#and i do not acknowledge any part of episode 11 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wen-kexing-apologist · 5 months

Text

Unknown, Ep 11: To Grow Taller

Alright y’all, I just want to say that I am not super thrilled with how Episode 11 went. I felt like they completely obliterated the emotional build up to the change over after they did such a great job of navigating it in Episode 10.

So as much as there were some lovely images of hands, I’m not that interested in writing about it. So it is time, it is time to do the thing I should have done long ago.

It is time to write about Lili and San Pang.

Hands down my favorite part of this episode (and probably one of my favorite scenes of the series) was seeing the two of them interact, of seeing more of Lili’s inner workings, of understanding that she knows more than she lets on. I loved Yuan telling Qian that Lili is smart, and I loved the proud little smile Qian had when he heard that.

The most important scene in this episode, to me, starts with the height wall. That thing has been causing me psychic damage since episode one. It pans down to Lili. I like how long the camera lingers on her eyes. Lili has seen everything that has happened in their lives and she’s been spared from a lot of the violence, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t beared witness to it.

I was really struck by her words to San Pang:

“When we were little, Qian was always there to help us with everything we did. He would measure our height every year. I always wondered when I could grow taller than him. Then I could protect him.”

I know we have seen Lili constantly take a back seat in this story. We have seen her even acknowledge Qian’s focus on Yuan multiple times throughout the show. We don’t see her doing as much for Qian as Yuan does. She doesn’t know how to wrap up leftovers, she’s not a great cook, she doesn’t try to pay the household bills. But that’s because she loves Qian like a sister does, she’s got a secure position in the household, she’s not trying to be Qian’s partner, and it is a testament to Qian’s love for Lili that she does not know how to do some of the basic life things, because it means that she’s been so well taken care of she hasn’t been forced to learn.

There are all these little elements scattered across the series that show Qian’s love for Lili. The picture on his desk at home is of him, Yuan, and Lili at Qian’s graduation. He has the magazine she’s featured in on display. He immediately softens on his anger towards her relationship with San Pang when she asks him to go on a family vacation.

She has seen how much Qian has suffered, and she loves Qian enough to want to shield him from any more harm.

And San Pang is so lovely in this scene, with his head resting on the stair railing, a sleepy look of love on his face as he stares at Lili. I love the way San Pang smiles to himself when she tells him this. Because Qian is family to San Pang and San Pang is family to Qian. San Pang loves Qian and wants what is best for him always. And I do think there is a difference there between the soft, dreamy, comfortable expression he has when looking at the woman he loves, and the small smile that lights up his eyes at the thought of Lili loving her brother enough to want to protect him.

Lili’s face is serious, and she does not always look in San Pang’s direction when she talks:

“Even though he is a few years older than us, his hands are always covered in scars and calluses.” Lili tells the ground. It’s interesting to me to see when she is comfortable enough reviving a memory to look San Pang in the eyes because she doesn’t do so until partway through her hand cream story:

“One year, I took the hand cream my classmates gave me” she looks at San Pang “and rubbed it on his hands at midnight.”

The camera cuts to San Pang who is listening to Lili absolutely enraptured by her. And I do have to commend the show for how they have navigated Lili and San Pang’s relationship change. In very few frames, with little fanfare or flare they have made San Pang and Lili’s relationship clear, understandable, and believable. We’ve had like, two minutes of them together up through now, and all I need to believe these two will be together forever is all in the way that San Pang looks at Lili. That man is not only head over heels in love with Xiao Bao, he’s ass over tea kettle in love with her as well.

“He scolded me for it. Do you know why?”

“I do.” San Pang says with a smile. And I love that because we remember that San Pang and Qian have grown up together. San Pang has been helping take care of Qian and the rest of the family for years. You know in the way that San Pang smiles that he is remembering Qian as a young man complaining about Lili lotioning his hands in the middle of the night. Hell, I can picture Qian’s rant right now. “Because it smelled like roses.”

Lili laughs and covers her face in embarrassment. “That’s right.”

But like a lot of scenes in this show, the transition from lighthearted to more serious changes on a dime. Lili’s face slips back in to a frown as she turns over a thought. “Nobody cares about Qian.”

And this is what it feels like sometimes, with how stubborn Qian is, with how much weight he wants to carry for himself, with how much debt he owes to the likes of Le, Xiong, and San Pang. But they don’t expect repayment, they did this because they care about Qian. San Pang has helped Qian weather many many storms. He has pushed when Qian needed pushing, he has pulled when Qian needed to be held back.

“Yes, they do. We all love your brother.”

Qian has so much love in his life, if only he stopped long enough to see it. If only he let go long enough to feel it. I was not thrilled with how they fumbled so much of the emotional weight of Qian and Yuan getting together in this episode, but I am glad the show took time to highlight how much they all love Qian and to show the audience that they want to protect Qian just as much as Qian wants to protect the rest of them.

All this to say San Pang and Lili work incredibly well together as a couple, and I’m so happy that we got to have this little moment between them, both to breathe a bit more life in to their relationship and to remind us all that Yuan is right. Lili is not as naive as she seems.

All gifs by the lovely, wonderful, marvelous @wanderlust-in-my-soul. THANK YOU SO MUCH YOU ARE THE BEST <3

#this scene is so important to me #I have been severely neglecting talking about Lili and San Pang and that sin ends today #unknown #unknown the series #unknown the series ep 11 #unknown the series analysis #unknown the series meta #san pang #wei lili #xiao bao #san pang x wei lili #she loves her brother so much #she sees what he has done for her and for their family #she hoped to one day be big and strong enough to protect him #i was so close to crying about it y'all

75 notes · View notes

disventurecamptakes · 4 months

Text

Notice: Regarding the controversy around Yul’s Spanish VA using a slur against Black/Brazilian people in All Stars episode 11, I will be tagging all posts about it with the “cw racism mention” or just “cw racism” tag as usual, as well as with the specific “dcas ep11 controversy” tag to make filtering easier for anyone triggered by the actions of the staff members involved.

Gentle reminder that if you are not Black and/or Brazilian, the apology put out by Rob and Jared on Twitter is not yours to accept. I am so sorry to anyone affected by the actions of K1000o, Freddy, and any other staff members involved; no one should be made to feel unsafe or unwanted in a fandom on the basis of their race, ethnicity, or any other part of their identity. Racism in media and in fandoms is unfortunately all too common, please do your part to acknowledge and put an end to it when you see it. Listen to POC fans, and remember that no patreon benefits are worth promoting racist language & behavior.

I’ll hopefully finish emptying the rest of the inbox tonight or tomorrow. Wishing you all well.

-Mod Jake

#disventure camp #not a take #cw racism mention #cw racism #mod speaks

34 notes · View notes

foxofninetales · 9 months

Text

Liu Sang Watcher’s Guide - Part 18

Man In the Rain. No, Not That Rain, the Other Rain

Link to part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | Interlude | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 |

Season 2 Episode 16

15:00-21:05

i.e., I hope everyone enjoys dim lighting, whoo!

Wu Xie contemplates mortality. That this also involves contemplating a sleeping Liu Sang is the silver lining in a rather depressing cloud.

Look at these little sleeping beans, aren't they cute. Good thing nothing bad will ever happen to them.

Wu Xie sneaks out alone to continue his quest, as if every single person present isn't 100% expecting him to do that.

This is the closest I could get in still image of capturing the stupidly adorable little smile Liu Sang gives as he catches up with Wu Xie - part smugness at Wu Xie's inability to sneak past his hearing, part resigned amusement at Wu Xie himself.

As Liu Sang acknowledges that Wu Xie is in the final stages of his disease, and Wu Xie says he knows he won't be allowed to go alone, the elements oblige with thematically appropriate rainfall.

Wu Xie asks Liu Sang to get the others out safely and not follow him. He pats Liu Sang's shoulder as he leaves, which has approximately the same affect that it would have on a lonely rescue dog.

Liu Sang watches him walk off with the rest of the Iron Triangle and tries to figure out where he went wrong and started Having Emotions.

Bai Haotian wakes up and realizes Wu Xie is gone. Liu Sang looks guilty (and extremely pretty).

…that's right. Break it to her tactfully.

I'm sorry, how am I supposed to pay attention to plot when he's sitting here being this pretty?!?!

23:52-24:34

Liu Sang and the others watch from a distance as Boss Jiao discovers their recently-vacated hideout, right before Hei Xiazi leads Boss Jiao's men away to try to give the others time to escape.

28:26-32:25

It… does not work. Everything is terrible and everyone is bound and on their knees and Hei Xiazi and Liu Sang stare at each other and intently say each others' names. The author would say that this awoke something in her but let's face it, that happened several episodes ago.

If Liu Sang had a dime for every time he is tied up and sees his team-mates taken out in front of him, he would have TWENTY CENTS TOO MUCH. (Good thing they were only SUPERFICIAL WOUNDS and everyone involved is COMPLETELY OKAY at the end of the series.)

At least this time he has a little more leverage, and bargains his cooperation to help find Thunder City for Xiao Bai's life.

The one silver lining is that we get treated to his 'ooooh parceling that new trauma away for later because for right now screw you' expression.

The author just wants to hug everybody, and it's only gonna get worse from here!

Next time: Blood is like drama-mouthwash, right?

Gifset posts from this episode: Man in the Rain by @ohsehuns

*Please feel free to use any of the screencaptures from these LSWG posts for your own purposes - crediting is appreciated but optional.

#dmbj #the lost tomb reboot #liu sang #liu sang watcher's guide

50 notes · View notes

tomlinfonda · 1 year

Text

There are some inconsistencies that bug me a lot.

At the beginning of the episode, Beard reveals that Jane shredded his passport to keep him trapped with her. That's blatant abuse. I truly expected the show to leave Beard in a better place than this. Bringing this up at this point seemed like a way to acknowledge her abusive behavior for real.

And yet, this is the last shot of Beard. In the entire show.

This cringe, ugly shot of him tying himself to Jane. Til death do them apart. Regardless of this probably being Ted's dream, it is an awful, awful place to leave him. It's a nightmare scenario, for this to be the last shot we ever see of him.

And they didn't even give us any hints that Jane might have become a better person (not that this would have excused it). No. Up until the last mention of her name before the wedding, the show never wavers in showing her to be toxic and abusive, even if the characters themselves brush it off.

With other characters like Jamie's father, the writers gave us hints that he was working on himself (which, for the record, doesn't mean that he should have a right to even be in the same room as his son, after what he did). My point with this is that if they wanted us, for some reason, to take this wedding as Beard's "happily ever after", the show about people changing and becoming better could have shown Jane change and get better. But they didn't.

The second inconsistency I wanna talk about has to do with Trent.

"You're part of the squad now". That's awesome, and he has actually been shown growing closer to the group and becoming a member of the team throughout the season. From being shunned in Episode 2, to being part of the squad now.

And yet in his last two scenes, he is alone? No one from the squad with him?

He isn't at the Higgins' party, he isn't at the wedding. There's no indication that he stays at Richmond. EDIT: Actually, his desk is empty in that shot of him in the office. So yeah. He doesn't stay at Richmond.

The show leaves him, once again, alone and disconnected from the team, from the community he's found.

What gives, showrunners? Why do these parts of the montage directly contradict things that have been shown and pointed out in this very episode?

