#especially on a show like this where romance is just a highlight and not the main story

[literaryspinster]

"Limoroeau should have been a slowburn!"

We don't see them again until 2025, burn that shit now!

[lqfiles]

✰ dating na jaemin.

you become his responsibility.

jaemin loves to take care of those he adores, so getting into a relationship with him means that he would do anything for you, literally. you could randomly throw in how you ran out of a perfume you liked and wake up the next morning to a package of the exact same brand, a small note from jaemin attached to it saying he “coincidentally saw it”. he is the type to pull out your chair for you before you could even get near it, and wouldn’t think twice about sacrificing his seat for you if there were none left. he would never let you open the door yourself, instead rushing ahead and pulling it open so you can get in first. the type to tug you closer to prevent anyone from bumping into you. jaemin loves to shower you with acts of service to show you how much he appreciates you.

long phone calls are a MUST.

whenever he has the opportunity to, jaemin doesn’t think twice before dialing your number and calling you. his schedule could be booked and busy, yet he would find a gap somewhere in between it where he could quickly call you, just to tell you he misses you. he anticipates these phone calls, perhaps they’re the highlight of his day. he can’t go a day without at least one call, even if it’s short. they could be the most useless calls, the ones where you just ramble about how you saw some pretty scenery on your way back home, and jaemin would listen to you with a small smile present on his face. the calls could last for hours as he refuses to hang up yet, begging you to stay on the line just for a few more minutes. jaemin enjoys hearing your voice, which is why he always makes sure to call you before he goes to sleep, putting your voice on speaker while he slowly dozes off.

endearingly jealous jaemin.

you would barely be able to tell that jaemin is feeling jealous, it’s almost too unnoticeable. jaemin tries to not get jealous because he doesn’t want to come off as a typical ‘possessive’ and ‘insecure’ boyfriend. still, you’re able to pick up on the force in his smile and his short tense responses. jaemin would reassure you that he is alright, because admitting to being jealous is much more embarrassing to him. it would take a lot of pestering to get him to admit to being jealous, especially if the jealousy formed over something really small such as your friends interacting with you. he’d have a sheepish smile on his face as he tells you that perhaps he felt a bit jealous seeing you get complimented by your other friends, sulking about how he should be the only one who can tell you you’re beautiful. jaemin tends to get jealous over harmless things, but it only reassures you how much he truly likes you (preferably all to himself)

how he asked you out.

it would take jaemin quite a while to admit to himself that he likes you. it’s simply because jaemin is picky with his ideal types and wants to take his time to discover whether the person he plans on pursuing truly fits him like he wants them to. once jaemin assures himself that you’re the one, he’d dwell on how to ask you out. a part of him would want to make it something big, a moment neither of you will forget, and another side of him wants to be casual about it, instead keeping it simple yet sweet. jaemin would opt to go with the fancier route and ask you out to dinner with him. he’d pay for all your meals, compliment you the whole night, and hold your hand while the two of you are walking outside. he’d tug you to the side where it’s just the two of you before admitting his feelings to you in a heartfelt confession. he’d tell you that there is no rush, and how you don’t need to accept it if you don’t reciprocate his feelings (even if that would crush his heart). no worries though, because you’re more than willing to reciprocate those feelings of his and officially becomes his significant other.

kisses.

kissing jaemin would be the epitome of romance. the tingling sensation that travels through your body as he’d place his hand on your jaw, tilting your head to look him right in the eye makes you grow weak. he’d lean in slowly, searching your face for any discomfort and hoping to see the green lights in your eyes. “is this okay?” he’d whisper under his breath, yet you can hear him perfectly. jaemin would wait for you to respond back with words, waiting for consent. and as you give it to him, he slowly craves in and place his lips on yours. the kiss is soft and slow, and you can feel the love emitting into the air. it almost feels like fireworks are exploding in the air as your lips move in synch. kissing jaemin feels like time slows down and it’s just the two of you. you’re not sure how long your lips have been attached for, and you don’t really care either.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

since it's pride month, i want to highlight my favorite underrated/underappreciated queer characters and ships! (part 1/???)

(feel free to add more!)

Lake - Infinity Train (non-canon)

it's not canon but you cannot tell me that Lake isn't an allegory for trans/nb people. her arc is so beautiful and her character resonates with me so much!

i have to admit, i actually kinda hated her in the beginning because of how aggressive and rude she was, but she actually gets good character development and you can also understand why she was the way she was, being a good representation of a minority who is constantly suffering because of the social norms she’s forced into. also i don’t ship her with jesse but i do like the idea of them in a qpr or just being platonic besties.

(i use she/her pronouns for Lake because that's what they use in the series, but also because not all non-binary people use they/them, and it's kinda weird to see people insist on using they/them for Lake just because she's nb-coded. she has never shown an aversion to bring referred to with she/her pronouns.)

Le Chevre x El Topo - Carmen Sandiego (canon)

they are side characters who don't play a huge role in the narrative but they are a really cute couple and have been confirmed to be canon! even without the confirmation, it’s clear that they were written to be a romantic couple.

mild spoiler: after the series ends, they stop being antagonists and instead put up a food truck together! it’s the cutest thing, i swear

Ryan x Min-gi - Infinity Train (non-canon)

my OTP through and through! i say non-canon but the romance is so heavily implied, you cannot ignore it.

they're a good example of childhood friends who had a complicated relationship where both individuals did something wrong, but in the end, they grow as people and manage to mend their relationship together.

Moomin x Snufkin - Moominvalley (canon)

i have only read one of the books and watched a few clips of these two characters but from that alone, it's clear that they were written as lovers (and the author is queer too!)

they are a beautiful portrayal of long-distance relationship where both individuals have different needs in life, but still want to be with each other regardless.

Terrestrius / Terry - The Dragon Prince (canon)

Terry is canonically transmasc and they actually manage to explain this in the series, without making it sound too forced or expository. he's such a sweetheart too, and his relationship with Claudia is actually really sweet, despite the fact that she's one of the villains.

Carmen x Julia - Carmen Sandiego (non-canon)

again, i say non-canon but it is heavily implied that they have feelings for each other, especially in the extra interactive episode, where Carmen leaves a bouquet of red roses for Julia, and Julia is shown to blush when receiving them.

Amaya x Janai - The Dragon Prince (canon)

what’s that? it’s actually possible to write an enemies to lovers romance that is healthy and not extremely abusive?

Amaya and Janai have such a good relationship in S5 (and Amaya is also a great disabled representation!) Janai actually learns sign language to communicate with Amaya, and there are no unnecessary miscommunication plots or drama, they’re just a really loving wlw couple.

Benson x Troy - Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (canon)

when i say we need more mlm ships in animated media!! i’m so glad us sapphics are getting a lot of representation but it’s time cartoons started including more queer men.

benson and troy are just a really sweet couple with a good relationship that doesn’t have a ton of pining or unnecessary angst. while i love complex and tragic queer relationships, i also think that it’s good to show teenagers just being teenagers sometimes.

this opinion seems to be scarce in the queer community, which really annoys me tbh.

Raine x Eda - The Owl House (canon)

i cannot believe that given the popularity of TOH, Raeda is still such an overlooked ship. this might be an unpopular opinion but Raeda is better written and has more chemistry than Lumity and Huntlow.

just within the span of Raine's introductory episode, they managed to establish a clearly romantic past between these two characters, and also an interesting dynamic. and even though they didn't have much screentime, they still turned out to be the best ship in the series. (again, just my opinion, don't come at me)

i think it's so important to show older queer people in media, just as it is important to show younger queer characters. it helps establish the fact that queerness has always existed and isn't some newfound trend that social media invented. not to mention, raeda is one of the very few canon ships that include a non-binary character.

[yazthebookish]

I loved all of what Sarah highlighted in her interview today and I'll elaborate a bit especially on the romance part:

In Maas’ fantasy worlds, love interests often exist as fated “mates,” with invisible strings between them that are powerful and often poetic. Readers can see the literary metaphors, like complementary powers between two characters. But other times, there are no metaphors, with their connection initially seeming random.

She's too attached to the mate trope and I like that she gives us different cases and scenarios for it, otherwise it'll be boring.

“Sometimes, I will write a scene with two characters that I’ve planned for them to get together, and then they have no …” She shakes her head slightly at me. “It’s like holding two dolls and being like, now kiss! And they won’t. … And then sometimes a different character will walk in and they will just” — she snaps.

I yelled at this part because it's as if she plucked the scene from Azriel's bonus chapter and used it as an example. Those parallels between Elain and Gwyn are intentional. It doesn't mean Elain is bad it's just their dynamic doesn't work as a couple and it was obvious to the author. I know she didn't specify who this was about but like, come on, who tried to kiss and which character showed up in a bonus chapter after that depressing scene and gave a glimmer of hope?

“It feels like magic in a way where, as much as I tried to plot out things years in advance, I let my characters guide a story. And they usually wind up with the people that they need to be with and who offer them the most growth and joy.”

I love this so much and allow me to speak about my favorite ship and its because the snippets we saw of Az and Gwyn together especially in the bonus chapter brought out a lighter version of Az. His scenes with Gwyn were light-hearted and the bonus chapter ends on a hopeful note for them. It's hard to deny that connection between them whether you theorize she's luring him or they're mates, those theories wouldn't exist if she had no ties to him (she's in his own chapter like come on).

I go the philosophical route with my next question: We’re talking about fate here, but at what point is a character the agent of their own fate? What happens if someone rejects their mate? (Listen, if I were Fae and I didn’t like my mate, whatever God chose for me is not my business.)

People are jumping the gun and assume this example is set to be Elucien but... we have Helion and Lady of Autumn likely being an example of a tragic rejected mates story (if you read ACOWAR and their history it's obvious they're mates). Maybe it's Mor and Eris and that's the secret that ties them to each other. We have other characters from other series too.

For a convincing mate rejection story in my opinion, it needs more than one book or it's a case that we see with side characters where we can see their history and the long-term implications of a rejected bond.

It's too easy of a story to have one person's central conflict be the words "no I reject you" and they're done. Again, this is not exclusive to ACOTAR but also her other series.

“That’s something I find to be very interesting,” she replies. “What if the forces that be put you with the wrong person? Or what if you just decide, eh, I’m not interested. … There’s a lot to explore within the concept of mates and your agency about it.

The concept of agency is something many readers in the fandom discussed especially when it comes to mating bonds and there were arguments on (would Rhys fell for Feyre if she wasn't his mate or would have Cassian fell for Nesta if she wasn't his mate). We know that some mates don't work out but stay together because their dynamic is unhealthy (Rhys's and Tamlin's parents). We got examples of a loveless mating bond already.

We also saw that Nesta didn't immediately accept the term "mate" because it would mean cutting off her last tether with humanity. It's not a matter of "you're my mate" "yes I'll be with you", the dynamic between the mated couple is important to explore.

“I’m not going to say if I am exploring it in future books or not,” she continues, “but it definitely offers a wealth of things to explore with this concept of freewill and what is true love. Is it something that’s destined? Or is it something that you make? Is it both?”

This part aligns with what I think about Elucien. We never had a mated pairing who knew they were mates but are not in love with each other. Every mated couple found out they're mates when they were already in love.

Can a destined love turn into true love? Or do you settle for a destined love without love being in the equation. Love wasn't in the equation for Rhys's parents, but love was the equation for Feysand and Nessian. Elucien was left unexplored for a reason and both Elain and Lucien view each other by label "mate", they didn't have a chance to get to know each other. So it's going to be very interesting to see them navigate their feelings for each other despite the mating bond.

I didn't expect her to elaborate a lot on this but I love that she did and I hope in future interviews she gives us more good bits about her writing and examples of the decisions she took for some characters and couples.

Didn't expect this post to be long but happy reading! I'm still reeling from HOFAS 🥲

[antimony-medusa]

Guys, every time I post something about like “you may not realize this but you’re really coming up on a kink here, consider tagging”, as the post escapes my circle I keep getting people coming into my notes like “YEAH I’m sick of those FREAKS in the fandom, get them out” and like that is not what I’m saying at all.

I have been posting things because I think some people aren’t realizing how they’re coming across in some cases, or not realizing that this connection is tropes they’re super into has a specific name. It happened just the other day with someone coming up to me like “wait intox kink is a thing”? And yes. These are all things. There are names for all these things.

