#i need a brain buddy so bad

[sesshy380]

Me:

Wants to write

Opens Docs

Brain goes 'ewww werds'

Closes Docs

Opens Tumblr

WANTS TO WRITE

Repeat the attempt on WiP

Opens Battlenet

WANTS TO WRITE

Repeat the stages of attempting WiP

Cries

[eternal-yaoi-expert-demon-lover]

I’m glad that nightmare balls left some sort of effect,in reality it was a desperate attempt to make “boobs” seem scary and demon-like. I hope you are better from when you were feeling Ill, the “morning” you speak of, if my memory isn’t failing me :-). I never expected a …drawing so beautiful of a creature, it shouldn’t be wearing that. This isn’t normal. Who gave him that dress. Plus I know I’m rambling but I wanted to add that I believe thatp3 being attracted to the demon makes…sense. I’m not sure why, but it just fits him,he seems like that kind of guy, canonically.

I hope this ask finds you well,critter

-left p1anon

This is my dark and twisted version of boobs.. Heh, just a glimpse into my fucked up world would make any man go mad /ref..

Thank you, I’m feeling much better now!👍 (nightmare balls cured me((😭🔥))) Also um (falls down 20 flights of stairs at 2x speed) COUGH COUGH yeah P3 is so,, yeah. My P3 monsterfucker headcanon started as a joke, but after getting fully invested in this crackship,, I can’t think of him not being one. He’s an odd fellow idk man,, sparkle on dude live your life🌻🌠🧚

[agentark]

was reading through some of the code for b3 and noticed something interesting about M's conversation w/ each member of UB after the bff choice lock-in

M tells each bff that they're not messing around with the detective, but only really admits their fears that the detective might not feel the same something that they're feeling to A

[kithmet]

i have so many melfrank fic posts in my drafts because i have yet to finish reading them. why can't my brain work and let me focus and read them i need to be in a Mood

[moresrush]

By the gods, you are terrified of loving a man who tries to help everyone he meets --- but you chide him for his selflessness and you remind him, again and again, that you intend to keep him WHOLE as you travel together on land and sea. He, in turn, reminds you that he is no pushover, that it is the two of you against the world --- and someone should start warning people. He's going to make big changes, and you fear the ones he will instill in you the most.

[starryalpacasstuff]

Indian BL? FROM 2017????

There's an Indian BL from 2017 that I just watched. And I have incoherent thoughts

Before I continue, massive thanks to my bestie @anixknowsnothin for telling me about this show and proofreading the post for me. You don't even watch bl so I have no idea how you found this, but I'm incredibly grateful nonetheless

Here's the link to where I watched the show from, there's a glitch in the first episode subs where the subs seem to be from another show entirely, but it's only for the first ep and about 50% of the dialogue is in English anyways, so it shouldn't be hard to follow.(My ask box is also always open if there's a specific dialogue/scene in Hindi that you want the translation of)

Edit: The link seems to be region locked, so to watch it you can use a vpn and set your region to India, otherwise the episodes are available on youtube, albeit without subs

Note:- this post is going to have a few mild spoilers throughout, but I'll flag major spoilers in red

It's no secret that India is fairly behind when it comes to queer love shows if we compare it to other Asian countries. While it has a handful of great queer shows and movies, it's still quite a small quantity. Additionally, before this, I'd never watched an Indian show that felt like I was watching a bl (if you have recs, please send them my way!!). I'm not going to get into the technicalities of what feels like a bl and doesn't, because honestly, I'm not completely sure myself. For now, I'm just going based off of vibes and feelings, and this show felt like a bl through and through.

Titled 'Romil and Jugal' after its main characters, the story is a modern, desi, bl remake of the classic story...

Romeo and Juliet

Well, Bad Buddy was the first Thai bl I ever watched, so Romil and Jugal being the first Indian BL I watched just feels right, no?

I didn't actually know that the story was based off of Romeo and Juliet till the second episode, because I didn't bother looking for a synopsis, and jumped right in. However, it's links to Romeo and Juliet quickly became apparent, around the same time I started to see similarities between this show and Bad Buddy. I also did not know that this show came out in 2017 before I googled it, having already watched the entire thing, which was a pretty huge shock, because this BL is progressive by 2024 India standards.

