She sees Glimmer has gone and immediately realises that she has gone rogue again, so she checks Shadow Weaver’s quarters, because she knows what her daughter will do in this situation.

Meanwhile, the shots of Glimmer are from Shadow Weaver’s perspective. Almost as if Shadow Weaver is positioning herself as a replacement mother figure for Angella.

I could comment on the animation of this scene, but my analysis there is very much limited to “oooh pretty”. Which is fine, but nothing anybody hasn’t said before.

So, instead, spoilers for the season three finale (skip to the next paragraph if you’re avoiding those), this is the last time Angella sees Glimmer, and she is powerless to stop her. Angella is a character riddled with guilt, and this will come up later when I discuss the finale.

Back to the episode at hand, a significant chunk of this episode is as told by Shadow Weaver, so we get the full breakdown of how terrifyingly competent she is at her designated skillset. Shadow Weaver is a manipulative character, and so she is playing chess with the plot of the entire series in a way that only one other character comes close to matching, and I’m going to start my discussion of that by discussing her powers.

Magic is a facet of narrative literalism, where a metaphor within a story becomes tangible. For example, Glimmer is impulsive, so she teleports around, jumping to conclusions without taking the time to walk. She is also stubborn, so her powers make her uncontainable.

Shadow Weaver, meanwhile, is a parasite. She has magical talent of her own, but in this episode, all she does is leach off Glimmer’s power to further her own ends.

In a series about freedom of autonomy, Shadow Weaver exists in contrast to Hordack. Where these characters focus on the freedom aspect to contain and confine their enemies, Shadow Weaver twists her victim’s autonomy and takes control of them in a way that is insidious and very realistic. She is like Light Hope, which is interesting.

That parasitic nature actually reflects into Shadow Weaver’s manipulative technique, as she never targets someone who is, for lack of a better term, strong. This is difficult to explain: Glimmer needs something, and Shadow Weaver positions herself as the answer. She finds someone who is at their lowest point, and makes them dependant on herself.

This is, fun fact, why Perfuma, Mermista, and Frosta are seemingly immune to her influence. I’m grasping at straws here for Frosta’s characterisation because she gets about two lines in the entire episode, but I’m onto something with Perfuma and Mermista.

Perfuma is a paragon hero who does not compromise in her beliefs. This causes trouble in the series, as is the nature of this story, but it means that in the several instances Shadow Weaver tries to get under her skin, Perfuma brushes it off. Perfuma considers what Shadow Weaver has to say, but keeps in mind at all times that she is an abuser and therefore not to be trusted.

Mermista, meanwhile, is the best character in the series and you cannot change my mind. In seriousness, Mermista is detached and cold, a strength which, like Perfuma’s ethics, causes conflict at other points in the series. However here, it means that we have a character who does not take Shadow Weaver seriously at all, meaning that her grandiose pontificating is meaningless. Mermista sees Shadow Weaver for what she is, a prisoner scabbling for scraps of power from someone else, and she sees an easy rout to stopping that.

Anyway, the interrogation scene.

There is a spotlight on Glimmer and Bow here. They are on a stage, and Shadow Weaver sits on a couch, watching them. They are performing for her. She is in control.

“You are smart, you want to stop the Horde, and you know I'm the only one who can help you do that. I must admit, I thought it would take you longer to speak with me.”

Shadow Weaver is easing Glimmer into thinking she has control. She compliments her, casually offering her own services as help to the princess. But she also positions herself as lower than Glimmer. The last line implies that she is surprised and that Glimmer has the upper hand, letting her into a false sense of security.

“His machine is complete? And they have Adora? We must hurry. If Hordak has the opportunity to open a portal, he will do so immediately. The Alliance will never get there in time – but perhaps...”

She is surprised again, apparently. Shadow Weaver has taken care to position herself as omnipotent, that’s why the compliment to Glimmer being unexpected is there.

Effectively, if the smart guy is outsmarted, they are on the back foot. If the smart guy is surprised, they are in danger.

So, Shadow Weaver emphasises the danger of the situation, stressing that the alliance’s inability to help. But wait… it just happened to occur to her, just now, that Glimmer might be able to fix this. She wasn’t planning this at all, it was spontaneous, and a piece of knowledge she doesn’t think would work.

Needless to say, I think Shadow Weaver is talking utter bollocks about this. For my evidence, I propose the following questions: If Shadow Weaver didn’t know about Adora’s capture, how does she know about the rebellion’s plans? Is it possible she is pulling facts out of her backside to further her own ends?

“I can make you stronger. I'm still the only sorceress who has ever been able to tap into a runestone. If you allow me to access your connection to the Moonstone, I can enhance your powers. You could teleport us all the way there.”

Here is Shadow Weaver’s gambit. She can solve the problem for Glimmer, she can give Glimmer the assistance she needs. It’s a Faustian bargain, and she doesn’t mention at all what she gains from this deal, that’s just something that slips her mind.

Of course, she could be doing this out of the goodness of her heart, kindness isn’t transactional, but this is Shadow Weaver we are talking about. Shadow Weaver exists on conditional affection and saw fit to make demands as a prisoner of war. I don’t think Shadow Weaver is the type of person to offer aid for nothing.

“I want to destroy Hordak.”

