#outward podcast

[bookgeekgrrl]

My media this week (12-18 Nov 2023)

📚 STUFF I READ 📚

🙂 Stuff Like Love (lambchop33) - 51K, stucky no-powers friends-to-lovers AU; enjoyable enough, lots of angsty pining

🥰 Stargazer (LemonadeGarden) - 47K, delicious angsty batfam feels, mostly between Jason & Bruce

😍 Artificial Condition (The Murderbot Diaries #2) (Martha Wells, author; Kevin R Free, narrator) - Murderbot reread in prep for System Collapse

😍 Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries #3) (Martha Wells, author; Kevin R Free, narrator)

😍 Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries #4) (Martha Wells, author; Kevin R Free, narrator)

😍 Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory (The Murderbot Diaries, #4.5) (Martha Wells)

😍 Fugitive Telemetry (The Murderbot Diaries #6) (Martha Wells, author; Kevin R Free, narrator)

😍 Network Effect (The Murderbot Diaries #5) (Martha Wells, author; Kevin R Free, narrator)

😍 System Collapse (The Murderbot Diaries #7) (Martha Wells, author; Kevin R Free, narrator) - MURDERBOT IS BACK! And so is ART! Murderbot has PTSD! [this is my surprised face] Another fantastic episode and I already want more.

😊 Murder at the Highland Castle (Miss Underhay Mystery #14) (Helena Dixon) - Kitty & Matt go to a remote Scottish castle for a case in time for Hogmanay

💖💖 +120K of shorter fic so shout out to these I really loved 💖💖

My Big Fat Wolf Wedding (AggressiveWhenStartled, galwednesday, quietnight, silentwalrus, skellerbvvt) - MCU: stucky, 12K - reread; comic accidental marriage between vamp!Steve & werewolf!Bucky

Crocodile Jock (entanglednow) - Stranger Things: steddie, 4K - short but super hot

Slide To Answer (relenafanel) - MCU: stucky, 6K - reread, forever fave; no powers wrong number AU

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

Shakespeare & Hathaway - s1, e6

QI - series Q, ep 15

QI - series T, ep 12-14

Oops: 250,000 people came to your book club

Aabria Iyengar On Dimension 20: Burrow's End, Critical Role & Much More

Finding Your Roots - "Breaking Silences" (s6, e15): Gayle King, Jordan Peele, Issa Rae

Finding Your Roots - "Far From Home" (s9, e4): Cyndi Lauper, Danny Trejo, Jamie Chung

D20: Burrow's End - "The First Stoats" (s20, e7)

D20: Adventuring Party - "If I Had A Nickel" (s15, e7)

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

Vibe Check - The Battle None of You Have Been Waiting For

Outward - Amy Schneider is a Champion

Culture Gabfest - Does Voice-Over Kill the Killer?

Ologies with Alie Ward - Road Ecology (ROAD KILL) with Ben Goldfarb

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - The Lightning Field

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Tiny Bread Box

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Montezuma Well

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Café 't Mandje

What Next: TBD - How Deepfake Porn Infected a School

Dear Prudence - My Family Won't Let Me Host for the Holidays. Help!

Today, Explained - F1: Gears and Loathing in Las Vegas

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Dolly Parton’s Dreambox

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - A Long Walk Home

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Gregynog Hall

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - The Immovable Ladder

Switched on Pop - Why Country Music Dominated 2023's Charts

Ed Zitron's 15 Minutes In Hell - Max Collins

Submitted for the Approval of the Midnight Pals - S01E02 The Tale of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Welcome to Night Vale #238 - The Big Dig

Cautionary Tales - Laser Versus Parchment: Doomsday for the Disc

99% Invisible #559 - The Six-Week Cure

Twenty Thousand Hertz+ - Sounds That Sell

Song Exploder - Sampha - Spirit 2.0

Shedunnit - The Pimlico Poisoning Mystery

99% Invisible #560 - Home on the Range

Cautionary Tales - Wrong Tools Cost Lives

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

Iron Maiden

Presenting Blue Öyster Cult

Rockstar [Dolly Parton] {2023}

[rindomness]

also btw i think it's So interesting that dr lubelle is described entirely as 'medium'. like. hmm how do i put it in words. something something she's dedicated herself so thoroughly to forcing the universe to conform to how she believes it should work based on strict guidelines that she herself now has no room for any variation from the exact mean, the peak of the normal curve, etc. she cannot allow for the world around her to have uniqueness and unexplained elements, and so it is reflected back in her. i just think it's interesting

[slowmo-cowboy]

The most recent arc of Riley Hopkins and Their Amazing Friends is SO good. Dragon Ball Uuber, my beloved. This will remain in my heart for Ever. Please go listen to it if you've ever cared about Dragon Ball ever. Its soso good!!!

[minipede]

the most horrific manipulative people i have been around aren’t the ones that make edgy posts about hating people its the ones that genuinely believe that spending their time trying to convince others of that rather than actually trying to be a good person, makes up for there mistakes and harm

[magnetic-rose]

if you loved episode 3 of tlou you really should listen to the official podcast with troy baker, craig mazin and neil druckmann because there’s SO much! here’s some of my favorite things said on the podcast:

- joel stacking rocks was to show that he missed and mourned tess. in that moment he was saying “i’m sorry, i blew it, i lost you.”

- in the beginning of the episode ellie told joel tess’ death wasn’t her fault but deep down she does feel like it was her fault.

- ellie admires joel because he protected her multiple times and as a child she has a desire for a parental figure to protect her.

- frank realized bill was gay pretty much as soon as he got out of the hole and saw how bill was looking at him. bill’s taking in how handsome frank is and “frank’s brain is incredibly attuned to that.” that’s why frank was smiling.

- frank realized bill was gay fast, but he realized he wanted bill when bill was playing the piano and singing linda ronstadt.

- it took them a while to find long long time by linda ronstadt but they always intended the song for bill to sing to be about a long love that was forever unrequited. “it was very important that the lyrics were someone saying ‘everyone tells me that it’s okay, that love will find me [...],’ no it doesn’t, no it’s not, and the person that i long for from afar - i’m gonna love them basically forever in the most unrequited manner.”

- it was important that frank immediately knew bill’s sexuality because frank SAW bill, because bill had completely buried his sexuality but frank saw through him.

- frank originally was trying to see what he could get out of bill (like a free lunch) but the more time they spent together, the more he went “oh, this is a beautiful person.”

- “there is two ways of loving things. frank wants to love outwards - he is sun, he is light. he wants to make things beautiful around him, he wants to care for bill, he wants to revitalize the streets so it’s not just this mausoleum bill lives in, and he wants to have friends. he wants to share what they have. and bill wants to put an electrified fence around them that is guarded by an additional layer of flame-throwing gas pipes and no one can show up ever because he must protect frank from the world... and as it turns out, both of those loved are required but one of those loves is likely to give you in trouble more than the other.”

- when frank put his finger on the furniture piece and saw how dusty it was, he realized what his purpose could be in bill’s life. bill can protect them, but frank can nurture their home.

- when bill apologizes to frank for growing old fast, it’s because he’s afraid of frank being left alone. “look at this beautiful man and the beautiful things that he does, and what is bill’s contribution? bill doesn’t grow strawberries. bill’s contribution is to keep frank alive. but bill is already afraid that he’s going to fail and that is a fear that joel has because he has that fear through experience [of losing his daughter.]“

- bill and joel understand each other and that they’re purpose is to protect others. they don’t care about their own lives.

- on their last day together, bill decided very early that he was going to die as well.

- the gun that ellie takes belonged to frank.

- that letter bill wrote reminded joel that he failed to protect both sarah and tess. the letter underscores for him that no matter how hard he tries, he can’t protect the people that he cares about. but now he has ellie to protect.

[emidealia]

☆ timeless what's AWAITING YOU next month ☆

Hey lovelies! Bienvenue! This is a PICK A CARD tarot reading is about what you need to hear about your upcoming month, starting pretty much from where you are right now. Choose a picture from the top 1, 2 or from the bottom 3, 4. Be kind and take with you only what applies. Take a deep breath ...and enjoy!:)

★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★

pile 1

Nurture your Goddess energy

Main thing you’ll focus this month is bringing back rosy feeling(fresh, sweet, gorg). You have a tendency to not feel like a boss a— bitch and this is rooted in trauma from home/finances and results in lack of trust, confidence in yourself. Perhaps not feeling “clean” or not having a romantic lifestyle like others around you and on internet. It is affecting how you express your mind, the way you present yourself etc. Because you don’t really believe in yourself you treat yourself as such. The way back from this is from outward actions too. This month you’ll start prioritizing having a put together bedroom, aesthetically pleasing desk and thought-out hairstyles, makeup and outfits. Healing feminine energy will be truly empowering for you. Look into that! When you act confident you start gaining back your power, truly believing and feeling worthy and divine.

Don’t deny it, there’s a lot you could do in your situation. There’s absolutely no point in sitting in your despair, hoarding sadness, feeling pathetic. Literally no one else cares, no one will come feeling sorry for you and no one but yourself can save you. Be known for having built yourself up or are you envisioning yourself in the same pile of pity years from now, only more bitter? If you can change it, stop whining and change. If you can’t, then there’s no point in whining either, it’s out of your control. But be honest.

Back to what you can do. What is it that creates a spark in you? Even the smallest of desires to get yourself together. For example late at night on pinterest or the right tiktok hitting the spot, maybe the right friend or seeing what your interests can accomplish. Journaling, vision boards, meditating, working out, waking up early, podcasts. Gather everything that sparks the motivation to start something, change sth about yourself, chase your dreams and such. Use these things to your advantage, learn what helps your mind to stay focused, body to stay healthy. Learning about the way you can motivate yourself with your actions, you’ll trick your brain into being more confident as the brain changes everyday according to your surroundings. I do recommend notion for putting down your plan to renew yourself, music, habits, dreams, routines etc. This month you’ll be in your element and succeed babe. Love the process, love yourself, you are so goddamn worthy of living as you desire. You are divine as fuck, you lack nothing!

★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★

pile 2

A long period came to an end. School term, finals, relationship, friendship, lease on sth or a project? Even though it’s over, rather than being grateful, glad, you visit the situation and feel a bit guilty, uncertain, could you have changed the outcome, said/done it better or been more present? Yeah, no, stop, it’s useless. Maybe you could have, how about that? Nothing to do about it anyways. Find peace for yourself human! You are in the now, it is certain that storm is over and be glad.