Alright, enough of my rambling. Here's a synopsis of the show in case you haven't heard of it. (I couldn't find an official one, so I did my best to write a spoiler free synopsis)

Ramya happens to start talking to a slightly older woman at an airport, who believes that there is no romance in the younger generation. To prove her wrong, Ramya decides to tell the older woman her brother's love story. The story from the past is shown to us as Ramya narrates it to the woman in the present. Jugal is a closeted 19-year-old who lives with his parents. One day, a family moves into the house next door, and Jugal immediately falls for the son, Romil. The two of them attend the same college, and eventually become friends. The two of them eventually get together, but have to face the challenges of a homophobic society and having parents that hate each other.

I was a little skeptical of the show going in, but the show surpassed all of my expectations in the best way possible. It's no masterpiece, and it has its flaws, but it was far better than what I expected. It had both comical elements and darker themes, and it did not shy away from exploring the darker themes at all. Oh, and it has a few musical numbers. What did you expect? This is India after all.

The show is 10 episodes long, with 20 minutes per episode, and so it does unfortunately fall into some of the pitfalls that shorter shows tend to fall into, namely underdeveloped relationships and rushed endings. I did end up feeling a little bit like it didn't make sense for the pair to sacrifice and suffer as much as they did because they hadn't known each other for very long, and I felt like they should have been given more time to fall in love with each other. But it also could be argued that the show stays true to the play, and Romil and Jugal are dumb teenagers who make mistakes and stick with each other through them. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it.

One thing that I loved the show for was that it showed us that the relationship is not all sunshine and rainbows. They argue, they break up, they get back together, and they do argue even after that. But every time, they eventually work through the issue and reconcile. The show even depicts Romil dealing with internalized homophobia and struggling to reconcile with the fact that he will never be who his family wants him to be. Although I do wish they'd have had more time to explore this, I'd say it was decently depicted and handled. The show really delves into how children are forced to uphold their family's wishes and are constantly put under pressure to make them proud. Although it clearly affects both of them, it's more obvious with Romil, who is expected by his family to date and marry the daughter of his father's boss, whom they think he is dating. There's a metaphor along this theme too, where Romil pretends to like the mango shake that his mom has been making for him since he was a kid, even though he hates it, and when he tries to tell her, he has to act like it was a joke to spare her feelings. The show also goes into the communal mindset of basing your actions off "what will people think?", and you can see how a lot of the characters' actions throughout the show are haunted by this question. Some of Romil and Jugal's earlier disagreements are due to this very mindset.

The show also very candidly depicts the extreme homophobia of society in India. Romil and Jugal had to constantly hide who they were, always having to keep up a mask and I felt that reach somewhere deep inside me. When the pair come out, the show really shows how ugly homophobia can be in India. Their parents immediately disown them. They're mocked in college and wrongfully suspended for a fight that was provoked by other students. Very, very few people stand with them, and the pair very quickly realize that now that they are out, they simply cannot live in the city anymore. So with the help of Jugal's best friend and her mother, they flee to Mumbai, where they get jobs and live as paying guests with a friend of the aforementioned mother. But, even in Mumbai, the masks stay up. They have to act like cousins, for fear of being persecuted. The series depicted the worst-case scenario that so many of us live in fear of, so watching it was something of a cathartic experience for me.

Another thing that the show did quite well is showing how different people and their mindsets can be. Jugal's best friend, Ahalya, and her mom are very supportive, and they help the pair out quite a bit. Ahalya's mother provided a safe house for the pair and helped them find a fresh start. Meanwhile, Romil and Jugal's parents are incredibly homophobic. There was a scene that really stuck with me, (mild spoiler ahead, skip to the last sentence of the paragraph) where Ahalya's mother came across Jugal's mother, who prided herself on being educated and well-read, searching up how to cure homosexuality. Ahalya's mother then tells her off for calling herself educated yet believing that homosexuality is an illness. It is so important to me that the show depicted both the violent homophobia that permeates Indian society and the surprising, warm acceptance that one can find.

