#reexamining history

[marxist-lelouchist]

King John Plantagenet of England is a much-maligned figure, due to folklore and propaganda.

Obviously, as a feudal monarch, he is condemnable, but it is a very shallow study of history to condemn all past figures of power in the broadest of strokes.

It is far more engaging and informative to actually try to answer the questions:

Who was on the side of the progress of history, intentionally or not? Who was battling against the progress of history?

It is worthwhile re-examining all of history and knowledge, not simply things since 1945, 1917 or 1789.

The pivotal event of interest in John's reign was the revolt of the barons, the event which led to the Magna Carta.

The only reason the Magna Carta appears is because John taxed the nobility. The nobility, in attempting to avoid the taxes John imposed upon them to rebuild the kingdom's treasury after his wars, but primarily the much-lauded Richard the Lionheart's wars and adventures, placed the weight of these taxes, as always, upon the serfs and drove them into rebellion against the king.

Who was on the side of history in this struggle?

As odd as it may seem, it is definitely John.

Why? The interests of the progressive class, the artisans in the cities, lay with the king, against the regional nobility.

The king's interests coincidentally sit with those of the artisans for the simple fact that he is the lord of the cities.

The development of the king's cities is the development of city capital, the development of city capital is the weakening of rural stagnation, the weakening of rural stagnation is the march of history.

Until the bourgeoisie has the power to form a republic, the king is unwittingly leading the charge of history against his vassals.

John had no intention of being a historically progressive force, but he was by the very nature of his actions.

And finally, on the topic of the Magna Carta:

The Magna Carta was simultaneously a step forward and a step back.

It was a step forward in that it was the birth of the concept of a constitution, a step backwards in that it was a massive victory for the rural nobility and a weakening of the central government, therefore a weakening of the cities and enrichment of the rural nobility, therefore a weakening of actual capital development and strengthening of feudal stagnation and parasitism.

[trans-axolotl]

accidentally spent 20 minutes typing up like a five paragraph response to a one sentence question about intersex histories in greek and roman societies. i fear i always forget that's something i know information about until im asked and then im like "here's my opinions and personal translations of this shit and here's five different words used to refer to intersex people and which ones i like best :)"

[ask-cloverfield]

@subspacecadet funnily enough this issue has him fired for Fauxtography like 2 pages before this

[jagzii]

"The 2010s was a wild time for teenagers in terms of entertainment. We had The Vampire Diaries(2009-2017), Pretty Little Liars (2010-2017), and their historical little sister, Reign (2013-2017). Wildly inaccurate and full of sex, drama and betrayal, CW's Reign was my first introduction to Catherine de’ Medici, and I don’t know whether to be happy or sad about that. The Reign version (and most that have followed) painted Catherine as intelligent, ruthless and manipulative. The kind of gal who would, one hundred percent, gaslight, girl-boss and gate-keep her way into getting what she wanted. But how much of that is actually true? Let’s find out!"

Read the full article here:

[booksbabybooks]

Thinking about the episode of Daredevil where Foggy finds out and how it's just one of the best superhero identity reveals ever portrayed.

So often it's handled as a quick thing - a shock either quickly overcome or dramatically reacted to (I'm gonna run off and become a supervillain to spite you!) or confirmation of something long suspected.

With this it's just so messy and raw and tangled and complicated. Foggy's friendship with Matt is one he's built his business on, and in which his identity and history is intimately entangled. He's watching one of the core pillars of his life crumble and he's left crawling among the wreckage, being forced to reexamine each and every individual brick to see if it's something he can rebuild with.

And Matt is so blinkered in that moment he just... Doesn't get it. He's in physical and emotional pain and he's terrified of losing his friend but he also fundamentally doesn't understand why this is so seismic. He thinks Foggy can simply... Let it not be.

It's so painful and love-filled and wrenching. And both actors kill it.