Is this a case of sloppiness? Was the ending suddenly changed for some reason, maybe to make room for season 4? Was it supposed to be a different ending, consistent with what the show has been telling us for 11 episodes? Did things suddenly change behind the scenes? Or is this a case of bad editing? Or is it intentional? For some reason, it doesn't feel like it's intentional. It seems really weird that they would have written the passport scene and "You're part of the squad now" AND the wedding and Trent being alone in the same draft of the script. It's weird, and it feels harsh and forced and out of left field.

#ted lasso #ted lasso spoilers #trent crimm #coach beard #anti beardjane

72 notes · View notes

waylonlikesmithers · 3 months

Text

Hello everyone,i am making this rant so that Mexicans,spanish people and latinos who like Disney or don’t like Disney alike will be aware of the racist actions that the company has done,before i say anything i’d like to preface that i am a Latina myself.If you are not any of the minorities mentioned you may like and reblog or share but please do not try to speak for us,please reblog so this reaches a bigger amount of people.

The situation all started in June of 2021 and is still going on currently,Disney greenlit a new cartoon called “Oye primos” The show centres around a young girl named “tater” Who has big dreams and aspires to be many cool and interesting things for the summer when her twelve cousins move in and help her find out her true self.

Here are the main problems i will be talking about:

1.The racism.

2.The grammar.

3.The stereotypes.

4.The responses.

Chapter 1..The racism..

The racist parts of the series are that the house is quite dirty which is a common latino and Mexican stereotype,The 12 cousins which again is another stereotype,The fact that they all wear sandals that is another common stereotype,the names of two characters: Chacha and Cuquita,Chacha is considered a very heavy insult in Mexico for poor housemaids who worked for a little money while cuquita means little cockroach or little vagina and the character is also disabled! That’s very rude! Other racist stereotypes are: The designs that depict unibrows,ingrown mustaches,sandals,weird teeth,missing teeth and big noses made in a very caricature-like way..A thing i have noticed is that on instagram Myrna,one of the voice actresses for the cartoon called Mexico a shithole country.That is quite rude of her considering she is half Mexican and her family lived there and made sacrifices for her..

Chapter 2…The grammar..

I do not have much to say about this part but a couple strange things i have noticed are: The name of the country is terremoto heights which means earthquake heights,that is very disrespectful to Mexicans and spanish people since in those areas there are many devastating earthquakes that have killed many families and citizens,that is like calling america 9/11 heights! Also the title is supposed to be “Oigan primos” instead of oye because oigan refers to multiple people while oye is used to refer to one person,a Mexican person also said that they do not use oye as much too.They also used the word Latinx which is grammatically incorrect.

Chapter 3…The stereotypes…

I have already talked about this in chapter one but the main issues i have is their designs,names,the weird sepia filter often used to depict Mexican countries and the dirty house.

Chapter 4…The responses…

Myrna responded with a very condescending video and comment whining about how people politely corrected her on the poor grammar used in the show,the video she made talks about false history facts and how the spanish language is “forced” Look it up on YouTube and see for yourself..It is quite bad.. I have heard that Disney acknowledged the fact that it was considered racist by many and has improved it making a new episode that has been pirated.Let me know if i am missing something guys! :^D

Please do not be rude to me,in my opinion this was a trashy cartoon that had SO MUCH potential but Disney made it into a racist shithole of a show,they claim to represent latino culture despite doing no research,using Google translate,not listening to latinos and more terrible things.They say they want to teach children about other cultures but they shouldn’t be getting their knowledge from a terrible show that misinterprets the culture they wanna represent and instead study Latino history and talk to actually latino children!

I have a question for YOU,how would you improve the cartoon?:^)

#rant #rant post #oye primos #disney #fuck disney #latino

8 notes · View notes

the-conversation-pod · 8 months

Text

The VIIB Awards 2024: Ship Ahoy!

Continuing with Part 2 of 5 of the Very Important Internet BL Awards, we are handing out our awards for shipping today!

We will be awarding our Best Ghost Ship, Best Friendship, Best Side Ship, and Best Main Ship.

Join us today and for the rest of the week as we continue tomorrow with Immortal Technique. Tell us your winners in the notes!

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00 - Welcome 01:23 - Introduction 02:19 - Interlude: Mr. Darcy proposes - Pride and Prejudice (1995) 03:19 - Best Ghost Ship 07:11 - Best Friendship 12:10 - Best Side Ship 21:10 - Best Main Ship 27:49 - Outro

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

And there it is. I’m Ben.

NiNi

I’m NiNi.

Ben

And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.

NiNi

Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.

Ben

We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.

NiNi

And I review from a romance and drama lens.

Ben

So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…

NiNi

If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…

Ben

And if you generally just love simping…

NiNi

There is a lot of simping on this podcast…

Ben

We are the show for you!

[fanfare sound]

01:23 - Introduction

Ben

And we're back.

Yesterday, hopefully, you heard the Acting episode. Today we're talking about shipping. BL is powered purely by people's desire to ship these people with each other, so we're gonna acknowledge it and hand out some awards.

NiNi

Our Ship Awards are character awards, because we are simps, but we are not creeps. They are given out to the pairs that worked really, really well. They have got real power to drive enjoyment in the story.

We've got four categories here: Best Ghost Ship, Best Friendship, Best Side Ship—which is becoming a little bit of a tradition that Ben and I battle this one out on the show—and of course, Best Main Ship.

02:19 - Interlude: Mr. Darcy proposes - Pride and Prejudice (1995)

“In vain I have struggled. It will not do! My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. In declaring myself thus I'm fully aware that I will be going expressly against the wishes of my family, my friends, and, I hardly need add, my own better judgment.

“The relative situation of our families is such that any alliance between us must be regarded as a highly reprehensible connection. Indeed as a rational man I cannot but regard it as such myself, but it cannot be helped. Almost from the earliest moments of our acquaintance I have come to feel for you a passionate admiration and regard, which despite all my struggles has overcome every rational objection. And I beg you, most fervently, to relieve my suffering and consent to be my wife.”

03:19 - Best Ghost Ship

NiNi

Let's start with Best Ghost Ship and in my notes, in terms of describing the best ghost ship, I just have in all caps: SHOW US THE FOOTAGE YOU COWARDS. [laughs] Best Ghost Ship is awarding a ship that's not a canon ship—it's not really a ship, but it should have been.

I'm gonna kick us off with my runner up here, and that's gonna go to Sam and Jim from GAP the series.

[applause sound]

We all love Sam and Mon—yes, it was very great. It was a great time. Fantastic. But Jim, married and pregnant, and ready to risk it all if Sam just says, “Yeah, okay, we're doing this.” She'll be like, “What husband? What baby?” [laughs]

Jim, played by Looknam Orntara, and Sam, played by Freen Sarocha. I just thoroughly enjoyed that little runner of Jim just giving slight indications that, yeah, she would absolutely risk it all for Sam, up to and including after Sam not-so-accidentally slaps her at her birthday party. And she goes to Jim's house to make up with her, and she just starts kissing on her! Like, she kisses her cheek, and then she kisses her shoulder, and Jim's gettin’ a little thrill over there. And I'm just like, I would like to see it.

So the runner up for Best Ghost Ship is going to be Sam and Jim from GAP the series. So who is our winner for the Best Ghost Ship, Ben?

Ben

They're maybe not even a ghost ship. They're probably just in the background. Our winner for this year goes to Bow and Kung from La Pluie.

[fanfare sound]

Bow came on that trip with Saengtai on a mission, and she had a side objective. She was like, “I'm gonna get my boy off his ass and into bed with Patts properly. And also, I'm gonna fuck somebody on this trip.”

Now, she had her sights set on one of the other vets when they started this out, and she was beefing with Kung at first thinking that girl was too extra, and she was pissing about with her. But by the end of that trip they’re hugging each other, crying together, holding hands, dancing together. As far as I'm concerned, it happened.

NiNi

It absolutely happened as far as I'm concerned. And, like, the funniest part of that is that when they get there, Kung is speaking in this really annoying voice and this really annoying style of talking. Bow just wants to strangle her the entire time she's doing that. She's doing this kind of—not a baby voice—but, like, this fake calm, very serene type of aura that she's giving off.

And literally she shares a room with Bow, and the very next day she talkin’ different. [laughs] She and Bow holdin’ hands in the background. Listen, these two fucked nasty and you can't convince me otherwise.

Ben

They definitely did. We don't need to debate it.

NiNi

Congratulations, Bow and Kung, the winners of the Best Ghost Ship award.

07:11 - Best Friendship

NiNi

So we're going to move on to my favorite ship: Friendship.

For me, friendship is where it's at when it comes to these stories. Yes, we all love the romantic relationships. They're all lovely and “ooh” we coo about it. But friendship and community, and especially queer friendship and community, are super, super important. I feel all rosy inside when I think about people building community and being friends and found family with each other.

The runner up for best friendship: The Band Chinzhilla from My School President.

[applause sound]

I call these boys a lovely bunch of coconuts, and I stand by it. These boys are super dumb. They're such losers, but they 1000% have each other's backs. Even when they fight, they can't maintain it for long. They fight, and then they cry it out, and they hug each other, and they go on.

It reminded me, watching these boys, of what it was like to be young and have a group of friends, you just shooting the shit and just being nonsensical at all times. Getting in trouble together, looking out for each other. It made me feel warm and glowy inside, and that is why Chinzhilla is my runner up for Best Friendship.

Ben, what does the Best Friendship category mean to you, and who are our winners for Best Friendship?

Ben

One of the most important things about a good romance is that the people who are going to be together, I think, have the kind of support network that you believe that they can make it. If you're gonna have a really effective long-term relationship to root for, people have got to have people who are in their corner who have their backs. And for me, I'm always going to be drawn to queer friendship in this award. I think last year we gave it to the Secret Crush on You quartet.

NiNi

Yes, we did.

Ben

This year we are giving it to Sailom and Yiwa from Wedding Plan.

[fanfare sound]

And if you bitches thought I was done talking about this fucking show [laughs and then begins singsong] you got another thing comin’.

[NiNi laughs]

I will continue to state plainly and clearly that Wedding Plan the series does not function without the relationship between these two. That is so rare to say in any sort of romantic drama. Sailom’s entire motivation is grounded in his loyalty to Yiwa, and freeing her from the confines of heteronormativity in her family. The reason he's lying, the reason he's playing all these games, the reason why he doesn't tell Nuea what maybe needs to be said is because he is loyal to his friend, and her safety is more important to him than his own happiness.

These two have each other's back; they are the most ride-or-die. Sailom was prepared to sacrifice his own needs and desires to make sure that Yiwa and Marine were safe and sheltered. And when it was made abundantly clear that faking it with Lom was not going to suffice, Yiwa was like, “Fine, I'll be your villain.” She turns around and gives to Lom what he was trying to give her by becoming the villain in the story, by being the girl who left him at the altar to run off with some woman and go to England of all places. These two understand each other and they love each other in a way that defines the entire show. I don't know a better friendship.

NiNi

I have to concur. I get incredibly emotional thinking about that, because that's love. That's love in its purest form.

So our winner of the 2023 VIIB Award for Best Friendship is Sailom and Yiwa from Wedding Plan. Plate in the mail.

12:10 - Best Side Ship

NiNi

And now [rubs hands together] for the main event. Best Side Ship, our annual Battle Royale, even though this is only the 2nd Annual VIIB Awards, it's still annual.