MOVING ON. Too much overthinking, man, this time about the future. You are tiring your mind, so much is going on, like the 13 open tabs and there’s music, screaming, a random question about lemurs and existensialism video essays. A lot of escapism, wishing someone would make the decisions for you or being far away from here, doing nothing. No no no. You can’t give away your oppurtunities and potential, you’ll learn a lot from this. You are destined for greatness. I’ll be honest this month there are a few days of feeling shitty but it’s in your control and nothing you couldn’t deal with. Also nothing you haven’t done before so this may be a reoccurring lesson. Main question is, how tf to sustain yourself? In healthy-ish coping mechanisms please. Learn to find something stable in your life that doesn’t fall apart if everything else does.

Main focus this month is about concious progress, intentional advancements. Things will get better, you’ll keep pushing forward, along with much success and enjoyment. You can shape your career, hobbies, plans in according to your own timetable, if you make the needed choices. In this upcoming period you need to be grounded and ready to jump at oppurtunities. You are ambitious, career-driven, but a step back does not kill you. It’s actually essential to sustain yourself. Your brain is a resource, for too long you have used it only for work, being in survival mode, resulting in feeling drained out of power.

I know how hard it is, but take a break, several breaks, a vacation even. Learn to do nothing more than just exist for once. Loving yourself for you, not just for your work validation. That’s also something you should tak einto consideration this month. Separating yourself from performance statistics in your job. If you give it so much control it can really eat you up and destroy you. But you are more than that, am I right? I bloody am, you are an amazing person. Reconnect with yourself, with more humanity. Get rid of the need to be perfect. You really don't need to. Truly okay if you couldn't do your best, or just didn't. It's okay.

Being mentally ready, feeling present and being truly glad to wake up to experience the world is pretty awesome. You’ll be ready for anything then. Love you for you!!! Kisses and hugs, muah :)

★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★

pile 3

Right away, when starting this pile I was full of the feeling YOLO, let’s do it :D. Spring is coming. Oh the cards made me smile right away. Attracting like a rose, receiveing abundance, you have a right to your joy. Screamiiiiing in joy. I’m obsessed. You have noticed how easily you manifest, right? The little things just flow to you. This is your time: vision boards, letters, writing down your wishes, affirmations, being grateful. You’ll receive everything you manifest right now.

Fall into the mystery, when you receive oppurtunities take them. Your manifestations come in different forms, what you might gain may be hidden but you will receive what you desire for sure. If an offer sparks feelings in you, the ,,what if ;)” type. DO IT! It’s your soul calling. If you want to advance creativity, learn new skills or gain a little money, you might do it in a different way you anticipated. I sense some workshops or little jobs, it might not be exactly what you thought about when manifesting but it’s like such a cute opportunity to also take some time off. It will be easy and safe to you, in a good way. Your boss or the manager and colleagues will be such great people, you’ll gain so many connections. I hear some teamwork is in order. I feel you will be receiving abundance in the form of what your inner child loved to do. You’ll be connecting to that forgotten side of yourself. I think you are aware of the hobby, but forgotten the potential of it, the joys it can bring you. This can turn out to be first of all an amazing way to connect to yourself, but also a way to gain mental well-being and little side cash. It will offer emotional and physical things, like the joy of creating art and having paintings in your home or selling prints on internet.

I just need to put this out there that it will be something you can connect over with your future significant other too. This shared joy for a hobby is truly pure, healing and sweet. You may even meet through this. Yep they are amazing, but don’t take your focus on romantic validation, you know better. There’s this beautiful saying. If you spend your time chasing butterflies, they'll fly away. If you spend your time making a beautiful garden the butterflies will come to you. And if they don't come, then you still have the beautiful garden.

STAY LOVELY!

★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★

pile 4

I started the reading with bits of confusion and come clumsiness but in a free nonjudgemental chill way if that makes sense? Pfft oops:D anyways … You are the essence of confidence, self acceptance, at least you are perceived that way. You know your needs, you don’t resist when you need a break, you ask and you receive. Great standards, others must accept you like u do. Just like it should be. I am enchanted by your energy and I’m not the only one. This month you’ll keep on shining like you are, taking it to another level. Others will be greatly motivated by your ability to be in total control of your life, caring for your wishes and needs with trust. Main focus this month is advancing your everyday things: style may be the most prominent, also smaller things like a new type of go-to food or coffee you swear by. You’ll have great luck in finding new items for your wardrobe and new ingredients for recipes. So saying yes to going thrifting or buying mysterious exciting things will be rewarding.

Traveling to a neighboring city or country most likely alone. A great refreshment for you. I see you safely wandering in the evening, finding cool bars, cafes, museums, talking and hanging out with strangers but essentially making new friends and learning about people. This is something that really interests you, finding out about different subjects, talking to strangers, learning about different opinions and world views. At the same time, you will also develop your own hobby, photography or filmmaking, writing or doing remote work.

So to sum up, this month is about great curiosity, travelling, charming, communication with new people, developing your style and pursuing a hobby. Life is a grand adventure!

★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★★--★

[mazeyphaedra]

processing ep 11 one day at a time and idk i was just really reminded of how fig’s an only child too

and this isn’t really all that significant considering the party (given that adaine and kristen are the only ones with siblings); fabian’s been talking to podcasts alone in the manor and riz has been locking in on extracurriculars and cases but like fig had her self-concept twisted in on itself right on the cusp of a new chapter in life. and i think it’s great that the doubt she felt when her horns came in, she thinks it’s sacred. a tool for rebirth. but does she have any reason to believe looking inward is productive? as someone who can literally change her reflection? she’s a wonderful and compelling person in her own right now but where are her friends from when she was a preppy preteen, who invited her to every party until she wasn’t a bubbly wood elf anymore? what did she carry over from that life? was she more introspective then? maybe she attached that to who she was. maybe she’s barred herself from it because she’s not that person anymore. maybe she can’t sit with all the selves she’s had inside her because the magnitude of all the personas she’s invented and reinvented have muddled her identity into this convoluted curdled thing. and it is by far the easiest thing to direct all the fiendish energy and power and personality outward, to her friends, to school, to solving the mystery. and so she disappears.

ANYWAY avoiding max falling damage into your bedroom thanks to the gift you gave your president is as good a start to self-reflection as any right????

[goth-pod]

Episode 1 Repost!

Welcome to Goth-Pod! Join host Juda Boone discuss all things Gotham City. Today we dive head first into one of Gotham City's more relevant mysteries: Who is The Batman?

[goth-pod is a fictional in-universe podcast based on the DC comics universe. Juda Boone is an original fictional character, not based on any real person or known comic book character.]

Transcript under the cut

Hello everyone! Welcome to our first episode of the season. If you're new here, hi! Thank you so much for joining us here at Goth-Pod. Unfortunately we are not a gothic-lifestyle podcast, though I do understand the confusion. 

Goth-Pod is a Gotham City based podcast for all discussions of Gotham. The weird and the wild, the rogues and the rakes, the heroes and the heretics. 

You are listening today to your favorite non-binary holy heretic, Juda Boone. Yes that is my real name and yes I did pick it myself, thank you. 

For the first episode of the season I wanted to start us off with something that has been a heavily discussed topic, and therefore something comfortable for our Gotham residents. The age old question, the thing that gets people more up in arms than the moon landing- Who is The Batman?

There's this idea that almost all people have, that heroes have to have a secret identity. Which is fair. We watched things like Cinderella, or the Mask of Zorro all our lives. The idea of changing the outward appearance in order to do something one normally couldn’t.

 If you’re fighting for your life every night against some of the most dangerous people in the world, you don’t want those people to know your home address. So you don a mask, and a new persona and you do what one normally couldn't. 

But the Bat, as most Gothamites know, does not follow the normal rules we see with other heroes. Less of a mask, and more of a.. casing. Not so much a persona, but instead a state of being. 

The Bat is. Weird. That's why we love him. That's why he’s ours. 

But what if that went further? What if Batman wasn’t much of a man at all? Batman, or, The Bat, as I like to call him, is more of a.. Manifestation of Gotham. Or of the justice Gotham needs? An earth-bound spirit that haunts just as strongly as it interferes. 

You know I used to have a belief as a kid, that Monsters would just disappear when light touched them. 

Strangely, I’m not alone in this weird meta-physical belief. I actually adopted it from a good friend here at Goth-Pod. Of course, I don’t speak for everyone at the podcast and definitely not for everyone in Gotham. My uncle still texts me blog posts that try to explain the crack-pot theory that Batman is in fact, world-renowned reporter, Vikki Vale. 

But what do you think? Does the Bat have a face behind the ghostly white eyes and inhuman abilities to cling to the shadows? 

Unrelated, but did you know that Gotham is one of the only cities that has an urban bat population? Something to think about tonight. 

Thank you for joining! If you enjoy this podcast, let us know! We love to hear from our neighbors in Gotham, or if you're listening in from outside our home city. I’m Juda and you’re listening to Goth-Pod. Until next time, stay safe, Gotham.

[artist-issues]

I’m starting to hate that podcasts, movies, and books are being marketed specifically as arguments. Calls to arms. “If you think we ruffled some feathers last year, watch out! This year we’re really going to bury the [woke/liberal/conservative/bigoted/pearl-clutchers/misogynists/feminists] and roll on their graves! If you think casting a [insert the definition of a person by their outward appearance/native country/gender/orientation/religion] in this role was groundbreaking, wait till you see what we’ve got next! Get ready to see [insert hot-button words like “a strong female role model” or “what a real man looks like”]

Stop making “aggressive punk-rock idealogical powerhouse” your marketing identity. Just be genuine.

Stop saying “HERE’S WHAT WE HATE! HERE’S WHAT WE’RE AGAINST!” and just say what is true. When you actually believe something is true, and believe that truth stands on its own, and needs no help, then you can shine a spotlight on it genuinely, lovingly, without all the bluster and insecurity of false confidence and making “coolly mocking the other side” your whole persona.

Don’t say “here’s what THEY’RE doing that’s so wrong.” Say, “look how great this true thing is.” Anything else is a vanity project. You’re making your podcast/movie/book about how you’re the best voice for a specific audience, and you know how we can tell you’re not genuine? Because you don’t actually talk about what makes truth good. You talk about what makes liars disgusting, and then applaud yourself for being the one to say it. It’s all about you. It’s not about the actual values you align yourself with.

[bookgeekgrrl]

My media this week (4-10 Jun 2023)

📚 STUFF I READ 📚

🙂 i've been having a horrible time pulling myself together (deadratz) - steddie, 74K - angsty getting together fic

🥰 Red Queen to Overwatch (BootsnBlossoms, Kryptaria) - excellent 00Q AU - Bond moves in across the hall from freelance tech genius Q but Q think his oldest brother Mycroft might be a problem…

😊👂‍ Rotten To The Core (Lady Hardcastle Mysteries #8) (T.E. Kinsey, author; Elizabeth Knowelden, narrator) - back at it again with Emily & Flo in this cozy mystery series

🥰 A Man of Good Fortune (softestpunk) - 43K, Dreamling regency omegaverse AU - absolutely delightful, warm and fluffy; great worldbuilding

😊 Baby, You're the End of June (Oh_i_swear & thiccbuckybarnes, author; britbrit99, artist) - 155K, stucky no powers omegaverse mpreg - quite enjoyable, loved the very slow burn - great embroidery art!