This is Shadow Weaver’s stated motivation, she says it again later on in the episode, and it is mainly used to distract Glimmer and give her a “an enemy of my enemy is my friend” type of bargain. But I’d like to examine this motivation a little bit, because I think she is lying about this as well.

In the end fight of the episode, Shadow Weaver casts two spells, both of which could have been aimed at Hordack, but neither are. Instead, she destroys the room, and she targets Catra. Shadow Weaver is a parasite, and a liar.

Which leads into Catra’s descent into madness, something that is told entirely from everyone else’s perspective. Until the end, but we will get there.

Shadow Weaver physically abuses a child in this scene. That is objectively what this is. The fact that this is magical is the only thing that let the writers get this through censorship. But I want to be clear here, this is not simply punishing misbehaviour, this is not tough love, this is not building strength. Shadow Weaver physically abuses a child in this scene.

This is a mirror of the scene in Promise, to the point where the spell is the same, and it is notable that it would have been easier to just zap Catra and leave her there, but Shadow Weaver decides to torture her.

And this scene is viewed from Glimmer’s perspective, showing her the true monster that she is aligned with, but also the power that Shadow Weaver exhibits. This is the deal Glimmer made, summed up, agency for complacency. Glimmer has to make herself ok, at least partially, with this side of Shadow Weaver, which makes her complicit in what is, again, the physical abuse of a child.

We have seen this scene before, but here it is through a different lens, and that changes how we read it, and keeps it interesting.

It is also notable that Bow is the one who stops Shadow Weaver and pulls Glimmer back. Which is interesting.

Bow is Shadow Weaver’s antithesis. Angella is too, but Bow is her main equal opposite. Bow is kind, uncomplicatedly so, and he is the final character who remains immune to Shadow Weaver’s tricks.

Although Bow stays above Shadow Weaver by playing the same game as her, just more fairly. Bow is a tactician, and a damn good one at that. He isn’t as good as Shadow Weaver, nobody is, but he is easily the second best in the series by a long shot.

But Bow plays fair, at all times. He lets people know what their roles are, he communicates, and he relies on other people as much as they rely on him. His relationships are mutual, where Shadow Weavers are parasitic.

Bow exists on trust.

Speaking of which, when Catra betrays Entrapta, the scene is shot from Scorpia’s point of view, and we again see her utter powerlessness to stop the situation. This is the cycle of abuse in full effect. Catra was denied her own agency, and so the way she tries to reclaim it is by removing others of theirs. Scorpia can’t do anything as her friend is carried away to a death sentence.

The final scene, however, is from Adora’s perspective. We see Catra’s world fall apart around her, quite literally, and we see Adora watch her oldest friend descend into madness. Once again, the watcher is powerless, as Catra continues the cycle of abuse.

You understand that Catra has nothing left to lose, and while you don’t agree with her decision, you can see why she did it, which is important. Reason and justification are not the same, but they do both make analysis easier, which I am grateful for.

This sets up the next episodes and Catra’s characterisation there. Catra doesn’t care about her own safety or the continued existence of the world itself, she just wants to feel better by exhibiting some kind of control over the people she perceives to have hurt her.

Which also sets up my diagnoses of Catra, and I’m not sure how the fandom will react to this, but I think Catra is the villain here.

Catra, in this episode, and in the next few episodes, is abusive, manipulative, and controlling. Essentially, she fits all three of the parameters for evil that the series has established.

Yes, she has a reason for her actions, but she isn’t morally grey anymore, she is choosing to burn the world down out of spite. Cool motive, still murder. Catra is the villain.

But is she irredeemable? I would argue “no”.

Spoilers for the rest of the series, but I can’t really explain why Catra’s redemption is possible to me other than the fact that she was redeemed, and it worked for me.

I don’t believe in good and bad people; I believe in actions. Sure, there are people who do unconditionally horrible things, a lot, but I would argue that the best way to redeem oneself is to stop doing those things and get better.

It’s as if morality is a quality you have to work at, with enough practice, you can improve.

And I think Catra’s redemption is so well executed, specifically because of the fact she is villainous here. If she hadn’t hit rock bottom and then sunk even further, her climb wouldn’t be nearly as compelling, at least to me.

Micah's memory casts a shadow over Angella as she makes her decisions, colouring her argument with her daughter. I wonder if there is some symbolism there.

Final Thoughts

The reason that Moment of Truth isn’t as popular as Promise or Save The Cat, is that it isn’t spectacular, it’s just impressive. By which I mean, the shot composition of this episode is stellar, but I can’t exactly point out every Dutch angle or perspective warp, or how many emotions Entrapta goes through in a single close up.

Also, the pacing of this episode actually slows down, rather than gaining momentum. It increases in tension, but the scenes get longer and more drawn out. We are reaching the event horizon, essentially, and time is getting wibbly wobbly. But that isn’t exactly something that wows an audience.

So if I was to recommend this episode, I would point to the teleportation scene, or the fight between Catra and Shadow Weaver. Both of which look cool, but don’t hold up by themselves when contrasted with other episodes in this series.

Basically, Moment Of Truth is competent, but in a way, its playing things safe on a majour scale, which is unfortunate. This episode deserves more love.