So last year, Ben and I could not come to an accord on side ship because we had two very different conceptions of what the purpose of a side ship is and how a side ship should operate in a show.

Ben

NiNi’s position was the best side ship for her is the pair that is so compelling that she would kind of like to see what the show looks like if we focus on them instead and make the mains sides for them. I work from the perspective of if we're gonna have a side ship, I like for them to have thematic resonance with the main ship.

NiNi

In the end, Ben convinced me and I bowed to his argument about side ships.

Ben

So our contenders this evening are: presented from NiNi, Tien and Lomfon from La Pluie. And presented by me, Marine and Yiwa from Wedding Plan.

NiNi

Ben you go first, tell us why Marine and Yiwa?

Ben

Wedding Plan is about the choice to present straight and do your own thing on the side. The difficulties that Lom and Nuea may face are made real by observing Marine and Yiwa. The two of them love each other, they’re having a great time, but they're under constant surveillance. People take pictures of them in public and send it to Yiwa’s mom and say “What's going on with her and her friend?” Yiwa's mom goes to Marine’s house and lays hands on her. We can see that Marine is suffering for being in the closet with Yiwa. She loves Yiwa. She's made her choice. She understands what she gave up and weighed it against what she's gained, and she chooses that. She allows us to consider what Namnuea may be giving up because he is a loved, self actualized gay man who has the total support of his entire network. What is he stepping into if he chooses to be with Lom? Marine and the relationship that she has with Yiwa helps us understand the relationship challenges Nuea is going to face if he chooses to be with a rich, closeted man.

NiNi

I'm going to make my argument for Tien and Lomfon. I've described La Pluie as being about an atheist, an apostate, an agnostic, and a true believer. Tien and Lomfon are the atheist and the true believer who have to come to an accord about what beliefs they're going to share. The thematic resonance of Tien and Lomfon working that out alongside Patts and Tai working out what they're gonna believe or not believe. I just liked watching the interplay of those two couples and how they contend with the soulmate connection tied to the rain deafness as an article of faith. Even though they don't drive narrative to the extent that Marine and Yiwa do, I think that they are critical to understanding where La Pluie wants you to land on this theme of soulmates, and they are the best side ship for that reason.

Ben

The argument I could make for them is that they give us an opportunity to look at a relationship forming in the conceits of this world without the pressures and expectations of rain deafness on their dynamic. The struggle I have with Lomfon and Tien is Lomfon turns to Tien’s feelings really late, and so it's difficult for me to connect with where Lomfon decided to start caring about Tien properly and looking at him. For Tien, I kind of get his attraction to Lomfon because he and Lomfon fight a bunch, and Tien clearly seems to get off on some of that, but I'm less certain when it comes to Lomfon because he's just so fucking dense for most of the show, and he's so fucking rude!

NiNi

He is rude, but I don't think he's as dense as you'd say. He is picking up what's happening between him and Tien. He's just scrupulously ignoring it in favor of his headcanon, basically, that he is meant to be with Saengtai. I don't feel like Lomfon is confused so much as stubborn.

Ben

I don't think I was invested in the stakes of whether or not the two of them would make it. Like, I was totally okay with Tien not being with Lomfon.

NiNi

I was not! [laughs]

Okay, shallow reasons.

Ben

Okay. All right.

NiNi

Tien and Lomfon’s kiss is way better than Yiwa [laughs] and Marine’s.

Ben

And now the truth comes out, besties. [both laugh] And here it is.

NiNi

We’re trying to find a point of separation so we can pick a winner.

Ben

The better kissers are clearly Suar and Copter.

NiNi

Suar put whole pussy in to that kiss. This is gonna be a rough one ‘cause I feel like neither of us is ready to capitulate.

Ben

I do think that both of these pairs have important thematic resonance with the core themes of both shows. I think we have to decide if we're gonna award the Wedding Plan pair for queer reasons or if we're gonna award the La Pluie pair for really strong romantic deconstruction themes. Because a big part of La Pluie was unpacking the expectation of romance itself.

NiNi

In that regard, then. Tien and Lomfon are not as deeply integrated into the mission of La Pluie as Marine and Yiwa are integrated into the mission of Wedding Plan. What Tien and Lomfon say about romance is not as much as what Marine and Yiwa say about performance of heteronormativity and the importance of queer family.

Ben

[sigh] Ah, man, difficult.

NiNi

It is difficult, but since this is a BL podcast, queer reasons do win out over romance reasons every time. So Tien and Lomfon are our runners up. I'm going to send them a koozie and a saucer because they deserve.

Ben

[laughs] We gotta do a better job with the paraphernalia for these awards.

NiNi

The koozie just seems disrespectful, we gotta come up with something else.

Ben

It really does.

NiNi

There's, like, nothing distinguished about a koozie.

Ben

We're just gonna give them their own plate, there’ll just be different materials.

NiNi

Okay, that's fine. We can work with that.

And the winner of the Best Side Ship plate is gonna be Yiwa and Marine from Wedding Plan. Congratulations, girls.

Ben

We can finally move past the side ship struggle we have every year. I really hope this is not a thing next year. I need everyone making BL to look into the camera right now. Don't put us through this again in 2024. [laughs] I want a clear winner going into this year. Get it together, everyone.

NiNi

I don't know. I kind of enjoy it [laughs].

21:10 - Best Main Ship

NiNi

Moving on to our final award of this segment and that is the Best Main Ship. The criteria for awarding the best main ship: listen, the show is about them, do I buy their love story?

So the runner up for best main ship is Kawi and Pisaeng from Be My Favorite. [applause sound] I think I shocked myself, maybe, a little bit with this one.

Ben

You shocked yourself. You did not shock me. [laughs] I'm like, looking at this list—those two? Of course, okay.

NiNi

I feel like when it comes to a love story that really resonated with me, Be My Favorite was one of the high points. The way that it utilized its time travel conceit to build the love story, the way that it built the love story between Kawi and Pisaeng. Who Kawi is, who Pisaeng is, all the things that have happened to them and bring them together. And in terms of a ship, two characters whose love story I 100% buy just as it has been presented on screen, to me that was Kawi and Pisaeng.

Ben

With all the things you watched this year and the intense swooning you had for other couples this year, I'm curious that this was the couple you went to bat for when we had to hash this out.

NiNi

I surprised myself a little, too.

Ben

I was expecting like Yai and Jom as the ones you really wanted to go for.

NiNi

With everybody else, there's something. There's something that I felt was missing or there's something that I had to sort of reconstruct in my head as we went along. There's something that I probably wasn't 100% sold on. But when it came to these two, I really genuinely, in terms of how their story was portrayed, really, genuinely had no notes. If I had to point to, like, a specific thing, I would point to the back end of the show, and particularly that sequence of Pisaeng time traveling and how it flips their dynamic a little bit. The way that that was handled felt so honest to the characters as presented, showing how Kawi had grown, showing how Pisaeng had come to terms with himself, showing that they had settled into each other in a particular kind of way, like I believed that for the two of them this is it, no matter what.

So who is the winner of our best main ship for 2023, Ben?

Ben

Our winner of Best Main Ship this year goes to Han Baram and Im Hantae from Sing My Crush.

[fanfare sound]

What stands out for me with Im Hantae is he has to contend with, first, having to accept that the devotion that he's been pouring onto Han Baram for years was potentially mildly harmful to Han Baram because Han Baram had a crush on him the whole time. He has to recognize Han Baram’s feelings and find a way to match that in himself. He has to also support Han Baram through a very difficult professional challenge that Han Baram keeps abandoning him during. And he gets mad at Han Baram in a way that is 100% justified.

The boxing scene between the two of them is one of my favorite scenes of the year, and I think there's really something special about a couple who give each other permission to be angry sometimes. Particularly in a genre about men being with men, I think it is really important that we accept and understand that the fact that men get angry is not a character flaw or failing. I love the way the show made that simultaneously really physical, but also seemingly gentle.

You can feel the whole time how important these two characters are to each other, and it is really rare in BL that friends to lovers is done at all, let alone well. As the moody gay of our duo, I'm gonna give it to friends to lovers almost any year when it's handled this well, because that, for me, in a lot of ways is the primary gay angst. Even if you grew up in ideal circumstances where people weren't being homophobic to you, statistically you're gonna like a lot of straight boys. And it's hard if you didn't know about queerness in yourself to suddenly have to respond to that and recognize that and accept that that's going to alter, maybe, the way you thought your life was gonna go. That's handled well in this show. I really like that for Im Hantae, what mattered most to him was his devotion to Han Baram, and I like that their relationship is constructed by the show as something mutually beneficial for both of them.

NiNi

And yes, that virtuous circle, that upward spiral that we talk about, that I think is part of the best couples.

The winner of the Best Main Ship for 2023 is Han Baram and Im Hantae from Sing My Crush. Congratulations, boys! Plates are in the mail.

27:49 - Outro

Ben

Look at Krist, getting a plate in 2023!

NiNi

Good for him. Nobody saw that coming. Like, nobody.

That is going to wrap us up on the Ships Ahoy! segment of the 2023 VIIB Awards. Next up tomorrow, again, if the editing has happened the way that it's supposed to—

Ben

Stop qualifying, just say it. be brave, be bold about it: Tomorrow!

NiNi

Tomorrow. Okay, tomorrow we will be moving into our technical awards. Our Immortal Technique episode. So we're going to be awarding, as Ben said, all the people that you never get to see, but who make the shows what they are.

We always love these awards. We get to get super nerdy and deep in the weeds. That's probably the episode that we looked forward to all of this year and we're going to read out a bunch of names of people that you've never heard of, so look forward to that.

Until then, we out. Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace!

#podcast #lgbtq #the viib awards #thai bl #bl series #gl series #korean bl #the conversation #ben and nini's conversations #winter series #season 5

17 notes · View notes

deadcactuswalking · 4 months

Text

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 11/05/2024 (The Drake & Kendrick Beef Analysed in Detail. And Dua Lipa, I guess)

Yeah, yeah, Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa, whatever, we have more pressing issues. Sorry to break the format again so soon, but I don’t really know in what other context I can talk about all of these outside of just dumping it all together so… consider this a prologue, perhaps. I’m cactus, and before we get to the rest of the chart, I guess it’s time to discuss the you-know-whos and whatever impact this has. If you don’t care, skip to the rundown.

Part I: Okay, but what does J. Cole think of all of this?

content warning: language, abuse

The songs did not debut in exact chronological order, so that’s why I’m separating this into a different section - it allows for a cleaner timeline of what’s actually going on and allows me to develop some more cohesive thoughts. I assume everyone reading this already knows what’s going on and has probably heard the tracks or most likely even consumed some opinion pieces on it before, and that’s why I’m not doing a stricter, review-format lyrical analysis like I would for any other lyrical rap songs that appears on the chart. There’s already so much out there, and so many double-triple-quadruple-quintuple entendres on both sides, some vile accusations plastered onto both mens’ legacies and crews, and a concerning amount of discourse surrounding all of it. Am I here to contribute to that discourse? Yes, but even this soon, it just feels a bit tired, right? Pitchfork had Alphonse Pierre writing incessantly about how much he hated it before any woman-beating or child-endangering allegations were in the fold. Rap beef existing in the 2020s, the “thinkpiece era”, I don’t know, it’s exhausting. That doesn’t change the quality of the tracks though, and even that has been discussed to death, including by me - in the past few months, I’ve already reviewed “Like That”, “Push Ups” and “euphoria”, as well as touching upon “6:16 in LA” - so I won’t be retreading my steps, I’ll be attempting to give my unique perspective outside of a timeline or rundown of events, gathering thoughts on ideas I don’t really see brought up as often.