🥰👂‍ We Could Be So Good (Cat Sebastian, author; Joel Leslie, narrator) - imma just quote TJ Alexander's review bc they're a great writer and better than me with words: "It's late 1950s New York City, and two reporters for a liberal pinko newspaper are falling in love with each other. Nick and Andy are exquisite. The vibes are immaculate. And for those of us who are wary of reading about queer historicals because we’ve all read That Type of Story Where Things End Terribly: this is not that. And thank fuck." Cat continues her incredible streak of 'low angst, mostly vibes' which I absolutely adore.

😍 Paper Things (saltandanchor) - 73K, Inception Pretty Woman AU - the PW is really just the initial set up for this incredible fic, loved loved loved it even tho I know nothing about inception except that JGL & TH had insane chemistry [this fic was begun 10.5 years ago and the author recently finished it after an 8 yr hiatus!!!! so never give up hope!]

💖💖 +108K of shorter fic so shout out to these I really loved 💖💖

(Baby, Baby) Can't You Hear My Heart Beat? (E_Greer) - Ted Lasso: Keeley/Roy/Jamie, 37K - my fave tag for this story: "author's shameless adoration of cranky older partners"

your blood is my territory (saltandanchor) - Shameless (US): Ian/Mickey, 10K - canon-divergent (i think) AU where Ian dances in a club and Mickey won't look at him - I don't think I watched Shameless past s3 but this felt very true to their characters

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Hot Ones - LL COOL J - this was possibly my fave Hot Ones ever

Hot Ones - Jenna Ortega

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

Re: Dracula - June 5: Simple Seriousness

Into It - While Writers Strike, Special Effects Artists Try To Unionize

Vibe Check - Welcome to Club Renaissance

Culture Gabfest Plus - The Spider-Verse Proliferates

⭐99% Invisible #539 - Courtroom Sketch

The Waves Plus - Finding Love Without Romance

⭐Sidedoor - Recording the World

⭐Outward Plus - Pride Special: Is “I Do” Best for You?

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Fairy Castle

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Temple of Pythons

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Frozen Dead Guy

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Tabor Opera House

Re: Dracula - Bonus 3: Antisemitism and the Gothic

Twenty Thousand Hertz+ - Seventh-Inning Stretch

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

Alive: 2007 (Live) [Daft Punk] {2007}

Random Access Memories [Daft Punk] {2013}

Presenting The Prodigy

Nitzer Ebb

Sister Machine Gun

Electronic Radio • 2000s

My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult Radio • Party

Sneaker Pimps Radio • Chill

My Mix #5 [Duran Duran, ELO, etc]

The Age Of Pleasure [Janelle Monáe] {2023} - I just put this album on repeat all day long from 7:30 to 17:30

Save Ferris

Tomorrow Never Comes [Rancid] {2023}

Rancid

[will-o-the-witch]

Alternatives to Fasting for Holidays

People fast for a number of different spiritual reasons. It's a big part of many holidays. That said, many of us have difficult relationships with food or health concerns where we really, really shouldn't go without eating. It's 100% okay to prioritize your health, the point is to be challenging, not harmful, but it can still feel really isolating. We can feel "locked out" of a shared moment.

Oftentimes, fasting is less about the food itself and more about working through the discomfort. It's about becoming aware of our usual privilege, forgoing worldly comforts/pleasures, grounding ourselves, elevating our spirit through these things. Here are some non-food alternatives which can help capture the essence of the fast while prioritizing our health and well-being. Find what works best for you, your needs, and your life.

Technology. No more doom scrolling, no more instant information, no more artificial light, no more constant noise. Unplug everything. Find new ways to fill your time.

Speaking. That includes texting/posting. We don't need to insert our voice into everything. Take time to make yourself listen.

Water for non-hydration. We don't want to dehydrate, but we use so much water for so many other things, and not everybody has the privilege of near-unlimited access.

Extra noise. No music, no instruments, no white noise, no podcasts, etc. How many things do you use to avoid silence in a day?

Tastes. If you want something a little closer to home, see if you can get sustenance for the day with as little personality as possible. We can eat but avoid getting any joy out of the food when others beside us aren't eating at all.

Coziness. Not everyone has access to blankets, couches, bedsheets, hoodies, etc. You could even sleep on the floor instead of your mattress.

Outward expression. If you're usually a bold person, try going a day with no makeup, no statement clothing, no jewelry, nothing we use to project ourselves outward. What happens when we put our ego aside for a moment and navigate JUST as a member of the society around us? (Pairs well with the verbal fast!)

[la-pheacienne]

Whenever I see people saying that Hugo's admittedly insane info-dumping in Les Miserables is due to the fact that he was paid by the word, I get unreasonably angry.

Guys, no, you just don't get it. YOU LITERALLY DON'T GET IT.

The guy was writing this book for 20 years. 20 YEARS. It was the work of a lifetime. He travelled around, in France and abroad (Belgium), just to get a close look of all the places he was writing about, talk to the people there, communicate with the place etc. And like, he didn't travel by a motorbike, or cars or airplanes. This was not the vibe at the time.

Also, since we are in the 19th century may I remind you that there was no Google Search at the time. You couldn't just go to Wikipedia and learn about Louis-Philippe and the July Monarchy, you couldn't go to Youtube and watch documentaries about the June Rebellion and testimonies of people that were there and witnessed it. You couldn't just go to Spotify and listen to historical podcasts about the Battle of Waterloo or watch live footage. You couldn't know shit about the way Paris functioned, the history of the city, the importance and the role of infrastructure (INCLUDING THE SEWERS YES) and the way the infrastructure of a city is literally a reflection of the people and the customs and the social plagues that were specific of that city, unless you were, quite literally, a Statesman (and only if you gave a shit, which most didn't). There was no Vice News to inform you of the shit that happened in monasteries or in the labour camps. There was no possible way for anyone to have access to information on any of these things, things that were all of VITAL importance for the fate of french people, that were, for the most part, illiterate, ignorant, and/or struggling to survive until the next day. The solution for this was political conscience and social awakening but how could you do that if you don't have a voice and you don't have basic information and knowledge? But. There was a man that had the means, that had the ressources, that had the money, and he decided to actually do something with that. He decided to speak out. He decided to write a novel about an entire human society and the people in it. How they lived, what they dreamed, how they suffered, how they tried to change their fate, how they failed, how they tried again, and failed again. He gave voice to people who, quite literally, didn't have a voice. It is no coincidence that the book was loved by the people (the mass) but hated by pretentious critics, including other novelists of the time. It wasn't a novel about critics, it was a novel about people. And people loved it. They loved the info-dumping cause it wasn't "info-dumping", nor a """""""filler"""""""" for god's sake, it was quite literally a window to their world, their living space, their history, their roots, their political struggles, a window that they simply didn't have before, and that book gave it to them. It educated people at the time when they couldn't be educated otherwise, at a time when education was indispensable for social change.

But sure Hugo just dedicated 2 decades of his life writing """""fillers""""" to pass the time and get more money lmao. Shut up for the love of god.

Final note: I'm not saying that Hugo's portrayal of french society is without flaws or totally realistic, or that his characters don't seem simplistic at times in their misery and total victimization. This work doesn't delve deeply into the person, that is its flaw. It goes mainly outwards, because its main goal is to educate, while at the same time being immensely entertaining, (at least for people who weren't used to instant gratification like nowadays). That is his value.

[redstringredeye]

OKAY OKAY I know we are all so happy right now but we ARE listening to a horror podcast so let me SPEAK

(TMAGP 08 spoilers/theory)

my hot take is that Gerry's paintings ARE supernatural, outward expressions of his subconscious link to the fears (???) and that link is why he was in the Magnus gifted program in the first place

GERTRUDE HAS TO KNOW THOUGH you can HEAR that something is up with her. And she tells Gerry the paintings take up too much space and he has to keep them out back??? Gertrude is playing her own game with Gerry's special talents but she is FULLY trying to keep Gerry in the dark about it hence trying to get Sam and Celia the fuck out of that apartment.

Also maybe she “adopted” him as her grandson when she found out what he could do?? Was she working at the Magnus Institute? Did she know Eric Delano and vow to take care of his son again? Or just like… see this kid in danger with these powers and decide to take him on… Gerry wouldn't know if she was lying to him about their familial connection and why she was acting as his legal guardian, he doesn't even remember the Magnus program, whether because of his age or his trauma And I think she wants it to stay that way

I don't think it's nefarious, I am sure she cares about him but ALSO i know that woman can PLOT when she needs to and I’m thoroughly unconvinced by her grandmother act

[whyycherry]

It's been a while but I have become so infatuated with rqg and I adore these four so much, I miss them a lot :( rqg has been getting me through my first weeks at uni I'm so grateful for this podcast! Anyway here are my first designs for the lolomg gang

[ID: Two headshot sketch pages of Rusty Quill Gaming characters. One page is the sketches with colour and the other is without. They are of Azu, Hamid, Sasha and Grizzop.

Azu is a black Orc with a buzzcut, she has two tusks, the right of which is broken and on the same side of her face she has an eyebrow slit. She has long eyelashes and a gentle, kind gaze. Azu is surrounded by a large pink aura and wears three earrings, two are on the left and are cuffed and one on the right is a golden oval. Her ears are short and slightly pointed. A pink scarf drapes over her shoulders. You can also see part of her armour which is high golden collar with floral engravings.

Hamid is a brown halfling with slicked back dark curls, one curl is dropping infront of his face. His side profile is gazing downwards slightly with a soft smile and his ears are upwards pointing. He wears a small golden earring, a purple robe, ruffles and eyeliner, he has a small beauty mark under his eye along with long eyelashes. Golden flower doodles surround him.

Sasha is human with extremely pale, white skin. A burn mark stretches over one side of her face and creeps over her nosebridge slightly. She has dark eyes and eyebags and thick and scruffy eyebrows which are much like her hair that is flipped over to the left and half shaved. Her hair has a slight spike to it. She also has a white patch of hair near the back. She wears a studded leather jacket, a turtleneck and a slightly awkward but smug expression.

Grizzop is a Goblin with grey skin and wide fully red eyes, along with a sharp toothy grin. He is bald with thin eyebrows and had two very large pointy ears that stick outwards on eachside of his head, he has three arrow earrings in his left ear and a half moon symbol earring on the right. In my sketch you can see reminiscence of his armour. His head is gestured upwards confidently and eyes are looking down slightly. He has dark grey freckles. End ID]

This is my first time doing an image description so any feedback would be helpful <3

[the-conversation-pod]

The ITSAY Anniversary Show, Part 1

AND WE'RE BACK!