[nose-rice]

Guys I NEED to rant about my thoughts on Nuru because i love her <3 ramblings ahead

Like I feel like in almost every fic i read, she's just like, a side character that's there to make whitty remarks to Hugo and be the levelheaded one. If she has an insecurity or problem it's usually pretty surface level and solved quickly, or only mentioned once or twice. I think there are SO many aspects of her character that are so cool.

Okay first, I think we sometimes forget that she's a nerd just like the rest of the gang. Yes, on the outside she's definetly the most 'normal' one, but I think we should concider the fact that she's the only girl in the group, and she's literal royalty. She was raised with a completely different set of standards than the other three. I don’t think I've really ever seen anyone cover that. I feel like she would get called "mature for her age" when she's only 15/16, and almost always gets critisism when she talks back with her own ideas (like her concerns about the meteor shows for example). I feel like out on her journey, she would finally get the freedom to just be herself, and be a kid and be able to rant on about her intrests with the rest of the group. It could be a struggle at first, but it would be awesome to see her getting more comfortable with the group the longer they spend together! Nerds encouraging nerdy rants lol

Since she is a kingdom figurehead, you could also argue that she always has a lot on her hands (especially since she's very proactive when it comes to science and solving problems). This could bring up a need to be productive, or always feeling like she needs to make the right decision, even for the littlest things.

I also feel like a lot of the time she's potrayed as the "right" one, who is 100% right when it comes to stuff like arguing with Hugo. Since they're opposites when it comes to class, they often are compared through that lense. I think it's cool just having Nuru tell Hugo off for judging a book by its cover, but I feel like they have a lot more in common than they realize. I think it would be interesting to see Nuru judging a book by its cover too. Maybe not to the degree that Hugo does, but I feel like calling out both their judging would not only call out character flaws, but it also enforces that even though they hate eachother and would never want to be like the other, they have a lot of the same flaws.

Also, being sheltered in a palace her whole life, I think she might think kind of black and white sometimes, and while she knows when people are just being mean as an act, she might struggle when it comes to people like reformed criminals.

Maybe she's able to be meaner to Hugo because she justifies it by telling herself he's criminal, and therefore bad, possibly glossing over the reasons he might be like that (maybe it crosses her mind, but she tells herself it's not a good enough reason, because stealing is still stealing, and he literally steals EVERYTHING. Even little trinkets and stuff he definitely doesn't need!). When they find out about Varian's criminal history, maybe she reexamines her views on morality and how she used to see people, because by her standards, Varian is a 'bad guy' who's caused harm to SO many people, but he's also the kind, caring, helpful friend that she's been traveling with who would never willingly hurt anyone.

Moving on to Amber x Nuru, I honestly never find myself liking the ship because Amber isn't developed enough which is fine. I don't think every character has to be a magnificent work of art. Side characters are side characters, but their romance is usually written like: "wow that girl is cute! I have a crush now!" Which is cool, but then that's about as far as it gets, then timeskip! Or offscreen they're a couple now. I know it's a side couple so it won't have as much devlopment as something like Varigo, but I never really see their dynamic play out in different situations. Like I don't know how to explain it, but it feels like they solely exist to be a couple? Amber sometimes just feels like an extention of Nuru, and their relationship feels surface level a lot of the time.

I feel like too often she's just watered down to the nice, smart, grounded friend, and I don't know I just think there’s so much more to explore with her. She’s not just some side character. She's literally part of the main cast! Even in fanart I feel like she doesn't really get a lot of stuff besides funny art and just like, pictures meant to look pretty. Unlike something you get a lot with characters like Varian or Hugo.

And honestly I get it. Some characters you just don't take an intrest in. I know I find Varian, Hugo, and Nuru more relatable than I find Yong, but I feel like part of that is developing their characters rather than just seeing them on a surface level. Ofc there are exceptions and there are some stories that dive deeper into Nuru's character out there! I just happen to see this A LOT.