So, where were we? When I last released an episode, it was Friday and the latest diss was Kendrick’s cryptic Instagram posts where he claims he has a mule in OVO feeding him information about Drake and his crew. He’d just dropped “euphoria”, one of the best diss tracks of all time, and whilst “Push Ups” was good, I don’t think Drake really had it in him to respond to such an evisceration. I half-expected him not to acknowledge “euphoria” at all, but sadly, he did, and famously, “meet the grahams” was released just half an hour later to squash the potential legacy of Drake’s new track, which was titled “Family Matters”. The popular consensus seems to be that if Kendrick hadn’t swooped in with something “Story of Adidon” level, Drake’s “Family Matters” would be considered an excellent diss track… and I completely disagree, that shit is trash. Here’s why.

“Family Matters” is a clear emulation of “euphoria” - if Kendrick can release his seven-minute multiple-part diss track, why can’t Drake? He spent as many days as he needed to curate a very similar song - no, I’m not saying Kendrick created the idea of beat switches or long songs, but when the two are dropped directly in relation to each other, it’s difficult to summise from that, that Drake isn’t coming to battle in a very similar way to Kendrick purposefully, using his formula and structure. The problem here is focus. Kendrick, since he’s only focusing on Drake, can outline his issues in such a streamlined and digestible way that offhand remarks are catchy and memorable but hit hard within the context of the full song. All three beats are given room to breathe and transition very smoothly into each other, and the first beat even predicts Drake’s moves over a jazz beat to make the track appear condescending, defining the song’s mood from the start. “euphoria” is a tightly-constructed evisceration of Drake, that Drake simply cannot come back from, because he isn’t fighting one side. He could shut up about everyone else and leave the bars to Kendrick, but he simply doesn’t have enough about Kendrick to do that for a substantially long amount of time, and if he comes back to “euphoria” with just a three minute diss track, he looks like a clown, not that he doesn’t already if he doesn’t acknowledge Rick Ross, Future, Metro, Rocky… or at least he thinks he would look silly not dismissing them, even though realistically, that’s what we all want him to be: focused, not spraying shots at people who no one legitimately wants to see win or fail. Like who cares if The Weeknd wins or fails a rap beef? He’s not even a rapper.

The beats don’t have any thematic purpose, the first beat is one we’ve already heard before, and whilst there are plenty of disses to chew on, a lot of it is actually just completely substanceless garbage. When he’s not repeating himself, he’s whining about how YG or whoever is ACTUALLY gang-banging as if YG wouldn’t hop on “Not Like Us” today. Sure, there’s menace in… the intro, because the only time Drake sounds energetic and venomous is when interrupting his mother - classy - but it’s weak apart from a few lines poking fun at his conscious personality which are somewhat funny if not just… strange considering Kendrick being private leads to Drake spreading rumours regarding women and children on the idea that well, if Drake says it, everyone will believe it’s true! Also, it’s telling that Drake, after failing in “Push Ups” to prove he was a better rapper or a harder, more authentic image, all he has on Kendrick revolves around women, children and gay jokes towards The Weeknd. He spends damn near a whole beat out of the three on the side characters, which I know must have been, in Drake’s eyes, a demonstration of how he just doesn’t care about those guys… but you still rapped about them for a whole song’s length and the tightest bars come from that section, primarily because they’re easier targets. It also is pretty telling that Drake, who sounds increasingly bored over cheap beats the whole time, attempts to switch the “white boy” insult into a “white flag” wordplay but he still ends up saying “Ross callin’ me the white boy and that shit kind of got a ring to it”, without ever negating it in the punchline. He still ends up calling himself white. What is this?

Regardless, “Family Matters” debuts at #17 on the UK Singles Chart this week. It was produced by Boi-1da, Tay Keith, Fierce, Kevin Mitchell, Dramakid, Preme, Jordan Fox and… Mark Ronson of all people, who I assume had something to do with the third beat, since it’s the only one that actually sounds good. Minutes after Drake dropped, we get “meet the grahams”, produced by The Alchemist and well, it left a lot of people speechless. Once again, Kendrick goes for being condescending and systematic instead of the unfocused slop we get from Drake, directing his disses not for Drake initially, but directly addressing each member of his family. It’s not the most replayable in terms of its beat bouncing or having much in the way of a hook, of course, but it is villainous and deceptively straightforward in ways. The beat is basically one loop from Alc with basic but eerie piano and one of my favourite details in this entire beef: that yelping scream in the distance. For drumless jazz beats like this, those atmospheric intricacies are so necessary, and the instrumental break refrain that separates verses, something Kendrick would do again on the second track, is too cold. I’m not a lyrical analyst, I’m not a sociopolitical analyst, so here’s why “meet the grahams” makes J. Cole look like a fucking idiot, actually.

Cole stepped out of the beef before it got personal, probably because ScHoolboy called him up and said it wasn’t about rap, and since then, if anything, Kendrick has been slightly defending Cole in his raps whilst Drake has been dismissive and insulting. Again, telling! This should make Cole look smart, slick and the bigger man for apologising and not getting himself involved in the personal, frankly gross allegations made by both men against each other, and whilst we’d all like to hear Cole and Kendrick go back and forth on bars alone, what we got was much more impactful and cinematic, something that just wouldn’t fit Cole’s homegrown image. Whilst this is true on the surface, I beg you to go back to Might Delete Later after all of that. After all the talk about how he doesn’t take Ls, about how he’s taking everyone’s girl, about how his bars are like clips or whatever, all of his boast talk - and then he slides out of this beef before shit gets venomous. Then consider all his talk about how he can’t get cancelled like Dave Chappelle and how it’s all politically correct these days, and that trans… “fellas” are still pussies… given what’s been addressed here, with a back-and-forth by the two ACTUAL members of the big three involved essentially TRYING to cancel each other, the mixtape becomes dated and purposeless so quickly that it gives credit to its name. Cole has always seen himself as the “middle child” of rap, but really, his dichotomy isn’t between mumble rap and oldheads, it’s between being pretentious and anti-intellectual, simultaneously. At least Drake embraces that he is an asshole, which is the one reason to root for his character - I don’t like “Family Matters”, but it pretty effectively places himself as the villain of the story, at least if we’re willing to accept this as a narrative, and “meet the grahams” does an even better job at that than Drake could! Cole decided to align himself with the anti-intellectual crowd whilst being all intellectual about that approach, and let’s just say that when Kendrick is winning a beef, it looks really idiotic to be blissfully ignorant. I’m sure Cole has written a few songs about all of this, but what’s telling is that Kendrick and Drake will never delete these records, because they’re a cemented part of history in their careers and really, hip hop culture. I don’t like “Family Matters” or really, “Like That”, but there are moments in those tracks now iconic and quotable that Cole has completely lost out on. Drake got his ass handed to him, but it would be even more of a loss for him economically and in the media to delete those diss tracks. Kendrick, I would assume, somewhat regrets some of the statements made because his last album presented him as slightly above it all, and he does face an increasing number of abuse allegations now that whilst I’m sure he doesn’t sweat too hard, really aren’t great for you to have around. And sure, whilst Drake might be bringing up the size of his penis in “Family Matters” for no reason, the most homoerotic moment in this dick-swinging context might be the fact that Kendrick’s biggest song in years is focused entirely on another man’s sex crimes. Neither come out clean, but they come out with more dignity than the guy who thought he was hot shit and ended the beef with less streams, less name-drops and less tracks on his album because I bet you forgot, but he’s actually started to back track and delete the records. The only person to see this as a genuine stain on the legacy, a genuine piercing of the armour, is Cole, which is why he can’t be in that big three. Because he cares too much to prove he’s there in the first place.

On the UK charts, “meet the grahams” debuts at #28, but it doesn’t matter because the night after, he drops “Not Like Us”, a DJ Mustard banger, beats Drake at his own game and has people all across the world in clubs singing “OV-HOE”. It debuts at #10 and is co-produced with Sounwave and Sean Momberger, but the idea that Mustard is on the beat, giving Kendrick a classic West Coast banger to end out the beef whilst Drake is stuck with a myriad of identity-less tracks (ironically, one wherein he shouts out YG), is a diss in itself. Nobody cares about how much of this is true, if any of it is, because people believe that reckoning with that fact takes us out of enjoying music, which I think it’s silly but also a story for another day. I don’t idolise either of these guys - Hell, I preferred Drake’s last record to Kendrick’s - but through sheer lyrical dexterity and chess moves, Kendrick won the beef and shattered Drake’s PR statement of a comeback, “The Heart Part 6”, into pieces before it could even be rebuilt from the fragments of Drake’s pride. You can’t release a diss track that has you defending yourself against false allegations, if 1.) you yourself made false accusations and 2.) no one cares if the accusations are true, just who says them louder and harder, which is exactly why Kendrick knew “meet the grahams” wasn’t enough and that’s why he needed to drop the Mustard joint. Drake may be calculated, and a master manipulator, but he cannot out-guess the biggest hypocrite of 2015. And 2024. And maybe forever, I don’t know, he could drop something tomorrow. Now let’s shut my hoe ass up and review some charts.

----

Part II: REVIEWING THE CHARTS

content warning: The Chainsmokers

So, Kendrick has four songs in the UK Singles Chart right now as a primary artist, which shouldn’t be allowed according to OCC rules normally, but I guess even the Official Charts Company just wants to see blood. As for the songs that actually dropped out of the UK Top 75, which is what I cover, after spending five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40, we say farewell to “II MOST WANTED” by Beyoncé and Miley Cyrus, as well as Bey’s cover of “JOLENE”, “if u think i’m pretty” by Artemas, “Wasted Youth” by goddard. and Cat Burns (shame that one didn’t reach a higher peak, I really like it), “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish and, perhaps most vindictively for this week, “H.Y.B.” by J. Cole featuring Bas and Central Cee. Ha.

We see two kind of inexplicable but also irrelevant returns with “Whatever” by Kygo and Ava Max at #74 and “As it Was” by Harold Styles at #41, but otherwise we do have a handful of notable gains, including “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers once again at #65, now the biggest song ever to never hit #1. It just never dies. Aside from that, there are boosts for Dua Lipa’s “Training Season” at #61 thanks to the album, more on that later, “Love Me JeJe” by Tems at #52 - a little detail I missed with the debut last week is that the phrase in the title was adopted from a well-revered track in Nigeria of the same name by Seyi Sodimu, which I thought was notable enough to consider sn error of research. Whoops. Put that in the corrections column. We also see “Slow it Down” by Bento Box at #23, some boosts for Kendrick as “Like That” with Future and Metro Boomin and, Ye I guess now, is at #20 whilst “euphoria” stalls at #11, and finally, Tommy Richman gets his first top 10 with the smash hit “MILLION DOLLAR BABY”. Really can’t complain.

As for our top five, it consists of “Fortnight” by Taylor Swift featuring Post Malone at #5, “Beautiful Things” by Benny the Butcher at #4, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” by Shaboozey at #3, “Too Sweet” by Hozier and #2, and finally, for a second week, Sabrina Carpenter is at #1 with “Espresso”. We still have five new songs debuting this week that aren’t disses, so let’s have some fun with songs that hopefully won’t be as heavy, and we start where every good night of fun starts. With the Chainsmokers.