October marks the third anniversary of the show that rewired the BL industry, and it felt like the right time for a retrospective. In part 1 Ben leads a panel talk on I Told Sunset About You. Just us along with @liyazaki, @waitmyturtles, @wen-kexing-apologist, and @so-much-yet-to-learn

Join us as we talk about our history with the genre, Phuket as a setting, the complexities of the characters, and why this show remains so important.

Listen on Apple Podcasts!

Timestamps

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

0:00 - Intro 4:16 - How did you come to ITSAY? 11:31 - Phuket as a Setting 19:00 - Style and Genre 29:40 - Characters 36:18 - Teh and Oh's Dynamic 50:07 - Why do you care so much about ITSAY? 1:04:08 - Outro

The Conversation Transcripts!

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

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

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

0:00 - Intro

Ben

BWOOOOOOOOM. Okay. It Worked. You're already in it. 

Nini

[laughs] That's staying in.

Ben

Welcome back to The Conversation, everyone, for our fall season. We're very excited about this season. We decided to take advantage of the reduced output of shows, at least for part of summer, and decided to do a retrospective on I Told Sunset About You and I Promised You the Moon. We also have made a lot of friends in our time on Tumblr and decided to hang out with some of them, and talk about the show so it wouldn't just be me and Nini blabbing about one of our favorite projects.

Nini

Our panel of I Told Sunset About You experts includes the lovely, the only Turtles a.k.a @waitmyturtles on Tumblr. We have Aiden @so-much-yet-to-learn on Tumblr. We have Captain Hands who is @wen-kexing-apologist on Tumblr. And the fabulous friend of the pod, our good friend mor @liyazaki on Tumblr. 

So that is our esteemed panel for I Told Sunset About You in this episode. That's who you're gonna hear. In the next episode we're gonna talk I Promised You the Moon and have a different set of people on. 

So, Ben, aside from the fact that it's the anniversary of I Told Sunset About You—the third anniversary—why did you feel like this was the right time?

Ben

I think this has probably been one of the most thematically interesting years that the genre has had, and I've said many times that I don't think we'd be able to get the kinds of quality productions we're getting out of the genre now without the success of I Told Sunset About You and I Promised You the Moon, and I feel like for us to move forward with this particular show I think we had to at least get that show out of our system and into the recording. It had been bothering both of us that we hadn't really sat down and talked about it even though we dropped constantly that we are fans. I think it was really useful to talk about it. 

I really liked that we actually split up for it because you and I talked to each other a lot on this show, and it was really fun to talk to some other people about the show first and get some other perspectives.

Nini

We always say that one of the whole points of The Conversation is to expand the conversation outward, so we had a really good time doing these panels. We think you're gonna enjoy them. So, let's just dive right in.

4:16 - How did you come to ITSAY?

Ben

We're gonna get right into it, Our first question of the night. We're gonna start with Mor: longtime friend of the podcast. Mor?

Mor

Yes, hi Ben! 

Ben

How did you come to ITSAY?

Mor

[laughs] Well I came to ITSAY actually as a relatively new BL watcher — I had very begrudgingly watched 2gether and a handful of other very typical GMMTV type shows. And I had heard that there were some higher budget higher brow BLs out there, but I'm not ashamed to admit that what initially drew me to the genre in the first place is the… kind of fluffy romance trope-driven narratives? And it was just the first time that I had encountered any kind of queer media that was so lighthearted, and typically took place in a world where homophobia basically doesn't exist, and especially as a slightly older queer, that was such a nice change of pace compared to the other queer media that I'd been consuming up until that point. So frankly, the idea of watching a more serious BL back then made me a little nervous, even though that's a lot of what I typically watch when it comes to Western media. So I put off watching ITSAY for a while until I eventually decided to just jump into it and the rest is history. 

ITSAY isn't just my favorite show in the genre, it's one of my favorite shows and pieces of media period. I Promised You the Moon is too, but that's a hot take I'll expound on next time.

Ben

Thank you. Aiden, what about you, you've been around BL for a bit. How did you come to ITSAY?

Aiden

I've been in the BL slash QL sphere since the beginning, largely as a lurker. I didn't watch ITSAY when it aired, due to not being in the right headspace at the time to tackle a show with that much emotional impact. It was obviously very much in the zeitgeist, constantly in my feed, impossible to miss. So many other shows since then have been compared to it and I always planned to watch it someday in the nebulous future, but with so many things constantly airing I’d never quite gotten around to it. 

So when word went out that Ben and Nini were looking for people who hadn't watched it yet to get a mix of perspectives, I figured there probably weren't many others who'd been around as long as I had and somehow hadn't watched it yet. I re-evaluated whether or not I was ready to watch it and turns out I was! So, better late than never.

Ben

I am so glad we finally convinced you to watch the show. I wasn't gonna push you but I'm like ‘oh my god Aiden’s finally watching.’

Aiden

I'm glad as well. It was definitely an excellent thing to watch.

Ben

Okay, Captain Hands! [laughs] What about you?

Captain Hands

So I got into BL like a year-ish ago, and of course being a queer person who had not seen a lot of queer media the worms got in my brain instantly! There's like a master post of queer Asian shows that is somewhere on Tumblr that I saw, I don't know what user it is, sorry! But I saw a post that had I Told Sunset About You on it as like a good show to watch but I wasn't sure where to access it at the time, so I kind of just filed it away for later. Cut to like six months later, Ben and Turtles were yelling at me to eat vegetables, Kyr-kun-chan changed her icon to I think PP or Billkin or something, Nini mentioned PP and then a thousand messages in the clown server later ginnymoonbeam and I committed to watching ITSAY for the first time, which is probably a good thing because then Ben could warn me about doing one episode at a time.

Ben

Oh right, you were the one who was like, I'm tough I can watch more than one episode at a time. No.

Captain Hands

Wrong. Very wrong.

Ben

I'm glad you also finally joined us. Last but definitely not least, Turtles what about you? How did you come to ITSAY?

Turtles

Hey folks! Ben and Nini, thanks for having me, this is so awesome. All right, so, I guess what I'm the most well known on Tumblr for is the old GMMTV challenge project that I am blogging on. I came to BLs through Kinnporsche, at least Thai BLs through Kinnporsche, I was familiar with Japanese BLs for a couple years before that. I Told Sunset About You, in regards to it making it into the project — it was obviously going to be a natural part of the challenge syllabus, in terms of anybody picking up that syllabus and learning about Thai BLs in the first place. But the entire project, the watch list is community contributed, it’s 100% created by the community of Tumblr posters who love Thai BLs and who have lots of opinions about Thai BLs including this group here. It wasn't just through the solicitation of feedback on the OGMMTVC, uh, that I came to it, I certainly had seen I Told Sunset About You and I Promised You the Moon on many lists across Tumblr as, as an impactful BL. But in regards specifically to where it belonged by way of chronology, and by way of its cinematic impact, all of that feedback came through my soliciting the community on Tumblr for creating my syllabus that is teaching me about Thai BLs, and will hopefully get replicated in other people's journeys as well. So that's how I came to it.

Ben

I'm very excited by everybody's answers about how they came to this. I want to ask a quick follow-up question since — some of us have been here since the before time and the long long ago, and some of you got started like a year or two ago? Going in reverse order real quick: what is everybody's first BL that they remember? Turtles?

Turtles

The classic, the wonderful, the amazing, What Did You Eat Yesterday? Long story short, that was the first time I had ever discovered Tumblr as well — enjoyed that drama and I was absolutely insane for it for about two years solid.

Ben

Thank you for that. Captain Hands! What was your first BL?

Captain Hands

My friends were really obsessed with Word of Honor and showed it to me, so I got really into that, and that's how I found the, like, list of other BLs. If that does not count as a BL, then Kinnporsche was the first thing that I watched.

Ben

[laughs] Aiden, what about you? I'm actually really curious to hear your answer, because you and I have been around since the beginning.

Aiden

It depends on how you define BL, really. The first thing that I think could probably qualify would be the first Takumi-kun from Japan in 2007.

Ben

Unfortunately, that counts.

Aiden

Yeah [laughs]. Unfortunately indeed.

Ben

What about you, Mor? You said ITSAY was one of your first BLs. You have any others you watched before that? Or what was your other pathway into this?

Mor

2gether was one of the first ones, which is ironic because I hated 2gether. [laughs] I don't know why I finished watching it, I was just intrigued, so even though I kind of despised it for a lot of personal reasons — just wasn't for me — I enjoyed it enough that I wanted to keep watching. I wanted to find more.

Ben

I'm absolutely fascinated by how everybody came to this. It's KinnPorsche, 2gether, What Did You Eat Yesterday? and Aiden with some of the oldest stuff.

11:31 - Phuket as a Setting

Moving on to our next question! We're going to get into some setting stuff. What about Phuket as a setting stands out to you? I think I'm gonna have Mor answer this one first because they actually visited Phuket and some of the filming locations.

Mor

I certainly did, and I made a concentrated effort to take pictures, as some of you I think have seen, of the actual scenes in ITSAY, like the famous chip crawl deck, which was a journey to find. It was an incredible experience getting to visit Phuket. The setting of Phuket is unlike any other backdrop to a BL that I've ever seen. The landscape is really a character unto itself. I get a very similar but also sort of very rare sort of feeling when I watch ITSAY as I do when I'm watching, say, the train scene in Spirited Away. It's like looking at a natural environment that's been elevated to something almost magical just because of the way it's being shot or portrayed. 

I read once that Miyazaki's films almost make you homesick for a place you've never been, and that's how I felt about Phuket after watching ITSAY, to the point that it absolutely influenced my decision to go to Thailand and actually go there. And having been I can say it's just as lovely as they portray it to be — but I do know my attachment runs a lot deeper and is more personal than that, because Phuket to me will always be tied to Teh and Oh. 

The specific locations they chose, having now been there and walked around and seen it — it was so smart and it really enhanced the narrative while never overwhelming it or taking away from it. Like, I was very struck that the beach that the hammock scene takes place on… it's very wide, it's very open, and you would almost miss the hammock, because the way that the trees hang so low to the beach, it really sort of encapsulates the hammock? You have to actually climb under the branches. It really I think created this effect of Teh and Oh — they almost look cocooned in the darkness, in this otherwise very wide open environment. Maybe it felt a little safer because of that, to start saying what they had been feeling and skirting around. The wide shots of the beach chase scene… and obviously the beauty of Promthep Cape, and so many other moments. Phuket just… it did so much to enhance the intimacy of the scenes, and move this story along.

Ben

Apparently we're all going to have to go visit Phuket now. Turtles, when you were reacting to the series you were writing about some of the cultural crossover stuff. What do you have to say about Phuket as a setting?