One final thing that I loved about this show so, so much is just how authentically Indian it feels. Asian cultures share a lot in common, but they also have their differences, so seeing a show where I can imagine encountering the characters in real life is really amazing. Rather than something big, it was little things sprinkled throughout the story that warmed my heart. The story felt like something I could hear the local aunties gossiping about. The way it depicts queerness in India hits incredibly close to home.

One thing I've learned watching Asian bls is that the ending of a show can make it or break it, but with this one, I'm stuck. The best way I can describe the ending is absolutely insane and incredibly Bollywood.

I believe this show was supposed to get a second season because the last two minutes of the show leave us with a massive cliffhanger. Now, it's been 7 years, so a second season is unlikely, so I'm simply pretending that the last two minutes of the show never happened. But the ending has so much more to it than just this (Major spoilers for the ending up ahead. I mean it when I say major, this is like going into Bad Buddy knowing that they're going to trick their parents in the end).

About halfway through the show, I remembered what play it was based upon and realized that there was a very real possibility that Romil and Jugal would die. The first half of the last episode leads up to this, telling us that they died when reconciling after an argument in the middle of the road when they were hit by a truck. We get a super emotional scene (yes, I cried) where the two families somewhat reconcile in their grief as they go to the police station to identify the bodies. Except... they're not dead, which is revealed when Romil's father hugs Romil's (not) dead body. They reveal that they planned this to show their family that they still loved their sons. I did say it was like PatPran tricking their parents in the end, didn't I? So the families reunite, Romil and Jugal get jobs in New Zealand and get married, and return to India for a wedding celebration (yes, I cried. again). The ending does feel slightly rushed, but if I'm being honest, it wasn't as terrible as it could have been. Believing that your child is dead for a bit is a somewhat justifiable reason for a sudden change of heart. There's a part where Romil and Jugal tell their parents that if they choose acceptance, they can reconcile, but if they choose to remain prejudiced, Romil and Jugal can simply get back on the stretchers, because they'll be as good as dead to their families anyways and it is *chef's kiss*.

All in all, the show was surprisingly heartfelt and poignant. It had me laughing, kicking my feet and even crying. There's a lot more about this show that I could talk about, but I'm going to stop here for now, and I'll try to write more on it later. This show really does deserve more recognition than it has, and I'm almost mad at myself for not knowing about it before. Am I being really biased when talking about this show? Absolutely. But I do think that this show is a worthwhile watch, and I'd really like to see what other people on here think of the show, especially because I'm aware that I am biased towards this show.

I'm tagging a few people who I know might be interested/have some thoughts about the show because this is a show that I really want to hear other people's opinions on and have conversations about, so I hope you guys don't mind!

@waitmyturtles @lurkingshan @bengiyo @neuroticbookworm

[diazheartsbuckley]

Make me write ✍️

Let’s just ignore the fact that I’ve got some asks still waiting to be answered from the last time I did this (that I will definitely be getting to, dw guys!) 🤭 And that I’ve added other wip to the list 🤪

Rules: Send an ask with the emojis for the wips you want me to write! I'll share at least one sentence per wip:

⚡️ - Post-lightning strike, Eddie can’t hide his feelings any longer

👨🏽‍🦳 - Eddie discovers his first grey hair

🚨 - Cop!Eddie x Doctor!Buck

🏫 (high school emoji) - 15 years after their high school graduation, Buck and Eddie reunite

🎓 - University professor Eddie has never had a more annoying student than 22 year old Buck

⛪️ (church emoji) - Mob boss!Buck x priest!Eddie

📸 - Soldier!Eddie x war correspondent!Buck

🚫 - The insomnia fic, in which the well incident leaves Eddie unable to sleep

⬇️ - The smutty mechanic fic (what plot/just porn)

❤️‍🔥 - Bratty probie Buck meets newly appointed lieutenant Eddie

📄 - A misunderstanding sends Buck and Eddie’s marriage spiraling out of control

🖤 - Religious trauma, meeting before the 118

💀 - Major character death that leads to Buddie getting together and lots of overprotective Eddie

Tagged by @bidisasterevankinard @pirrusstuff @hippolotamus @dangerpronebuddie @cal-daisies-and-briars 🩵

Tagging!!