New Entries

#75 - “Addicted” - Zerb, The Chainsmokers and Ink

Produced by Zerb and The Chainsmokers

Zerb is a Brazilian DJ who’s found his way into a collaboration with everyone’s favourite duo The Chainsmokers and smooth R&B singer Ink, with a Joel Corry remix probably helping this one end up at the bottom of the chart here. Now I do like The Chainsmokers, but not necessarily their work with other vocalists, as they’re not nearly as willing to experiment when it’s not just the two boys embarrassing themselves. Ink, who really just sounds like a BTEC The-Dream on here, doesn’t command much of the track due to that wispy tone, but Zerb being on board probably helps the squibbling synths spiral into more of an intense, detailed drop that traces bassy future house amidst some genuinely weird and oddly full percussive elements and sound effects, especially that incessant shaker in the pre-drop. You can tell these guys are professionals, as the sound design is very intricate and makes so much use of its available space whilst not being too fluid or syrupy, it goes decently hard, and whilst Zerb may not be The-Dream, he gets close. And I like The-Dream. I like this too. It’s a jam. Give it a chance, it kept growing on me like a brain parasite as I was listening.

#71 - “Right Here” - Becky Hill

Produced by Chase & Status

Whilst rap rivalries are brewing, EDM DJ duos seem to be having a good week by sticking together - with Chase & Status on board, this is pretty much confirmed to be at least decent before taking a listen and, well, obviously it’s good. At this point, I might just like Becky Hill’s output overall, at least from this upcoming album, and the decision from the boys to position an 80s pop rock melodrama with the soaring synths and plastic guitar below an absolute rolick of drum and bass feels very much like a throwback to the dancefloor DnB era from the early to mid 2010s, and I may like more atmospheric drum and bass tracks a lot of the time but I’m not above some unabashed pop, and this really has the momentum and kick to justify itself. Sure, the mix is a bit awkward, but the same can be said for a lot of drum and bass, and it’s not like that genre has ever suffered from being loud or overwhelming, especially not in festival mood, and the layering of Becky’s belting over those classic 90s hardcore pianos is an interesting touch compared to what I probably would have done, drowned her in reverb and echo like they sometimes did back in the day. The explosive approach taken here backs up an already infectious hook and results in yet another damn good track by Becky Hill, which would be a foreign idea to me throughout the rest of my time doing this show.

#68 - “The Door” - Teddy Swims

Produced by Julian Bunetta and Ammo

I didn’t even think we’d get a second song from Teddy Swims, but I was wrong about that when it came to David Kushner, Noah Kahan and that Boonetown Rat over at #4 so maybe this is just the year of the edged-up white boy. I still think “Lose Control” is okay, and in terms of pure singing process, Teddy’s got a lot more soul and presence than them. That’s really carrying this one though, and whilst the groove’s a solid throwback, the reverb dampens its impact and it sounds like he’s recording the whole thing from a cave, but not a vintage chasm like Spector’s best stuff, just… a small cave near a river or some swampland. The songwriting also feels a bit basic, it isn’t all too compelling and goes for some very typical tropes, predictable rhymes, even if the “oh no!” is a bit of a fun inflection. Bunetta and Ammo also don’t let the song progress much, even just from verse to chorus, it feels stuck. I figured that when that soaring disco string section came in, we’d get a proper bridge that made it all feel satisfying, but it does tampers off into a post-chorus and we get a basic repetition of the chorus again. If you’re going to try and replicate a vintage sound, at least show respect to how they composed their tracks too, not just cosplay within their soundfont.

#67 - “Risk” - Gracie Abrams

Produced by Aaron Dessner and Gracie Abrams

Producing for Taylor Swift is the best idea the Dessners had ever. Now these indie folksters are going to have labels calling for them to prop up their attempts at making pop stars - I don’t like The National, like… at all, but get the bag, guys, I prefer them over The Monsters & Strangerz, or God forbid Julia Michaels. The largely-failed Gracie Abrams experiment has been an industry push for five years now, but the daughter of film director J. J. Abrams finally has a hit of her own and… okay, maybe calling her “own” hit was a misnomer, because this has O-Rod and T-Swift written all over it. You could genuinely run the whole thing through a Taylor Swift AI filter and I’d believe you, I imagine this is like hearing the track the “Heart on My Sleeve” guy recorded before he put the Drake effect on. It has Olivia’s wordy teenage anxiety and acoustic tones, but to be fair, Abrams is a lot more optimistic than her inspirations, with her breathy pleading that this relationship is going to work out over acoustic guitars that don’t feel relentless, but do feel like they never end, just keep going, and the song keeps on adding elements that don’t stop them or alleviate the anxious playing at all. The same thing can be said about Gracie’s vocal take, or the wonky synth subtly placed into the chorus - classic Dessner - and the little lyrical details that make this feel as real as it does - if she’s invested, then damn, so am I, it feels like my friend is rambling or venting to me about the “tea” as the kids say and I’m on the edge of my seat. Surprisingly enough, of all things that sold me on this ballad, it’s the intensity, and the drums ramping up by the end into a rolick makes me forgive how derivative this feels… mostly because it’s doing a better job at this sound and concept than Swift is, statistically, half of the time, and emulates O-Rod’s youthful authenticity a bit less obnoxiously than she typically pulls. I know that’s a feature, not a bug, but I still prefer when it’s patched out. Excellent song.

#40 - “These Walls” - Dua Lipa

Produced by Danny L Harle and Andrew Wyatt

I wasn’t over the Moon with Radical Optimism the way I was with Future Nostalgia, mostly because outside of a nice vibe, the songs felt artifically short, awkwardly constructed and not nearly as adventurous or even cohesive as the people involved, or “Houdini” as a lead single, would have suggested. I wrote about her latest #1 album more at length on my RateYourMusic listening log - account name’s exclusivelytopostown, check it out if you care - but this was an obvious choice for the next single, because it’s one of the album’s tightest, with that psychedelic guitar lick blossoming amidst a mixture of trinkling keys before we slap right into an actually fittingly stiff pop rock groove, with a nice, subtle crunchy drum fill in the mix that I find a really interesting, distorted inclusion. It really helps the song feel claustrophobic and fed up, as the content is about the pre-empting of a breakup wherein both Dua and her partner are stuck in a frustratingly disappointing relationship where the love just… isn’t really there anymore, but they don’t want to face the reality of separation because that might be harder to grapple with than just keeping silent. For once on this album, the bridge doesn’t feel smashed in post-haste, Hell, it might not even need a bridge, and Harle’s attention to detail is on full display here, as the post-chorus keeps the dissonance going by making Dua just slightly off-key, it’s brilliant. A very tightly written and composed pop song, as well as possibly the record’s most vulnerable and honest moment, in an album that otherwise coasts off vibes. I definitely think this one could help a great deal with the record’s success later down the line.

Conclusion

Whoo, that was a lot, huh? Well, Best of the Week goes to Kendrick Lamar, obviously, for both “meet the grahams” and “Not Like Us”, but it was closer than you’d expect for Gracie Abrams who takes the Honourable Mention with “Risk”. This was actually a pretty great week overall for song quality, at least within the new tracks, so despite Teddy trying to hold his ship together, it still sinks and grants him the Dishonourable Mention for “The Door”. As for the Worst of the Week, I’d say I feel bad for Drake considering he got destroyed this week already but if what Kendrick is saying is true, I think I’d rather not say I feel bad for him at all. And if what Drake is saying is true… well, let’s just say “Family Matters”. Thank you for reading, rest in peace to rock engineering legend Steve Albini, Eurovision next week, and I’ll see you then.

#pop music #song review #uk singles chart #drake #kendrick lamar #kendrick vs drake #diss tracks #meet the grahams #family matters #not like us #dua lipa #radical optimism #gracie abrams #ink #the chainsmokers #becky hill #zerb #chase & status #teddy swims

9 notes · View notes

pencil-peach · 11 months

Text

G Witch Onscreen Text: Episode 12

And so, we have reached part 13 in my attempt to transcribe and discuss the text that appears on monitors and screens in G Witch (and talk about stuff I think is cool)

This is the Episode 12, the season 1 finale: "Keep Marching on Instead of Running Off."

<< Click Here to go back to Episode 11

Oh, but you'll have to change before you can join me under the cut.

You have to wear a normal spacesuit while reading this post...

Like episode 11, this episode is actually very light on text, (for obvious reasons..) so I'll also spend some more time discussing little things in the episode I think are interesting.

The text on the panel for the EV (Elevator) reads C BLOCK No. C - 6 The EV is arriving shortly.

It also has 3 symbols on the bottom, with one crossed out. It's hard to know what they mean, but my best guess is: - Communication (Which is currently unusable due to the attack) - Multi-Directional (As in, isn't a one way elevator, can go back and forth) - Capacity (In this case, multiple people can use it at once.)

Also, in this scene, Miorine talks about "opening the bulkhead from the control center." What she means is she wants to find the control center so she can open the giant wall that separated her and Suletta. The first thing that both girls thought of doing when they were separated was rescuing the other.

Also, also, the fact that C Block still has some semblance of power despite having been fully disconnected from the rest of the plant must mean that every individual block must have some sort of reserve power system in case something like this happens. I wonder how expensive this place was to build....

I really like the scene where we see Sophie activate Permet Score 4, because I think they put so much focus on it in order to put a lot of things we've seen earlier into perspective.

Up until now, we've only seen 3 characters (other than Eri but she doesn't count) activate Permet Score 4: Nadim in the prologue, El4n in episode 6, and now Sophie.

I think the first thing we can see when we compare these instances is how, broadly, Gundam Pilots have generally been made to become more resilient to Permet in the 21 years since Vanadis.

As far as we can tell, Nadim was probably one of the most skilled Gundam Pilots at Vanadis. (Other than Eri but she's like. cheating.)

Even acknowledging that he hadn't piloted a Gundam in some time (He says as much when he first activates Permet 3), he's still incredibly adept at controlling GUND Bits and nearly singlehandedly holds off the attack by Cathedra. (Thought Wendy's efforts must also definitely be acknowledged.)

When Wendy starts suffering from Permet exposure, Nadim tells her that she can't raise her score any higher

We never see or hear exactly which score she's at, but her Gundam is deactivated by the Antidote, which only works up to Score 3. So she's either at 2 - 3, and she's clearly suffering its effects harder than Nadim, who's also at 3 at this point.

But despite Nadim's clear adeptness at Piloting the Lfrith and his much stronger resilience to Permet, when he activates Score 4, he dies nigh instantly. He doesn't survive longer than a minute.

When Gundams had first been developed, Score 3 was considered the absolute limit, both in terms of what a human could bear and what Gundam tech could handle.

We can see this reflected on the Lfrith itself. When first launched, and up to Score 3, Lfrith's body appears completely normal.

But when he activates Score 4, its entire body glows bright red as opposed to just its GUND components. A sign that its bearing a load it can't handle.

And when Nadim finally dies, we can see its body is also horribly scarred with Permet Burns.

Sophie's Permet 4 scene is a showcase of how Gundam Tech has evolved in the 21 years since Vanadis.