Anyway, next week, I will be looking at Remember, and taking narrative literalism to its extreme. So stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[lady-phasma]

This specific use of the 180 Degree Rule has been nagging me since the last trailer came out. The 180 Degree Rule refers to how the camera frames the subjects in a scene so that they are "switched" when the camera moves. This is less disorienting to viewers than if the subjects stayed on the same side of the frame every time (see example below). It's a small trick, but it is noticeable when it isn't used. Logic tells us they should stay on the same side of the frame but it really doesn't work. If you are interested in understanding this further there is a great sequence in Satoshi Kon's Paprika (2006) that explains it better than I have ever seen anywhere else.

Daemon's War

The exchange between Rhaenyra and Jace in episode 10 conveys so much meaning in so few words. I'm not going to discuss Rhaenyra's desires in this post or if they conflict with Daemon's. That would need its own post all to itself.

Jacaerys: Where is Daemon? Rhaenyra: I don't know. Gone to madness. Gone to plot his war.

Daemon and his motivations are revealed so concisely. There is certainly foreshadowing here, but I appreciate that Rhaenyra knows him so well and has no expectations of him (at this point) beyond what she has seen in the past.

Daemon makes bold assumptions and is arrogant enough to think his way is the best way. When he lists Meleys in their assets there is no doubt in his mind that Rhaenys will side with them in the war. But why does he assume this? What isn't being said is intriguing.

We have Syrax, Caraxes, and Meleys. Your sons have Vermax, Arrax, and Tyraxes. Baela has Moondancer. There are also unclaimed dragons. Seasmoke still resides on Driftmark. Vermithor and Silverwing dwell on the Dragonmont, still riderless. Then there are the three wild dragons, all of whom nest here.

Then, at some point in season two, we see Daemon presumably stop Rhaenys by grabbing her arm.

This man is manipulative and good at it. Rhaenys is not pleased with him touching her. With no context at all, we only have a few words and body language to interpret. I can't wait to see if I'm correct about this when this episode airs. There is a threat or ultimatum here. Daemon's posture is so self-assured, hand resting on Dark Sister as if whatever he is saying has only one response: agreement.

Correct 180 (from trailer):

Might be helpful to cover one while watching the other.

Incorrect 180 (my edit):

What made this 180 rule from the trailer stick in my mind is how tight the frame is on Rhaenys for her reaction shot. A medium shot on Daemon cuts to a medium close up on her in order to show her facial expression. We can't interpret too much from trailer editing as it is specifically designed to manipulate and distract viewers in a different way from the final product. However, we are given Daemon's dialogue for this particular shot: "We are going to King's Landing." But what next? Why show her disdain, frustration, irritation? Is there an "or else" or some other technique to coerce her and House Velaryon?

Rhaenyra's words are relevant here as well as in the foreshadowing of the upcoming war. Daemon is not asking permission. His hostility, animosity, and wounded ego combine to make him rash. Another example of the applicability of the title The Rouge Prince. This isn't an argument that his character is made more complex by this foreshadowing, but that he has rarely, if ever, hidden his motives. His motivations are always clear even if they shift from selfish to selfless (which is only evident a handful of times). He is morally ambiguous to viewers because much of the time he seems to be amoral. He can stomach things that others cannot. He believes the end justifies the means. I think it will be fascinating to see how the showrunners, writers, and Matt can navigate someone becoming a villain without making him completely one dimensional. He is irredeemable and many of his fans love him for precisely that. He doesn't want to be redeemed. He wants to be in control.

I started writing this last night and today this amazing gifset comes across my dash so I had to link it.

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (September 3-9, 2023)

I was a bit nervous about GAMERA -Rebirth-; the animation looked dodgy and Netflix has a shaky track record with kaiju shows. I'm pleased to report this is the best entry in the genre that they've put their name on. Good characters, great action (brutal as always), and actual episodic storytelling that effortlessly weaves in elements from the Showa films beyond all the returning kaiju. Watch it immediately.

Tie-ins abound for GAMERA -Rebirth-: a two-part novelization, a manga adaptation, and a prequel manga that sheds some light on [UNBELIEVABLY MASSIVE SPOILERS]. That prequel manga (GAMERA -Rebirth- code thyrsos) is being published online for free in both Japanese and English. You can read the first chapter here.

In unofficial translation news, English subtitles for GAMERA.1999 (1999) and yokaipedia (2022) are now available. The former is Hideaki Anno's making-of documentary for Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris; the latter is a fun, child-friendly fantasy from Godzilla Minus One director Takashi Yamazaki with a big ol' centipede-dragon at the end. (It's also maybe the first Japanese kaiju film I've ever seen with a major Black character.) I haven't gotten to GAMERA.1999 yet, though from scrubbing through it, it seems like a lot of dialogue was just ignored by the translator. Shame, as that's one I've wanted for a long time.

We have a teaser for Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, as well as a premiere date for the first two (out of ten) episodes: November 17. (I am being showered with Media for my 30th birthday.) The big news from this trailer is that John Goodman is reprising his role as Bill Randa from Kong: Skull Island. I assume that's going to be through flashbacks and old recordings only, since he was eaten by a Skullcrawler in that one. We also catch glimpses of two new creatures, a dragon and a crab from what I can tell. The latter looks to be fighting a Mother Longlegs.