@tizniz @watchyourbuck @wildlife4life

@inell @spotsandsocks @giddyupbuck

@whosoldherout @steadfastsaturnsrings @diazsdimples

@exhuastedpigeon @honestlydarkprincess @jeeyuns

@jesuisici33 @ronordmann @underwaterninja13

@bucksbignaturals @bucks-daddy-issues @butraura

@kaseysgirl86-blog @extasiswings @actuallyitsellie

@bucksbirthmark @evanbegins @shitouttabuck

@thewolvesof1998 @daffi-990 @namjroon

@housewifebuck @rainbow-nerdss @theotherbuckley

@monsterrae1 @wikiangela @weewootruck @devirnis 🦋

[fractallogic]

The house I’m MOVING INTO (which is technically my dad’s until I file for divorce and the divorce goes through) got a clean bill of health and many compliments from the inspectors

From my brief stint as a real estate appraiser’s assistant, I have really only looked this closely at foreclosure properties, so to look at a house in any other state than “oh they DEFINITELY cooked meth in that kitchen” is like… still mind blowing

The biggest issue (and only non-routine-maintenance or -cosmetic one) is that whoever insulated the garage did not put drywall up to cover the warning label on the insulation that says “THIS LABEL MUST BE COVERED THIS PAPER IS A FIRE HAZARD”, so like… it was probably done by the owner who then just didn’t quite finish it because they got bored or something else happened and it became like every other project does and goes to “I’ll get around to it” purgatory

And the rest of the stuff is “you’ll need to replace or reinforce these fence posts because they’re loose” or “there’s a chipped/cracked tile in the kitchen” or “don’t forget to scope your sewer line every 3-4 years!”, which like

…you’re saying that they DIDN’T recently (or ever, possibly) cook meth in this kitchen or even anywhere on this property??? There are no significant foundation cracks or mold issues? No water damage?? The bathroom fans even pass mom’s (contractor) boyfriend’s “toilet paper test” and are clean enough to have enough suction to hold a piece of toilet paper against the vent???

WHOSE THE FUCK HOUSE IS THIS

[jaggedwolf]

jaggedwolf makes a meager attempt to rank the GLs/BLs she watched in Q1 2025. to be clear even the least favorite was an entertaining time, and even the most favorites had moments that made me want to shake the show and go this is silly, structure this better. ramblings below in reverse order.

Pluto (2024)

Namtan good? Namtan good. I did enjoy the first half of the show where you could kinda tell May totally knew who Ai was but Ai is a dummy who can somehow believe that she is not constantly giving the game away. The mutual lying felt well-balanced there. Liked Ai's sad little faces as the saddest woobie in the world up until the point that there was so much sobbing that I experienced sympathetic sinus pain, despite shedding no tears myself. I did not know that was possible.

Amazingly, the show did convince me of the "love at first sight" thing that I am typically a grinch about - Teen Ai had so much swag, poor Teen May is dealing with a shitty constrained life, and you can see how that moment would be locked in May's mind.

It all goes downhill after that first meeting reveal. First, the show drags out the reveals so much. At first I thought they dragged it out so that the reveal would happen before the first time they had sex, which they were also dragging out, but no, it doesn't get revealed by then anyway! Might as well have started banging earlier smh.

Second, the number of twists pile up to soap-opera levels. May defending Batman (haha) was okay, but having her justify it to Oom as protecting her from her dad did not make me sympathetic to May at all, because Oom literally goes "lol I don't care" about May's dad's threats. I almost wish May had just been a cocky rich lawyer type back then. But what makes me most annoyed about this point is that Oom is more enraged about the impact that May's defense has on Ai's friend than Ai is! That is too much simping for your love interest, and Ai is forgiving even before she knows there's blackmail involved.

We also get Ai involved in the blinding of May without ever knowing May's name, and Oom getting amnesia for the dramatically convenient number of years, both of which are very silly.

Thirdly, well I don't know if this third point is actually such a con that it wraps around to being a pro, actually, because thirdly, everyone is so terrible to amnesiac Oom that I can't get mad at her for the deranged ultimatum. I'm very fond of Ai, but I am unimpressed with her going on about being a good big sister...and then doing the ridiculously cruel move of sending clueless Oom back to the woman who already broke her heart! Oom's friend needs to be cajoled into telling her the truth! Like damn, Oom knows she lost two years, just tell her there was a breakup.