I’m posting these things because a) it starts to get rude to take some of these tropes and insist there’s nothing but vanilla posting happening in this fic. In the same way as you wouldn’t show up to work in a bikini there are fic subjects that are rude to drop on people unwarned.

And like, when I hit things I’m not into unwarned there’s a whole spectrum there from raising my eyebrows and continuing to having to click off a fic, but I do not have a moral or ethical problem with people writing family relationships I consider to be suspect. I think you should tag it to be polite but in the same way as I would go Huh about someone coming into my work in a bikini, I think they’ve misread the tone of the room, but they have not committed a mortal sin. I’m not saying that this person who showed up in a bikini is someone we should shun out of the community. God, I have hit legit triggers unwarned for before, and I don’t enjoy that, but I don’t think the person who did this is a terrible person or something. You messed up but you’re still like, fine.

But I’m also posting it because b) knowing that what you’re into has a name can be an experience full of joy. Mortifying? Yes! Especially if you realize that this is a theme through multiple of your works and you had no idea! Ask me about my fucking discovery that I found dubcon interesting and I’d been writing YA novels with romantic interactions structured around uneven power deferentials. I wanted to throw myself into the sea and never write again.

But once I went ohhhhhhh that’s why I found interactions where one person had a dearth of options to be interesting, I could b) not put it in my work unwarned for and not for all audiences c) investigate that theme more fully and decide if I wanted to celebrate it structurally and focus in on it or just include it as a fun highlight d) seek out other works with that tag and see other people exploring that. e) understand the baffling reactions I had going on from people where sometimes I could bring up a story and it would go well and sometimes they would hate it and it seemed random? Connected to Whump? Me trying to do romance was bad? No, it turns out one of my friends hates consent issues and I think they’re fun. You know how much easier that made interactions with that friend?

Like, part of the posting I have been doing is because there are tropes you don’t bring up in polite company. Incest is one of them. Consent issues. Daddy kink. If I was doing these things and putting them in the platonic tag, I would want to be warned that I was doing it. And sometimes the tone of my posts has gotten a bit hysterical because seeing endless waves of this stuff presented as though it’s vanilla can make you feel like you’re in the mirror dimension. *I* know that you shouldn’t be doing that, but everyone around me had shown up to the exam wearing a banana bikini. They are gonna go out into the work world like that. Do they not know? Etc.

But like if you spend enough time with yourself you’ll find you’ve got one or two interests you have to pick the friend group to talk about because people will think they’re weird. Everybody is like this. People are strange and complex. I don’t want to get into pointing and going ahahahahahahah look at that, and I’m sorry if I’ve gone down that path.

I just think that it would be helpful if we use the right words for things occasionally.

[galedekarios]

you seem to be reputable source to ask this and i haven't found a walkthrough anywhere else, do you know how to trigger the boat scene where gale has already decided not to go after the crown? like where he says you'll always be enough for him.

i've tried so many combinations and can't figure it out! sorry if you've already posted this

thank you for your message!

you have to sway gale away from the crown as best you can over the course of act 2 and 3, and then follow a certain chain of events to set the correct flags to trigger the alternate boat scene.

i've reliably managed to trigger it in act 3 with the following steps:

1: get the annals of karsus from sorcerous sundries

2: don't give gale the annals of karsus right away when he asks for the book

3: go to camp, but not as a long rest -> pick the go to camp option instead

4: speak to elminster and initiate his conversation (he should have a ! over his head and you can initiate the next step in progressing gale's act 3 quest, however: this is sometimes bugged if you haven't unlocked the elfsong tavern yet as a camp space, i.e. elminster will turn up, have a ! over his head, but his dialogue doesn't trigger, essentially soft-locking the quest)

5: go to the stormshore tabernacle to progress the quest

6: pick the option that encourages gale to seek mystra's forgiveness -> Player: Seek her forgiveness, Gale. It might be your only hope of curing the orb.

7: do a long rest

8: the alternate boat scene should trigger with gale at this point (he should be at camp with a ! to show he's ready to speak to the player)

i'll also share a screenshot of the conversation from the files (CAMP_Gale_CRD_ROM_BeMyGod) and highlight which flags are important:

alternate boat scene dialogue

Gale: Ah. You're still talking to me then?ORI_Gale_Knows_KarsiteWeave, LOW_StormshoreTabernacle_State_GaleSeeksForgiveness Gale: I wouldn't blame you for giving me a wide berth. I thought the orb's ever-present censure had tamed my wilder ambition, but that wasn't the case. Gale: I needed Mystra's intervention. She offered me a path to redemption at last, and it might yet leave my mind and body intact. Gale: Please - continue to believe in me. I want to show you the wizard I am capable of being, rather than the poor excuse for a man who's kept you company thus far. - Player (Option 1): I believe in you Gale. Always have, always will. ['Gale 10'] Gale: That's all I ever need to hear. - Player (Option 2): You're willing to give up the chance of unlimited power. I'd say your ambition is under control. Gale: If that's true, it's thanks to you, and the trust you show in me at every turn of this strange adventure of ours. - Player (Option 3): I hope so, because honestly you have been a poor man recently. Especially on the romance front... Gale: I'm sorry. It's not easy living for more than just yourself, when for so long just staying alive was accomplishment enough. - Player (Option 4): You're more to me than magic, Gale. ['Gale 10'] Gale: You stole the words from my mouth. - Gale: I know what I must do. The Crown belongs under Mystra's stewardship, not mine, and I will ensure she gets it. Gale: That means there'll be no permanent place in the heavens for us. But we could still visit. - Player (Option 1): Close your eyes. Gale: Astra navigabimus. - Gale: Few mortals ever glimpse what you're about to see. But don't be alarmed - I'm here with you. Now... open your eyes. Gale: Quite the view, isn't it? The Outer Planes are a place of profound, sometimes overwhelming possibility. Gale: I conjured this illusion often during my confinement in Waterdeep. An escape for the mind, where there was none for the body. Gale: It was easier to stare at the celestial abyss than recognise the emptiness within myself. Easier to pretend my destiny lay among such stars, than work to salvage a life on solid ground. You changed all that. Gale: You see me as I am, and do not find me wanting. With these stars as my witness, I swear - you will always be enough for me. ORI_Gale_State_RejectedBeMyGodProposal ['Gale 10']

as you can see, both the ORI_Gale_Knows_KarsiteWeave (mystra reveals this knowledge to gale at the stormshore tabernacle) and the LOW_StormshoreTabernacle_State_GaleSeeksForgiveness (set by picking the seek her forgiveness option during the stormshore tabernacle scene with the protag, gale and mystra) flags are integral here.

if you want to watch the alternate boat scene, i posted a video of it here.

i hope this was helpful to you! 🖤

[ukfrislandembassy]

I think that conlangs are a very useful way of seeing how the biases of linguistic theory manifest when applied by amateurs (and occasionally professionals). When linguists are promoting their theories they often like to make the claim that they can account for all phenomena, even if there's some clear foci for their actual attention. So the outputs of conlanging as a hobby make an interesting case study of the application of these theories, because the theories bias the kinds of structures conlangers actually end up including in their languages.

Specifically, it seems clear to me that internet-based conlangers especially show the clear effects of the assumptions made by what Jim Blevins terms the 'Post-Bloomfieldian Structuralism' that has been the default mode of linguistic analysis and theorising for decades now.

In phonology this manifests with the focus on phonemes and phoneme inventories, partly at the expense of phonotactics but especially phonetics. The result of this is a flattening of phonological structure; each of these phonemes ends up being tret as a unit of equal status within the system, with any kinds of distributional asymmetries between phones only included as an afterthought by means of some phonological rules.

It's why you get channels like Conlang Critic on Youtube pronouncing each of the individual phonemes of a conlang like that tells you what you need to know about the actual sound of a language. I rarely see any kind of restricted distribution or positional neutralisation of the kind seen in e.g. the Mandarin Chinese palatal series.

Morphology is where this kind of fixation most strongly manifests, because morphemes are an even worse fit for the morphological phenomena of natural languages than phonemes are for phonological phenomena. In effect what this leads to is the same kind of atomisation that we see with phonology; all 'morphemes' are tret as having equal status in the system, so you end up with a morphological system that just comes off as a phonologically more bound version of the syntax (but with more lists).

For instance, when was the last time you saw a conlang that made use of the concept of 'stem'? Or which showed syncretism between cells in paradigms? Have you ever seen a conlang that made use of a morphological pattern that could be considered 'morphomic'? I could go on.

None of these are somehow 'strange' or 'exotic' phenomena; they're found to some extent in pretty much all Romance languages, perhaps most elaborately in French, and much of this also crops up all over Germanic too.

I think there might be some of this tendency in the lexicon too; homophony and polysemy seem oddly infrequent in conlangs, even though they're ubiquitous in natlangs (English I/eye and you/ewe are particularly neat for showing that not even pronouns are safe from this). I've not got as much to say on this as I don't tend to pay so much attention to conlang lexicons, so I could be wrong on this one.

The actual relationship of conlangs to linguistic theory is messy, and I'm acutely aware that this is largely anecdotal. Indeed, plenty of experienced conlangers make a point of highlighting at least some of these issues, and there's definitely conlangs that avoid many of these issues (Siwa/Siųa is a good one for this, you'll have to dig through the thread to get to the actual grammar). My intent here is mainly to get some discussions going, because the real question is actually 'how do we get the conlang community to understand these phenomena and make use of them at the kinds of rates that we actually find in natural languages (which is pretty much any language with morphology, with maybe a couple of exceptions)?'

[wen-kexing-apologist]

I am being so so sincere when I say that Episode 10 of The Miracle of Teddy Bear has just secured a spot as one of my favorite BL episodes of all time.

What a fucking compelling, complex, brilliant, and contained piece of work. I am really really loving the dimensionality they bring to Nut and the way that he engages in his relationship with Tofu and his mother in this show as a whole and in this episode especially. Seeing Mathana so calmly, sweetly, and sincerely inquiring about Tofu and Nut’s feeling towards one another, in a way that felt completely absent of judgment only to immediately be met by Nut’s anger was fucking phenominal! The Miracle of Teddy Bear has been handling trauma, and trauma response so brilliantly across the entire show, but Episode 10 was a stand out example of how the writing for this show and Job’s performance as Nut really add so much nuance and flavor to this story and this character. 

I feel like so many BLs are hesitant to let their romantic leads harbor a lot of anger, but not The Miracle of Teddy Bear, Nut’s anger is explosive and it is fast. Nut can go from zero to one hundred in a blink of an eye, in a step, in a breath and that all stems from Nut’s history as a survivor of abuse. His father was extremely abusive, and incredibly homophobic, and his mother was a victim of that abuse as well and as a result was unable to protect Nut from all the shit his father put him through. And she was raised in a generation that was told there were rules and was never allowed to question them. She learned pink is for girls and blue is for boys and does not have any answer to a question of “but why?” nor does she have the space in the household with Sib to ask that question herself and realize there is no legitimate answer.

I believe that Nut is fundamentally a good person, but I absolutely adored how much of this episode really navigated us through Nut being an absolute piece of shit to his mother, his friends and their family, and his partner as a result of his history as a survivor of abuse while also showing us this timid, terrified, simp of a high school boy having his first romance. Especially because for me it really highlights how much of this anger that Nut has stems directly from whatever events ended his relationship with Tarn. At no point in the flashback to a very short, and incredibly sweet BL within a BL have we seen Nut angry, he is only capable of fear that his family will find out that he is gay. It runs so counter to the hair trigger rage Nut carries with him in adulthood. When I saw the way Nut behaved at Gen’s house, I legitimately had a moment where I was just so incredibly thankful that Gen’s parents are as kind as they are and seem to constantly provide love and support to Nut even when he is being a terrible guest and misbehaving at the table because his anger runs so deep he does not have a handle on it. 