Turtles

I've never been to Thailand, but I have spent a good portion of my entire childhood and adult life in Thailand's southern neighboring country of Malaysia — with my mother being Malaysian, my being part Malaysian — Phuket is an incredibly important locale for me to consider. Chinese migration from Fujian, from other locales in China, traveled in part down that Thai landscape to the Malaysian peninsula, and then ultimately settling all throughout Thailand, through Malaysia as I said, and ultimately into Singapore which has a majority Chinese population. 

A lot of what I learned about Phuket in part comes from my own Malaysian heritage, but also through conversations with other amazing Tumblr users including the very wonderful telomeke, who hails from the southeast Asian region himself. Phuket, Penang, Kuala Lumpur, these are towns that happened to receive more than their fair share of Chinese immigrants, that ended up in part creating a very unique culture that we call Peranakan culture: Chinese immigrants intermingling with ethnic residents of the areas in which they settled. Teh's mom is just a fabulous example of somebody that, that holds a lot of those influences all in one person: she wears Peranakan clothes, particularly when she's hosting events for the public at her Hokkien Mee stall.

Ben

Captain Hands, Aiden, do you want to say anything about Phuket?

Captain Hands

Phuket is a small town when compared to locations like Bangkok, which is where a lot of I Promised You the Moon is going to take place. I've been thinking that the small-town vibe works very well with how often it feels to me like Teh's entire world is ending whenever Oh, like, does something that like makes him jealous. Or like, if Teh's rejected or if he makes a mistake, like you can just feel in his body how much that impacts him, and it feels very small-town to me, to like to have these little moments be so big to him. 

There’s such a significant use of the Chinese language in this show, and for all the ways that like Chinese is used to tell us, like, what Teh is thinking and feeling, and for all the ways that like Teh is taking the time to try to teach Oh how to understand the language that Teh himself uses to express himself frequently — is a really poignant thing for me to pick up on considering Teh's own heritage, and like, his mother's heritage, and like the Chinese immigrant population that is a part of that community.

Ben

Turtles was talking about the cultural crossover that occurs in Phuket from all the various people migrating there. I'm from New Orleans which can jokingly be described as the northernmost Caribbean city, that has passed between French and Spanish control multiple times, and has now been occupied by Americans for one hundred and fifty years. So we have a very weird collection of cultures here as well — most evidenced in our architecture. And I think about that a lot when I reflect on Phuket — because I just rewatched it this week — it looks different from what we usually get in Bangkok.

Turtles

This show was so unbelievably layered by its visual cues, from a cultural interpretive perspective. Ben, as you pointed out to me, one of the friends, Phillip, he clearly comes from from a Islamic family, his parents are shown wearing a hijab and a songkok, and it's just very indicative of the the filmmakers giving us the indication that we're talking about… the mixing of cultures, assimilation and melting pot, all of the different words that we want to throw out there. 

As per your note about New Orleans, you know, as we say in Malaysia same same lah. It's very comparative to all of these indications that they were bringing up about Phuket. Thinking about Phuket as a tourist town as well, as compared to New Orleans, having just been to New Orleans myself, I think that there's just so much to, to pull out there by way of whether you make Phuket a permanent home or not. Teh and Oh clearly exist on the borderline of that permanence as they get closer to going to college.

Ben

There's something specific about growing up in a tourist town, like you can go visit tourist locations during peak tourist season as a way to avoid people you know. Because unless they're working the location, it's just strangers.

19:00 - Style and Genre

Ben

We're going to move to our next question here and get into some style questions. How does ITSAY play with genre and stylistic expectations? And specifically, are there any works that you recall while you were watching it? Aiden, you and I had talked a little bit about this.

Aiden

For myself when I was watching ITSAY, rather than paying attention to the source materials that ITSAY drew from, I found myself thinking back on shows that I'd seen since ITSAY aired and reevaluating them through the lens that had changed from my watching it. ITSAY clearly broke open a number of aspects that the Thai BL circuit specifically hadn't delved into until then, and expanded the genre as a result. 

My personal favorite impact is seeing shows set in rural locations, which were quite thin on the ground before that point, and have increased at least in visits if not fully set in more rural locations since then. Shows like Tale of a Thousand Stars, Cupid’s Last Wish, I Will Knock You, Remember Me, Moonlight Chicken. And it also, it showed grit and grime in a way that you really hadn't seen before that point in at least the BL genre. It was more common in media intended for queer audiences or art house type of content but the BL genre had always been very sanitized, very urban, very clean cut. Almost cartoonish and simplistic. And seeing something where you got to see buildings with marks on the walls that are from, you know, monsoon rain, stains, faded paint, chipped plaster, dirt on the ground, picture glass that had flecks on it, dust settled on things — that was a revelation, at least at the time. It really made things feel a lot more… settled and grounded and realistic. It felt like you could walk down the road and see these places, rather than it being a kind of constructed facade of where these shows are, that's an everyplace everywhere kind of generalization. And that followed with shows like Not Me, I Will Knock You again, Remember Me, that you got to see the grittiness, Not Me especially. 

The inclusion of religion, more Chinese cultural aspects, things like that that had largely been omitted from most shows until then, started becoming involved more in the day to day life that you got to see. Things like the talk Bart where you do the alms in the morning providing the food for the monks that go around traveling from home to home. 

We also started getting more slower paced shows like Nitiman, You're My Sky — which had heavy callbacks — Coffee Melody, My Only 12%. Shows with high concepts, stronger writing, better production value on a number of levels, like, ah, Bad Buddy, Triage, La Pluie, Kinnporsche. Also things with some of the more awkward side of queer life, which until then had very much not been present almost at all, outside of the more tragic kind of shows. Because again, it was that sanitized, sort of, ‘it has to be picture perfect, it has to be ideal’ kind of… nuance and vibe on the shows. And so we got things like Secret Crush on You, and I'll argue that I Will Knock You should fit there as well. 

The way that it's expanded the shows that have come after — and yes we do still have those sanitized, simplistic, clean, bubblegum sort of shows — very much enjoyable when you're in the mood for that sort of show, but we've also added things to give more breadth. Things like La Pluie, Step by Step, Moonlight Chicken, that make it a much more encompassing sort of genre, able to draw broader crowds that have differing interests as well. I am thrilled to see the change and be able to tie back now to how that was driven by ITSAY.

Ben

This is one of the reasons why I was really glad we finally got you to watch the show, because you've been in the genre as long or longer than me? And it was one of the shows that you had skipped for specific reasons when it first aired and I was curious how your long view of the genre would play into your reflections upon it. 

When I watched ITSAY, I ended up having a really intense reaction to the end of it — positively, as a result of some of the works that had come before. It's sometimes hard for me to connect ITSAY to other BLs that pre-date it, because those BLs are often heavily influenced by product placement and a slapstick version of humor that ITSAY is not relying on at all — it's an incredibly serious show about what it wants to cover. And that connected me back further to some of the German works I had watched growing up. Like Summer Storm, which is I think from 2004, there's a Dutch film called Boys from 2014, Big Eden from America in 2000 which uses its setting in the American hinterland really well. And I just had not seen this in Thai BL. 

The closest we came to something this grounded-feeling from Thailand was The Love of Siam, which they submitted to the Academy Awards in 2007. I actually had Turtles and Captain Hands watch that this week, so before I get into my very specific reactions to that, at the end of episode 5 of ITSAY, I kind of want to hear you two, and what you have to say about Love of Siam in relation to ITSAY before we move forward.

Captain Hands

You've said before that you felt like ITSAY is an apology for Love of Siam, and I fully agree. Two kids that are childhood friends separate for a number of years, come back together, the attraction between them is instantaneous and very obvious and kind of hard to ignore? And then having it end the way that it ends for Love of Siam, is, you know, it's a choice! I can understand and see why they would play it that way, but I agree with you, Ben, that it is, that this feels like an apology for what they did to us with Love of Siam.

Ben

Turtles, any commentary you want to give?

Turtles

Me not being Thai, not knowing Thai, having not visited Thailand — for a movie in 2007 to end with a successful same-sex relationship would have surprised me. So the film ending the way that it did was not surprising, and I found the journey to get to that point really poignant. That is a very deeply Turtles read, a very deep Asian read. Absolutely no surprise whatsoever that many BL filmmakers were influenced by this movie. And as far as ITSAY goes, is ITSAY an apology for Love of Siam? I can absolutely understand that verbiage, that's not a verbiage that I would necessarily jump to using. 

I could very well say that if ITSAY had ended without Teh and Oh getting together, I also would not have been surprised, especially with the way episodes 3 and 4 went. And now that I've seen Love of Siam I could feel stronger in that opinion. Now, as far as it making me feel good or satisfied with the story conclusion? That's, I think, you know that's, that's personal extrapolation there. But as far as the art itself goes I think Love of Siam communicated to me that I would not have been surprised if Teh and Oh didn't get together, if they had more personal, emotional, and also macrocultural wrangling that they needed to do. Love of Siam absolutely talks to ITSAY but I'm not sure that I would necessarily call it an apology.

Ben

Mor, do you have any commentary on genre history?

Mor

The really interesting, different thing that ITSAY did for me, as specifically a queer 30-something, a Westerner who's been in all sorts of extremely homophobic environments and, and different things throughout my life, and I've just gotten used to not having happily ever after. What I loved so much about BLs in the beginning was just, ‘oh man, we can have these light, bubbly, effervescent stories that get a happily ever after and it doesn't have to be complicated, it can just be sweet?’ And it was such a new concept for me, to see that. 

So, ITSAY ended up, like, with the ending that we got, it ended up being almost healing for me? As dramatic as that sounds. And that's really why, because it subverted it. You could tell going in, this is gonna be serious. This is gonna be hard-hitting. We're gonna be getting into deep stuff in terms of these queer kids figuring out who they are, and learning how they can be together, if they want to be together. So I was sort of expecting — because of my history and what I'm what I'm used to seeing — okay, well we're going serious, it's not a good chance this is gonna end well. So to see that — which frankly was a much more realistic portrayal of queer relationships than your typical sanitized BL — that is what took ITSAY for me to god-tier media, god-tier.

29:40 - Characters

Ben

Let's get into some of the character stuff. For all that they are incredible and great characters, why couldn't it be Bas or Tarn for Teh and Oh? Captain Hands! You're up first for this one.

Captain Hands

So the easy answer for me is that it just couldn't be? Like neither Teh or Oh really knows exactly when they developed feelings for each other, and they both try to have feelings for Tarn and Bas and they just can't make it work. Teh going to Tarn at 4 am and asking her to tell him that she loves him was, for me, like, ‘Oh I need to know what it feels like to hear this from her so I can know how it, how it feels… to hear it? And to know whether or not that feels good? If that feels something, like something I want to hear.’ 