Oom was a character I liked far more than I expected, tbf, and getting an episode from her perspective was great, even if it added to the evidence that no one in this show was capable of being normal about unrequited pining - not Oom, not Paul, not Pang, not Pim, no one.

This was a show where I approved of the couple being separated for a year, because yeah, you two need to chill out in your own lives there. And yet, I do actually like these two together, I just need them to never keep secrets from each other again because when they do, they are menaces to each other and everyone around them.

Other stuff I didn't care for: Whatever was going on with the side trio, especially the sloppily edited-out subplot for Pim, between the attorney thank you and the laptop apology.

I thought the May-Kosol and May-Ben reconciliation scenes were very well done, and again, they could've been even stronger if defending Batman wasn't something May was "blackmailed" into.

The Heart Killers (2024)

A rarity for this list, THK did not not actively annoy me at any point. I had fun watching it, liked bad mom actually dying in the end, thought everyone's motivations made sense, enjoyed watching Khao, First, and Joong make expressions, but...

(1) Dunk is a bad actor. I am not someone with high acting standards, you know, my floor for this is very low, but I found him distractingly stiff and/or jittery in ways that did not make sense for the character. Am unlikely to be watching any shows with Dunk in a main role in the future - unfortunate, because I thought Joong did well with Fadel in this role.

(2) The setting is so unreal that I could not take it seriously enough to be emotionally invested, haha. No one is good at their job. The assassins are so bad at being hidden. The assassins' momboss is so bad at keeping tabs on them. The police are so bad at tracking obvious assassins. Kant is so bad at being an informant. There are no stakes here. My one exception to my lack of emotional investment would be Kant and Bison's reconciliation on the island. I thought that well done, especially with the use of the safeword.

Above points aside, I had a good time watching this show, with all its Jojo-typical zaniness. Only Friends is not on this list of shows because I watched it much longer ago, but I also wasn't emotionally invested in any of the couples there while liking the show. Curious to see if I feel differently about Girl Rules.

Final note: Fadel continuously horrified me with his hygiene choices. What is the point of wearing gloves while cutting vegetables if you are going to run your hands through your hair in between! Why would you run through your hair the very same hand you just used to jerk off! Bad Fadel.

Thamepo (2024)

Oh, Thamepo. You started so strong, and yet ended so weak.

I was sold on this show within the first two episodes. Thame as the kind of boyband leader who is secretly martyring himself for the others, despite what it looks like from the outside, is perfectly targeted towards my ids. The juxtaposition of Po as someone who's been left behind with Thame as someone who's been forced to leave was a great way to spark that initial conflict between them, and meant I didn't question how open they became with each other so fast - those were very sore spots.

Each of the group's members getting an episode devoted to their re-recruitment worked, and I liked the group as a whole. I do find myself fonder of the BLs/GLs when there's friend crew shenanigans happening.

I didn't mind the slowness of the burn for Po and Thame. They are both painfully passive dudes, and I was not yet annoyed at that trait. Okay, the jealousy over the ex scenes made Thame look unappealing, not cute, because what do you mean you're not getting back to resuming your first makeout with your boyfriend because of your little jealousy fit. SMH.

The episode where Pepper and Gam are revealed to the public and break-up really worked for me, I did not expect to like these side hets so much. I was cross on their behalf that the other two gallivanting around in public is what got them exposed.

Evil CEO lady was an excellent evil CEO lady, except for the very end where they try to go oh you secretly wanted them to be happy right, and it's like no, just let her be an evil CEO lady who wants to make money and boost TPop, that's fine.

Now, let's get to the stuff that really bothered me. I loved the breakup scene on the roof, it's the only time I've teared up at one of these shows, and it made sense for the particular flaws these guys have. And yet...that Po does not call Thame as soon as he finds out ONER is sending Thame to Korea alone, the thing Thame has said from the very beginning that he would hate and would make him miserable, made me think poorly of Po. At that point the reason for the breakup is moot - Po's presence is no longer risking an opportunity that Thame actually wants.