From a writing and messaging perspective (I feel the need to clarify lest you think I support this kind of behavior in real live) I love, love, loved that Nut was using Tofu without Tofu’s permission and in many cases to the detriment of Tofu’s own comfort to the point where Tofu actually breaks in his own dedication to Nut and has to drag him outside to talk to him about generational trauma and the ways in which he is perpetuating cycles of abuse in his own household. Because that is a fundamental message of this show. Mathana and Saen are manipulated out of their relationship by Jan, Mathana feels pressure to get married because of her mother’s perceptions of the role of women in society, and as a result marries Sib who she doesn’t love, which contributes, I think, in part to Sib’s future abuse of his family because he knows his wife is in love with his brother and not him, with a major contributor to the Sib’s violence in the household being the perceptions of masculinity. 

Side note: One of my absolute favorite recurring motifs in this episode was the use of bars to make everyone feel trapped in the flashbacks of abuse.

This episode shows us the ways in which Nut has internalized some of the beliefs of his father, when he tells Tofu essentially that his mother failed to steer him away from being gay, when that is obviously an impossible task, and so expertly lets the anger of this episode be fueled by those beliefs, the resentment and frustration that stems from Nut having to serve some level of caregiver role to his mother because of her mental health, and Nut’s current inability to see the bigger picture and understand that his mother was also a victim of domestic violence in that household who did not have the ability to stand up for herself and her child all at the same time. And it is also so easy to understand why Nut is not able to see his mother as a victim in every absolutely heartbreaking flashback we get to little baby Nut looking up at his mother while he is being abused just absolutely hoping that she will do something more than stand there and watch it happen.

Nut is trying so desperately to get a reaction out of his mother, to prove that this anger that he has, that this pain that he carries from this piece of history we don’t even have the full story for yet is real, is justified, and that change and healing cannot happen. But it can. We haven’t even seen the events that lead to Nut’s break-up with Tarn yet and we’re already getting so much information about it from the way that Nut enters that coming out scene already fighting, already assuming his mother will have a problem, screaming at her and not giving her any opportunity to speak. And then getting mad at her when she doesn’t say anything about him being physically intimate with Tofu in front of her. Which I’ve already said was incredibly well written because Nut is so focused on his own anger it takes time for him to understand what he is doing to Tofu. 

And even when he leaves, when he goes to Gen, when he hears the reason and the sense, and admits to the fact that he was in the wrong, that unjustified justified anger doesn’t go away magically, his behavior isn’t automatically fixed. He knows that he put Tofu in an uncomfortable position, and then continues to do it anyway because there is no one that can drive you to anger faster than a parent. And I for one am so grateful this show is letting Nut leave shrapnel in his wake. 

I am truly so impressed with this episode and with the entire show so far. If you did not jump on the Miracle of Teddy Bear train when @lurkingshan and @twig-tea were watching it a few weeks ago, please take this as a sign you should attempt it. I know it’s long, but GODDAMN IT IS SO FUCKING GOOD.

[tenebraevesper]

Sonic Prime (Thoughts)

So, since the finale of Sonic Prime has finally aired, I had figured to offer my opinion on the show.

I absolutely LOVED IT!

I know that not everyone was fond of the finale, and were also confused by the ending (EDIT: Note, I understand the ending, I'm just talking about what I heard through the grapevine), and there were some wars over Ian's comment about Sonic Prime taking place after Sonic Advance 3... but I didn't mind it too much.

In my personal opinion, I found Sonic Prime to be a very enjoyable show with an interesting take on the Sonic characters, the highlights being the Amys (Rusty Rose, Thorn Rose and Black Rose and their development as sisters), Captain Dread (I loved his redemption!), Rebel and Renegade Knux (Knuxouge anyone?!; also Rebel showing off her leadership skills and Knux punching Nine) and Nine (we now have evidence that Tails will commit war crimes if Sonic isn't around). I'll also add Mangey and Sails for their adorableness.

However, what impressed me the most was the character development of the two particular hedgehogs shown above - Sonic & Shadow.

Sonic started out the show as someone very reckless and doing his own thing instead of listening to his friends, causing him to shatter the Paradox Prism and create what becomes known as the Shatterverse. He projects his vision of his friends on people that look like his friends, getting himself more and more into trouble, especially with Nine, until he finally starts to listen, starting with Shadow, and over time gains the trust of the others, showing that he did become a bit wiser by relying on his Shatterverse friends' (and enemy's) advice. He really came a long way from how he used to be.

As for Shadow, I had actually planned to talk about him more in a separate post, but to keep it short - Prime!Shadow is peak Shadow! Just like Sonic, he underwent through character development, even though his was a bit more subtle. Shadow is a character who too has issues with communicating people, preferring to punch Sonic (admittedly, it also doesn't help that Sonic refuses to listen to him) over talking, but over time, he and Sonic start working together, showing to be the dream team. Not only that, but I loved how Shadow starts to become more and more protective over Sonic during the finale, trusting Sonic's plan and even not minding the hugs from Sonic. Also, that finale, where he saves Sonic's life had my heart racing!

Yeah, I've been freaking out over the Sonadow content the whole time and Sonic Prime never failed to deliver. Oh, I know that Sonadow will never become canon, especially given how SEGA had taken a step away from romance, which I don't mind, but I love to see how fan content is thriving.

I'll be also looking forward to reading any Post-Sonic Prime ideas, especially in regards to Sonic and Shadow's relationship, as it is implied that both remember the events of the Shatterverse (again, Sonadow shippers are thriving).

All in all, Sonic Prime was awesome, but I do have a question - why are there 23 episodes?! Netflix, where is the 24th episode?!

Sonadow Prime AMV (Enjoy!)

#Sonic the Hedgehog Analyzer (Masterlist)

[junnnhui]

can't believe it took me this long to watch Bad Buddy because I am fucking obsessed? first of all I am a sucker for any reimagined version of a romeo-juliet story, and this one especially was such a delight <3 watching these two try to ignore each other because their parents hate each other was amusing enough, but watching them constantly scheming to avoid each other and pretend to be enemies because their faculties don't get along (when they're literally the definition of soulmates) was just peak television.

one thing that i especially love is how this is one of the few thai BLs- hell, this is one of the few pieces of media- where it feels like the main couple would actually last in the long run. usually it's just two leads who are attracted to each other and something dramatic happens and they fall in love in a way that feels grand but is just kind of... dramatic and superficial ig. but here- they enjoy spending time together even outside of all the flirting and cuddling, they're good at conflict resolution and communication, they are super supportive of each other, and they help each other broaden their perspectives. these two are such a domestic, functional couple, and despite all the bickering and fighting and pouting they just- really make it work.

another thing that really struck me is their physical closeness. a lot of thai BLs (especially lately) show a lot of steamy, physically intimate scenes but this one really had nothing (from the bts videos it looks like their kisses were supposed to be chaste-r but the actors just decided to give us a l'il treat xD). instead we get to see these two wrestle each other, or tend to each others wounds or feed each other, and that's. a really smart and refreshing way to show their physical closeness. i like that they didn't need to show us anything at all to prove how close these two are. i like that they decided to highlight the romantic aspect of the relationship without relying on the sexual one.

also. can i just say. romance and plot points aside. the show is just so entertaining. the pilot starts off with a bang and everything that follows is a treat. the conflicts are fucking hilarious. I was giggling every few minutes and all the bickering is top notch nonsense and every character is such a dumbass in their own right that their dynamics had me ugly laughing the whole time. but all that being said- their first kiss killed me? it was so gut wrenching and angsty and emotional I was sobbing my eyes out the whole time?? there were also several other moments where I was really worried for the characters. the conflict between the two faculties and the two families is flimsy enough to work perfectly for the humour but the stakes feel real at the same time so every serious beat in the story had me biting my nails fr. this whole show was a ride and idk how they did it but god. the plot is giving KFC a run for its money- it was finger licking good.

so yeah. tldr- i've had these mfers for two days now but if anything happens to them I'll kill everyone and then myself.

[jadesea33]

I read @9lives2mics post this morning and felt like it pretty much summed up my thoughts and feelings about all of this so I wasn’t going to share what I wrote yesterday. But Shalaka encouraged me to add my voice to the chorus and she’s right: if we want something to change, we need to speak up about it, so here we go.

I’m going to start with something positive: I’m happy that Carol will be confronting some of her past trauma and it’s clear that Melissa is too, based on everything she’s said during promo for the show. This has been the main focus of her comments. I believe she wants to give Carol personal closure and I respect her for that. But I’m at the point where it seems likely to me that she agreed to do the spin-off for Carol. Not Caryl. Not because she doesn’t care about Caryl but because it seems that what happens with Caryl may be beyond her control.

People say we should trust her. And I do. But people also seem to forget that she’s only one woman in a room full of men. She doesn’t get to decide everything (unfortunately, because I’d be 100% on board with THAT show). I imagine it’s more likely she gets to say what she wants for Carol but she’s not going to be able to decide the arc for Caryl on her own. Norman’s made himself wishy-washy enough about it all over the years that I honestly have no idea how he feels about romantic canon but if the showrunner doesn’t want it, it’s not going to happen. And David Zabel has said he doesn’t want it.

And trust me, I get that the source of all this is a clickbait article written by someone who apparently has proven themselves to be anti-Caryl but my feelings are based entirely on the direct quotes from Zabel. I actually didn’t read any of the article except the quotes. So unless he was grossly misquoted or was using the world’s worst deflection tactics, he does not want romantic canon for Caryl. I see no ambiguity in what he said. No room for interpretation.

And not only that, but he wants to set up a Daryl/Isabelle romance that undermines Daryl’s character and his relationship with Carol. And I just can’t tolerate that. Carol is going to cross an entire damn ocean to search for him and what? Find him experiencing “mutual interest” in a relationship that’s “more than friendship” with a manipulative nun he barely knows? Is Daryl even going to be happy Carol’s there? Is he going to show her the love and appreciation she deserves or is he going to be too busy with his “feelings” for another woman? Are we going to have to watch Carol comfort Daryl through his man pain over a forced relationship that never made sense and that took place while Carol was risking her life, battling her claustrophobia and confronting her personal trauma in order to find her “friend”? None of that is anything I have the slightest desire to watch.

I could possibly still give AMC my money without romantic canon. I could potentially watch Carol working through her trauma with the person closest to her in the world by her side if it highlighted their bond in a deep, meaningful way. But the shipbaiting is going too far for me. It disrespects the relationship that Carol and Daryl have shared for the last 14 years and it disrespects the fanbase that wants to tune in to see their bond continue it’s natural course, to see them nurture it and watch it grow.

If AMC wants someone like me to watch this show, they need to find a new showrunner, one who actually understands and respects Carol, Daryl and Caryl. Because it’s clear to me now that David Zabel doesn’t. I know filming has started on S3 but if we get a S4 and beyond, a new showrunner could still potentially clean up the mess that Zabel seems intent on creating.

Okay, if you actually read this far, thank you. And please, I know it can be hard to speak out. It causes me great anxiety to do so, especially when I know that some of my fellow Carylers will not like what I say. I fear some of the friendships I’ve formed in this fandom may be strained now because of differing opinions and that breaks my heart. But ultimately I care too deeply about these characters to remain silent when I see a great disservice being done to them. If you see that disservice too, please speak up about it. Will it make a difference? I don’t know. But we’ll never know if we don’t try. Sending love to you all. ❤️

[rainbowsky]

Hi rainbowsky! I'm a new-ish (autumn 2023) Yizhan fan - it's been so much fun to explore and read everything available, your blog included! I really enjoy your opinions and insights. I have a question and a request. Question: When CQL first started airing, what were people saying about the relationship between WWX and LZ in the show, and about the actors playing them? Did the CP start right away? Request: Then later on, when the BTS started appearing (when was that - after the show finished airing, right?), what were people saying about the real interactions between the two actors? Were people shocked? Amazed? Even more curious? I can imagine social media was on fire! But I'd like to hear from someone who "lived" through it in real time. Please give me a description of what it was like - especially what your thoughts and feeling were as you saw it happening. I wish I could have been there! Thank you!

Hi Blbrave! Thanks so much, I'm glad you're enjoying my blog!

This is all a very, very long time ago, but I'll do my best to share what I can remember.

Actually, the CP started before the show began airing. The supertopics were opened during filming in 2018. I think this was inevitable, given that the series is based on a BL story. Of course fans of the novel will go into all of this with an eye toward the two characters and, by extension, GG and DD.