Wow i said "surface level" a lot didn't I 😭😭

Anyway thank you for reading my rant i wanna know what you guys think!!

[absolutebl]

TOP 10 BL Trends of 2023

This is just me with my analysis hat on. 

1. 2023 = the year EVERYONE went outside their lanes

Everything went topsy-turvy this year in BL. 

For example, Korea gave us agonized yearning and outright queerness (The 8th Sense, The New Employee) while Japan served up soft office workers and tender family (Our Dining Table). 

The BL world went askew for a while, especially in the spring of 2023. 

Not that we still didn’t still get Korea’s soft angsty bubbles or Japan’s “what are you doing and why does it hurt?” kink-fests. But there were quite a few BLs that made us chronic watchers sit up in confusion and wonder if Korea was dabbling in Taiwan’s territory or Japan in Thailand’s. Then they fudged the kisses and we were like... okay, back in familiar territory. 

In contrast, Thailand stayed course-correcting for the damage they’ve done in the past with tropes (2022) and self referential meta criticism (2021), but also almost aggressively returned to their BL roots after last year’s series of shockers. Certainly, they are reexamining those roots, transplanting some, aerating others. But they really went back to classic Thai university and high school BL and pulps in a big way in 2023. 

Taiwan is always difficult to gage because they produce so few but they seem to have stuck with what they do best with no deviation while producing more this year than they have in ages. I’m happy for that, why change a good thing? But there is a tiny part of me that really wants them to hit it out of the part with a quality piece soon. For me, We Best Love still reigns supreme, but I would really like the HIStory franchise to give us that level but longer - like a happy version of Your Name Engraved Herein. I think Taiwan has the chops to give us something as good as The 8th Sense or Old Fashion Cupcake but in their style, and I would like to see them exercise their talent for good rather than just profit. 

I know, what a very odd thing for me to say. But if any BL is going to break into the mainstream American market, I genuinely think it’s most likely come from Taiwan. 

Vietnam and the Philippines are falling behind, in general. They just didn’t bring out very many shows in 2023, and what the brought out tended to fub the endings. This is forgivable in Japan (because of their style and quality) but not what watchers want in the lower production value propositions. In other words, if you do a pulp, you can’t mess up the ending (by romance standards). that doesn’t look to be changing anytime soon. 

2. The Office Romance Dominated

After years of Thailand serving us an endless (and slightly bland) buffet of university (and a few high school) BLs, this year Korea was basically like...

Ofiice. We like the Office. It’s cheap to film we can use grown up actors, acting (mostly) their actual age. 

And yeah... it totally worked. 

To be fair, Japan has always given us office live action yaoi from the beginning (they had the source material) but this year everyone else, including Thailand, seriously started playing in this setting. 

3. Boys Danced with Boys

The darling @heretherebedork​ was a big fan of this one, and I rather like it myself. Prior to this boys dancing together was very very rare in BL, but this year we got way more than our fair share. It was lovely. 

Never Let me Go

My School President 

Bed Friend 

The Day I Loved You 

Step by Step

Be Mine Superstar

Tie the Not 

Dangerous Romance

I think there were a few more. These are the ones I remembered to write down. 

4. Getting (even more) Meta With Tropes 

BL has been getting more and more meta over the past few years but this year they really focused in on tropes specifically. Calling out their own biggest and most favorite tropes in a massive way, especially Thailand and especially GMMTV. 

Like they tunneled in on damaging tropes with Bad Buddy and the like over the past 2 years, and now they are just having fun with us. 

I mean they just started the dancing trope and already they are calling it out? That’s like rapid-fire regurgitated meta there, GMMTV. 

5. Cameos are the norm now 

Taiwan has always loved cameos but in the past the other countries have been show and steady with only one or two a year. (Unless Japan does a parody.) 

This year Korea got in on the game.

Korea rarely starts trends but they do adopt smaller and lesser known existing ones and make them super popular. 