For a more, you know, in-depth answer, because that's my whole shtick, right? There's a couple of things that I was thinking about, mostly the Chinese language element, the color element, and then just like Tarn and Bas as characters? One of the throughlines of ITSAY is that Teh frequently writes whatever his subconscious is fixating on over and over again in Chinese. Teh can't parse through the complexity of his emotions, but he can summarize them in like words, so like ‘rival’ or ‘intimate,’ and we know that there is much more behind what he's writing, than like what is actually being put down on paper? Because Oh's not good at Chinese, Teh spends so much of this show like painstakingly teaching Oh how to understand Chinese, and like how to understand him as a person and like his subconscious? So like once Oh starts to get it and get better at Chinese is when they really start to connect more intimately. If you think about the end of episode 3 with the sniffing scene, the buildup to that moment is Oh using the male/male protagonist question — like, how you say male protagonist in Chinese, how you say female protagonist in Chinese, is male-male okay? — is him asking if Teh is okay with them like potentially becoming a couple. 

And I know this is going to kill Ben to talk about the colors, but this is for the color girlies! Oh is red and Teh is blue and green, and something that I did notice on this watch through is like, Teh's home is filled with red, like the walls of the restaurant are red, his bedspread’s red, the couch, the clothing his mother wears is often red, and Oh's home is… very much blue and green, so like the sign for the Panwa resort is blue, the windows, all of the windows are framed in this kind of like, light green. These boys grew up in each other's colors. Their home is each other's colors. And so of course when they first meet, they're going to be drawn to one another because they remind each other of home. Tarn's color is purple, and so there are parts of Tarn that Teh is drawn to, but I see that as kind of being like the red parts of Tarn. 

Oh likes Bas because Bas kind of acts as a similar person in his life to Teh. In episode 2 Oh says that he likes Bas because Bas drives him around, but he won't confess because he doesn't know what Bas's feelings are for him, and he thinks that Bas likes girls and he doesn't want to lose him as a friend, when that is a direct parallel to Teh. And something that I started noticing on this watchthrough is that Bas picks up whatever color Teh is wearing, but he's often like a scene or an episode behind. So in episode 4 Teh’s wearing green at the beginning of like them going to the resort? And then Bas picks up the green when he shares a bed with Oh, and then by the time that Bas has picked up that green color, Teh and Oh are both in yellow, and so like they're now matching, and Bas is is behind the curve. 

From the perspective of just like, Tarn and Bas as characters, like they both value themselves enough to know when to let go, which I think is a very crucial part of their relationships with Teh and Oh? When Teh colors the hibiscus that Tarn draws red, she shuts that shit down like immediately and sends him home. And when Oh is quiet and sad on like the drive home, Bas knows immediately like why that is, and goes to Teh’s house. So like I really strongly believe that Oh ends up with Teh at the end because Bas gives him up? Oh would have kept fighting the urge to go to Teh, and like to comfort Teh and to support him, if Bas hadn't driven Oh to Teh's house and been like, ‘it's okay, it's fine, I understand.’ And, and given him that freedom.

Ben

I’m very fascinated to follow up on the thread about Tarn and Bas having more willingness to cut those boys off [laughs]. Anyone else have any commentary they want to talk about on Bas or Tarn? Oh please, Aiden, proceed.

Aiden

It just needs to be said that Bas is the best boy and Tarn is the best girl. Sorry, somebody had to say it.

Ben

Thank you, sir. So [laughs] I think Teh likes Tarn because she's as committed to her future as he is. She intentionally does not pursue a romance with him because she thinks it would get in the way of her pursuit of her art and architecture career. And Teh is super committed to his career as an actor. And I think that's probably why he liked her so much? This is a little bit of I Promised You the Moon slipping through. But like Captain Hands pointed out: because she's committed to what she wants for herself, she's not going to sacrifice a ton of her stuff for him the way Oh might, or that Teh might for Oh. 

And Bas… I've been thinking a lot about second lead stuff because of conversations with Shan. Bas doesn't confess until really late in the game? But so much has happened at that point, that Teh is going to be able to break past that because of the earlier promise. I agree that he is the best boy. But I think Oh likes the drama [laughs] that Teh brings to his life.

36:18 - Teh and Oh-aew’s Dynamic

Ben

On to our next question! The dynamic between Teh and Oh-aew is one of the primary draws of this story. What did you connect to in their dynamic or their story? Mor, you're up first.

Mor

I'm vibrating, can you tell? [laughs] So there is so much, I think, that could draw anyone into the story of ITSAY, because the glories and the pitfalls of first love, they have so much in common regardless of who you fall in love with. But I personally connected so deeply to their story, again, as a queer person, I know a lot of other people did as well. You can't help but painfully relate to both of them — at least that was my experience, especially my younger self — Teh having so many feelings that he spends so much time being incapable of processing or acknowledging, let alone communicating? And Oh being so long-suffering and hopeful and just pining with his whole self for this mess of a boy, who doesn't know what he wants or what he's doing. I mean not that Oh really does either; who knows what they want in a relationship when they're that young? And when you have feelings for your long-lost best friend that you just reunited with, it's very complicated. 

But there were just so many quintessentially queer experiences in ITSAY and in their dynamic that hit me right in my gay little heart. The tiny secret touches that mean so much, the affectionate friendly banter that all of a sudden is veering into flirting, or ‘are we flirting, like what's going on?’ and then the crippling doubt that sets in afterwards and how it can haunt you for days. This gut wrenching fear that these feelings you found yourself in can possibly affect your whole life: how your friends feel about you, whether or not your family accepts you. There's just so much that we have to consider, well beyond what our hetero peers typically have to deal with, and it's exciting and it's terrifying. It's not just incredibly validating, but like I mentioned earlier, it's healing in a way, to see such a frankly visceral experience portrayed with so much care and accuracy, as they did with giving us Teh and Oh's story, and their dynamic and how it progressed. I just feel like overall the stakes are so much higher for us? And often at so, so young and tender ages, to just explore who we are, to like and to fall in love with who we want to, and… their whole story for me, watching it unfold — this is very dramatic but it's true — for me, it felt like someone peering into my past looking at all these little hurts I forgot, these bigger ones that are still healing, and saying, ‘it was like this back then wasn't it? It was so hard. But there's so much beauty here, and you can have it too! It can be yours too. You can have this struggle, you can go through all of this, you can walk through the fire and emerge through the other side with this beautiful, beautiful thing, that maybe even is even more beautiful because of how much work and how much brokenness it took to get there.’

Ben

I'm so glad we got to let you get that out of your system, Mor. [laughs] Turtles or Aiden, do you have any commentary on Oh and Teh?

Aiden

For me the, the dynamic between Teh and Oh was very unique and… not something that I had necessarily dealt with, but the coming-out scene for Teh and Hoon resonated incredibly strongly for me. The dialogue from that scene matched almost word for word how I came out to my own brother? And the emotions, and the fear and the terror and the relief and the reassurance and the, you know, gentle teasing to lighten the mood… that felt so real. Mine had [laughs] rather less crying, at least in the moment, I definitely did later — but the text and the, the feeling of that scene just took me right back to that moment. And there's so much about this show that is authentic in a very specific way to different people's experiences.

Ben

Thank you Aiden. Turtles?

Turtles

For me, what Oh was able to get out of Teh, by way of what I called a drunken hormonal experience… just the way Billkin acted in his exploratory attraction towards Oh and how PP received it… how their physical interplay represented that budding romance, that budding attraction. The end of episode 2 on the boat particularly moved me, let alone the incredibly impactful endings of 3 and 4. I was surprised to sort of see Teh… melt, and go back and forth in his physicality at the end of that episode. Just the physicality of that exploration, and how the physicality itself then compared to and reflected on all the emotional processes that we saw between the two of them. I thought that that was so unique particularly about this show, and how unabashed it was to display such physical attraction developing between the two of them, particularly on Teh's end. That's something that I'll really take away from this show, that it displayed attraction, really really vibrating attraction, in such an impactful way.

Ben

Captain Hands, you have any commentary?

Captain Hands

Of course you know I do, I have commentary about everything all the time. So I think the thing that really drew me to Oh and Teh’s dynamic was the power of their feelings for one another, and like, especially the way that Oh acts as a magnet to Teh and like, the trance-like state that Oh kind of puts him in, so you get all these moments of Teh just kind of following after Oh, and like Oh being aware of that power that he holds? The sincerity of their characterizations and the commitment to their characters… I love this show so much for having Teh just constantly walk in circles. And how that will kind of translate into just the cyclical nature of his own personality, and like the experiences that he has, and the stuff that he puts himself through. The things he will continue to do as their relationship progresses. You can tell so much, like how comfortable these two are with each other, and how in love they have been with each other since they were kids, and that's another reason I think that they couldn't have really been with anybody else, is because they have all of this history between them? That is like so palpable, and like how much Teh wants to protect those memories, and like the feelings that he has when he's with Oh. The line that they say like, ‘don't give my time to others’ is so poignant. 

Seeing the way that Teh is continuously transformed by being around Oh, hating coconut at the beginning of the show and thinking that it smelled bad, and then like having that scene with Oh on the boat at the end of episode 2, and then immediately opening episode 3 with Teh just smashing a bit of coconut meat on his face as like hard as he can, because he just wants to be like as close to it as possible and like, how it doesn't smell bad anymore, and how it tastes good now because he's starting to have these feelings for Oh. And that has radically changed how he interacts with the world around him. It’s just like so good to me to watch being portrayed on screen, especially because Teh is not aware of his queerness in the way that that Oh is? And so like, Teh not knowing why he feels the way he feels, and then lashing out because he can't put a name to like, what it is that is causing the feelings that he has, it feels very, very in keeping with like, the queer experience as you are like, learning your own identity.

Ben

The thing with ITSAY — it's not just the things that it does that are familiar: with all the important touching, the knowing that exists between you, the dealing with the homophobia, the concern about how other people will perceive you, whether or not your parents can be proud of you if you are honest about this portion of yourself. What I think makes ITSAY so special as queer media, and why I lose my mind over it? It's about the fact that these two cannot hide how they feel from each other, at all. And as a result they are the most cry baby boys I have ever seen in all of queer cinema. I just rewatched it this week. These boys are crying constantly at and about each other. Every time any one of them says anything to the other, they make the other one cry over something. 