Similarly, as the show was airing of course there were a large number of viewers who knew it was a BL and viewed it as a BL at that time, even though it was being billed as a martial brotherhood series. There was a lot of analysis from fans trying to spot various ways that the production team managed to get around censorship and signal the queer romance between WWX and LWJ.

Others have done far better, more comprehensive analysis of all that than I could ever do, but it's so long ago I don't know where those posts might have gone. Some of this was discussed in my post about queerbaiting, so you can look there for more info.

As I said in that post, one of their smartest ways of highlighting the queer relationship was to downplay romance between the straight characters. We never see a straight couple doing something that we don’t also see LWJ and WWX doing. Yanli's wedding happens off camera, yet we see LWJ and WWX do their bows on camera. There’s never a kiss or any kind of PDA between straight characters, yet we see LWJ and WWX in each other’s arms throughout the series.

We got a gay kiss:

We got gay sex:

There was also the headband repeatedly being described as the domain of only family and spouses, and the various ways they connected it with WWX. WWX grabbing it when he was possessing the paperman, and also at one point being tied to LWJ by the wrist with the headband - all of this signalling that WWX was a spousal figure for LWJ.

There was the drunk scene with LWJ giving WWX chickens (a wedding tradition in China).

And many more examples I won't get into.

There were many of those types of things in the series, and they were discussed enthusiastically at the time. However, I don't think there were many bystanders who made those connections. It was primarily fans of the books/show (i.e. those who appreciated it as a BL story and not as a bromance/friendship story) who saw and discussed those hints.

I know the idea that anyone could be so oblivious to the gay subtext throughout the story that they miss the queerness entirely is hard to get one's head around, but straight viewers usually just see WWX and LWJ as best friends and sworn martial brothers. The show could never have been made or aired if that wasn't the case.

In fact, newer fans might not be aware that there was a lot of controversy during filming because of leaked early attempts to create a straight romance between Wei Wuxian and Wen Qing. Some relationship-building scenes between them were filmed, and at one point in the BTS GG is heard complaining about the straight romance and saying that all those scenes should be deleted.

In the production team's defense, there was doubt at the time about whether the show could air given its source material as a BL novel. They likely had investors and backers pressuring them to make sure that the story was unambiguously straight.

Fans of the novel made a massive uproar about it, threatening to boycott the series. The backlash was so extreme that it became a bigger threat to the success of the show, and the straight romance was killed. We all owe a lot to those agitators! 😅

The BTS

The BTS clips were first discussed in an Untamed press conference (that section of the interview starts at around 36:30). The producer said that in the future some of the behind-the-scenes moments would be shared. GG and DD exchanged a glance and looked extremely uncomfortable with it.

A lot of turtles find that clip funny, and laugh about what GG and DD might 'have to hide', but I have never understood how fans can find GG and DD's discomfort funny.

It might surprise some newer turtles to hear that there were moments where GG and DD appeared to be uncomfortable with the BTS, but there were.

Another moment happened in an interview where GG and DD were asked to explain a BTS scene of the two of them in the boat, where GG is lying in DD's lap. DD turns to the interviewer with a shocked and displeased look on his face and says, "They released this?"

There were other moments as well, but I haven't kept a comprehensive record of all that. This happened long before I clued in on how quickly clips can disappear in this fandom.

I believe that it is totally normal to have mixed feelings about the BTS, and I believe GG and DD are no exception to that. No doubt they enjoy some of the clips and feel uncomfortable about some of them, just like many turtles (myself included).

There were official BTS clips released during promo, but the unofficial BTS clips didn't come until later. I talked in more detail about the unofficial BTS and how they came to be released here.

The unofficial clips began being released by fansites in the fall of 2020. It would be hard to overstate how different the atmosphere around them was to what it is now. Now it's quite common to find BTS clips all over the place, both in C-social media and on international sites like YouTube and Instagram.

However, back in 2020 they were extremely hard to get ahold of, and sharing them outside of where they were initially released was strictly forbidden and frowned upon by fans. In fact, if you dig back through my 2020 posts I'm sure you'll find many posts where I admonish people not to share the BTS clips, and where I bitch about people sharing them without authorization. I also answered a lot of asks about these issues at the time (just one example).

Times have changed a lot, and now everyone is sharing them all very freely without any concerns.

The situation was a lot different back then:

GG and DD had gained a tremendous amount of popularity from the show, but their reputations and careers were not yet fully established and secure.

227 was still an active concern that was still making news and still impacting GG's life directly. He had not yet recovered from any of it and was still mostly lying low. He was constantly being attacked and antis were constantly out to get him.

The Untamed was still fresh and current, and being discussed regularly in the media. Because filming was still fairly recent, what happened during filming would still run the risk of impacting GG and DD's lives and careers.

Fans were coming under very close scrutiny because of 227 and other fandom-related scandals. The government was starting to crack down heavily on fandom culture.

This was all uncharted territory. No one knew how the BTS might be received, or how it might impact GG and DD. Fans were very freaked out about the possibility of anything compromising getting leaked and harming the boys.

No doubt fansites were also worried about how fans might respond to some of the releases, and wanted to ensure they didn't upset or anger fans, or stir up more excitement than could be safely contained within the fandom.

All of this contributed to a climate of extreme caution and secrecy around the release of BTS clips.

We never knew when one might be released, and when they were released they were typically only put online for a few minutes, then deleted. This was all done in an effort to limit the exposure of these clips primarily to turtles who have GGDD's best interests in mind.

The clips were heavily watermarked and overlaid with visual and audio curses that 'reuploaders must die!' ('banyun biss', which I'm sure most of you have encountered in some of the clips you've seen).

Early clips were heavily watermarked.

Those who missed out were out of luck. It was extremely socially unacceptable to re-share clips once they'd been deleted. Those who missed out would have to rely on recaps and transcripts from those who had seen the clips. Fans took to staying up all hours watching and waiting for a release.

Back in those days people tried to save every clip they could, hoarding them greedily. Turtles' phones were filling up with large video files. It's funny to think about now, because the clips are everywhere and so easy to find these days, but back then it was a whole Thing.

The initial releases were sporadic and quite tame as fansites dipped their toes in the water of how all this would be received. Gradually over time clips became more frequent and stayed up longer, and some of the more salacious stuff began being released. Those clips were often accompanied by hilarious intro images.

(For those who don't get it, it's the PornHub logo).

Of course all of the clips were heavily discussed as they came out, and a clearer picture of GG and DD's relationship and of their experience of filming began to take shape over time. Some of the fake rumors (such as the 49 fake candies and the CPN that GG designed a racing suit for DD) were gradually proved to be true as these clips were released. However, that was mostly confined to fandom circles.

There were occasionally times when these clips or their content would cross over into the mainstream and start trending on Weibo. In many of those cases, the hotsearches would be bought and pushed by antis of GG and DD who want to see them cancelled. At those times turtles would jump into action to wash those topics and replace them with mundane, unrelated content.

There were fan theories and fake rumors about GG and DD's reaction to the clips. Sometimes when new clips were released GG and DD would be seen online and turtles assumed they were watching them. Of course, considering the clips featured them, it's highly likely that they did eagerly await releases just like the rest of us.

I suspect that it was likely a mixed bag for them. Some clips might have really stressed them out either upon initial release or after reactions began to emerge, while others likely made them laugh and feel nostalgic about filming.

A large percentage of BXG light banners and slogans came directly out of the BTS, some of which you can see GG and DD discussing in LRLG rumors.

Dumplings, rice noodles, 3+2 biscuits (cr @knivescharade in this post), discussed in this LRLG rumor.

There were definitely a few scandals and close calls that came out of the unofficial BTS, and solos and antis frequently tried to use them against GG and DD and tried to spin negative narratives about their relationship using disingenuous takes and edits of them (they still do to this day).

For example, the clip where GG tells DD that he prefers a natural look to idol makeup was used against GG at the time, and antis tried to make it seem like GG was homophobic and that GG was against men wearing makeup. Some of the clips where they were playfighting or bickering were used to try to create a narrative that they hated each other. That kind of thing.

BTS and fan service

One of the most common questions I've gotten about the BTS - and I still often get this question - is, "Aren't the BTS just acted out/scripted as fan service to promote the show?"

There are a few reasons people have this question in their minds.

Solos #1 narrative about GGDD is that their CP was just for the show and the BTS was all fan service, and nothing about their relationship is real. They push this claim very aggressively on social media anytime GGDD or The Untamed is discussed, and new fans will almost always encounter those claims in this way.

CP fan service is a normal part of how dramas are promoted, so people familiar with Asian dramas will often immediately jump to that assumption about GG and DD and about the BTS.

Heteronormativity leads many people to immediately dismiss the possibility of a gay relationship, which leads them to try to come up with other explanations for those clips.

People naturally have a hard time believing what they're seeing with some of those clips. Some of it is pretty jaw-dropping and it's understandable that some people will be skeptical.

However, there are a lot of really good reasons why these clips are obviously not fan service.

For one thing, the show was billed as a martial brotherhood, not as a romance. Some of the official BTS clearly did try to appeal to CP and MDZS fans and could be counted as fan service, but those weren't even the ones BXG are most excited about. (There is a playlist of some of the official BTS clips here).

The most exciting stuff was never released during promo, and almost none of it is overtly romantic. A lot of it is really crude and totally unreleasable as promo. GG and DD are lewd, crude and often rude in ways that only two people who are really close could ever get away with. In many cases it's the casual way GG and DD constantly cross polite social boundaries with each other that shows their intimacy, rather than anything overtly sweet or romantic.

A lot of it is also totally incomprehensible to regular audiences. You have to be a turtle digging deeply into GGDD to understand the significance of most of it. For example the way GG took care of DD on his birthday, or the way DD constantly bargained and haggled with GG to get him to eat more.

Most importantly, if it was all fan service then why did GG and DD never do any joint CP endorsements? The entire point of doing that type of fan service is to make a buck. Other drama CP - including BL - do this all the time.

And it doesn't make sense that a production that was as low budget as The Untamed could afford to have the two lead actors learn a whole second set of lines and do a whole second performance that never ended up getting released.

And of course, none of that explains why the bulk of the BTS clips ended up in the hands of fans and released years after the show finished airing. A lot of it still has never been released to this day.

I've often joked that if the BTS were scripted they were far more complex, more melodramatic and better written than the drama itself. You just can't come up with this stuff in a writer's room. 😅

Anyway, this post got a bit long but hopefully it gives you a bit more of a picture of what it was all like at the time. Sorry, I guess I didn't talk much about my own feelings/reactions, but hopefully you can get somewhat of a sense.

Overall it was exciting, but I also had some deep reservations about it all (and got a lot of hate mail for voicing those feelings, too). Keep in mind this wasn't long after 227, so I think it's understandable that I was feeling very wary about everything.

But that's all water under the bridge now. It's been many years, and if the BTS were going to harm GGDD it would have already happened. I think it's all pretty safe territory now.

Edit: some more of my thoughts and feelings at the time:

One of the most exciting things for me about the BTS clips was seeing so many of the fake rumors being proved true. There were a lot of rumors (including the 49 fake candies) that I totally scoffed at when I first heard about them, only to later find via the BTS clips that I had been totally wrong about them and that these things had actually happened, and even crazier things were gradually revealed.

Things were changing pretty rapidly for a while there now that I think about it.

Learning more about their relationship and seeing just how much they looked out for each other was another big one for me. Also the timeline. The BTS really reinforced my belief in The Devil's Timeline (the belief that they got together prior to filming).

But overall that was a very different time in the fandom as well. There were always so many candies coming out, not just BTS clips but things that came out of GG and DD's activities and social media posts. It was a really really busy time in the fandom.

Since then there has been a government crackdown on fandom culture, on the entertainment industry, on LGBTQ etc. in China, plus DD's split with Nike and him having to delete a lot of his GG candy posts from his Weibo account.

Things are so different now, and unfortunately a lot of it for the worse. Being a turtle is not always easy, and I'm sure being GG and DD can't always be easy either. We make it work, but I do sometimes look back wistfully on the freer, more exciting times in the fandom.

More such times could come in the future. We just have to keep moving forward and hope for the best.

Somewhat related: I did a semi-comprehensive post about GG and DD's reaction to turtles here.

[formulaorange]

Winter 2024 Anime Review

Solo Leveling - 24 Episodes

This has been and will be my most anticipated series. We've only scratched the surface of the story and people are going nuts. I've been reading the light novel translations for a while now and I'm not even a little ready for when certain things are animated.