This year they did that with cameo couple appearances, even borrowing a few of Thailand’s pairs (TutorYim and MaxNat traveled north). They did it so much I stopped tracking. Love Class 2, Why R U?, and Jun & Jun were the heaviest hitters. 

Taiwan, of course, came back swinging. Kiseki was the gum-ball machine of pair cameos. (In Taiwan mafia = gay.) 

6. We are entering the cross pollination age

The number of remakes picked up or started this year was startling, not just countries revisiting their own content (Thailand, Japan) but countries revisiting OTHER countries stuff.

Lemme explain...

Korea has started remaking Thai content (Why R U?) alongside cameo'ing Thai pairs.

Thailand is doing Korean IP (My Dear Gagster Oppa) and has 2 Chinese ones slated for next year. 

GMMTV acquired a lot of Japanese IP (Cherry Magic, Ossen, and My Love Mix Up) - and then had problems distributing it. 

This is probably the most surprising trend for me. Especially the Japanese stuff. I would have thought these properties well outside of Thailand's price range (even GMMTV's) not to mention Japan’s legendary IP issues (I swear I typed this pout before the pulled TayNew’s excellent Cherry Magic). 

Also why not option some of the older popular manga instead? Bet that's much cheeper. (I did see a NEW Thai translation of Finder into Thai, which is 90s yaoi, so I have my fingers crossed on that front.)

I shouldn't be too surprised. 

Thailand is running out of y-novel content. Their publication industry is just not robust enough (I was just talking to a friend about this at length recently). But I didn't think they had the funds to option, especially from Japan. 

Perhaps the option deals are for peanuts?

7. Korea got cheeky

I’m not sure quite how else to put this. 

After finally figuring out boys can kiss, Korea started to do not just higher heat but playful higher heat, with more aggressive word play and linguistic innuendo, like they are entering their racy rom-com teenage years (Why R U? Love Class 2 and Jun & Jun in particular.) 

I guess: Welcome to your BL teens, Korea? 

It’s cute of them. I am very much enjoying it. 

And now that comedy is warming them up, we get to see them play with actual queer burgeoning physicality in shows like The 8th Sense. 

It’s nice. I like seeing Korea stretch its wings. They still stick to their bubble, but that bubble seems to be expanding. 

8. The Amnesia Trope is back

And I, for one, would prefer to forget about it. 

9. BL got trendy 

I’m not quite sure how to articulate this category but basically we started seeing a lot of “modern” romance trends out of the west (like a/b/o) show up in our BL. Not a ton and sometimes quite small, but there has a been a steady rise of things like: no seme/uke, femme gay, out gay, condom use, messy gay. 

We also got an increasing range of sub genre frameworks (like mafia, office setting) that’s moved BL pretty firmly (even in Thailand) out of school and into the workplace, whether actual working is involved or not. 

It’s not to the point where it feels like we get more non-school BL than school BL (if I include all countries in this assessment).

Japan, in classic Japanese fashion, quietly started moving in the opposite direction. It’s what they do. 

10. The Vampires are coming 

This is an announcement trend, which I don’t usually report on but it’s so CLEAR. 

So last year we had a spate of announcements of possible Omegaverse (2 from China, 1 from Japan, 1 from Thailand - the only one that’s happened). 

This year we got 5 Vampire (or vampire-esk) Thai BLs announced including one from GMMTV. 

Whether all 5 will actually get made is unlikely, but having had (basically) none prior to this (Kissable Lips), I’m pretty confident that we will get at least 2 of them. And I wouldn’t be surprised if at least one other country made one as well. (Side eyes Taiwan with interest.) 

Final thoughts

It feels like we are also seeing a decline in BL (both by quantity and quality) from Vietnam and the Philippines. As you all know, I don’t track or really watch either of these two very closely. But it feels like, now, no one else is either. 

I think we have likely seen the BL heyday already in both places and their industries are now on the decline. 

We might be witnessing a thinning in the players in the BL field. 