On Thame's side, I thought the deletion of his contacts here was clearly when his memorization of Po's phone number would come up again, but it didn't.

IDK, the thing about binging a bunch of romance-focused canons is that it makes one grapple with one what likes from their fictional romances. For this type of couple, who are presented as sweet forever boyfriends dealing with unfair constraints? That presentation doesn't work if I'm not convinced by the end of the show that their first instincts are to work together as team, to strategize together, to reach for the other person. The Korea news was a prime opportunity for that display, before the discovered letter and the concert surprise.

The concert surprise was quite silly to me. Mick is secretly on their side? Their brilliant plan to keep Thame is to...show one (1) video where they say they're not letting him go?? They lucked out with evil CEO lady being sick of their shit instead of simply enforcing the contract that we never got full details of. (I would be more forgiving if their plan was to make evil CEO lady sick of their shit, but that didn't seem to be the case)

Finally, Po going back to work at the suit shop...really did not work for me. I do not demand an uncharacteristic level of ambition for this fellow but (1) at the start we are told the suit shop job pays sufficiently little that both of Po's parents are sending him money and he wants to get a good job to pay them back* (2) he is a good director who likes the work and is big enough after the MARS single video that his ex has heard of it.

Uncle's speech on dream jobs led me to the opposite conclusion that Po reached. Namely, that perhaps directing doesn't have to be a Dream Job TM for it to be something Po does well and gets paid well for, and maybe he could go direct for a company less torturing than ONER. Or maybe even direct his boyfriend's music videos.

* forced to reckon with the possibility that this is a rare scenario where jaggedwolf is going damn you, have more filial piety please

Bad Buddy (2021)

I had the opposite trajectory with this show than I did with Thamepo. I started off mostly annoyed with all of the boys and men, except for Pran. I find Nanon's expressions very endearing, what can I say, this has upped the probability of me watching his het stuff one day. Also, Pran is a dweeb who is the least interested in fighting, which I respect. Architecture and Engineering should be majors with heavy workloads, why do these boys even have time to fight? Can Pat be less annoying? Will these dads shut up?

Yet, the plot and characterization unfold so skillfully as the show progresses that I found myself more invested with every episode. The way Pran's and Pat's history is doled out, the ever-classic scenario of Pran being aware he's had a crush on Pat since high school but all Pat knows at first is that he has to keep messing with Pran and he has to keep helping him, the realization of just how badly both their families have fucked them up. On that last point, two things that made me so sad were (1) Pat wondering if he's doing something wrong picking the play just because dad disagrees (2) Pran constantly saying he's quit guitar while clearly still loving it, just because of his mom's reaction back in high school. Awful! Look what you did, you fucked up two perfectly good kids!

Thus the way they hide even their friendship from their bros makes perfect sense, because the stupid faculty fight sets off every defense mechanism they've formed against their parents. Also sense-making in a lovelier way: that competitiveness remains a core of their connection, because that was the first way they could publicly interact with each other, you know? It's what was acceptable.

+100000 points for the reveal of the conflict between Pat's dad and Pran's mom. Great job making the rivalries seem gendered in the initial introductions, with the dads competing in industry and the moms competing over their babies' fortunes, but giving us a hint soon after with it being Pran's mom who is most enraged at the Christmas concert. Having the characters wonder if Pran's mom vs Pat's dad was a romantic connection and then taking a complete left turn into the university scholarship theft? Brilliant. Like yeah, that would make you hate a guy so much.

Pa and Ink were a very cute side-pairing (the steps scene? so cute. the darkroom scene? Love should be required to make her voice go wibbly wobbly in every show she's on), and since I saw 23.5 before Bad Buddy it was fun to see the actors in a different dynamic, especially Love playing the character with more of a PoV here. Appreciated Ink's friendship with both the boys, loved both Pat and Pa being so bad at flirting, loved their hotpot dinner. Though it remains ridiculous that Pat and Pa were sharing a room in college, what siblings would ever be cool with that? ...Maybe their dad does suck enough that being away from him his worth it.