Fandango and AMC have added mostly-empty listings for Godzilla 2000 on November 1. Fathom Events screened Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla on November 3 last year; despite randomly showing Tokyo SOS back in March, I gather they're making a tradition out of Godzilla Day. Note that the listed runtime is longer than the film itself. Predictions for the program: another message from Keiji Ota, the 2022 Godzilla vs. Gigan short, and the Japanese version of G2K. Interesting that they're running the last Toho Godzilla film to receive a wide release in the U.S. exactly a month before Godzilla Minus One has a wide release of its own here.

Gamera isn't a meta-defining Godzilla Battle Line unit... but he's Gamera in a Godzilla game, so I've been using him in every match since I unlocked him. He's gearing towards demolishing flying units, with fireballs that deal more damage against them and knock them back. A pity that he's arriving well after those units were at their most dominant.

Godzilla: Here There Be Dragons #3 still isn't giving me much to write home about, but the kaiju cult creeping to the forefront intrigues. Also cool to see Ebirah in a starring role.

Marubeni, one of Japan's biggest general trading companies, put out a bizarre commercial featuring samurai, zombies, a meteor, and a refurbished GMK King Ghidorah. The ad now has English subtitles, and you can watch a Ghidorah-centric behind-the-scenes video here.

I cannot believe I have more Cleopatra Entertainment fuckery to report on with regards to their Shin Ultraman releases, but they're truly trying to take the "Worst Film Company of 2023" title from the members of the AMPTP. Their third attempt at a barebones disc is starting to reach customers... but the ones who already received the initial replacement disc are being told no more will be sent. @starestream is trying to figure out if they'll be selling the third edition on their site, since it seems buying it anywhere else is a gamble. (Physically, the third edition looks almost the same as the first two, set apart only by the "SUBTITLED" text on the disc.) Either way, it's another blow to a movie that truly doesn't deserve this.

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 君子盟/A League of Nobleman

A League of Nobleman is the unfortunately translated English title of a 2023 historical drama about an idealistic country boy/genius detective/noodle seller, and a wealthy minister on a mission to exonerate his late father from charges of treason, even if he himself has to commit some treason in the process.

I watched this one not too long after it came out, and I was expecting there would be a lot of buzz as soon as fandom got hold of it. There wasn't, but I can understand why. The show is a lovely, ethereal drama that has some genuinely moving moments, stunning visuals, and charming character interactions.

It is, however, kiiiiiiiind of a hot mess.

What follows is an incredibly qualified rec. Unlike most of the previous shows I've recommended, this show is not something you could just throw at your Average American Television Enjoyer. Censorship got its claws into this one, and what's left is ... okay, imagine fliming all of Hannibal just like you want it, and then right before it airs, NBC comes in and says, okay, now we're just going to take out all the parts that are gay and violent and gory! You know what you'd have left? You'd have a League of Nobleman, is what.

(If you want a little more explanation of what's awkward about it, here's a take based on the first ten episodes. Note that not everything that bothers AvenueX bothers me, but they're fair critiques.)

Therefore, I'd have a tough time recommending this to someone who hasn't already built up a tolerance for the experience of seeing a scene end nearly mid-sentence, or hearing described something that happened just offscreen (while seeing no one's lips move). You need to be prepared to look through the jank to see the show we could have had beneath the show that actually arrived.

Even so, I have five reasons I think you should at least give it a shot!

1. That precious baby boy

Look at him. Look at his precious face. Don't you just want to stuff him down the front of your shirt and take him home with you?

That is Zhang Ping. He is the hero and he is a good boy.

He is a darling dumpling who grows up reading novels about how members of the judiciary nobly solve crimes and punish the unjust, so he decides that he wants to move to the big city and become a member of the judiciary to nobly solve crimes and punish the unjust! ...Until he gets there and realizes, no, baby, that was fiction. But gosh darn it, he's going to try anyway.

I have seen people say they read Zhang Ping as autistic. While I'm not sure that's specifically what the show itself was going for, that's kind of the effect -- which, I think, is why I've also seen a lot of people say they don't like Song Weilong's performance. I don't think he's wooden or unemotional; I think he just made a choice to play the character as not always real good about understanding why the people around him are having the emotions they're having. Similarly, I think what makes him read as anachronistic is mostly how he doesn't engage well with the rules of social convention that are such important parts of this historical setting.

Like, you see that picture above, with him and Lan Jue whispering at one another? Zhang Ping is doing this because he is absolutely convinced that this is appropriate subterfuge behavior. Lan Jue is matching him because he thinks Zhang Ping is adorable.

Just the goodest boy. A baby. Please care him.

2. the aesthetic

The show is beautiful. It looks and sounds amazing. For some reason I can't find a clip of just the opening credits, but here's a (strangely bloody) trailer that gives a sense of its general vibe:

As you can see a couple times in there, the show makes great use of tilt-shift photography -- you know, the thing where you change the focal length until everything starts to look fake? It creates a weird, dreamlike effect where parts of the frame are out of focus for no reason, or actual locations start to look like model-train miniatures. Many of the shots are framed like this, giving the entire thing a very pretty, very uncanny look.

And speaking of the dreamlike: If there's one thing I've come to expect from C-dramas, it's bad CGI. That is not the case here! The CG is used so sparingly that it's unobtrusive and actually quite nice. Much more of the weight of the show's look relies on practical effects that are supported and amplified by CG, which is the optimal combo. When it does go all in on CG, it's in the service of dreamscapes that are supposed to look unreal anyway.