It's interesting because so much of the ‘are you are you not’ thing, when you're growing up, is about the uncertainty that the other boy is actually feeling it? And that never feels like it exists between them. Oh knew what he was feeling, but as soon as Teh starts to show interest in him, he picks up on it instantly, and eventually confronts Teh very directly about it. As Turtles pointed out, the way the intimacy between them is displayed so frankly. They spend all of episode 3 dancing around each other — we know where this is going! And then you get the back-scratching scene which leads into this arc about Teh dealing with the physical reality of Oh being a boy. Episode 4 has the underwater kiss. During the underwater kiss, Teh puts his hand on Oh's chest again, and Oh has a reaction to that, and you can see him immediately being hit with the uncertainty about Teh's attraction to girls — in the middle of the best kiss that has ever happened. And I don't think I noticed that in my earlier watches: even during this huge moment for them, they are still continuing the drama. There's a specificity to the way that these two feel queer, that I have noticed that every person who grew up with some of the Knowing, as I call it, feels so intensely about these two boys.

Mor

I'm nodding so hard over here I'm surprised I haven't lost my head at this point. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes to everything you said. The sheer magnetism of their connection, that's really one of my biggest takeaways from this show. Not only the authenticity, but just how much Billkin and PP's chemistry and their talent as actors, how they were able to really, ah, just make that experience that is so true, it's so true to my experience as a queer person who definitely had the Knowing from a very young age... and had a lot of of moments like that where it just felt like, ‘what, I think there's something here, you know it, I know it, I think we both know it’ — it's hard to put it into words, but they just captured it so beautifully, so brilliantly. It took me back. 

It was so accurate that it made me remember little moments, tiny little moments in my past that weren't so little in the moment, they were really big when I was, you know, ten, eleven, twelve, falling for a girl for the first time. That's part of what made it so special for me is how it really took me back to those times, and in a healing way.

Ben

Captain Hands.

Captain Hands

I was just thinking about, in the opposite sense of like, I did not at least acknowledge my queerness until I was in my early 20s? But like, definitely grew up feeling very different from people around me and like, lonely compared to people around me, for like reasons I could not explain at the time? And so like, seeing Teh have to go through and process his own queerness because it is not something that has occurred to him before, was something that I took so strongly to. I relate so hard right now in my life to the identity narratives, because it took me so long to kind of parse through what my identities are, and to like, get comfortable with them. And so seeing Teh’s kind of like, ‘can I even like boys?’ moments, that is something that was really fun for me to watch, again with like the circling, like he has no clue [laughs] what's going on in his life and he is just circling and circling and circling until he kind of comes to a point that he can connect to, and then he'll kind of run off in that direction.

50:07 - Why Do You Care So Much About ITSAY?

Ben

Final question for everyone: Why do you care so much about ITSAY? Aiden.

Aiden

I care about it because, for one it is authentic queer representation on a level that I had very rarely seen on screen — both in Thai media and and just in general. It's very true to life for a wide variety of queer people. But also I am passionate about it because of the way that it drove Thai media as a whole forward to a profound degree — but especially the QL genre. It showed unarguably that there was a market for high quality productions, and the industry reacted by broadening their offerings accordingly. Many of the Thai shows that I love most from the past couple of years clearly echo back to ITSAY in specific aspects, and there will be untold echoes that continue radiating forward from here, in a good way.

Ben

Thank you, Aiden. Captain Hands.

Captain Hands

ITSAY to me is a foundational queer show. Mostly because queer characters are allowed to be complex, three-dimensional and frustrating. If anybody from Tumblr is listening to this podcast, which I know you are, the for, by, and about queer thing is something that I've been looking at a lot as I've been watching more stuff, and this is very much all three, right? Because they're letting these characters make mistakes, and like hurt people that they care about in their quest to better understand themselves? They are allowed to be human, which is like a wild concept in a lot of the like earlier BL shows, it's part of why I don't like it personally when people say that ITSAY's not a BL, because like, why can't BL's be high quality with like, really good structure and story right? Like I don't think that it's fair to just be like, oh this doesn't count as a BL because of like the, the production itself. 

And I think that just the emotional, like honesty and vulnerability that the script and the actors like showed throughout this process, really struck deep in my experiences figuring out like my own identity? There's such a commitment to everything and everybody in the show that I really liked. Watching the documentaries. I just love how much of the emotionally safe space it felt like, seeing how often the director himself was crying watching these scenes? Or like, how they would kind of wind up these these crying scenes by like, I remember like, PP being rocked back and forth in a hug by the director in the position that he's going to be in when he hugs Bas crying at the end of, what is it, episode 4 or part of episode 5 when Bas is like, go comfort Teh? All of these moments that like really show that the cast and the crew support each other, and like trust in each other… there is so much time and effort put into this show, and that is part of why I like it so much, is like you can tell how much care every aspect of this show was given.

Ben

Thank you, Captain Hands. Turtles?

Turtles

ITSAY for me reaches an echelon that only a very few Thai BLs have done for me by way of really balancing out an homage, a love letter to the culture that, that it's celebrating, along with what Aiden and Captain Hands have said so far regarding queer representation, and just hit a really incredible artistic balance experimented with with cinematic form and this serialized kind of publication way. Captain Hands, to your point about the argument about if it's a BL or if it's not a BL, one thing that I've been considering quite a bit in conversations, particularly with neuroticbookworm, has been whether or not ITSAY would have been more successful as a movie. And I've thought more about it and I think that, while there may be an answer to that that's separate from what I will say here — which is that I think it was really groundbreaking that they took this incredible idea and artistic vision and put it in serialized form, and experimented with what had been concretely developed as a serialized BL genre, and played in that sandbox. 

So taking all of that together, taking all of those maybe slightly even risky decisions rooting this show in a particular voice of a culture that we hadn't seen highlighted quite in as explosive of a way as ITSAY being rooted in Phuket was, along with its gorgeous depiction of queer revelation, of queer realization. Just all of that combined into one pot of a show really blows me away. 

My watching experience of it — it took me out, I couldn't multitask, I had to take all of your guys' advice and watch one episode at a time, and no show has done that for me. And so that, that's what I'll take away from it. A unique experience, unlike anything else that I ever experienced watching a Thai BL.

Ben

Before I move to Mor, I just have to say: Absolutely not! This should not have been a movie! I have watched a lot of goddamn movies. We deserved all of the time [laughs] that ITSAY gave us on this story. It would have felt so rushed if they tried to force this shit into two goddamn hours! Yeah! No! No. [Ben bangs the table] There's the table slamming. [laughs]

Turtles

Bartender, get him another drink!

Ben

I have drank like three-quarters of a bottle of wine, so, I'm sorry.

Turtles

Get him some pasta. [laughs]

Ben

[laughs] All right, sorry. This is about you all, not about me. Bestie in Christ, Mor!

Mor

[laughs] That was fantastic, thank you. I was bangin’ my desk over here like yessss, preach, take me to church! I am here to receive.

Ben

Why do you care so much about ITSAY?

Mor

Ohhh boy. A core memory for me from the last couple of years is sitting shell-shocked, absolutely shell-shocked on my couch, silently weeping, watching the credits of ITSAY roll for the first time. Truly just unable to move for probably ten, fifteen minutes, just trying to absorb everything that I just witnessed? And all I could think was, ‘things are different now.’ Truly, that was my reaction to it, I mean, this show? It wasn't made to fulfill a trope. It wasn't made to fill a time slot. It was made to show the tender beautiful humanity that is at the core of all love stories, regardless of the gender of the person you fall in love with, and that's just not something that I can say for a lot of other BLs, or shows period? Not that they don't stand on their own two feet for all sorts of other reasons, but it's something that set ITSAY forever apart for me. Not only that that was clearly their goal, but in how beautifully they achieved it, how perfectly in my opinion they achieved it. 

It was so realistic to my experience as a queer person, but it's also a show that I would feel very comfortable showing to someone who had no experience with the BL genre. Because you don't have to have any. You don't have to have an appreciation for it. You just have to be a person. You just have to be a human who has lived through tough human things, and had relationships, to find so much value, so much to relate to. I don't know how you can watch ITSAY and not have it just reverberate with you on some personal level. Whenever I discuss it with people, just like we've been doing tonight, I'm hearing things that even being — practically a priestess of ITSAY I feel like at this point — even with that I'm hearing things that I hadn't thought of before. And I think that's beautiful, that a show can be so elevated, and done so well that people from all walks of life can come to it, and come away with things that are just so true and accurate to their experience, and you learn things by hearing it, you know, hearing from them. But yeah it was so realistic to my experience as a queer person, while also giving a happily ever after, which was beautiful but it was also very hard won, which made it even more beautiful for me. The characters are real, they are flawed, but they figure it out… gives hope for the rest of us. [laughs] It raised production values. It raised the bar on what a BL can be. 

We did touch on a little bit about people debating whether or not ITSAY is a BL and I just have to say, whenever I'm debating anything I go to the source. And it was I believe a Teen Vogue article that BKPP were interviewed for: they both referred to the show as a BL, so have the writers, so has the crew, and if they are comfortable with addressing it as that, so am I. 

And then on a more personal note, it introduced me to BKPP my beloveds, to some of my best online friends, it got me halfway around the world to Thailand. Overall, it's an artistic and technical triumph as much it is is queer storytelling at its finest, it did everything it needed to in all the ways that it mattered, it moved me, it continues to, in a way that not much media ever has. It's got my whole heart and I could probably find something new to marvel about, you know, forever. It's as complicated and as, as simple as that for me

Ben

Thank you, Mor. I have been watching queer cinema for a very long time. Part of why ITSAY is so important to me, is no other piece of media has so consistently generated such strong visceral reactions. There's so many great pieces that you can pull out for people that many of them haven't seen, but there's something about ITSAY, where if you are aware of it at all, if you even heard its name, you know something about it, and have an opinion about it, whether you've watched it or not. And I also feel so strongly about watching Thai queer people talk so frankly about how they also had the same sort of visceral experiences that the rest of us had. 

What also matters for me about this show is, like we've had some interesting moments in the west: like Moonlight, Call Me By Your Name, other queer movies that have released, and we keep waiting for their impact to hit the rest of us. We felt the impact of ITSAY within a year of it releasing? ITSAY immediately impacted Korea's willingness to participate in BL, despite how conservative their film industry is. Japan re-upped their efforts on the genre… and GMMTV responding to that! We felt it all throughout late ‘21 early ‘22. It is so rare that you can point to a work that genuinely changed the way an entire genre functioned? And also really rare that you can feel that impact in its time. 

And with that: thank you all for joining us on this first clown panel of The Conversation! If there's anything you want to say to the people before we go?

Turtles

I just want to say what an honor it was to be invited on this. I love loving BLs and I love loving BLs along with you all.

Ben

Captain Hands.

Captain Hands

Sorry if we weren't as funny as David.

Ben

[laughs] That's impossible. He's an unhinged 45-year-old gay man. Aiden?

Aiden

One last thought that came up: ITSAY has this level of radical compassion for every single character on the screen, and that helps the viewer to have compassion even if they may be homophobic or unfamiliar, it brings a level of love and care to those characters, in a way that we really don't get, and I have high hopes that it's something that's going to be repeated again as we move forward.