When Sophie activates Permet 4, she's pushing up against the human limit. Her heart is pounding so fast and so hard we can hear it over the music. She says she can't breathe and might even throw up, and unlike El4n, she's not an Enhanced Person. She's entirely unaugmented, but unlike Nadim, she lives.

Gundam Pilots have become more resilient since Vanadis, but also of note is that they've also gotten younger. We don't know the ages of Nadim, Wendy, and Elnora, but they're all clearly adults. In fact, we only ever see Adults piloting Gundams in the prologue. When Prospera realizes Eri reached Layer 33, she's horrified, and I wouldn't be surprised in part because a child piloting a Gundam is just something that had never been done before.

But now, Gundams are piloted almost EXCLUSIVELY by young people. Younger people are raised and trained and experimented on at earlier and earlier ages because it seems that, for some reason, they are just better at being able to handle them.

The tech has also improved much since then. Whenever Lfrith Ur reaches score 4, that device on its shoulder unfurls and activates, and retracts when it goes back under. the Ur and Thorn were built off of the pre-production Lfrith models, and in order to get around its Score limitations, they just added an extra Permet Processing unit to its back to bear the extra load.

El4n is a special case, and his reaction to Score 4 in comparison to Nadim and Sophie stands as a testament to the effectiveness of Bel's Artificial Nervous System. At Score 4, El4n acts more like he's under the symptoms an unenhanced person would experience at Score 3.

All that suffering just to reduce the permet load by 1. How sad.

Anyway, the EMERGENCY EXIT Suletta uses is labaled as an EVACUATION PASSAGE.

It also has the same 3 symbols as on the elevator. If we try and apply the same labeling method as I used on the elevator, then.. -Communication (Offline) -Direction - One Way -Capacity - 1 person. The direction and Capacity make sense, but the communication is a little dubious? Maybe that symbol designates if it leads to an exit or something....

Normally, when Miorine refers to her dad, she calls him "Kusoyaji," which is a portmanteau of "Kuso" (a general swear word usually meaning 'damn' or 'shit'), and "oyaji" (which is a word for father) Calling him a terrible dad, but in this scene after he protects her and she sees that he's critically wounded, she shouts "Otou-san!" instead, which is a more common/respectful word to use for your father. This is localized into English as having Miorine usually call him a "Lousy Father," or something similar, but in this scene she just calls him "Dad"

We also learn a little more about Notrette in this scene, as when Delling tells Miorine to choose the best option of survival and leave him, he says it's what Notrette would do, and that they'd both decided at some point that if anything happened, one of them had to survive in order to raise her.

It's not much, but it seems that Notrette was a very logically minded person, who always looked toward the future in her decisions. I wouldn't doubt that Delling tried to save her, but left without her at her own insistence.

Sometimes I feel as though this scene is paralleling that incident in a way we can't know, and Miorine managing to save Delling here implies that if Delling had tried and not ran away, he could have saved Notrette. But that's just speculation on my part.

There's no real way to prove this, (other than the fact that their voices sound similar) but I've always believed that the closeup of this DOF member we see when they enter the plant is the same DOF member that Suletta kills at the end of the episode.

When Vim launches in the Dilanza Sol, he comments that he worked his way up the corporate ladder by "personally claiming his rivals' heads." It's most assuredly a figure of speech, but um, well.

Like father like son.

When Guel launches in the Desultor, he tries to communicate to the Dilanza Sol, but remember, the comms are jammed, so it returns an error.

After the deed has been done, the network begins reactivating, and we see NETWORK ONLINE appear on Guel's monitor.

This is our first sign that the DOF are starting to run out of time.

I think a lot about this scene. Maybe not in the way you're supposed to think about it though. I just can't shake this idea that Prospera intentionally waited for one of the soldiers to be right in front of Suletta before killing them. She and Godoy had been standing there the whole time, on both sides of the hall. Surely there were better times to have attacked them than when they were right in front of Suletta.

Maybe I'm not giving her enough credit but wouldn't it make sense? She needs Suletta to be okay with the idea of killing someone. Wouldn't seeing her mother do it in order to save her life be perfect for that? Prospera barely comforts her afterward either. She immediately explains to her that if she hadn't done it, Suletta might have been killed, and that fighting can save everyone.

And of course, it's obvious, but I just love the symbolism in this shot. It's so good. Suletta stepping out of the darkness and crossing the line, led by her mother's blinding light, onto the bloody path. It's so good. Such a good fucking scene. Grrggrhgrh

The music that plays during this fight between Suletta and Sophie is titled AERIAL REBUILD

youtube

If you haven't already, you should give it a listen. It's genuinely one of my favorite tracks in the entire OST, top 3 at least, and we don't hear much of it in this scene.

During their duel, Sophie calls Aerial REBUILD's face "scary" and says she "liked her better before."

Aerial is no longer pretending to be a machine made for silly school duels, that line has been crossed, and its true purpose is beginning to be revealed.

The truly terrifying thing about REBUILD's GUND Bit Cannon is that we never see it at full capacity. In fact, this one time we see it, it's at its WEAKEST strength. All mobile suits used in Asticassia have a regulation program installed that limits the energy output of their beam weapons. (With this restriction, all energy weapons only produce green colored beams.) Despite being off Asticassia for months now, Aerial NEVER had that program uninstalled, so its Beam Weapons are still at their lowest output. And, Despite That, the beam produced by this cannon is...

This Powerful. It's so powerful, that when Aerial uses it, you can see it have to activate its back thrusters to counteract the recoil.

It's SO powerful, that it completely melts the legs of a Desultor who just happened to GRAZE it ever so slightly.

Not to talk about future episodes here, but I actually cannot stress that it is genuinely a miracle that Miorine forcefully shut Aerial down in this moment in episode 17.

Because, and I mean this with zero exaggeration, Suletta would have ERASED GUEL and SPLIT THE SCHOOL IN HALF if she released the charge on this god damn canon.

Lord In Heaven, Prospera.

TEXT: SUBJECT: Business Correspondence FROM: Peil Technologies To: ELAN CERES HIGHEST PRIORITY

An attack has been made on Plant Quetta by the terrorist orginization 'Dawn of Fold' 2 unidentified MS using GUND FORMAT were confirmed. We will contact you later with further instructions.

This is the email 5lan receives from Peil after the DOF leave. They got that information quick, huh? I wonder how... We also see that he only ever receives Business Correspondence emails from Peil and Course Schedule updates from Asticassia in his inbox. He doesn't have any friends.

And with that, we have completed Ep 12, the entirety of Season 1! Wow...what a ride it has been thus far...

Thank you for coming on this journey with me...!

Whatever happens next, we'll face it together, won't we?

Episode 13. >>

Masterpost.

#g witch #gundam the witch from mercury #Youtube

20 notes · View notes

thewordinblackandred · 8 months

Text

Hey y'all! I'm Micah, the host of the leftist Bible study podcast The Word in Black and Red. We are just finishing up recording our first season of the show, covering the book of Genesis. As we head into the second season, this time covering the book of Exodus, I'm looking for even more co-hosts to come on and share their leftist Bible takes. If you have thoughts on any of the following stories, please reblog them, and I'll be in contact!

- S 2.5 Exodus 4:1-17: The Snake Staff and the Withered Hand

- S 2.6 Exodus 4:18-31: Emergency Circumcision

- S 2.8 Exodus 6:1-27: God Reassures Moses of his Calling

- S 2.10 Exodus 7:14-25: Plague I: The Blood

- S 2.11 Exodus 8:1-15: Plague II: The Frogs

- S 2.12 Exodus 8:16-32: Plagues III & IV: The Lice & the Swarms

- S 2.13 Exodus 9:1-12: Plagues V & VI: The Death of Cattle & the Boils

- S 2.14 Exodus 9:13-35: Plague VII: The Thunder & Hail

- S 2.15 Exodus 10:1-20: Plague VII: The Locusts

- S 2.16 Exodus 10:21-29: Plague IX: The Darkness

- S 2.17 Exodus 11: God Announces the Final Plague

- S 2.18 Exodus 12:1-28: The First Passover

- S 2.19 Exodus 12:29-13:16: Plague X: The Firstborn

- S 2.20 Exodus 13:17-15:21: Pharaoh's Army Lost at Sea

- S 2.22 Exodus 17:8-16: Israel Defeats Amalek

- S 2.23 Exodus 18: The Vanguard Organizes the Masses

- S 2.24 Exodus 19: Arrival at Mt. Sanai

- S 2.25 Exodus 20: The Ten Commandments

- S 2.26 Exodus 21-22:15: Slavery, Violence, & Property

- S 2.27 Exodus 22:16-23:9: "Seduction" Marriage, Immigrants, and Usury

- S 2.28 Exodus 23:10-19: Sabbath Rest

- S 2.29 Exodus 23:20-33: Joshua Foretold

- S 2.30 Exodus 24: The Mosaic Covenant

- S 2.31 Exodus 25-28: Instructions for God's Dwelling and Vestments

- S 2.32 Exodus 29-31: Proper Worship & the Sabbath

- S 2.34 Exodus 33: Moses Seeks for and Sees God

- S 2.35 Exodus 34-35:3: God's Character, the Renewed Covenant, & Moses' Shining Face

- S 2.37 Exodus 40: God Enters God's Dwelling

FAQ:

"But how can you be a Christian and leftist?" Because Jesus is!

"The Bible isn't about politics. Why are you bringing your own personal agenda to the text?" We all always bring our own biases to the text. The question is simply whether we acknowledge them or not. Most interpretations of the Bible you'll hear twist the Bible to support the status quo. We read the Bible, usually pretty straightforwardly, and realize that that interpretation isn't congruent with the book written by an oppressed people about their liberatory God.

"I don't really know the Bible all that well. What can I contribute?" Your perspective! We read the Bible from a leftist and liberationist perspective, and a big part of the liberationist perspective is that everyone has something to add to our understanding of the Bible. We offer many, often contradictory, readings of a story in each episode. Your job as a co-host isn't to know the Bible in and out, but to do as much reading and/or research as you need to feel comfortable sharing your thoughts with a broader audience.

If you're interested, it doesn't hurt to just post a take! Worst case scenario, you can tell me you're not interested later on. More likely, you'll have a great time recording with us and I'll be DMing you again to get you into new episodes!

#leftist #leftistchristianity #thewordinblackandred #leftistbiblestudy #anarchism #anarchist #communalism #communism

14 notes · View notes

daeyeol4you · 1 year

Text

The Chay Rewatch Ep 5

As part of my KP Rewatch, I’m going to be commenting on each episode and analyzing the different Chay scenes. He’s my favorite character, and I thought I’d put down my thoughts (as well as timestamps for his scenes) as a fun way to express that.

Ep 1 & 2, Ep 3, Ep 4

Ep 5 - The Music Lesson

Time 4:58-7:56 - The Bread Sticks

Yes this isn’t a Chay scene, but at this point I’m analyzing Kim and Chay scenes.

Kim’s Outfit: A classic Kim look with the leather jacket – black this time at least- and the white pants. Someone please take those white pants away from him.

Not Kim taking two seconds to confirm he’s alone in the office before practically jumping to searching for clues. He'd love escape rooms so much.

IDK if this ever gets confirmed, but those handprints belong to baby Porsche and baby Porchay right? The red paint is so ominous.