Easily one of the best anime adaptations out there. More to look forward to.

Sidenote - A1 is killing the animations considering it's one of their bigger ones in a while.

Also - they did a really solid job with the sound design, a lot of the timing made certain scenes feel just that much more intense.

9/10 - Amazing

Frieren - 28 episodes

Such a unique watching experience.

I think so many shows these days are fast paced, and action oriented, especially within the fantasy genre. This is such a relaxing and enjoyable watch.

The story is moving and the animations are warm and fuzzy.

Not much I'd change about the series.

10/10 - Masterpiece

The Apothecary Diaries - 24 Episodes

The second half of this series kept up with the flow of the first half really well. I feel like that shouldn't be a feat but it really is these days.

I genuinely love watching the subtleties of the romance in this series and the medical mystery cases are just as fun to watch.

The story has so many little bits and pieces working throughout the show and the last episode had me wrecked for reasons I never saw coming.

Just overall a big fan of this series.

9/10 - Amazing

Delicious in Dungeon - 12/24 Episodes

This series has no right to be this much fun.

The animations match the energy of the show so well and I think it's one of the best "entertainment" series of the season.

I was worried it would start to repeat itself but found that the characters become the highlight of the series and I looked forward to every episode.

(This is the series this season that I'm high-key obsessed with.)

8.5/10 - Very Good+

Shangri-La Frontier - 25 Episodes

One of the most fun looking MMORPG animes I've seen. I remember reading the teaser manga a while ago and was stoked to see it animated. Just a genuinely well done gamer oriented series.

They do such a good job at showing exactly the kinds of small things gamers pay attention to and some of the combat learning is stellar.

Not to mention the sound track honestly did not need to go as hard as it did?!

Really hoping they continue on with this for another season.

8/10 - Very Good

Bucchigiri?! - 12 Episodes (Updated)

I haven't seen any coverage for this show for some reason. It's a one shot that Mappa animated. The story felt quite slow but I personally had fun with it, the character design was satisfying - gives a bit of Jojo's and SK8 vibes. After a few weeks I couldn't stop thinking about it and went back - it ends up being a decently satisfying story. It's rare to see single season shows and I think that was really refreshing.

(Opening and ending are both bangers)

7.5/10 - Good+

Mashle - Season 2 - 12 Episodes

I decided to watch this once all the episodes had aired. I found that it's not one you can be in the mood to watch all the time, but when you are it's just as hilarious as the first season.

I've enjoyed the pacing of the story and I'm looking forward to future seasons.

7.5/10 - Good+

Unwanted Undead - 12 Episodes

Another series I read the manga for when it premiered. There's something about this series that gets me hooked. While the animations aren't anything of note, I find the story is oddly unique and I ended up bingeing all the episodes in one go. Definitely one I'm curious to see where it goes.

7/10 - Good

Mr. Villain's Day Off - 12 Episodes

This is purely for my own personal interest in attractive moody villains with alter ego's. It's a lot of fun to watch and it's just so wholesome.

That's it.

7/10 - Good

[lucky-clover-gazette]

kings rising highlights & annotations

chapter 8

indented text is from the book. some quotes have commentary, some do not. some comments are serious, and some are definitely not. most of them will only make sense to people who have read the series. and, like, there are spoilers. so please read the books first if you're interested!

also: part of the reason i'm doing such a close reading is to study cs pacat's style, especially in terms of how she does romance and erotica. there are "craft notes" that might seem weird, like i'm being redundant or restating something rather than analyzing, but those are more things that i want to remember/take away from the writing!

i'm going to tag these longer posts with "sam reads capri" in case anyone wants to read them all at once.

this is a google doc i wrote with overall content warnings for the captive prince series. it's not perfect, but i do think it's important to include.

An experienced commander, Damen knew what happened when soldiers rode through populated lands. Given warning, the old and the young, the women and the men would make for the surrounding countryside, taking shelter in the hills with their best cow, or provisions. If not given warning, they were at the mercy of the troop’s leader, the most benevolent of whom would make his men pay for the provisions they took, and the daughters and sons they enjoyed. At first.

i don’t know if i’ve said this before (sarcasm), but i do not like the way traditional akielon culture seems to think it can get away with being depraved just because it pretends to be noble (slavery, war strategy). at least the veretian court and military are self-aware about the ways they suck, and the pets have contracts.

As he spoke, Damen saw a soldier let a dog loose from the chain it strained at. Frowning, he watched it streak across the village, stopping at one of the far outbuildings, scrabbling at the door.

that dog should be at the club

He put his hand on the door of the outbuilding and found it unyielding. It was latched, from the inside. Behind him, a girl’s unsteady voice said, ‘There’s nothing there. Don’t go inside.’ He turned. It was a child of about nine, of indeterminate gender, only maybe a girl. White-faced, she had pushed herself out of the pile of firewood stacked against the building wall. ‘If there’s nothing there, why not go inside?’ Laurent’s voice. Laurent’s calm, invariably infuriating logic, as he arrived, also on foot.

i love compassionate laurent. he is so selective with his protectiveness and care, so it just hits different when he drops the cold bitchy persona like this. it’s like gordon ramsey on masterchef jr

‘Look.’ Laurent dropped to one knee in front of the girl, and showed her the starburst on his ring. ‘We are friends.’ She said, ‘My friends are dead.’

it’s okay, so are his. poor nicaise

‘My Liege,’ he said, and with a spear in his stomach, he was trying to push himself up on one arm to rise for his Prince. He wasn’t looking at Damen. He was looking past him, at Laurent, who was standing in the doorway. Laurent said without looking around, ‘Call for Paschal.’ He stepped into the crude space, moving past the woman, simply putting his hand on the spear shaft she held and drawing it out of the way. Then he dropped to his knees on the dirt floor, where the man had collapsed back onto the straw. He was gazing up at Laurent with recognition. ‘I couldn’t hold them off,’ the man said. ‘Lie back,’ said Laurent. ‘The physician comes.’

he goes to his knees on a dirt floor to comfort a dying man. this entire sequence is one of those tells for the reader, reminding us that laurent exists outside of damen’s limited perception. again, i think i will eventually try to fill in what laurent’s been up to in these first few chapters, because throughout the entire series prior to charcy he and damen had been pretty inseparable

Damen looked around the small, mean room. This old man had fought for these villagers against young, mounted soldiers. Perhaps he had been the only one here with any training, though any training that he’d had would have been from his past; he was old. Still, he had fought. This woman and her daughter had tried to help him, then to hide him.

“the small, mean room.” war isn’t honorable or pretty, in the way akielon culture seems to celebrate it. it’s mean and small (mundane, simple).

from last chapter: “A fair fight?’ said Laurent, turning back to him. ‘No fight’s ever fair. Someone’s always stronger.”

this is not what damen has been led to believe about war. akielos is all about making sure that the people in power are so casually revered that they forget they’re only strong because everyone else is weak. why else do you think slaves are such a huge part of their culture? damen even says last chapter that only the most submissive class of people, slaves, can even come close to his body to dress it. i don’t see any honor in that, being so exalted that you’re untouchable by anyone who could even stand a chance of being your equal. it’s similar to a giant military force attacking villages of innocent and vulnerable people, as we’re seeing here. and while this specific attack wasn’t done by makedon, damen still immediately assumes that it was, which tells us that the akielon army regularly does shit like this.

it’s kind of a big deal, that damen makes such an immediate assumption. he believes that this attack is the doing of akielos, his own nation, following his father’s traditional tactics. and he is very unhappy about that, to the point that he wants to see the person responsible punished with death. damen can’t deny that this fight wasn’t fair, and that makes him so angry that he wants to force a “fair” fight with makedon. but deep down he knows that fighting makedon isn’t fair either, because damen is the stronger man and literally the king. i think we’re seeing damen go through the stages of grief here, both with the loss of his father and the person he used to be. he can no longer deny the things he’s realized are wrong about traditional akielon culture and his own past self, but he hasn’t accepted them either. at this moment, damen is in the bargaining and anger stages, reckoning with the fact that so many things he once thought were fair, never have been fair, and never will be.

He stepped over the blood and knelt as Laurent had in front of the girl. ‘Who did this?’ She said nothing at first. ‘I swear to you, I will find them and make them pay.’

laurent offers the scared child comfort and support, damen demands an explanation and offers vengeance. what a fascinating reversal (laurent seems nice, damen seems mean) that genuinely rings true for them both, trying their best to be their own ideas of Good.

damen is a product of his kingdom’s culture, while laurent is a victim of his kingdom’s culture. damen is rejecting his kingdom’s traditions based on newly-developed moral clarity, but he still hasn’t figured out exactly what kind of king he wants to be. laurent, meanwhile, has told damen that his court is going to be different from his uncle’s court, and we know that’s because laurent himself has been a victim of veretian culture. however, laurent has had a lot more time to develop his own ideas and identity, and we see that here in how he handles the public.

if laurent is a product of anything, it’s his brother’s love. while laurent still sees himself as “tainted,” he idolizes his brother just as much in death as he did in life. even if laurent believes that he will never measure up to auguste’s goodness, he still cares deeply about fighting for a better world, in the same way that he knows auguste would have done. in the same way auguste hadn’t been there to do, for laurent, during those seven long years in arles.

meanwhile, damen has been set rather adrift in terms of how he should fight for a better world, because he’s lost his faith in akielon values, aka the only values he’s really known. his arc throughout this series includes a shift from passive traditionalism to active reform, based on his own constantly evolving ideas of honor and integrity.

She met his eyes. He thought he’d hear fear-darkened flashes, a truncated description, that he’d learn, at best, the colour of a cloak. But the girl said the name clearly, like she’d carved it into her heart. ‘Damianos,’ she said. ‘Damianos did this.

book 1 flogging scene parallel

Outside, when he pushed outside, the landscape lost colour, greying out. He had his hand braced against the trunk of a tree when he came back to himself, and his body shook with anger.

another well-written damen ptsd reaction. i like that it’s pretty understated, too, but the weight is still there

Soldiers shouting his name had ridden in here in the dark. They had cut down villagers with swords, burned them in their houses, a planned move meant to injure him politically. His stomach had heaved as though he had been sick. He felt in himself something dark and unnamed at the tactics of those he fought.

i think what might also be making him sick is the realization that this isn’t all that different from akielon soldiers under his father’s command, doing the same things to enemies of the nation. to kastor, damen is an enemy of akielos, and neither damen nor the innocent people dying as a result of this conflict between kastor and damen have any say in that designation

‘I will give you the honour of trial by combat that you do not deserve,’ said Damen, ‘before I kill you for what you have done here.’

honorable conflict, to damen, is personal and direct. he and laurent have that in common. but war, as akielons do it, is impersonal and indirect. look no further than at the way damen has always regarded the killing of auguste, a stranger—fair, well-met. but he’s seen the consequences of that, and the country that suffered as a result of auguste’s loss. the person he loves, who suffered as a result of auguste’s loss.

by damen’s own internal logic, seen here in his challenge of makedon (“i will give you the honor of trial by combat”), he knows that the war tactics (surprise attacks of random villages) he’s accepted for his entire life are decidedly dishonorable. so he’s pretty emotional about that, and needs an outlet for those emotions, in addition to everything else going on

‘Draw,’ said Damen. ‘For what?’ Makedon gave a scornful look at his surroundings. ‘Dead Veretians?’ ‘Draw,’ said Damen. ‘This is the Prince’s doing. He has turned you against your own people.’ ‘Don’t speak,’ said Damen, ‘unless it’s in contrition, before I kill you.’ ‘I won’t pretend remorse for Veretian dead.’ Makedon drew.

damen doesn’t care that they’re on the same team. teams don’t matter, people do.