I only have two complaints regarding the girls. I wish we'd gotten more of them with Pran and Pat instead of whiny useless Wai. Even before he acts like Pran has to apologize to him for his boyfriend choices (and never fesses up to trying to out them!), he is guilt-tripping Pran into taking responsibility for shit that's not his problem, like the play and the fighting. Go away dude, you are pointlesss and it made me postpone the Jimmy BL on my list because I needed a break from his face.

Secondly, I wish we'd gotten more between Pa and Pat during episodes 11 and 12. Does Pa get to learn what dad did to Pran's mom? Does she not have complicated feelings or opinions on the way her dad's former favoritism of Pat has been revealed to be something worse and more unfair to her brother?

As for the ultimate ending and the secret not-breakup...at first I was very frustrated, because those parents can fuck right off, thanks.

(Also, uhhh the timeline is very weird? We get a four years later jump from the middle of sophomore year, but somehow Pa is just graduating/packing. Which I could handwave if they hadn't said the architecture program is five years, because then wouldn't Pa and Pran be graduating at the same time....gmmtv will you ever give me timelines that don't confound me....)

With more thought, I still don't care for the parents here. I don't like that Pat is still working for his dad and trying to pander to him when dad gives no good energy back, I don't like that mom even has control over Pran's guitar at all, your grudging acceptances mean nothing to me!!! But...I do buy this for both Pat and Pran 😭 Those are the parents they are each so wrapped up in, they got that filial piety, yada yada.

Fundamentally more important to me than telling the shitty parents to fuck off is that Pran and Pat remain a solid team till the end - which was a consistent throughline of the show, wasn't it? That no matter what it looks like to the viewers, to their classmates, to their families, they have always been on each other's side, ever since the day Pran rescued Pa, and that will always be true <3

Still, I'm going to headcanon them saying fuck it and being open in 2-3 years after the show. (And Pat working elsewhere.) Huh, I wonder if there's good fic for that.

23.5 (2023)

Ah, GMMTV's first GL, and the first show I watched this quarter.

23.5 is distinct from the above shows not just in being a fluffy high school show, but in being the most protagonist-heavy of them all.

Here I mean protagonist in the singular.

Pat and Pran trade PoVs as easily as they change leads in that race to their dorm rooms, Pluto and ThamePo start with Ai's and Po's PoVs but soon May's and Thame's plots dominate and THK is juggling four leads.

Structurally speaking, 23.5, lives or dies on the merits of Ongsa, our 15-year-old accidental catfisher whose headspace dominates this show.

As you may guess from this show's position in the ranking, the show very much lives. Because, you see, Ongsa is such a loser of a lesbian. (And such a lesbian of a loser.) I mean, hopefully most viewers are going "Ongsa, take a chill pill, the world is not that bad or scary and neither are your friends and family, probably".

Being 15 is the worst, in general, and Ongsa is specifically the kind of 15-year-old whose internal anxieties loom larger than the world as it actually is, and so the show's cultivation of a narrower perspective works to its benefit.

We do get tidbits of Sun's perspective, but she's the most opaque of any of these shows' leads. Which is fine for this sort of show. As with Bad Buddy I enjoy the "person with hopeless gay crush" x "person with zero self-awareness about why they want to mess with/help first person so bad" dynamic, which generally works well in a high school or college setting. Sun is remarkably ready to white knight the second she meets Ongsa. Her episode 7 jealousy plot delighted me despite my usual antipathy towards jealousy plots, because it did not feel like she was blaming Ongsa, only herself.

I didn't mind their breakup chaos even if it made me wince at the teenage behaviour. Like, IDK, they are teenagers, I will allow for them taking turns being the worst within bounds and if I feel it's evenhanded, which I did. Ongsa was awful during Sun's birthday, Sun was awful about Ongsa not telling her parents, and Ongsa proceeded to be awful about handling a breakup. The last led to some pretty funny sequences.

The Aylin/Luna conflict however.... I thought they were a perfectly charming side-couple till the lunch where Ton gets a plateful of food to his face. (1) He deserved that, stop bothering women who don't care about you (2) Aylin confessing her bullying to a gigantic group added nothing because uh, why were any of them owed any that info, we already knew all of it from Sun and Alpha's conversation in a previous episode, and Mawin interrupted her before she could even finish her story.