Korn, I think, definitely likes Kim the most out of his three sons. He doesn't trust him, but he sees how Kim attempts to play the game his own way. Kim, unlike Kinn and Khun, is suspicious of everything, an amazing fighter, and establishing himself on his own. Kim makes an amazing chess piece. If Korn could control him, he’d be set.

Kim, your interrogation is not subtle at all, and Korn knows it. But, he allows it because Kim expressing interest in the family makes it easier for him to draw his youngest back into the fold. But, that doesn’t mean he trusts his son.

“I’m more interested in what you’re thinking.” – cue the dramatic music. This honestly makes me question why Kim is investigating his father. The show never really gives us a motive for that, nothing to clearly explain what starts this obsession. Kim is obviously paranoid and suspicious of everything, but he got out of the family compound, and he’s living on his own. Usually that would mean you want nothing to do with the family, but Kim actively searches out what his father has done.

Time: 11:54 – 13:53 – Talking & not talking at the carp pond

The quick look at Kim that Khun does just before he walks on screen after quietly waiting for him is so meaningful. Khun is never quiet. But, he knows that Kim never comes home and treats him like a wild animal letting his youngest brother come to him. Once he’s acknowledged that’s when Khun gets loud.

Kim, your ass ain’t subtle. His casual walk by the carp pond that isn’t near the front entrance or garage. You wanted to check in on your brother just as much as your brother wants to check in on you. The lack of communication in this household

How in the hell did Kim get Chay’s phone number? And why is Chay just answering random numbers late at night?

Chay probably thought his wildest dream had come true :(

Time: 30:40 – 38:28 - Chay didn’t even get to eat the snacks

Porchay is so cute with his guitar next to his idol

Chay’s outfit: so begins the plaid shirt era. The blue looks good on him and it matches the subtle blue flowers on Kim’s jacket. He looks so soft.

Kim’s outfit: the blood-red velvet bomber jacket is such a good look on him! This is a Wik outfit through and through. Kim knows Chay is obsessed with Wik, so Wik is what Kim is going to give him. Why did this style only appear in one episode! Why is almost every other jacket a leather jacket! I need to know what his shirt says desperately. I need to analyze it.

Chay wandering around the studio very carefully not touching anything while being excluded from the conversation, little brother core

Kim preparing snacks, sorry sir but do you want Chay to fall in love with you right now? Giving someone food is an act of love (to me at least), and as a hungry teenager definitely to Porchay as well.

Not Chay immediately clocking that Wik taking him to a secluded, personal recording studio is a bit above and beyond

THE LITTLE HEAD TILT CHAY DOES WHEN KIM SAYS HIS NAME IS KIM

Sorry I’m calm now.

I LIED! THE WAY HE TILTS HIS HEAD TO READ WIK/KIM AND THEN KIM MIRRORS HIM!

“Any side would do. I like them all.” – You can actually see this hit Kim in real time.

Chay responding that it seems fun when questioned why he wants to study music. Yes, baby boy enjoy what you want to do in life. No joke Kim is not used to this level of blatant honesty. Chay has nothing to hide and why should he? He likes music and it's fun. That’s it.

“Let’s do it on your brother.” – Kim you are not slick. This is embarrassing!

CHAY’S HEAD TILT WHEN HE’S QUESTIONING HOW KIM KNOWS ABOUT PORSCHE! I AM UNWELL

Anyways, no Chay please don’t accept that awful explanation. I know Kim didn’t call you out for the all sides comment, but please! Stranger Danger! You can see Chay’s brain working through the excuses of Okay he let me be weird I have to let him be weird now because maybe he did see it, maybe this isn’t so weird. Kim, you are so lucky Chay likes you enough to be colorblind.

“I still feel like I can’t be like him.” – that’s a little heartbreaking considering Chay desperately wants to take some of the burden off of Porsche. Porsche who to Chay is the rock his whole life is built on.

I’m sorry Chay just giving Kim his phone. Are you not scared he’ll see your Wik stan account or your AO3 Chay?

The photos they chose for Chay’s catalogue are so cute. Why did I just now only notice that Porsche’s red shirt has a ton of cats on it? How much do you wanna bet that was a gift from Chay?

The texts to Porsche break my heart. Chay obviously knows his brother won’t respond, but he still needs the catharsis of talking to him because that was their dynamic before. They were always open and always there for each other

Chay has so much self-confidence and power. He wrote something in minutes and sees that his idol is trying to ditch him, but he still goes hold on mister please listen to what I wrote. That’s what being raised by bad bitch, don’t think about consequences, love is not a weakness Porsche Kittisawat is like.

You can see Kim realize that this kid is good and start screaming in his head before he joins in. Kim loves music, and even though every bit of him is screaming get this kid out he’s not useful, he can’t help but break open just a little bit

Their duet with their song! Kim you are never getting over Chay

Time: 39:52 – 40:34 – Bro shenanigans

Chay practicing so hard on his guitar! He really does love music and genuinely finds it fun!

The way he freezes when he see Porsche and then just runs to him! He missed his brother so much. He’s definitely been so lonely without Porsche, but he doesn’t show it to his brother.

The brother bonding montage. You can tell these two characters only ever had each other.

Chay’s Outfit: Chay is wearing a Tanjiro from Demon Slayer shirt (I would recognize that haori print anywhere), which holy shit costuming y’all are so wild for this one. Tanjiro sacrificing everything after his family died and Nezuko his sole surviving sibling becoming a demon. The green shorts paired with it are cute.

The focus on Chay monologuing and Porsche listening intently.

Chay going off on a school trip after being forced to by Porsche is so telling. Porsche doesn’t see his worth in other people’s lives. Chay desperately misses his brother, but allows Porsche to persuade him because it makes Porsche happy to see Chay live a good life, one that Porsche never got a chance to have.

Overall Chay Rating (Chrating): I’m going to give this episode an A.

I love the different sides we get to see of Chay here with both Kim and Porsche. He’s such a bright person. He’s not as naïve as some people think. He definitely saw Kim’s weird thing about Porsche, but he doesn’t see the worst in people and moves past it. He’s so happy seeing Porsche even though Porsche essentially abandoning him had to hurt. He chooses to be happy that his brother is home.

#kinnporsche #kprewatch2023 #porchay kittisawat #kim theerapanyakul #kimchay #porchay #kinnporsche the series

48 notes · View notes

scriptscribbles · 1 year

Text

To give my general 13 Who feelings since I asked:

Ryan was my favorite Chibnall era companion though I suspect Tosin probably felt pretty burned by lack of material and hope he's on to better things that make him happier. He's quite a good actor IMO. Makes a lot of interesting choices when left to the background.

Dan and Graham were both quite charming but just not character types I need from stories right now. Dan also really suffered from not getting, like, any breathing room as a character. It ends up feeling like after Brian Williams, Chibnall needed a comfort older white dude in the TARDIS.

Yaz I like on paper but never felt like she got the focus or exploration the many interesting things about her deserved. Can You Hear Me was a very clever retcon to explain her lack of material in series 11 in addition to being poignant though it does totally change her from the character introduced in Woman Who Fell to Earth.

I like the idea of the Timeless Child and the opportunities it offers and relate a surprising amount to the whole forgotten child childhood trauma questions about identity, but think it stalled on examining that after the quite underrated Once, Upon Time.

Sacha Dhawan is a superb actor who elevated a lot but I did not care at all for the direction the Master was taken in. The lack of acknowledgment of Missy was painful, the Nazi stuff doubly so, and the redestriction of Gallifrey just annoying.

Jodie Whittaker is wonderful and very Doctory. I wish she could have played more range though and really wanted to see her play a fuller relationship plot because I love the Doctor in that kind of thing and think she'd have nailed it.

Loved the sonic. Didn't love the TARDIS. Liked series 12, apart from Spyfall part 2. Thought Resolution and Eve of the Daleks were fantastic. Complicated feelings about Flux and how it all in my view fell apart (well documented that Chibnall wrote it while it went and it shows). Thought series 11 was the right idea but didn't think it was good enough overall.

Really enjoyed writers like Vinay Patel, Ed Hime, Joy Wilkinson, Maxine Alderton, and Nina Metivier contributing, and even controversially Pete McTighe, though I wish they got a bit more polish the way RTD or Moffat added sparkle to their guest writers. It's probably not fair to expect Chris Chibnall to meet the dialogue crispness of two of the best living British TV writers who proceeded him. It's not that he's bad, but Moffat and Davies are really special talents on that front and a tough act to follow.

Thought the best director of the era was Nida Manzoor and hope they get her back. Also loved Wayne Yip again but sounds like he didn't love doing it.

Some episodes and elements I really liked but overall the era of modern Who I'm coolest on. Still would take it over several classic runs any day.

#doctor who

41 notes · View notes

thenightling · 7 months

Text

The reality of "Cancel culture" is jus an annoying casual bullying to make people stop talking about various subjects

Last night I posted something that amused me about Spirit Halloween. It was about spirit Halloween now selling adult sized reproduction Ben Cooper Halloween costumes (Popular but very cheap kids Halloween costumes from the 1930s to the early 1990s).

This resulted in someone hijacking my Tumblr post about to give a "Friendly reminder" that we shouldn't buy anything from Spirit Halloween because Spirit Halloween is owned by Spencer's Gifts and "in 2016 Spencer's gifts sold 'Grab America by the p-ssy' shirts and they have yet to apologize!"

I don't care. Yes, it's disgusting that Trump said he could grab a woman by her p-ssy and get away with it. Yes, the shirt was in poor taste but I'm not avoiding a store because it's owned by the same people who own another store that sold a tasteless shirt EIGHT years ago!

I am tired of being told what I should or shouldn't interact with.

I run a Neil Gaiman's The Sandman Facebook group and I was called a TERF apologist and even Transphobe all because I won't ban the mention of J. K. Rowling. She is literally mentioned in episode 11 of The Sandman Netflix series. And Neil Giaman's four part story The Books of Magic is often mistaken as a Harry Potter rip-off even though it was published over seven-years before the first Harry Potter book was published.

Even though my group's very first rule is "No bigotry" I was accused of leaving transphobic content on the group. Someone in "The Trailer Park Pagans are at it Again" group even kept a bunch of posts from transphobes from within my Sandman group from before I could ban them (Most of those troll posts were less than eleven minutes old when screen grabbed) to make it look like I allowed that crap.

When Hocus Pocus 2 was released to Disney+ someone in my group decided to announce that Bette Midler was a transphobe and she "No longer felt safe in the group" if I talked about Hocus Pocus. Like simply mentioning a fictional character Bette Midler played will make her manifest in their bedroom.

I am NOT justifying or "apologizisting" anything Bette Midler has said. Liking those films is not based on the personal lives of the women involved.

I posted an ASMR video by "Jim's ASMR" based on The Sandman and someone felt the need to tell me how "Problematic" he is because he cheated on his wife in real life with other ASMR artists.

I posted a Nostalgia Critic video and get a lecture about how problematic Channel Awesome is (Yes, I know. I know. I saw the manifesto.)

I really like Danny Elfman. Recently there were some awful accusations tied to him from decades ago that I will not defend but thankfully it appears there was no real evidence anyway. But apparently I'm not supposed to listen to my old recordings anymore, even though he's not getting any new money for them. Annoyingly some people have even used his Oingo Boingo song "Little Girls" as "Proof" that he's a sexual predator even though the song was meant to be a call out to shame people in Hollywood who take advantage of underage girls. You're not supposed to like the main character of the song, and he's even caught at the end of the music video version.