The first clash sent Makedon staggering back. The second ripped his sword out of his hands. The third came, death in steel shearing through Makedon’s neck. ‘Stop!’ Laurent’s voice cut across the fight, ringing with unmistakable command. Makedon was gone. Laurent was there instead. Laurent had wrenched Makedon backwards to hit the dirt, and Damen’s sword was driving towards Laurent’s exposed neck. If Damen had not obeyed, his whole body reacting to that ringing command, he would have severed Laurent’s head from his body. But the instant that he heard Laurent’s order, instinct reacted, wrenching every sinew. His sword stopped a hair’s breadth from Laurent’s neck.

this continued reversal between damen and laurent is fascinating. laurent as the defender, damen as the ruthless attacker. laurent acting as damen’s impulse control.

and of course there’s the lingering thread of submission. is this an example of honorable submission? damen’s immediate response to laurent’s command, in this context? this is the most interesting theme to me in the series overall, so i definitely want to keep chewing on it

The steel slid against the fine skin of Laurent’s neck. ‘Another inch and you rule two kingdoms,’ said Laurent. ‘Get out of my way, Laurent.’ Damen’s voice ground in his throat. ‘Look around you. This attack is cold-blooded planning, designed to discredit you with your own people. Does Makedon think like that?’ ‘He killed at Breteau. He wiped out a whole village at Breteau, just like this.’ ‘That was retaliation for my uncle’s attack on Tarasis.’ ‘You would defend him?’ said Damen. Laurent said, ‘Anyone can notch a belt.’ His grip tightened on his sword, and for a moment he wanted it to cut into Laurent. The feeling rose in him, thick and hot. He slammed the sword back into its sheath. His eyes raked Makedon, who was breathing unevenly, looking from one to the other of them. They had been speaking quickly, in Veretian.

god i love damen and laurent. they match each other’s freak in every sense of the expression. it doesn’t matter if they’re enemies or lovers—they’ve always been a perfect team. even in arles, very early on, they fit naturally together. strategically and otherwise.

also, the combination of spoken intimacy through exclusive language, physical intimacy of near-killing, emotional intimacy of damen obeying laurent’s command by instinct, all while VERY VERY public, is just incredible. they do that exact dynamic so well, in so many different instances. even their very first interaction fits into that three-part description: “i speak your language…” (spoken intimacy), laurent knowing damen’s identity and punishing him violently (physical intimacy), damen immediately being down bad even if he doesn’t want to admit it (emotional intimacy).

Damen said, ‘He just saved your life.’ ‘I should give him my thanks?’ Makedon said it, sprawled in the dirt. ‘No,’ said Laurent, in Akielon. ‘If it were left to me, you’d be dead. Your blunders play into my uncle’s hands. I saved your life because this alliance needs you, and I need this alliance to overthrow my uncle.’

of course, the reversal can only go so far. this is a great reminder of laurent’s nice == good mentality, which contrasts with damen’s perspective at the beginning of the series (and still kinda now).

laurent knows that makedon is a possible impediment to his strategic success, and that makedon hates veretians. laurent knows that makedon doesn’t care about the victims here, which almost certainly pisses him (laurent) off, just as it enrages damen. but laurent still steps in to save makedon from damen, despite his moral agreement with the idea of makedon’s death. and laurent explains, openly, that he’s not keeping makedon alive to be nice or merciful—he’s doing it because it’s smart, and he has to be smart to do the actual good thing here, which is overthrowing the regent. that’s a distinctly veretian approach to the situation, and it’s decidedly NON-akielon in its blunt and irreverent honesty. it’s mean, and it’s good.

He wondered if the Regent felt the same furious determination that he did. He wondered how he could be confident that he could deliver cruelty like this, over and over again, without consequences.

i’m sure plenty of people wondered the same of your father, damen. i’m sure laurent wondered the same of you when you killed his brother.

He heard footsteps approaching, and let them draw up beside him. He wanted to say to Laurent, I always thought I knew what it felt like to fight your uncle. But I didn’t. Until today, it was never me he was fighting. He turned to say it.

the irony here, of course, being that the “i always thought” is more an accidental admission of ignorance, than a claim that things happened outside of damen’s perception. as in, people have definitely manipulated damen like this before—jokaste and kastor, for example—but damen has always been very used to a life where he can get away with conveniently ignoring the consequences of others’ deceptions. and this suits him just fine, because he doesn’t like to feel betrayed or alone.

this kind of convenient ignorance is something that laurent was not able to have after auguste’s death, and i think he would prefer not to have it, given his hypervigilance. damen is hypervigilant in his own way, too, but his vigilance manifests as denial to protect himself and preserve his relationships, while laurent’s vigilance manifests as overthinking every single aspect of a situation and isolating himself from anyone who could hurt him (so, anyone at all).

The indoor training arena at Marlas was a long, wood-panelled room, eerily similar to the training arena at Arles, with packed sawdust floors and a thick wooden post at one end.

they just visited the place where damen hurt laurent the most by killing his brother. now we get to visit somewhere that reminds them of the place where laurent hurt damen the most, while “avenging” his brother.

It was good to push; hard. To feel exertion in every sinew, to gather every muscle to a single task. He needed the feeling of grounding and certainty amid these repellent tactics, these deceptions, these men who fought with words and shadows and treachery. He fought, until he was only his body, the burn of flesh, the pounding of blood, the hot slick of sweat, until everything concentrated into one simple focus, the power of heavy steel, that could bring death. In the moment when he paused—stopped—there was only silence and the sound of his own breath. He turned. Laurent was standing in the doorway, watching him.

so good. gorgeous prose here. yet another very subtle but realistic-feeling ptsd moment, with the way he’s channeling his emotions. and i love how he stops short of “killing” just as he’d done with laurent, and hadn’t done with auguste, to immediately realize laurent is watching him. that, combined with the setting and warmup in marlas, sets this up well as the scene where they Finally Deal With The Auguste Problem.

… in their own bizarre lamen-y way, of course.

He didn’t know how long Laurent had been there. He had been practising now for an hour or longer. Sweat sheened his skin, his muscles oiled with it. He didn’t care. He knew they had unfinished business. As far as he was concerned, it could stay unfinished. ‘If you’re this angry,’ said Laurent, ‘you should fight a real opponent.’ ‘There’s no one—’ Damen stopped, but the unspoken words hung, dangerous with the truth. There was no one good enough to fight him. Not in this mood. In this mood, angry and unable to hold back, he would kill them. ‘There’s me,’ said Laurent.

you know what, if this is what it takes for you two idiots to have an actual conversation, then fine. squash the beef, literally

as previously mentioned, at some point i want to do a “here’s what you missed on glee” recap of what i think laurent has been experiencing during the divorce era. but, preview, i think that this scene is coming after a personal offscreen turning point for laurent. he has decided that he’s ready to confront the fact that damen killed auguste, in the most fucked-up laurentian way possible, which is to challenge damen to a fight and try to put himself in his brother’s position. this, just like “let’s fuck,” is a kind of weaponized vulnerability. it’s not quite masochistic, but more a challenge to himself—“you’ve spent years loathing yourself, protecting yourself through performative cruelty, sacrificing your sweetness so you wouldn’t end up the victim. but even after all that, in a fight with the person who ruined your life and killed the brother you worshiped, you still aren’t the stronger man.”

i don’t think laurent knows what will happen after he loses this fight, but i also think that he's reached a point where anything would suck less than what he's been doing. and maybe it would be right, for him to finally lose to the stronger man—because laurent believes deep down that he has always been the weaker man, and always will be, no matter how hard he tries to change that. and what better way is there to prove that to himself, than fighting damen as hard as he can, while knowing that he can't possibly win? hell, maybe laurent would just rather die trying to win, than to admit defeat, and this is a way to kind of satisfy that dangerous urge. in a way, dying before a loss means you’re not actually losing. but i’m not sure laurent even thinks he deserves the mercy of death before defeat—especially not when auguste’s death was his defeat.

It was a bad idea. He felt the thrumming in his veins that told him it was a bad idea.

olivia rodrigo wrote a song about this exact situation

He watched Laurent draw a sword of his own from the wall. He remembered watching Laurent’s sword work in his duel against Govart, his own fingers itching to pick up a sword. He remembered other things too. The tug he had felt on his gold collar from the leash in Laurent’s hand. The fall of the lash on his back. The driving fist of a guard as he was thrown down onto his knees. He heard his own voice, thick and heavy. ‘You want me to put you on your back in the dirt?’

this homoerotic swordfight is a masterpiece. i want to pick it apart as lovingly and closely as i would a sex scene. because, like, from what i can remember… this is not not a sex scene. they just don’t actually fuck about it.

exhibit a: “you want me to put you on your back in the dirt?” they’re totally going to be speaking in innuendo this whole time.

‘You think you can?’

laurent, you know he can

Laurent had cast his sword-sheath to the side. It lay disregarded in the sawdust as he calmly stood with an open blade.

dramatic bitch. if he had a cloak he’d throw that too.

Damen hefted his own sword in his hand. He was not feeling careful. He had warned Laurent. That was advance notice enough.

this is a dance sequence, a fight sequence, and a sex sequence to me. horny angry tango. and this time, compared to other times they’ve fought/argued/fucked, damen is not holding back. this is indicated by the line “he was not feeling careful,” which contradicts with his feelings during the sex scene(s) in prince’s gambit, in which damen was extremely careful.

He attacked, a ringing three-stroke sequence that Laurent countered, circling so that his back was no longer to the door, but to the length of the training arena.

i’m trying so hard to clearly envision this in my mind. here, it sounds like we basically get an evasive twirl from laurent, which tracks. also not beating the dancing allegations

When Damen attacked again, Laurent used the space behind him, moving back.

it was a strategic twirl, too, putting him in a position where he had more space

And further back. Damen quickly grasped that he was progressing through the same set of experiences that had derailed Govart: expecting the fight to be more straightforward than it was, and finding that instead Laurent was difficult to pin down.

his almost immediate realization of this makes him a much more formidable opponent

Laurent’s blade teased, slipping away without follow-through. Laurent enticed, then stepped back.

NOT BEATING THE DANCING ALLEGATIONS. love the image of damen kinda just waving the sword around like a wand, just to tease at the idea of actually using it but obviously not intending to follow through, and then further distancing himself from his opponent. it’s a goading move, although i like the author’s word “entice” more because it’s sexier

It was irritating.

damen occasionally makes funny understatements like this, and they always make me smile

Laurent was a good swordsman, who was not exerting himself. Tap, tap, tap. They had by now travelled almost the full length of the training area, and were drawing alongside the post. Laurent’s breathing was undisturbed.

working the space, having fun, laurent isn’t even breaking a sweat

The next time Damen engaged, Laurent ducked and swung around the post, so that he had the length of the training area again at his back.

dancing around the thematically relevant post. nice one laurent. also if his strategy is just kinda leading damen from one side of the room to the other, then turning on his heel and repeating the process until damen reveals a weak spot, that is sooooooo legend of zelda boss fight coded of him

‘Are we just going to go up and down? I thought you’d push me at least a little,’ said Laurent.

another innuendo! and not just for flirting’s sake, or even for flirting sake’s at all—i think it’s almost entirely strategic, meant to fluster damen and expose his vulnerabilities. laurent is giving this everything he has, so it would make sense for him to play dirty.

Damen unleashed a strike, full strength and with brutal speed, giving Laurent no time to do anything but bring up his sword. He felt blade catch blade with a screech of metal, and watched the force of the impact travel through Laurent’s wrists and shoulders, watched it wrench the sword almost out of his hands, and throw him, satisfyingly, out of a balanced stance to stagger three paces back. ‘You mean like that?’ said Damen.

damen doesn’t really get it, but he’s giving laurent exactly what he’s asking for. a real fight, just like the one he gave auguste. or maybe he does get it, in some way.

Laurent recovered well, moving back another step. He was looking at Damen with narrowed eyes. There was something different in his posture, a new wariness.

laurent realizes that damen is not treating him carefully, as he’s done in the past. and that damen is formidable in more than just a physical sense—laurent doesn’t like the fact that damen might be thinking about why laurent is doing this, or what he wants to get out of it. he wants damen to attack him impersonally, simply, without playing dirty or guessing his strategies. because again, that’s how damen had fought auguste. but annoyingly, laurent knows that damen could never really deliver that experience, because he knows laurent so well.

‘I thought I’d let you go up and down a few times,’ said Damen, ‘before I take you.’

(the innuendo here has me SMIRKING!!! i like “uncareful” damen, honestly, and this is a great example of him giving laurent a taste of his own medicine.)