The show does admittedly have a mild problem of using a cool effect and then largely forgetting that effect exists. For example, the first episode has a really neat "freeze time and walk through a crime scene" bit! And then we barely ever see that ability again. But the show's doing so many other lovely things that you don't really feel the absence until you stop to think about it all later. So don't stop to think about things! That's my motto! (It really isn't.)

The directors also just have a lovely eye for things -- which is extra-surprising considering that both of them are first-time directors. That can be fun, though, when you get people who haven't gotten stuck in their ways get, so they're still being new and weird with it. ...Of course, I bet that's also some of why so much of the show quite obviously got cut to ribbons, if you're also working with directors who also haven't figured out how to get away with things just yet.

Overall, the production values are very high. This show clearly had a fairly solid amount of funding behind it, but it also used its resources smartly. Most costumes are elegant but not extravagant. Detailed sets are small and beautiful locations are contained. While I have great respect for productions that try to create epics on a shoestring budget, there's something to be said for a project that sets its sights on the achievable, then puts its effort into doing what it can, well.

3. A ship for everyone!

There are so many potential ways to pair up them boys. The show's main pair dynamic is between country mouse Zhang Ping and city mouse Lan Jue, but it surely does not stop there. In fact, I've made a helpful chart that shows you all the potential flavors of gay you can enjoy at this particular danmei buffet:

(And yes, if you've seen the show, you know there's at least one more line that I could've drawn here, but I don't want to spoil anything.)

Now, whether you do read any of these dynamics as sexual/romantic is up to you. The point is that you could. For example, I personally am not that into Lan Jue/Xu Dong, but if you lose your shit when a competent sword guy owes a life debt to the defenseless noble he works for? You could have a lot of fun with what the show gives you.

Obviously, because this is a censored c-drama, there are no canon gay romances. However, a couple of them are more textual than others, especially the ones that center Lan Jue, because everyone clearly wants a piece of that fancy flat ass.

One of AvenueX's comments from the video I linked earlier is that the main couple has less sparkle together than each of them has individually with the man that's supposed to be his bestie. While that changes as the show goes on, these two side pairs never cease to be enjoyable. Whether you read them as sexual or not is up to you! Romantically or platonically, they're still a delight to watch bounce off of one another.

And Lan Jue/Gu Qingzhang (that one terrible ex from the chart) is, uh, basically textual? It's miles into "there is no straight explanation for this" territory. Again, avoiding spoilers here, but trust me. You get to see their secluded love nest and everything. Shit's real gay.

Then, of course, there's the main pair:

This is clearly the one that got hit real hard by cuts to the material. It's a damn shame, because this is clearly meant to be the core of the whole narrative. Despite that, the two of them have a fascinating dynamic that changes over the series from outright suspicion to cautious care to absolute trust. It's a great combo of someone who is too honest for his own good and someone so used to court politics that he lies as easily as breathing.

Ironically, the source material is Not Gay, to the point where the author has basically disowned this series as being so different from her original work as to be unrecognizable. You sort of have to wonder about the creative thought processes that led to taking a gen work and deciding to BL it up for the live-action adatation. I'm not complaining, mind you, but it is a little bit of an unforced error.

So whatever flavor of gay it is you're into, the odds are very good that this drama will have at least enough of it to keep you interested!

4. A very charming cast

I got to gush about Song Weilong's Zhang Ping earlier, but honestly I think everybody's pretty enjoyable, from the main cast to the recurring side characters to the one-off extras who show up for a single episode. Everybody's playing it weird and theatrical, so I get it if that's not your cup of tea. However, I feel all the performances are well-suited to the slightly surreal style of the production.

Here's just a couple of the real gems:

Jing Boran's Lan Jue has the perfect regal bearing of a fussy gentleman, but with a very endearing softness underneath. He spends half his time with eyes brimming with unshed tears, and the other half making heart-eyes at his boyfriends. You understand why everybody in the empire wants to ride him like they stole him, and that's even before he lets his hair down and starts dressing in slutty sheer robes. (I'm not entirely sure either he or the show knew how to play the character in the first few episodes, but he gets way better once he stops being so sinister and mysterious and gets to be cute and/or unhinged.)

There is one female character who shows up in more than one arc, and she is the Empress Dowager, and she is such a wonderful awful bitch. What a monster. Shi Yueling eats up every scene she's in by being the perfect mix of reprehensible and fascinating.

I was already primed to like Wang Duo because I liked watching him be a pretty snake boy in Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity. Well, now he gets to be a pretty metaphorical snake boy here. I'm not spoiling anything by telling you he's bad news. He shows up damn near the end of the show and you know immediately he's bad news. But you don't know what kind of bad news he is, and that's fun to find out.

And speaking of actors I already liked from other places! Guo Cheng has mastered the art of acting with his mouth full. His Chen Chou is a sweet, earnest anchor in a world of tricksy boys.

There is something about Hong Yao's handsome face that makes Wang Yan perpetually look a little red-eyed, like he's trying hard to pretend that he wasn't just crying in his office. It's the perfect soft touch to his incredibly wonderful chad of a character. I'm usually not into the cocky jocks, but I will make such an exception for him.

I love you, fortune-telling gremlin grandpa.

