#leaf turtle

[nightmaresyrup]

The Vietnamese Black-breasted Leaf turtle!

.....MY GOD LOOK AT THEIR EYES! And they're real fast!

[herpsandbirds]

Black-breasted Leaf Turtle (Geoemyda spengleri), hatchling, family Geoemydidae, found in southern China, Viet Nam, and Laos

ENDANGERED.

photograph via: Albinoturtles.com

[gonetoforks]

he loves that cat so much

+ Tinker Shell AU sketch wips ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

[uncharismatic-fauna]

Uncharismatic Fact of the Day

Japan is home to many wonderful National Monuments, including palaces, shrines, temples, ancient crafts, and one very small turtle! The Ryukyu black breasted leaf turtle is only 6.5–15.5 cm (2.5-6 in) long, and is only found in mountain forests, but in 1975 they were declared a National Natural Monument of Japan to enhance the regulatory laws surrounding the collection and trade of the species.

(Image: A hatchling Ryukyu black-breasted leaf turtle (Geomyda japonica) by Eric Cameron)

[sluggoonthestreet]

Ernest loves the color yellow, and autumn never fails to deliver.

[quailtea]

Endangered species creature crossovers

[tangledinink]

OK well now you know I need some Donnie absolutely nerding out and being adorable about Botany. You can't do this to me. How dare

this is his snake plant, it's his favorite~

[waitmyturtles]

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV, and When Queer Media Goes Mainstream in Thailand: The Lakorn Corner, Part 1 -- The Fallen Leaf Edition

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I'm starting a three-part sub-series on queer primetime lakorns in Thailand, starting first with 2019's The Fallen Leaf.]

TW: major spoilers, suicide attempt

WELL. I don't know if anyone's around anymore whose been tracking this project! I haven't written an entry for this project since (scary!) August of 2024. But I have good reasons (!!!), and I attribute this, in part, to Thailand's predilection of broadcasting very, very long primetime dramas. (Besides, of course, the usual craziness of life that happens in-between my watching of shows.)

The last time I updated my Old GMMTV Challenge project, I was just about to tune into (for the first timmmmeeeee omg), My School President, after offering a rewatch analysis of The Eclipse, along with commentary on my perspective of the current impact of branded paired actors in the dramas of GMMTV and other studios. I was really enjoying ploughing through 2022's slate of Thailand's BL and GL dramas, and during the fall of 2024, I watched The Miracle of Teddy Bear, which was ridiculously amazing, and for which I will pen my next review in this series.

The Miracle of Teddy Bear is often cited as Thailand's first queer lakorn, or primetime drama, and is thus on the OGMMTVC list as an important milestone of the extensions of queer media's reach within Thailand's mainstream media. However, the comment that Miracle is Thailand's first queer lakorn is not accurate.

More accurately, The Miracle of Teddy Bear is Thailand's first lakorn to center a male queer character in a same-sex relationship.

In conversation with the FABULOUS @flowerbeasblog (who helms an incomparable blog about ratings and social media performance of our fave shows and actors in Thailand!), I learned that Thailand had an earlier primetime lakorn that featured a queer main character -- a transgender woman who suffered an abusive childhood.

This lakorn, 2019's The Fallen Leaf (aka The Leaves), stars a cisgender female actress, the hugely popular Baifern Pimchanok. The Fallen Leaf was one of Baifern's first shows that put her on Thailand's and Asia's maps as a huge continental star, particularly in China.

I was on the fence as to whether or not I was going to watch this show and list it. The idea of watching a show about a transgender female character, acted by a cisgender actress, gave me the jibbles, as was highlighted during a recent controversy involved a cisgender male actor playing a transgender female in the second season of Squid Game.

However, through some lucky connections, I got word from a Thai screenwriter that I should watch The Fallen Leaf if I was interested in the short history of queer lakorns. Later on in this sub-series about lakorns for the OGMMTVC, I'll discuss 2022's Khun Chai (To Sir With Love), which smashed QL ratings records. Comparing The Fallen Leaf to The Miracle of Teddy Bear and Khun Chai, therefore, is an accurate way to tell the story of the primetime centering of queer stories in Thailand's mainstream mediascape, aside from the continued growth of the specific Series Y genre.

And so. When The Fallen Leaf aired in 2019 on the One31 channel, it was massively popular. I want to talk about why I think that's the case.