I was told Netflix's Castlevania is problematic and I should avoid it because of some misbehavior of the show's writer. I LIKE Castlevania!

I've been told to avoid Tim Burton because he's "racist" even though I've seen him make a conscious effort to be a lot more diverse in his casting.

On Facebook someone tried to scold me for being Wiccan. They lectured me because Wiccans borrow from other religions and there for "Culturally appropriate." Well, name any religion that doesn't do that. I replied with more or less that challenge and got "If you acknowledge the problematic elements of Wiccan why don't you avoid it?"

Because I'm a f--king adult and I don't avoid all things that are "Problematic." All religions borrow from other religions. There's no pure and untainted form of Paganism. It's Neo Paganism for a reason. And most of it was reinvented or cobbled together in the nineteenth century, just slightly older than modern Wicca pieced together from ancient folk beliefs.

Spirit Halloween Spencer's Gifts J. K. Rowling Harry Potter Bette Midler Hocus Pocus Nostalgia Critic Jim's ASMR videos Danny Elfman Castlevania Tim Burton Wicca (My own religion!)

I've reached a point where I'm sick of being told what I should avoid even discussing because it's "Problematic" or offensive. Note: I am NOT justifying sexual abuse or J. K. Rowling's anti-Trans views.

I understand there's a valid reason to avoid some of these things if you have strong convictions about them and that's up to you but I do not appreciate my posts being hijacked to be given a "Friendly reminder" why you shouldn't shop at Spirit Halloween.

"Friendly reminder" YOU don't get to dictate what I talk about or where I shop, or what music I listen to. If it's problematic that's on me. It's not your business. If I want to listen to an ASMR by a man-whore who doesn't know who to be faithful so what? I'm not sleeping with him, I'm listening to his semi-hypnotic insomnia aid videos.

#Spirit Halloween #IF YOU COMMENT AGAIN ABOUT THE SHIRT SPENCERS SOLD IN 2016 I IWLL BLOCK YOU!!!!

7 notes · View notes

velvetshirtnumber3 · 8 months

Text

Thoughts About Last Twilight Finale as I watched it

One part of me is happy to seeing them flirting and getting along, but the other rage-filled part of me that has not healed from episode 11 is honestly kind of upset about them being able to do that again like the breakup wasn't as painful as it was. Like obviously its been several years and i'm glad they aren't holding onto any of the pain from it because that wouldn't be healthy but just.....it hurts a little seeing the characters be okay when i'm still not. (And like it was a painful breakup and we're seeing no trace of that with their interactions).

I appreciate Night and Porjai little attempts to get them to talk and Mhok being a bridesmaid makes me happy.

Ok so they've talked about the breakup and Mhok's thanking Day for it? And saying he was right? So we just aren't going to discuss that fact that Mhok's actions were a combo of things besides pity? Like his trauma with his sister? I want it to be addressed gosh darn it, they haven't talked about it enough in this show. They spent this whole show talking about how Mhok didn't pity him and now you're saying that in an instance where Mhok's actions could be explained by a couple different reasons, you went with "actually he does pity him" as the reason? I just feel like there were better ways this could have been addressed but they had limited time.

"I can't believe its been three years"

*me, upset, staring at my screen* "Me too"

(You went three years without talking?!?! After breaking up over one argument!?!?)

"Whatever problems you have, talk to each other" where was this advice during episode 11, it could have saved a lot of time and heartbreak

You know what, I'm tired of being upset, bring out Poomjai, i want to see her and have Mhok see her

ok she's out of focus but she looks very sweet

the problem here is that I can't tell if Day is just hesitant to try again with Mhok or actually doesn't want to, so every time Mhok references it I feel awkward. I know its supposed to be a romance show so they'll probably end up together but.....

ok Day made a joke about it so I guess he's not too uncomfortable but still...

Poor mhok.....I honestly hope that if they do decide to get back together, its because Day went after him and told him that he really did want to get back with him because I feel like too much of the show has been Mhok taking the steps forward with their relationship

looks like i get my wish....ah the classic airport scene

I highly doubt he actually left on the plane but you know what, maybe its good to let them sit with this emotion for a little while (I'm sorry, I'm still so mad)

So it was a setup...but how????? like???? what???? If you knew Mhok would be in there, when did he let you know, because there was no point in running around the airport if you knew he would stay....

Honestly I feel like the breakup was pointless now... like yeah they had the conversation about growth and whatever but it feels like Mhok acts the exact same so I don't feel necessarily if he can differentiate between he role as a caretaker and as a boyfriend, which was a legitimate problem. And I also kind of hate that he is apologizing. It just feels like Mhok is once again focusing on others feelings and not his own, and so they will run into the same issue as they did before.

As you can probably tell from all this, I now feel very protective of Mhok and it makes me upset that he hasn't gotten the chance to work through some of his issues. I know he is more the type to pretend everything is okay, but there has to be a limit. Like at the least acknowledgement of his pain

They're having a baby!?!?

We get a happy ending

Final thoughts:

It was a good show and I enjoyed it for most of it. I understand why they did the breakup (though I don't think it was entirely necessary), and yes it may have been good for them as a couple, however I wish it had either happened earlier or they made the show longer because it felt very quick leading up to it, and I felt like the last episode just didn't have time for them to discuss it in a more meaningful way and actually show why it was beneficial for both of them. I also think it would have given more time for the audience to process everything (it resulted in me thinking too much about the breakup to be able to be happy at some of the good things about episode 12). We got one conversation about why breaking up allowed them to grow, and I just wish we had a bit more than that. I also would have liked it if it had discussed Mhok's troubles and emotions a bit more. It led to the relationship feeling a little bit unbalanced some of the time. Overall (!) I enjoyed it (with the exception of certain storylines that I have already discussed). I don't think I can ever classify as a comfort show again (as I did before episode 11). It was definitely not perfect, but it wasn't an awful show, and so I am going to try and remember the good parts of it.

#just my opinion #if you are really upset with the ending #you are allowed #i enjoyed a lot of the show so I don't want the last couple episodes to ruin it entirely for me #but yeah everyone please be respectful #i myself aside from a couple other posts i want to make am just going to take some space from the show for a while until i feel calmer #about the ending #last twilight #last twilight the series #last twilight episode 12 #last twilight mhok #last twilight day #last twilight porjai #last twilight night #rambles

8 notes · View notes

mash4077confessions · 13 days

Note

BJ hunnicutt for the ask game

Here you go anon! I got all your B.J. answers right here :)

1. Why do you like or dislike this character?

I LOVE B.J. Hunnicutt because he is funny, he is kind, he is unhinged, he is witty, he is passionate, he is a hot mess express. He is so full of love and these heavy emotions that plague and he has no idea what to do with this intensity and it comes out in all of these wild ways, and even he doesn't understand half of his own actions.

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

B.J.'s absolute devotion to those he loves and cares for, and the absolute madness that comes from the need to have them feel the intensity behind his words.

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

He can be kind of overly cruel towards Hawkeye. I understand why and it does add a layer to his character, but sometimes, I just want to slap him and say, "Dude, you love him, stop being a dick and just say how you feel."

4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

I feel like B.J. would fit in very nicely with the cast of Psych or possibly as a guest character in an episode of Scrubs.

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol (Hunnihawk from B.J.'s perspective)

Gunshot Lullabies by Citizen Solider (to illustrate how B.J. evolves during the course of the show/war)

6. What's something you have in common with this character?

-We both love his mustache

-We both love a good pun/dad joke

-We both love Peggy Jane and Hawkeye

-We both love little kids and I would love to talk to him about Erin

Possibly more things as well, but that's what comes to mind at the moment.

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

I appreciate it when others see his love for Peg AND Hawkeye and acknowledge that both relationships are absolutely vital to B.J.

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

I don't despise it, but I do find it interesting that he is considered to be such a divisive character. People who don't like him tend to think of him as either pure evil or they think he's really boring...and I don't understand either of those views. The boring part, especially. B.J. is a great many things...boring is definitely not one of them.

9. Could you be roommates with this character?

Possibly. I think we could live together in the swamp. He would definitely prank me a lot...and I would have no way of messing with him back on an equal playing field. But we are both messy and I could definitely use a drink. I'd happily talk to him about Erin and the kids I've worked with over the years. That might be nice.

10. Could you be best friends with this character?

The best friend title has already been taken by Hawkeye, so no. But I think we could be friendly enough.

11. Would you date this character?

I would date him, B.J. would never date me. I'm not his type.

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

B.J. was raised with the idea that if he behaved a certain way (his father's way) that life would go well for him. You do what's expected, and then good things come back to you. His father really pushed that into him. So, B.J. did all his father as his father commanded (be kind to your sister, become a doctor, get married, have a baby, etc).

He thought this would lead to his father loving him...respecting him, and it never did. He thought this would make him happy and it didn't. Instead, he learned to repress his rage, his sorrow, his wants, and his needs...and then they'd explode. The explosion just got louder during the war, and he began to hurt the people he loved, when all he was trying to do was hurt himself.

I have a lot of thoughts about B.J's childhood and early adolescence.

13. What's an emoji, an emoticon and/or any symbol that reminds you of this character or you think the character would use a lot?

👨🍸👨‍👩‍👧🏍🏨🃏🧶🧦

14. Assign a fashion aesthetic to this character.

this....just all of this. Tight jeans, unbuttoned shirts, chucks, etc.

15. What's your favorite ship for this character? (Doesn't matter if it's canon or not.)

Punnihawk is end game. B.J. needs and loves both Peggy and Hawkeye and wouldn't be the same without them.

16. What's your least favorite ship for this character?

I don't see him getting shipped with people other than Peggy, Hawkeye, and occasionally Trapper. Hmm...idk I guess shipping him with Frank would be pretty weird. Uh Potter would be another strange one.

17. What's a ship for this character you don't hate but it's not your favorite that you're fine with?

I once started writing a B.J/Margaret fanfic and while it's not a great ship, I do still find their dynamic interesting.

18. How about a relationship they have in canon with another character that you admire?

His relationship with Hawkeye, whether you see it as romantic or platonic, is a thing of beauty.

19. How about a relationship they have in canon that you don't like?

Uh I guess his little one night stand with Carrie Donovan? But even then I'm not really bothered by that storyline.

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

Other than Hawkeye? I think that if Margaret hadn't still been with Frank, she and B.J. could have developed a much closer friendship and much sooner.

21. If you're a fic writer and have written for this character, what's your favorite thing to do when you're writing for this character? What's something you don't like?

I enjoy writing for B.J. but sometimes I struggle to write something appropriately funny for him to say. That's my own problem, though.

22. If you're a fic reader, what's something you like in fics when it comes to ths character? Something you don't like?

I don't like it when people write fics where they say B.J. never really loved Peg. Were we watching the same show?

23. Favorite picture of this character?

24. What other character from another fandom of yours that reminds you of them?

B.J. Hunnicutt is the live action Maes Hughes from FMA

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

B.J. was what really hooked me into watching Mash as regularly as I ended up doing so. It was the summer of 2020 and the relationship between B.J. and Hawkeye was the best going on at the time. He was the hyperfixation I needed when everything was falling apart.

Now, he is still my fave Mash character, but not my hyperfixation anymore. He has been usurped by Mulcahy.

#mash #mash 4077 #ask game #bj hunnicutt #anon

6 notes · View notes