5. Raw materials

Look, I assume if you've made it this far in the rec and you're still hanging on, you're interested for one of two reasons. The more normie reason is that you're into c-dramas in general (and probably period dramas in particular), and gay stuff is a selling point, so you see the appeal of turning on a drama where cute boys have emotions at other cute boys. That is a perfectly good reason to watch this drama, and if this is you, I hope you have fun!

The other reason is that you like making fan stuff, and you need some new blorbos to blorb in new and exciting combinations. Friend, I have that stuff for you right here.

A League of Nobleman has problems -- but they are problems that may be appealing to people who enjoy fixing things. There are literal holes in the series where actual, planned, filmed scenes were deleted! If you're looking for source material that's just begging you to fill in the gaps, look no further.

Of course I'm partial to the number of queer DIY romance options there are (see point 3), but that's not the extent of it. The setting is fascinating: an unspecified premodern Chinese dynasty magical enough to have a Bureau of Incantations, where the emperor is (for once) a cool dude, secluded village people live in semi-communal families, and one of the main characters can play Inception with people's heads. I'll say it plainly: If you are into kinky dream sex, this is the drama for you.

I should note that one of the things that doesn't need fixing is the overall shape of the series. The individual little case incidents seem disconnected, but they all weave together at the end as part of a (let's be real, ridiculously complicated) plot, giving the whole thing a pretty satisfying wrap-up. The show does not just fall off a cliff like Moriarty; it resolves in a way that's more than a little convoluted, but still overall satisfying. Also, a lot of those ships from the chart above, when it's all over, are still together. Some days that's all you need from an ending.

Maybe I sound like a broken record at this point, but to give you a sense of how heavy the hand of censorship clearly was, understand several of these episodes don't even break the 35-minute mark, and only four are even over 40 minutes long, when ~45 minutes is about the episode standard for this genre. (For comparison, every Untamed episode at least 42 minutes long.) I think it's important to realize just how much actual connective tissue got removed, way more than just individual censored shots or single redubbed lines.

And speaking of redubbed lines, the last episode of this show contains possibly the funniest NO HOMO in BL history. You have to see it to believe it -- or, rather, to not believe it, because the first time I watched, I didn't even understand what the hell the show was implying. I'll say no more.

Where to watch it!

I hope I've convinced you to at least give it a try! It's not a perfect show by any means, but it's a show with many good elements, and if you can embrace what's there without getting too hung up on what's not, it's a pretty good time.

If you're up for it, you can find it on this YouTube playlist -- though be prepared that it often mutes the opening music. It's also available on Viki (with ads, but less muting).

Just look at those precious, pinchable cheeks. Adorable.

[genericpuff]

A while back you made a post mentioning Down to Earth is trash and I would like to here your take on it. No pressure on it I just like hearing your opinion on things. FYI I hate Kade lol

I did, and I've been meaning to post about it, but I've been taking some extra time to re-read as much as I can so that I could better collect my thoughts :' )

Now I will mention, I have not caught up to the most recent episodes. Most of my thoughts here will reflect the earliest parts of the series, as I didn't end up sticking with this one. So please take my criticisms as someone who just never got into this series for various reasons, not as someone who was incredibly into the comic and fell off it (like I am with LO). I will try to judge it and review it fairly based on that context.

Most of my issues with Down to Earth don't stem nearly as deep as my issues with LO, Let's Play, or even Big Ethel Energy. Frankly, I think the comic is 'fine', but I don't think it's necessarily all that good either, and the amount of attention it gets from the platform lends to the fact that I really think its success is due to a lot of generated hype. This is one of the other comics on the platform that gets a LOT of priority advertising, not quite as egregious as LO, but still a lot.

The short answer: I think the comic is just overrated and pretty basic in terms of its storytelling and art, and I don't think it's necessarily a good "romance" comic for some of the same reasons I don't think LO or Let's Play are good romance comics. I think the only reason I don't get quite as mad at it as I do with LO or BEE or LP is because (as far as I can tell) it's not really advertising itself as some feminist progressive piece of work. It's sorta just "what you see is what you get", and what you get isn't really all that great (for reasons listed below) but at least it doesn't try to sound smarter than it is most of the time. Read it the same way you would watch a fluff anime.

Moving into my long answer, I will say some of the things that were initially appealing about it: the art is very colorful and cutesy, the comedy (for the most part) is inoffensive and simple, and the story is really easy to pick up and get into.

That said, I do think some of those praises are also part of its weaknesses.

While the art gets better over time, there are certain aspects of its stylization that still feel very "baby's first webcomic" to me. Which is great if you're someone who's into that style, but when I read it, it never really stops feeling like a Canvas comic, if you catch my drift. Nothing really sets it apart from the flood of Merryweather-esque fan service comics that are in the Canvas section.

And boy, is there a LOT of fanservice in this comic. I think the main plot point itself is fanservice in and of itself - cutesy anime alien girl crashes on earth, and winds up living with the depressed NEET-like guy, shenanigans ensue from how "inexperienced" she is due to her alien status. Everything from the circumstances of this character's plot to how she's drawn screams "this is for people who like to read about small titty girls with big asses being put into a situation where they have to rely on a man". The comic takes many opportunities to draw the FL, Zaida, as wide as possible (and of course, the ML Kade loves this trait about her, it's one of the first thing he notices aside from the fact that she speaks an alien language and can do weird alien things like telepathy and flying).