Justice for Aylin to eat her lunch without Ton or Mawin present. TBH both those guys annoyed me with the amount of screentime they got in the last third of the show, Ton peaked in ep 7, Chareon should stop being bugged by him. The only thing I liked from this subplot was Aylin and Sun's rooftop conversation - those two have some cute friendship scenes.

Uhhh let's see what else did I like. Both sets of parents are alive and not shitty! After watching more GMMTV shows, I am incredibly impressed by this. Good job parents. Alpha's older sistering stuff = very good. The teacher romance = wonderful.

[mistfallengw2]

Once again missing a brainstorm buddy on my same wavelength, because bouncing ideas at the wall like I'm playing squash doesn't really work with the idea I had yesterday. It gives me way too much freedom for my own good, so much that there are just at least 2-3 cool options for each decision I could take, but I gotta pick only one each and there's no clear winner T_T Oh the curse of having too many good ideas :')

[natugood]

I really need to stop reading my therapist's session notes given the psychic whiplash I experience half the time I read them, especially since im like 99% sure I shouldn't be able to see them in the first place, but like.... im so curious. I want to knowwwww

[beesinspades]

currently stuck in a vicious adhd circle of "has and wants to work on big bang fic, but wants to work on creechur fic more → can't work on creechur fic because has to work on big bang fic first" please brain let me out

[boomstab-papa]

i wanted to make a little "graphic design is my burden" reminder because it doesn't work on other people and it doesn't work when doing it to yourself, either

Not that anybody asked, but I think it's important to understand how shame and guilt actually work before you try to use it for good.

It's a necessary emotion. There are reasons we have it. It makes everything so. much. worse. when you use it wrong.

Shame and guilt are DE-motivators. They are meant to stop behavior, not promote it. You cannot, ever, in any meaningful way, guilt someone into doing good. You can only shame them into not doing bad.

Let's say you're a parent and your kid is having issues.

Swearing in class? Shame could work. You want them to stop it. Keep it in proportion*, and it might help. *(KEEP IT IN PROPORTION!!!)

Not doing their homework? NO! STOP! NO NOT DO THAT! EVER! EVER! EVER! You want them to start to do their homework. Shaming them will have to opposite effect! You have demotivated them! They will double down on NOT doing it. Not because they are being oppositional, but because that's what shame does!

You can't guilt people into building better habits, being more successful, or getting more involved. That requires encouragement. You need to motivate for that stuff!

If you want it in a simple phrase:

You can shame someone out of being a bad person, but you can't shame them into being a good person.

[bumpscosity]

finally actually designing Nix YAAAAAY

[clockworksheep2]

also i was so excited to get home all day. and for what. i've got nothing to do.

i think i felt like if i got home then i could ... somehow think MORE about The Character (and game). but erm. it doesn't make a difference.

i don't think i want to play the game again rn. i just wish there was like ... a video i could watch of someone else explaining lore or smth to me perhaps. i'm almost too tired to come up w my own thoughts fdsjkl i just want to let my brain rest while i let someone else do the thinking for me but i still want to be able to be thinking about the game and characters and lore and worldbuilding etc etc etc 😭😭😭😭

actually what i really Want to do is start on trying to make a plushie of the woim but unfortunately I do not have the right felt colours for him and I don't know how to order it online bc the michaels website is confusing and I much prefer to get stuff in person but it is a 2-3 hour drive away down the highway so like. i can't do that HFDSJGKL. i wish we had a craft store in town PLEASEEEE i'm dyin,,,, i don't think the dollar store has the right felt colours even when they DO have felt (which is rare as is). i just ... want to make stuff. ough.

[jackalsraised]

my gift is being annoying, see, i can hate myself and be so horrendously anxious that i think trying to make being alive easier for myself is somehow offensive to others bc thats how so many people online act like literally any accomodations not made by the doctors that dont care abt you at all are somehow unnecessary and ‘fishing for attention’ to the point i ruin myself and destroy my body avoiding accomodations bc i dont want to ‘seem like a bad person’ for quite literally needing help. but give me a tv show and 30 seconds with new information and i will either give you the most thought provoking theory or the most wildcard theory ever and always be correct.