‘I thought you were down here because you couldn’t take me.’

i thiiiink this roughly translates to “i thought you came to this training room to exercise away your feelings about the fact that we’re not fucking right now,” which again, is laurent trying to hit a sore spot so he can take the opportunity to attack

This time when Damen attacked, Laurent put his whole body into weathering it, and as one blade raked shudderingly down the length of the other, he came up under Damen’s guard, so that Damen was forced into a startled defence and only with a flurry of steel flung him back.

ooh love this, laurent literally going down beneath their clashed swords to attack, only barely fought off by damen

‘You are good,’ said Damen, hearing the pleased sound of his own voice. Laurent’s breathing was showing a little exertion now, and that pleased Damen too.

god this is so hot when is it my turn (also, does this count as praise kink? because to me it counts as praise kink)

He pressed forward, not allowing Laurent time to disengage or recover.

yeah that would be the move, since laurent keeps disengaging and recovering. take away that option and he’ll have to resort to less familiar or effective tactics

Laurent was forced to bring all his strength to bear to block his attacks, the barrage jarring down Laurent’s wrist to his forearm and shoulder. Consistently now, Laurent was parrying two-handed.

paschal is going to be pissed about the damage to laurent’s shoulder. but it makes all the sense in the world, given laurent’s presumed mindset coming into this scene, that he would embrace the impact of blocking these attacks. the pain just means he’s really giving it his all.

Parrying, and countering in a deadly flash. He was agile and could turn on a hair, and Damen found himself drawn in, engrossed.

this is the hottest scene in the series so far. like yes babygirl i am engrossed by your competency. keep parrying and countering i love to see it

He did not attempt to force Laurent into mistakes—yet—that would come later. Laurent’s swordsmanship was fascinating, like a puzzle made up of filigree strands, complicated, delicately woven but without obvious openings.

SCREAMING WHAT DID I JUST SAYYYYY!!! the cockiness is AWESOME, the fact that damen so clearly knows he’s in control here, for the entire duration of the fight (“that would come later,”) but is basically just allowing laurent to try his hardest because it’s engrossing and admirable and damen wants to see more of it!!!!!

(when is it my turn to be fascinatingly and attractively skilled to a person who i find equally attractive, fascinating, and skilled. ANYWAY)

It almost seemed a shame to win the fight.

SDFUYDFGSYUFG this is my shit i am foaming at the mouth this is basically dirty talk to me

Damen disengaged, walking a circle around his opponent as he gave him space to recover. Laurent’s hair was starting very slightly to darken with sweat and his breath was quick. Laurent shifted his grip on his sword minutely, flexing his wrist.

hot. he’s giving laurent space to recover, space that he himself doesn’t need. he’s just kind of circling in the meantime, enjoying the sight of laurent in this state. this is not at all how damen would have fought auguste at marlas. and laurent’s definitely breaking a sweat now >:)

(yes this sucks from laurent’s perspective but at least damen gets to have some fun. and laurent is probably having a little fun, maybe, at least for the first part of the fight. damen’s cockiness is probably attractive, frustrating, and devastating in equal measure—this isn’t what laurent wanted from his brother’s killer damianos, but it’s also not not what laurent wants from his divorce husband damen.)

‘How’s your shoulder?’ Damen said. ‘My shoulder and I,’ said Laurent, ‘are waiting to be shown a real fight.’

god they’re perfect for each other. they really do match each other’s freak so well. i’m obsessed with them.

Laurent swept his blade up, ready for the attack. It satisfied Damen to force some real sword work from him.

implying that the stuff earlier wasn’t real 😭

Damen drove into those exquisite counters, forcing them into patterns that he half remembered.

i love how even as damen is cocky and realistic about the odds, he isn’t insulting or demeaning towards laurent. he is DELIGHTED and FASCINATED by the way laurent is engaging in this fight. it’s not about who’s stronger or weaker to damen—he just can’t stop being amazing by laurent being laurent.

(which is, of course, the opposite of where laurent’s mind currently is. he’s assuming that damen is judging him for not being good enough, he’s focused entirely on who’s stronger and who’s weaker, and every second he spends not winning is a reason to hate himself just a little more. wish i could say that wasn’t deeply relatable, but—)

Laurent was not Auguste. He was cast from a different mould physically, with a more dangerous calibre of mind. Yet there was a resemblance: the echo of a similar technique, a similar style; perhaps learned from the same master, perhaps the result of the younger brother emulating the older in the training yard.

damen knows that this is about auguste in some way to laurent. or maybe he’s just making that comparison as a matter of observation to help himself determine the right tactics. tbh i think it’s the second thing, i don’t think damen’s mind is in the “i wonder how laurent thinks and feels about this” state right now, as supported by the “he wasn’t careful” line

He could feel it between them as he could feel everything between them. The deceptive sword work that was too much like the traps that Laurent laid for everyone, the lies, the prevarications, the avoidance of a straightforward fight in favour of tactics that used those around him to achieve his ends; like a consignment of slaves; like a village of innocents.

well, yes and no! the consignment of slaves is an akielos and kastor thing. so is destroying the village of innocents, like laurent is patently against that and showed great empathy and straightforward care towards the victims. but like i said earlier, damen is still somewhere between denial and acceptance when it comes to his own hypocrisy re: akielos and his family. so this thought makes sense for him to have.

(it is also kind of ironic that laurent in this scene has been entirely straightforward, not deceptive at all. he wanted a real fight, simple as that. and because it’s a real fight, he’s using every possible trick and trap to win.)

He swept Laurent’s blade out of the way, slammed the hilt of his sword into Laurent’s stomach, then threw Laurent down, his body landing hard enough on the sawdust to knock the wind out of his lungs. ‘You can’t beat me in a real fight,’ said Damen.

i am so in sync with this scene right now i love it.

also, this scene being set in a room like the one where laurent had damen flogged is PERFECT. especially since in that instance, laurent had made someone else do his dirty work, hadn’t even physically overpowered or hurt damen himself. this is a real fight, one that laurent knew back then that he would lose. he could only “defeat” damen if he tied him up and had another person hit him. laurent knows that now, too, and asked for this fight anyway. because he’s an emotionally volatile 20 year old who was raised in a culture of violence and lives in a fantasy world where therapists don’t exist.

i’d call laurent a masochist for this kind of behavior, but i honestly think it would be more accurate to call him a sadist towards himself.

His sword pointed to the line of Laurent’s Adam’s apple. Laurent was sprawled on his back with spread legs and one knee raised. His fingers slid into the sawdust beneath him. His chest was rising and falling under the thin shirt. The tip of Damen’s sword travelled from his throat down to his delicate belly. ‘Yield,’ he said.

HOT.

(although i did immediately clock the sawdust thing in the first readthrough. very catra-coded strategy)

A burst of darkness and grit exploded in his vision; Damen squeezed his eyes shut reflexively and shifted his sword point back a critical half-inch as Laurent whirled his arm and flung a handful of sawdust into his face. When Damen’s eyes opened, Laurent had rolled, and come up holding his sword.

LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOO

It was a juvenile boy’s trick that had no place in a man’s fight.

“man’s fight” isn’t a thing. either you’re trying to win or you’re not trying to win. no fight’s ever fair, someone’s always stronger.

Wiping the sawdust away with his forearm, Damen looked across at Laurent, who was breathing hard and wearing a new expression. ‘You fight with the tactics of a coward,’ said Damen. ‘I fight to win,’ said Laurent.

maybe if auguste had fought less honorably, laurent thinks, my brother would still be alive, and damianos would be dead.

‘Not well enough for that,’ said Damen.

… but maybe not.

(laurent wouldn’t think that part. that’s just me, pointing out that even if auguste had fought like laurent, he still would have lost. which is, i’m pretty sure, the main point of this scene.)

The look in Laurent’s eyes was the only warning before Laurent swung at him with killing force..

laurent is not happy to realize that auguste would have died no matter what tactics he used, because it makes auguste the weaker man. and even though laurent knows there’s no way he could come out of this stronger than damen, he’d rather go down fighting than accept defeat. which, if you really think about it, is what he’s been doing with his uncle for the past few years in arles—just in a less straightforward way.

Damen swerved sideways and abruptly back, brought his sword up and still found himself giving ground. There was a moment of pure concentration, edged silver all around him that he must focus on completely.

no more cockiness or amusement. he’s taking this a lot more seriously now, because i think he’s figuring out that this means something pretty serious to laurent, despite his innuendos and attitude earlier in the fight

Laurent was attacking with everything he had. There were no more elegant engagements, no more insouciant parries. Being thrown onto his back had broken some barrier in Laurent, and he was fighting with open emotion in his eyes.

this, too, is a sex parallel. and an intimacy/vulnerability parallel, in general.

also, the image of laurent here is just kinda heartbreaking. but it’s also very, very cathartic, and i think it’s good for laurent’s development that he experiences this fight in such an intense and visceral way.

And with exhilaration, Damen met the onslaught, took on Laurent’s best sword work, and began, step by step, to drive him back.

now it’s almost methodical, dutiful. like defusing a bomb

And this—it was nothing like Auguste, who had called to his men to stand back.

i’ve already said what i would say again here (re: laurent fighting dirty as a test of auguste’s chances if he’d done the same), so i’ll just say “FUCK YEAH LAURENT” instead. he is hell-bent on winning this impossible fight and that shit is real

Laurent’s sword cut through a holding rope and Damen had to push away before the shelf of mounted armoury it supported came crashing down on his head. Laurent shoved at a bench with his leg and sent it careening into Damen’s path. The armour that had spilled from the wall onto the sawdust became an obstacle course to force uneven footwork.

YESSSSS use the environment to your advantage!

(i should probably mention that fight scenes are some of my very favorite things to write. especially when they include parallel emotional arcs, banter, and improvised weapons/obstacles. and gay people. so.)

Laurent was throwing everything at him, drawing every part of their surroundings desperately into the fight. And he was still unable to hold ground.

doesn’t matter, he’s still fighting. sorry this isn’t really analysis anymore it’s just me relating to/projecting onto laurent. i’m cheering that bitch on to the very end

At the post, Laurent ducked instead of parrying, and Damen’s sword swung hard through thin air and then thunked into the wooden beam, lodging there so deeply that he had to let go the hilt and duck a swing of his own before he could pull it out.

the post again! kind of embarrassing for laurent, that yet again it’s the post that keeps him safe from damen’s retaliation, instead of anything he himself is able to do

In those seconds, Laurent bent, snatched up a knife that had scattered from one of the overturned benches and threw it, with deadly accuracy, at Damen’s throat. Damen knocked it out of the air with his sword and kept advancing.

god this scene is so fucking good. the pacing is perfect. i can see it so clearly. the rising desperation is conveyed so well, especially from damen’s pov where he’s just describing laurent’s actions and reactions

He attacked and steel met steel, sliding all the way up to the tang. Laurent’s shoulder shuddered, and Damen pressed harder, forcing Laurent’s sword from his hand.

and it’s the shoulder injury that finally does laurent in. the direct result of his own weakness against another stronger man.

He slammed Laurent into the panelled wall. Laurent made a sound of raw, guttural frustration as his teeth clicked together and the breath was knocked out of him. Damen pressed in, jammed his forearm to Laurent’s neck and cast his own sword aside as Laurent’s outflung hand dragged a knife from its hanging display on the wall and brought it driving towards Damen’s unprotected side.

i think laurent is fighting to kill at this point, like not really in his right mind. side note, why is this more intimate and cathartic to me than the sex scene. you don’t have to answer that.

‘No you don’t,’ said Damen, and with his free hand caught Laurent’s wrist and knocked it hard against the wall, once, twice, until Laurent’s fingers opened and he dropped the knife.

SUCH a good choice of dialogue. chastising, but not punishing. unthreatened, but not condescending. a perfect summation of how damen approaches these kinds of clashes with laurent, in a way that laurent cannot fully see or understand. damen doesn’t need to be the stronger man here, and he isn’t judging or demeaning laurent for his weakness. he is as earnest in combat as he is in bed—and with laurent, he wants them both to feel like winners. submission to damen, in his case, is honorable—laurent can lose and yield, and damen will not think any less of him. but to laurent, yielding to this defeat is basically the most mortifying thing he could possibly do, because he doesn’t believe that someone like damen could be real.