Firstly, I want to note the importance of the year in which The Fallen Leaf aired. The inimitable @bengiyo has noted that 2019 was the year in which the Thai BL fanbase bifurcated. Thai BLs, also known as Series Y in Thailand, is a far smaller genre than that of the Thai primetime lakorn. However, the BL genre, by 2019, was growing exponentially, offering fans a wide array of content, from the heaty-hot drama TharnType, to the contemplative miniseries He's Coming To Me, to the complicated and rewarding romance of Dark Blue Kiss.

I thought a lot about TharnType while I was watching The Fallen Leaf. Not too many people in the global QL fanbase know about The Fallen Leaf, save for the incredible @so-much-yet-to-learn, who flagged for me that what he knew about it was that the show was rumored to have contained many problematic stereotypes about transgender individuals.

TharnType was notable not just for being one of the steamiest Series Y shows of its time, but for also centering enough problematic stereotypes about queer sexuality that I felt compelled to forever flag it. I noted in my OGMMTVC review of TharnType that I felt, as an Asian myself, that the show's basic framework relied on Asian stereotypes of bigotry against the queer community, a foundational approach that really made me queasy.

However: that approach (along with the heat), I think, allowed a broader Asian audience to tune into the show and relate to it -- a coincidence that's unfortunate, but one that the show's creator, MAME, likely knew would resonate with a growing fanbase that wanted to see men kiss, but that wasn't potentially fully up to speed on advocating for the queer community and for LGBTQ+ causes. (I posit a similar corollary in theorizing about the popularity of 2020's 2gether.)

I'm not fully sure what led to the creation of The Fallen Leaf, as a 2019 primetime, mainstream drama on one of Thailand's biggest channels. But I will posit, twofold, that the growing popularity of Series Y in Thailand -- not a mainstream genre by way of viewership, but a genre that carried tremendous social media clout, even in 2019 -- along with the resulting increase in social conversations and commentary about queer sexuality and queer life, may have made executives at One31 nod their heads in approving a novel script for the lakorn genre, one that very often centers not just romance, but deeply heterosexual and misogynistic approaches to romance (an issue discussed in the Series Y documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy).

And with The Fallen Leaf, in part, centering often controversial commentary about transgender individuals, the show was sure to achieve notoriety, as it certainly did by way of its resulting popularity in Thailand, and particularly in China.

So...

Now that I've said all of that -- that The Fallen Leaf was a hugely popular show, with a cisgender female actress playing a transgender woman, and that the show contains a hell of a lot of problematic takes on the queer and transgender communities -- what exactly is this show about, and was it a successful narrative?

The Fallen Leaf, as with other lakorns (like The Miracle of Teddy Bear), benefits from being a REALLY LONG SHOW. In a REALLY LONG SHOW, 21 episodes-worth (27 if you find them on YouTube), problematic takes can actually be addressed and countered with delicacy. Of course, problematic takes can also create scripted drama, but I'll get to that in a second.

Nira, our main character, is a transgender Thai woman who underwent gender-affirming surgery in London. She is in England with her mother after her mother's divorce from her abusive and cheating husband. Nira's supportive mother dies in a car accident while Nira is recovering from her surgery. Nira is left devastated -- and hellbent on exacting revenge against her abusive father (Chom) and her equally abusive paternal aunt (Rungrong).

Chom rejected his former son from an early age, noting his former son's feminine tendencies, and abusing his wife and son to a great extent out of his frustration of this reality. (Nira's formerly male identity is recollected in flashbacks, and notably, Saint Suppapong plays Nira's teenage male self.) It is indicated to Chom early in the series that his son died along with his ex-wife in the car accident, allowing Nira to come back to Thailand unidentified as related to Chom's family.

Rungrong is married to Chat, an unhappy husband caught in an almost-unconsummated marriage after Rungrong faked a pregnancy to get Chat to marry her. As a young boy, Nira was close with Chat, the only relative besides Nira's mother who was willing to wholly accept the young boy. Upon Nira's arrival in Thailand as a transitioned adult woman, she insinuates herself in the lives of Chom and Rungrong, ostensibly to upend their lives and exact revenge. During that insinuation, she gains the attraction of both her unhappy uncle-in-law, Chat.....and.... her father, Chom.