Ben

Mor, any other closing thoughts?

Mor

Oh man, I don't know, I'm just all caught up in the ITSAY wave of feels, as I, as I tend to do. This show has a unique way of shutting down my logical brain and just making me feel all the things, which is what good art should do, dammit, it really should. So, it's doing its job. 

Go watch ITSAY! If y'all are listening to this and you haven't, what are you doing? Come on.

Ben

It's been three years, if you haven't watched it since 2020, go watch it again. It holds up. It's still good.

1:04:08 - Outro

Ben

And we're back. Fun fact for all of you: Nini's setup went completely to shit while we were recording, so she had no idea what the hell we were talking about. For the entire recording we're having to text her updates so she doesn't close down the recording booth. So, Nini is now reacting from post, not from the panel. 

Nini

[laughs] Yeah, it was a very interesting experience editing the panel not having heard a word that you guys said, so it was all brand new to me. That is a very new experience for me. 

Ben

She edited out all of the “Nini can't stop me because she's not here.” [both laugh]

Nini

Oh god, no, but it was really delightful. I had a really good time. I had a really hard time editing the panel, but there's some things that you guys brought up that really sort of tickled my brain, and I wanted to get into them while I was talking to you in the afters. 

Captain Hands made some comments on why Teh teaching Oh Chinese, with Chinese being Teh’s comfort language of expression, why that matters, and how the translation scene on the side of Promthep Cape plays into that. I found that was really interesting because that is new thinking for me, after three years and countless rewatches of this show I didn't think that there could be something about it that I hadn't thought about, or that was new to me, but thinking about Chinese as Teh’s comfort language—as his main language of expression. That brought up a whole new set of things to me in their relationship.

Ben

I have a couple of friends locally whose parents have immigrated from Taiwan, and they talk about how they have probably like a kindergartener's understanding of the language sometimes, and I hadn't thought about how Teh wasn't learning Chinese for the first time—that he may have had some familiarity from growing up around his mom. That was a fresh thought that I had coming out of the panel.

Nini

It just adds a little bit more color to what exactly Teh was doing in that class, what he was doing tutoring Oh-aew. How hard he worked to make sure that Oh-aew could understand him, because Teh is not great at expression, but the few times that he manages to express himself very clearly to Oh-aew it is in Chinese. Using the Chinese flashcards on the boat, writing and rewriting words in Chinese in his notebook. That's how he's able to get his points across to Oh-aew, and he can only do that because he's taught Oh-aew how to understand him. I found that was a really good observation. 

You made an observation as well that I really enjoyed about tourist places as safe spaces when you are from a tourist place, that going to do tourist things actually gives you a certain amount of anonymity that you wouldn't normally get. 

Ben

Some of the normal spaces like cafes, malls, etc. are populated by people that you would run into, but, like, locals are not going on a swamp tour. And so, you can get away with things that you might not elsewhere. Like, I think about the fact that Promthep Cape is a really popular tourist location, and the fact that when they were actually filming that scene very kind tourists stayed out of the camera, but were like two meters sometimes away from the boys while they're recording one of the most pivotal scenes of the series. And that's kind of what it's like when you're in tourist places in your hometown. Like there's a bunch of strangers crowding around you, and it doesn't matter if they hear you say something because they don't know any of your people.

Nini

One thing that Aiden brought forward that I really wanted to delve into myself: Aiden talked about visual style and how ITSAY allowed things to look grungy, and things to look worn, and things to look old, and things to look a little bit dirty; and how that contrasted against the previous BL impulse for everything to be bright and clean and shiny. And one of the things that made me think about from my own experience, how upset—I don't know if ‘upset’ is the term—people tend to get from my home country when my home country is portrayed outside as anything other than bright and shiny and clean and modern. There's that whole pressure to look a certain way to the outside world, and that comes through in our media as well. 

So watching that impulse sort of come through in Thai media, and then being sort of broken by this particular production. I always like when I'm watching media from other places when I can see the points of connection between my culture and another culture, between my home and another person's home, that always makes me feel more grounded in the story, even though it's a culture and a place that might be 180 degrees away from me. You can still find those very human points of connection. I really enjoyed that. 

Here's one that I want to ask you. You talked towards the end of the panel about Oh and The Knowing, and you've brought up The Knowing over and over again recently, and it's something that I've really been sitting with as you've explained certain things in your life and certain things in queer life, and one of the things that struck me listening to the panel that I think hadn't struck me before is that Oh Knows. Oh has The Knowing, but Teh also knows about Oh because Teh has a complete lack of surprise when Oh tells him that he likes Bas. He doesn't even register it as, like, a surprising thing. So Teh also has a Knowing about Oh but not about himself. I found that a really interesting juxtaposition.

Ben

Teh is an actor who's masking all the time. I think he was probably a little bit surprised, but when Oh tells him that secret, Teh's only goal is to desperately reconnect with Oh. So, I don't think in that moment he cares about Oh being queer. Like, Teh’s so stupid. He's not like paying attention to that sort of stuff. He only cares about Oh not shoving him away at that moment. Like, it didn't really matter what that secret was because he was going to respond positively.

Nini

I get that, but as the time goes on, we don't see any reaction from Teh about it, which is not the reaction that I would expect a teenage boy to have.

Ben

[sighs] When it comes to Teh, he's always performing. It's possible that he already knew these things, but I get the sense that he compartmentalizes. Like, a big part of it for Teh was he doesn't want to talk about it. Because talking about it makes it real, and then he has to face the reality of it. Like, that's what happens after the underwater kiss scene is Oh wants to talk about it and Teh really, really doesn't want to talk about it. It's possible that he knew, but because he's been away from Oh and so repressed, it's not eating at him.

Nini

I'll sit with that.

Ben

Teh doesn't act like he knew, but it's very clear that Oh was important to him, and he had to rapidly come to terms with those feelings.

Nini

I think it's pretty clear that Teh didn't know about himself. It's pretty clear that his journey I Told Sunset About You is a journey of understanding things that he didn't know and understand about himself.

Ben

Part of why I like that so much of Teh's journey is unspoken is it allows it to be more universal because it lets the audience at large take from Teh what they need and project into him what they're bringing to the scene, and this works out really well for Oh a lot, too, because Oh does so much with just looking at Teh.

There's some really great dialogue in the translations of this show, but there's a phenomenal amount of amazing work done from what isn't said, and that is one of my favorite things about it.

Nini

I also agree that one of the great things about ITSAY is how much is done in the silences and it's so interesting that you talked about the silences being something that the audience can project whatever they want onto and that being part of ITSAY’s success, because it's also in a way so legible. 

Normally when there's space like that for the audience to project onto we get all kinds of wild shit, like I’m just gonna be real with you. But the silences and the way that these two boys acted were so legible that even though there was all this silence between them, for all this space for the audience to project into, they generally projected what I think the creators intended because the reads were largely consistent in terms of how people were taking it in and how they were reading things.

Ben

I do think so, but a big part of that is how simple ITSAY’s story is. It's a very straightforward coming of age story in a lot of ways. That's why it works! Everything about ITSAY is inherently familiar, and it feels like an experience that people can enjoy again a decade, two, three decades from now. It's one of those classics you can go back and look at and you can probably point at where other projects referred back to it. 

I feel like I Told Sunset About You is going to be one of those projects where the future of queer coming-of-age cinema is going to refer back to it as one of its seminal moments.

Nini

So all that said, if we had to write at this point… an ode to ITSAY as our closing remarks on this retrospective, what would be your ode?

Ben

ITSAY is the best show that has ever existed because it is called I Told Sunset About You. It sets up this huge drama about running to the cape together before sunset, and they make it to the cape at sunset. Oh has this incredible breakdown and just says “I don't care what we're going to be to each other, just please don't leave me again,” and Teh, upending decades of genre history and expectation, says, “If I can be anything, can I be your boyfriend?” and old wounds finally closed in my heart.

Nini

Well, that is an ode. I don't think I could be anywhere as poetic as you about it, but what I will say is that this story touched something very deep inside me. I can't imagine not having seen this. I can't imagine where I would be now if I hadn't seen this. It changed things for me in a lot of ways, and that's one of my highest praises for media. If you change things for me, if you make me look at things differently, you've won. So, that's my ode to ITSAY: you won.

And with that we're gonna wrap this one up. Our next episode will be our Last Twilight in Phuket discussion. Ben and I are going to sit down and jaw about that a little bit, and then we will be introducing a fresh new panel and talking about I Promised You the Moon.

So look out for that. We out. Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace.

[camdenleisurepirates]

The Walk

Crowley's walk. You know the one. We've watched it. We've commented on it. We even have a term for it, though it doesn't get used often enough: to saunter.

Now technically, to saunter is to "walk leisurely and with no apparent aim", but the term also carries certain connotations - a kind of insouciance, indeed a devil-may-care flippancy that is also intrinsic to Crowley's outward character. (I am leaving aside, for sake of this discussion, that not only does he very much care, he also has a definite aim: to be wherever Aziraphale is. But never mind all that for now).

However, I'm also convinced that the idea of the saunter helped shape Crowley's character in a more literal sense: that is, in the way David Tennant developed his interpretation of Crowley's persona. Actors will sometimes say they can't really get into character until they have the shoes they'll be wearing, as it helps them feel what it's like to be that person. And I think developing The Walk probably served a very similar purpose.

I'd be curious to know whether he worked with anyone as a movement coach or if he's just trained enough at this point to come up with it. I love that at the beginning of his podcast with Michael Sheen they discuss doing warm ups; theater kids all know this is part of the mental shift from being your normal self and into being The Role. And I very much suspect that getting The Saunter down was a crucial element in his becoming Crowley.

And here's the thing - it's not hard to do, really. Not great for your body, maybe, especially if you tend to back issues; but not particularly difficult. Some fans (you know who you are) have described it as being 'dick first' but that isn't quite right. The way to do it is just this: imagine there is a string attached to each of your hipbones that pulls you forward as you go.

That's it. That little shift automatically curves your lower spine, puts your shoulders back and makes your arms hang more loosely. Give it a try if you like; you can feel yourself moving the way Crowley does - cosplayers take note. It's also a rather slutty sexy way to move - if you don't feel like Our Favorite Demon, you will feel like you're on a catwalk. Or a stripper. Stripper on a catwalk.

The hipbone trick likely also informed the way he sometimes launches himself out of an armchair - you can see he braces himself on either side, but it's those hips heading up and out that gets him to standing. (I haven't tried this one; I wish I was that lanky and limber but alas).

Anyway that's my nerdy little TheaterMajor(tm) rant for today, I hope you enjoyed it. Or are at least forgiving of me being totally obsessed.