Thankfully this does get a little better in the later episodes, you can tell the creator was struggling with anatomy in places and then honed their skills, but there are still times it regresses back to the extremely-pinched-waist-mega-badonker-hips look.

Don't get me wrong, having a protagonist with wide hips like this is all fine and dandy, but there's a point where you can tell it's purely for fanservice and that's definitely what the comic wants you to know from the starting gun. She fits perfectly into that "born sexy yesterday" trope that so many romance FL's do (cough Persephone cough) while also having that "uwu I'm so inexperienced :(((" vibe that you get from characters like Sam in Let's Play. Shit, Kade pretty much starts sexualizing her before he even knows what her deal is as a person. Does he even know how old she is? Is "she" even a "she", do these aliens have different concepts of gender identity or even different types of reproductive organs than what you would find on Earth?

Look, I get it that I'm probably WAY overthinking it, you can write comics about characters from other dimensions and planets without having to get into the nitty gritty of whether or not they have periods, that's fine. But the real problem is the fact that her being from another planet seems to be used purely for creating an infantilized character with extra steps who's easily laughed at for not knowing things (don't even get me started on how "alien" could be replaced with "someone who doesn't speak English or have access to modern devices" in a lot of this comic, but I feel like that's way too deep of a criticism to be pinning on something that's literally designed to be a quirky fanservice fluff comic.)

Like, you want an alien girl who looks human but still acts reasonably like an alien - while even tackling subjects that come with being an "outsider" - without making her act like a literal baby? Starfire from Teen Titans.

(granted, the whole "smooching to transfer information" thing is definitely a little weird in hindsight, and there are definitely moments of fanservice, but that's about as weird as it gets lmao you don't see Starfire acting like a literal toddler, she is smart and capable, she just isn't from Earth, which is the whole point of her characterization being parallel to that of what foreigners experience ! She's not stupid or incapable of taking care of herself, she's just not accustomed to life on Earth!)

Like, this is in one of the newer episodes and I just-

(I suddenly have to throw up-)

It really dials the creep factor of this whole relationship dynamic to 100 when they drive home just how "babylike" she is through panels like this. It's not really her being unaware of customs around her, it's just her being written as babylike as possible with the fact that she's an alien being used as justification.

But it really makes you think about Kade's intentions when he goes straight to buying lingerie for the girl he just met who's been forced to stay with him in his home. He doesn't even really make efforts to help her get on her own feet, he just accepts this as his fate and goes "welp I guess I gotta make sure I don't get fired from my job" because now he has to support the baby girl that landed in his backyard. So Zaida ends up having no agency as a result. It just feels like a contrived situation meant to force an unaware, vulnerable girl into being taken care of by a guy who's, frankly, a creep.

And boy, Kade is actually kind of a creepy scumbag.

Kade makes for a really uninteresting and frankly pathetic character, he's just sort of a whiny man baby and you just know if Zaida was an earthling who had spent time on this planet longer than a few days, she probably wouldn't put up with this shit LOL Like, deadass he basically threatens to harm her within the first few episodes of the comic-

Like, this is after she's ruined his Playstation or w/e, and it's just like DAMN girl, this is a RED FLAG. But of course, she's an alien girl who's ignorant about everything, so it creates that power dynamic where he basically has full reign to take advantage of her at any time. Ladies, if a guy says you shouldn't trust him, take him at his word.

Zaida's characterization is also very inconsistent between her being an alien and her just being an "uwu baby girl". Often times it just makes the whole "alien" thing feel like it's only there to justify writing yet another "I'm babyyyy" romance. Sometimes she's WAY more privy to things than you'd expect her to be and then other times she's doing the dumbest shit for laughs.

Now to be fair, she DOESN'T put up with his shit here, but the fact that the writing for Zaida is inconsistent makes scenes like Kade being a creep being more about the creator realizing they're leaning too hard into her being vulnerable to abuse and so they quickly have Zaida combat it with some strange amount of awareness despite the fact she's only been living with him for a few days... but not enough awareness to maybe realize this isn't a good living situation. Like, again, she may be able to speak English, but that doesn't mean she's fully aware of what Earthlings are like, so she's suddenly really smart about what it means to be taken advantage of by a human man even though everywhere else in the comic she's written like a toddler.

And of course, like many of these webtoons tend to do, they don't linger on the implications of this scene too long, so they quickly turn it into a punchline to ease the tension. Audience comfort restored.

And that brings us to the comedy. The "jokes" in this comic basically boil down to, "haha, the alien girl doesn't know how to take care of herself on Earth!" , which frankly, I think is just a very thin veil for infantilization. I mean, really, the fact that she's an alien doesn't even really matter in the world of this comic, it takes a while for the comic to even really give us a glimpse of what her life was like off Earth so most of the comic is just typical slice of life cutesy moments you'd find in literally any shoujo or romance webtoon. You could switch out the fact that she's an alien with her being from another dimension, or turn it into an isekai where she was the female character in Kade's favorite video game who suddenly got zapped into the real world, and it would make fundamentally zero difference.

They even sorta lampshade this fact but swiftly move on from it.

There's nothing really that makes her an "alien" in any unique or consequential way, she's just a carbon copy anime girl with pointy ears who could be replaced with any other trope from other romance subgenres like this. She can eat human food just fine, dress in human clothes, and as long as she wears a hat over her ears, she's literally indistinguishable from the humans around her.