Yeah, sooooo, let me stop there for a second. Yes, this show is predicated on the premise that TWO of Nira's relatives -- a non-blood-related relative in her uncle, and her very blood-related relative in her father -- are into her. This tension is not ignored, it's very much addressed, and if you have familiarity with American soap operas or (worse), Indian Zee TV dramas, that a primetime Thai lakorn would choose this approach is actually not so surprising.

(That's Uncle Chat down there, played by the incredible Push Puttichai, who NEEDS TO BE IN AN OLDER MAN BL ABSOLUTELY STAT, THIS MAN IS BEAUTIFUL, JUST BEAUTIFUL. PAIR HIM UP WITH PRAN'S DAD!)

In order to exact revenge against the HUGELY bigoted and abusive Rungrong, as well as a new rival in some dumb influencer named Manow, Nira situates herself to become a famous make-up artist, model, and actress, which she actually achieves to an extent.

However, her abusive past, and the traumatic loss of her mother, haunt her throughout the drama. A huge part of the show is centered on her struggles with her mental health and her psychological care with her doctor, Benjang, who.... yeah, falls in love with her too, at some point. (Codes of ethics don't mean a thang in lakorns, I guess!) BUT BESIDES THAT, her needing anxiety medication, along with her regular hormonal therapy, are depicted clearly as a part of her everyday routine.

I'll stop there for now. Much of the show is centered on Nira's power plays with Rungrong and Manow, especially as these two fucking bigots pry into Nira's past, particularly as Rungrong seethes in jealousy while Nira becomes ever closer to Rungrong's husband.

The drama is a lot. It's a lot, and it's crazy and insane, and it's perfect for a primetime drama meant to draw in a mainstream audience accustomed to catfights and inordinate amounts of scripted tension.

However: let me also compliment this complicated show on a couple of fronts regarding depictions of LGBTQ+ themes.

As I said before, 21 hourlong episodes gives a script a lot of time to unwind. The macro-level, core premise of the show is indeed insane -- two of Nira's older relatives falling in love with her. It's a bombastic premise designed for attention and ratings.

But the show, surprisingly, treats almost all of its LGBTQ+ topics with sensitivity. Transgender women abound in the show, including Nira's steadfast and headstrong manager, and a sympathetic club owner who owns the bigoted Rungrong at one point. The FABULOUS James Rusameekae plays an over-the-top make-up artist. While I was afraid that his character, Baitong, would be treated with disrespect by the script (like Green in the original 2gether), the opposite happened: his feminine traits and never-ending support of Nira were celebrated in the show. Rungrong's own make-up artist, a gay man himself who initially helps Rungrong uncover Nira's secret, ends up lashing out at his boss after Rungrong makes bigoted comments about him and his community.

All of these characters, at some point in the series, face discrimination. Notably, Nira leaves an event where she is asked to be a model, when it is revealed to her that the LGBTQ+ community is not welcome at the site where the event takes place. While the resulting public conversations she engages in about her stance are a touch precious, they're also important to note, considering that these frank conversations about discrimination were happening during a primetime hour to a mainstream audience.

Perhaps even more notable as presented to a mainstream audience: there are many instances in which Nira's transition care are depicted and sometimes explained. At the end of the series, pictures of Nira's post-surgical transition are shown. At the start of the series, Nira is shown in the hospital, bandaged. The transition of her feminine hairline is depicted and explained. She is shown using hormonal gels and vaginal dilators, and carries her bag of dilators with her as she moves apartments during the series.

Thailand is certainly known globally for the quality of its gender-affirming care. However, regarding the transitional experience, I myself have never seen a fictional show delve into so much detail about the process, and I found myself learning and researching parts of the process that I wasn't aware of.

I want to also note, with thanks again to the amazing @flowerbeasblog, that the creators of The Fallen Leaf actually addressed the earlier controversy I noted earlier, about the casting of a cisgender woman in the lead role. As what might have been expected in 2019 -- the creators of the show felt that if a transgender person had been cast, that the show might have been categorized within a more specific genre, like Series Y, for instance. In order to widen the show's appeal to a larger audience, the decision was made to cast a cisgender woman (you can use Google Translate to read this Thai wiki entry about the show). With LGBTQ+ actors and actresses gaining more attention and accolades in mainstream Thai media -- James Rusameekae recently winning a major award, and Jennie Panhan gaining the spotlight for playing a mother in another mainstream lakorn -- I hope that soon enough, a transgender actor or actress will indeed lead a primetime lakorn.