… or maybe, laurent is just unwilling to allow someone like damen—someone truly honorable and supportive, whose strength inspires laurent rather than threatens him—to matter to him in a way that’s real. because the last person like that in laurent’s life got killed in a “fair” fight, by the same person who laurent is fighting now. who, by laurent’s admission, shares those qualities with auguste. and as a result of auguste’s death, the loss of a person who mattered deeply to laurent, who laurent trusted to protect him… well, it makes sense that current-day laurent would be so afraid of letting someone ever matter to him, or protect him again. laurent only wants to need himself to survive, but that means putting a lot of pressure on himself to always be the stronger man. which he just isn't, sometimes. most of the time, really, unless he gets pretty creative about his approach.

no wonder it's the game laurent likes. games are among the few things he's confident he can win.

Laurent’s whole body thrashed against him then, trying to wrench from his hold, a moment of violent animal struggle that pushed their hot, sweat-dampened bodies together.

… but this isn’t a game—it’s a real fight, just as promised. and laurent lost.

Damen rode it out—shoved them both in against the wall—tightly enough to prohibit movement, but Laurent punched him in the throat with his free arm, hard enough that he choked and shifted, and then, with all the hard violence in him, Laurent drove his knee in.

okay, he hasn’t lost yet. carry on. i like how one of laurent’s last-ditch efforts here is kneeing his attacker in the groin, given his history with people making him feel weak and defeated through sexual assault/harassment.

Blackness exploded across his vision, but fighter’s instinct pushed through it. He dragged Laurent away from the wall and flung him to the ground, where Laurent hit, body impacting hard on the sawdust. It knocked the wind out of Laurent for a moment, but he was already pushing himself dazedly up, his eyes venomous on Damen’s. Laurent was going for the knife again, his fingers closing around it, too late.

it’s great that we got the laurent pov interrogation scene before this. in that scene he didn’t break, he was pretty much in emotional control of himself the entire time. but in this scene, he is sloppy and desperate and unable to hide that from damen, who doesn’t even want to hurt him. this is way harder for laurent to approach with detachment and pragmatism, and at this point he’s pretty much just broken and doing whatever he can to not lose

‘That’s enough,’ said Damen, driving his knee hard into Laurent’s stomach, then throwing him onto his back and following him down. He had Laurent’s wrist in his grip, and he slammed it back against the sawdust, so that Laurent released the knife. His body was an arc over Laurent’s, pinning Laurent with his weight, with his hands on Laurent’s wrists, Laurent taut beneath him. He could feel the hot rise and fall of Laurent’s chest. He tightened his grip.

it’s very precise here, how damen intentionally overpowers and restrains laurent, but does it in a way that tries to minimize the pain laurent experiences. again, it’s like he’s defusing a bomb, not defeating an opponent. he still, ultimately, cares the most about physically treating laurent well. it’s become pretty obvious that laurent isn’t just trying to harm damen here, and damen doesn’t want to see laurent harm himself either. it’s not a fun game anymore. damen doesn’t want to enable it. “that’s enough.”

the fact that these two need a safe word just to spar… tbh they’d probably benefit from a safe word for just like. existing near each other

Finding himself with no way out from under Damen’s body, Laurent made a last, desperate sound, and only then finally went still, panting, his eyes furious with bitterness and frustration. They were both panting. Damen could feel the resistance in Laurent’s body. ‘Say it,’ said Damen. ‘I yield.’ It was gritted out. Laurent’s head turned away to one side.

it’s almost like laurent is offering damen his jugular. like “you win, you might as well finish the job, because i don’t want to be alive to deal with the implications of this”

‘I want you to know,’ he said, the words thick and heavy as they pushed out of him, ‘that I could have done this any time when I was a slave.’

this line is hot and idk, self righteous, but damen you could not have chosen a WORSE time or place for a comment like this. you just made laurent confront that he’s weak, and now you’re telling him that he’s always been weak, and he’s only been spared because you’ve chosen not to use your power over him. you’re saying this to the dude whose brother you killed. damen.

Laurent said, ‘Get off me.’ He thrust himself away. Laurent was the first to lever himself off the floor. He stood with his hand on the post for support. Flecks of sawdust were clinging to his back. ‘You want me to say it? That I could never have beaten you?’ Laurent’s voice twisted up. ‘I could never have beaten you.’

laurent is projecting, making this about what damen wants, when it was very clearly laurent who wanted this fight to happen

‘No, you couldn’t have. You’re not good enough. You would have come for revenge, and I would have killed you. That’s how it would have been between us. Is that what you would have wanted?’

peak damen “are you done bitching” moment. but also honest and raw, and what laurent ultimately needs to hear. it’s almost a challenge: “would you prefer that relationship between us—strong killer and weak victim—to the one we have now? because if not, maybe it’s time to get your shit together and actually talk to me. because this could be good, if we just put down our weapons.”

‘Yes,’ said Laurent. ‘He was everything I had.’ The words hung between them. ‘I know,’ said Laurent, ‘that I was never good enough.’ Damen said, ‘Neither was your brother.’ ‘You’re wrong. He was—’ ‘What?’ ‘Better than I am. He would have—’ Laurent cut himself off. He pressed his eyes closed, with a breath of something like laughter. ‘Stopped you.’ He said it as though he could hear the ludicrousness of it.

a breakthrough. laurent forced to confront the fallacy of his own self-loathing. this is really well-written cooldown and culmination of things i have previously analyzed.

Damen picked up the discarded knife, and when Laurent’s eyes opened, he put it in Laurent’s hand. Braced it. Drew it to his own abdomen, so that they stood in a familiar posture. Laurent’s back was to the post. ‘Stop me,’ said Damen. He could see it in Laurent’s expression, as he fought an internal battle with his desire to use the knife.

love this echo of previous moments. this really is a question of “are we putting down our weapons or not”

He said, ‘I know what that feels like.’ ‘You’re unarmed,’ said Laurent. So are you.

LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOOO

pacat chooses very few moments to be this on the nose about something, and as a result they really really hit He didn’t say it. It didn’t make any sense. He felt the moment changing. His grip on Laurent’s wrist was changing. The knife thudded to the sawdust. He forced himself to step back before it happened. He was staring at Laurent from two paces away, his breathing roughened, and not from exertion. Around them, the training arena was strewn with the disorder of their fight: benches overturned, armour pieces scattered across the floor, a banner half torn from the wall. Damen said, ‘I wish—’ But he couldn’t speak the past away, and Laurent wouldn’t thank him if he did. He took up his sword and left the hall.

this was a hard scene for damen too. they really are just in this mushy, messy place, which is better than complete contempt and avoidance, but still difficult to navigate. but it does feel like a step, for their individual development as their development as a partnership.

[p-perkeys]

I’m so excited she’s back in her old style. She liked this kind of edgy style when Megan first introduced it to her. I remember the look on her face (Choi’s art… phenomenal) when she went through Megan’s closet 🥰 and then the next panel she even had makeup on. It is her personal preference (and mine, for her).

Even though I didn’t really like her dialogue in the first book, this gives me hope that they’ll honor *her* characterization. She’s really gotten watered down over the years. I think they forget she is a walking, talking tragedy. I hope we get to see some of her original traits now that this book will be focused on her and she won’t just be a filler background character. Book 1 seemed to really highlight Kamala.

The next book looks angsty and I’m kind of excited about it. I love dark and gritty storylines. That’s why I first fell in love with Laura the first time I read her (I first read Collision, then Target X, and then backtracked to NYX). She is unconventional, messy, and uncomfortable. She should be in a dark headspace right now. I don’t want that glossed over.

PRAYING for some acknowledgment of losing her brother. They’re too close for her to just not notice him being, you know, DEAD. Logan got to have a few moments of grief and Laura is way closer to Akihiro than Logan is. In The Logan Legacy and Wolverines, she was up in arms just over seeing Akihiro be *hurt*, much less killed. We have canon references of her vouching for him too. She is invested in him. It’s so annoying to me that their relationship is hardly portrayed in the way it originally was.

Nervous still about the alleged romance to come. Especially if things are not well for her right now, it could be kinda messy. I might be okay with it then, for the angst, if it’s well written, but I hope it’s not a “love saves all” trope where a man (because I know we won’t get to see lesbian Laura) heals her.

That’s not to say I only ever want to see Laura written in pain and agony (I’ve seen complaints on this before). However, I do think Marvel does a half-assed job at completing these traumatic storylines. They will put a character halfway through hell and then just skip to the good part where things magically get better. I hope NYX shows a full spectrum of healing for Laura, and that has to start with the ugly stuff.

Chuck Palahniuk needs to write for Marvel. He needs to show them how it’s done.

[burst-of-iridescent]

atla live action thoughts: episode 2

SPOILERS AHEAD

tw: opinions

things i liked:

love, love, love the depth they're adding to suki here. it feels as though they've drawn on the bits we get from the original and deepened it - it makes total sense that suki would feel stifled after having been trapped on kyoshi her whole life, and it adds more weight to her being inspired by sokka to leave kyoshi and go to ba sing se in the future

really enjoyed maria zhang's performance as suki. she brings the fierce strength, but there's also a softness and vulnerability to how she plays the character that's really nice to see

as much as i love suki kicking the sexism out of sokka, toning down the overt misogyny was a good idea, especially since it pretty much disappears from sokka's arc after this episode. i think they did a good job addressing the spirit of the original in having sokka try and show off to suki only to be severely humbled and still choosing to better himself by going back to learn from her

aang and katara laughing at sokka's horrendous flirting... biblically accurate book 1 trio dynamic

i wasn't sold on iroh in the first episode but paul sun-hyung lee 100% won me over here. the scene where he tries to convince zuko to eat quailpole egg felt right out of the cartoon lmao. i do like that this iroh seems to be trying to steer zuko to the right path earlier and more obviously

thank GOD aang still seems to be affected by what happened at the southern air temple. i love the scene where he was hesitant to train because the only person he'd ever trained with was gyatso. going from discovering genocide to riding the unagi was always a major tonal whiplash in the cartoon and it barely worked in animation so i'm glad they're giving aang's trauma the weight and respect it deserves in live action

the action and bending continue to impress, as do the visuals and cinematography. the show is just so visually beautiful to watch and it feels like a fantasy world take notes percy jackson

things i disliked/am conflicted about:

don't really get why we're delving into kyoshi so deeply here. it's not a bad change but neither do i see the need for it when we could've spent the time on other things. if anything, the avatar who should be more fleshed out at this point in the story is roku

katara receiving the waterbending scroll from gran-gran instead of stealing it... i get it, but i also don't love it. it really spoke to katara's desperation and will to become a waterbender that she stole from pirates just to get a chance to learn, and it also highlights the tragedy of what happened to the southern water tribe benders that she had not a shred of her culture or heritage left to guide her

i don't think sukka had to be pushed so heavily in this episode lmao. once or twice was fine, but it was starting to get a little cringe by the end. also not a fan of them kissing at this stage, especially if they're keeping the yue/sokka romance. maria and ian do have pretty good chemistry though

why are we going to the north pole because aang had a vision of them being in trouble?? wasn't needing to learn waterbending enough?? i don't mind them foreshadowing the ending battle but aang needing to learn the elements is the driving force of the show and it doesn't feel like we're getting that here

why is zhao... like that. there is no WAY animated zhao would've ever proposed working with zuko. this zhao feels a lot more like a long feng or a littlefinger than the reckless, hot-headed original who was meant to be a foil to zuko. the whole reason for introducing zhao is to show us that zuko is not the worst of the fire nation by a long shot, but between the two in the live action zuko still feels like the more unlikeable one and that's worrying. i hope we're still getting the zuko v zhao agni kai bc i have no idea where this storyline is heading

aang can only talk to the past avatars in the avatar's shrine? i can foresee this causing issues later on in book 2 and 3, if they happen

i'm guessing the zuko/katara "fight" here is supposed to replace the "i'll save you with the pirates" (RIP you were always gonna be too iconic for netflix) but it just feels out of place. what do we really get from this scene that we didn't know before? in the original scene, this is the moment we see katara master a new waterbending move AND use it in a fight but she's already bending earlier in the episode so it doesn't have the same effect. zuko seeming ready to burn katara while she's cowering and defeated also doesn't feel like something zuko would do. the dude spared zhao, of all people.

overall episode rating: 7/10