I will add as well that there are a lot of little ways they hint towards the implied dynamic between these two, at least in the beginning. The whole "second rule: obey" bit, while passed off immediately after as a joke, feels like it was inserted there JUST to create that imbalanced power dynamic that so many "romance" webtoons rely on, similarly to LO and Let's Play. The fact that he corrects himself from this just feels like, again, lampshading.

And again, after this we do see Kade legitimately acting like a creep and he DOESN'T DO ANYTHING to help Zaida get her footing beyond paying for her room and board and telling her to mind her vocabulary, so this seems more like him trying to create a situation that's beneficial to him where he's effectively trapped this girl into relying on him.

They even lampshade this as well so that leads me to believe they're fully aware of this dynamic and how creepy it is, so they try and play it off as a "haha so funny" joke to ease the tension or create suspension of disbelief.

When it comes to the actual execution of punchlines, again, 90% of the jokes in this comic are "haha alien girl so stupid!"

(I will admit this scene did make me laugh, but it's telling that it was the only one that stood out to me for that because every other joke in this series is very mid and resorts to the same type of "haha she's a stupid alien girl" punchlines.)

(omg mental illness! so funny! /s)

If you really want comedy written around aliens describing human things in weird ways, then just go read Strange Planet. They're actually aliens and they're consistently funny through much smarter writing that doesn't rely purely on "lmao they're stupid because they're not from here". If anything the aliens in Strange Planet are way more welcoming and endearing to the concept of being a fish out of water than simply making them stupid for a punchline.

(i swear to christ, "crisscross flop disc" and "prohibit anxiety" are lines that have lived in my head rent free for like 3 years now, it never gets old and THAT'S how you know it's a good joke LMAO)

And the story, as mentioned, is easy to get into, but ultimately that winds up meaning it's not really all that well done. Like, it's fine! It's a cute comic to read if you're into this sort of thing, there are a lot of sweet little moments that feel good to read between Kade and Zaida, but ultimately because of the focus on the fluff, that's all it ends up feeling like - weekly doses of fluff. Even when it tries to have some semblance of plot, it's quickly undercut by fanservice. So it's just kinda boring and vapid.

Case in point, one of Kade's observations of Zaida is that she apparently looks "just like his ex girlfriend" who he still clearly hasn't gotten over, but we don't actually see even a hint of what his ex-girlfriend looks like until MULTIPLE episodes later after the "sparks" have already started being formed between him and Zaida.

Um... she doesn't really look like Zaida at all aside from them both being generic anime girls, but okay lol by that logic the girl he served at the store in Episode 7 also looks like Zaida.

So it kinda makes the whole relationship feel superficial, like he's only interested in her because she vaguely reminds him of his ex, and it's taking so long to get through any amount of plot through all the fluff that I can't be sure if they ever actually address this. I'd like to think they do eventually, though from what I've heard of the later episodes after his ex-girlfriend makes an appearance, it seems more like they go the LO route of making the two relationship "choices" just be complete opposites where one is actually sweet to the ML and the other is abusive JUST to make the sweet FL seem like the "better option". IDK, obviously my criticism of this is lukewarm because I haven't kept up on this comic in ages, but I have the sneaking suspicion the whole ex-girlfriend-the-ML-can't-get-over plotline isn't gonna be used for his development, just to further propel him and Zaida into a relationship - and by extension, manufactured drama to make their relationship more "interesting".

Overall, I don't think Down to Earth is anywhere near as egregious as Let's Play and LO, but it's definitely cut from the same cloth, and that's why it frustrates me to see it - alongside LO and Big Ethel Energy - being marketed as "new voices in romance".

(also real talk, it's so disingenuous for them to include LO in this "new voices in romance comics" panel when it's been around for so many years that everyone and their grandma who uses WT knows about the comic, if they aren't reading LO by now they REALLY don't want to. It's not "new", if anything it's one of the oldest ongoing webtoons on the platform and it REALLY needs to end already lmao)

Far be it from me to gatekeep an entire genre, but this brand of romance comic isn't really "romance". It's vapid fluff loaded up with egregious fanservice that's meant to give you a hit of dopamine every week, while never lingering on serious scenes for too long because they don't want you to realize just how imbalanced the relationship is between the two main characters. It's not quite as concerning as LO or Let's Play, but it does have a vibe that's really uncomfortable when you start to feel it. So having comics like these held up as the "golden standard" of romance is just... it's really telling as to what WT's priorities are and how unhealthy "romance" has become in mainstream media.

And if I can get a little "old man yelling at cloud" for a second, I miss when romance was sweet and soft and earnest and heartfelt. I think the only mainstream and successful romance webcomic (and it's not even an Originals!) that I've seen in the last several years that isn't loaded up with these problematic tropes is Heartstopper. Heartstopper is sweet and soft and earnest and heartfelt. Heartstopper is way more of a pillar for a healthy romance than what any of these "new voices in romance comics" can provide. It literally couldn't function as an Originals series because the definition of a WT romance comic would undercut the actual point of Heartstopper.

These unhealthy standards and dynamics that we've set in the romance genre have been so pervasive for years now and I really just wish they'd go away.

y'know what, this whole essay is really just a promo post for Heartstopper now, go read it-