[NOTE: SKIP THE NEXT THREE PARAGRAPHS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE ENDING!]

...

...

I found the ending of The Fallen Leaf to be a sensible one, but a tough one. Nira's secret is revealed publicly, and she suffers tremendously for it. The accurate psychological connection is made regarding her mental health and the previous abuse she suffered at the hands of her father. None of the villains are redeemed -- an ending that I'm thankful for, because the show didn't need to jump through any other extraneous and insensible ethical hoops.

The show ended on a reasonable note of hope. Nira admits she is ill, and leaves behind Thailand, and Chat, to recover. She comments on the possibility of being able to go back to Thailand to the community that loves and supports her -- her doctor, her manager, her friend in Baitong.

The show was already too long to establish a narrative that she could triumph, within 21 episodes, over the lifetime of pain and abuse she had suffered. While I found that tough, I also found it a realistic and reasonable approach in a discussion about a lifetime of mental health issues. I think the fictional Nira indeed deserves love, and I hope that another lakorn that centers a transgender character will take up that mantle.

While The Fallen Leaf does not technically fall within the spectrum of the Series Y genre -- which The Old GMMTV Challenge project specifically focuses on -- I am ultimately so thankful that I watched it, because it is a clear precursor to 2022's Khun Chai/To Sir, With Love. Khun Chai, a fellow One31 queer primetime lakorn, turns up the volume on the conversation of discrimination against the gay community from the JUMP of episode one, with (similar to The Fallen Leaf) a suicide attempt after an unintended outing. I'm watching Khun Chai right now, so I can't make full comment at this moment, but I very much feel that with 2019's The Fallen Leaf having aired prior to Khun Chai -- and with the INCREDIBLE growth of Series Y shows from 2019 to 2022 -- that the Thai mainstream audience was really ready for some blunt conversation about gay men, bigotry, and true love, in a Very Big Soapy Show by the time Khun Chai aired. I see the similarities between The Fallen Leaf and Khun Chai already. While tropes abound in shows about young boys finding their feminine tendencies early in their lives, the fact that The Fallen Leaf and Khun Chai (as well as The Miracle of Teddy Bear) all start with young boys receiving physical abuse for their tendencies would not have been lost on the Thai lakorn audience who watched all of these shows.

With that, I close out my thoughts on The Fallen Leaf. Part two of the OGMMTVC's Lakorn Corner will focus on the absolutely OUTSTANDING The Miracle of Teddy Bear -- a Channel 3 lakorn that performed notably worse than The Fallen Leaf and Khun Chai, but that still carried incredibly important messaging about queer sexuality and childhood abuse and discrimination. I cannot wait to start writing about it, and I'll see y'all for part two of this sub-series!

[I wanna note that I am way behind on reviews for a lot of shows I watched last fall and winter. I'll write about Miracle next, then I'll pen a brief tribute to the FUCKING INCREDIBLE Triage, then onto Khun Chai, and then a quick deep-dive into the history of Thai GLs with Love Songs Love Stories: Pae Jai from 2015, Love of Secret from 2022, and then the biggie, GAP.

And then. I will finally watch My School President. Once I'm done with Khun Chai and the quick Love Songs Love Stories. (Yes, I am finally adding a show to the list that I myself am not watching, in Love of Secret. I'll explain more when I get to the GLs era.)

ANYWAY. Here's the current list as you see fit!

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Love Songs Love Stories: Pae Jai (2015) (Thailand’s first serialized GL) (to be reviewed with GAP the Series) 5) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 6) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 7) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 8) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 9) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 10) Together With Me (2017) (review here)

11) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 12) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 13) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 14) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 15) The Fallen Leaf (2019) (not a BL; adjacent to the project as Thailand’s first lakorn featuring a queer/transgender main character) (review coming) 16) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 17) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 18) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 19) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 20) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content at GMMTV) (review here)

21) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 22) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here) 23) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 24) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 25) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 26) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (review here) 27) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 28) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 29) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 30) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here)

31) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 32) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 34) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here) 35) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: preamble here, part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4) 36) Secret Crush On You (2022) (review here) 37) The Miracle of Teddy Bear (2022) (review coming) 38) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here)  39) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist (part 1 and part 2) 40) Triage (2022) (review coming)

41) Honorable Mention: War of Y (2022) (for the sake of an attempt to provide meta BL commentary within a BL in the modern BL era), with a complementary watch of Aam Anusorn’s documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy (2020) (thoughts here) 42) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 43) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine "Genre BLs," Along With a Critical Take on Branded Ships (review here) 44) Khun Chai/To Sir, With Love (2022) (watching) 45) Love of Secret (2022) (a GL that preceded GAP) (I will not be watching this, but it's on the list to precede GAP) 46) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL with a branded pair and ship) (review coming) 47) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023), Coupled with a Speed-Watch of My Love Mix-Up Thailand (2024) to Comment on GMMTV Trying to Make Magic Happen Twice  48) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 49) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 50) La Pluie (2023) (review coming)

51) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 52) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 53) Only Friends (2023) (tag here) (not technically a BL, but it certainly became one in the end) 54) Last Twilight (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as Thailand’s first major BL to center disability, successfully or otherwise) 55) Cherry Magic Thailand (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as the first major Japanese-to-Thai drama adaptation, featuring the comeback of TayNew) 56) Ossan’s Love Returns (Japan, 2024) (adding for the EarthMix cameo and the eventual Thai remake) 57) 23.5 (2024) (GMMTV’s first GL) (thoughts here) (I am not finished with this show; I will finish it when I get to it on this list) 58) Spare Me Your Mercy (2024) (thoughts here) (added as the finale of Sammon's medical trilogy in Manner of Death and Triage, and as a major lakorn starring two of Thailand's biggest actors in Tor Thanapob and Jaylerr)]

[mumblelard]

some way some dare or irises everywhere even also in the truck with which i have

on wednesday, which was not yesterday, but some entirely other day, we ate crispy rice with pilfered curry, picked siberian irises out of the ditch where they had spread and cut through the forty oaks wood leaving our marks on the back of signs along the way

last night i dreamt i lived in a house with a culvert-sized bump through the middle of all the rooms and all the guests at my topsy turvy dinner party marveled at the beauty of the place

tonight i get to hang out with my kids and i have so many little stories to share, they got big, and i had to make a list

tomorrow will have to take care of itself

[shironezuninja]

I got sweet retribution for my TMNT 2003/Mirage Comics storyline in the Naruto crossover micro series. Take that, Yoshi Rat Dopers. I love to see Naruto honor the decade of my favorite TMNT cartoon series, when they were dominating the 2000’s.😌

[herpsandbirds]

Ryukyu Black-breasted Leaf Turtle (Geoemyda japonica), family Geoemydidae, endemic to the Ryuku Islands of Japan

ENDANGERED.

photograph by Chris Hagen

[thewhimsyturtle]

International Turtle and Tortoise Week, Day 2 (Day 1 here) Happy Earth Day! 🌱🌎 Today we shellebrate our beautiful home planet! This year's Earth Day theme is "Our Planet, Our Power": We all share Earth as our home, and together we have the power to keep it beautiful and green for a long time to come! 🤝 Renewable energy, recycling, and other sustainable choices add up to help make sure our planet still has plenty of delicious, CHOMP-able clover not made from yarn! 🍀🌏💚🐢

🔙 Who remembers when this yarn clover was bigger than baby me?

[gonetoforks]

New Leaf Don meeting his Rise counterpart, bro is just genuinely curious

[scarleteevee1]

Height Chart is Done!! Yippeeeee!! :D

I'm so Happy with this!! I've just got the flow and the motivation to do it! I was going to add Gemma for a better understanding for Height But I didn't leave enough space.. Lol

Well! Anyways there will be a Height Chart for Splinter and For Gemma! :D

Also to give a better understanding of Height Gemma is around the height of Mikey and Donnie

Also if anyone wants to make fan art of my Designs go ahead! Just @ me and Give Credit! :D

[aplaydatewithmyinnerchild]

june 16th is also world sea turtle day! (post 3/5)

tub turtle | stroller toy | soap dish

board book | night light | pacifier

baby blanket | pool toys | pop-it

life cycle felt plush | senseez turtle | wooden toy

[cutiepieautistic]

Source/source