FYI we had approximately 

136 BLs in 2023

Previous Years

2022: 117

2021: 95

2020: 62

2019: 40

2018: 30 

2017: 44 (China’s last gasp)

2016: 27

2015: 17 (50% micro)

2014: 17 (50% micro)

And that’s it! Let me know in the comments if you’ve spotted any additional trends you want to call out.

Last year, 2022′s trend report

2021′s Trend report

Last Year’s Stats & Predictions

(source) 

[mariacallous]

A groundbreaking reexamination of the Holocaust and of how Germans understood their genocidal project

Why exactly did the Nazis burn the Hebrew Bible everywhere in Germany on November 9, 1938? The perplexing event has not been adequately accounted for by historians in their large-scale assessments of how and why the Holocaust occurred. In this gripping new analysis, Alon Confino draws on an array of archives across three continents to propose a penetrating new assessment of one of the central moral problems of the twentieth century. To a surprising extent, Confino demonstrates, the mass murder of Jews during the war years was powerfully anticipated in the culture of the prewar years. The author shifts his focus away from the debates over what the Germans did or did not know about the Holocaust and explores instead how Germans came to conceive of the idea of a Germany without Jews. He traces the stories the Nazis told themselves—where they came from and where they were heading—and how those stories led to the conclusion that Jews must be eradicated in order for the new Nazi civilization to arise. The creation of this new empire required that Jews and Judaism be erased from Christian history, and this was the inspiration—and justification—for Kristallnacht. As Germans imagined a future world without Jews, persecution and extermination became imaginable, and even justifiable.

[raayllum]

Will probably chuck something like this into a bigger speculative meta at one point about Xadia's in-universe history, but from a "why would the story Choose to do it like this, as opposed from any other lens?" I want to reexamine the Mage Wars conflict. Specifically, in this case, that the Mage Wars were the result of (predominantly dark) mages being leaders/kings.

On the one hand, at first glance, it makes a lot of sense. We routinely see most of the series' mages turn to magic, dark or otherwise, as a result of desperation and/or ambition, or both in an attempt to consolidate power.

KPP'AR: You made the same choice you've always made. The one that gives you power. (5x02)

VIREN: I am the High Mage of Katolis. I have power, purpose, and I intend to use them both. (6x06)

Even Claudia, despite being more driven by her personal loyalties to her family over political ambition like her father ultimately was, seeks the power to fix things. To un-paralyze her brother; to bring her father back from the dead (twice). To carry out Aaravos' revenge not to bring down the Cosmic Order for 'humanity's greater good,' but to avenge his wrongly executed daughter.

Because magic, at its core in TDP, is about having knowledge and power.

Or is it? Put a pin in that, for a second.

The main thing I'm meandering my way to is that the mage warlords... didn't have to be warlords. Like, we could've had mage wars where mages were the top or chosen generals, sworn to their respective royal families and fighting to the end. It would've amped up the assassin-dark mage parallels as servants or pawns/perpetrators of the cycle, been an even darker version of Harrow and Viren's fragmented bond of king and high mage, or even what Aanya seems to have going on with hers, etc.

But instead, the mages responsible for the mage wars were indeed kings and rulers, people who sought more political power void of any other checks and balances or relationships. They were in charge; they were not servants at all (at least, not to anyone but unknowingly Aaravos).

Which makes sense: it's easier to manipulate people and get more of it with the more political power they have, especially because the Mage Wars possessed an unstable and rapidly changing political structure ("When one mage rose to power, another was quick to dethrone them") built on competition and bloodthirstiness.

I've speculated in previous metas that Aaravos wanted the remaining warlords to go and wage war on Xadia pre-his imprisonment. If that's true, then Viren being a mage turned warlord (king) is more than repeating history... and we see Karim as another mage grappling for the throne, even if he's less directly manipulated by Aaravos.

So the show paints a pretty clear message through arc 1 Viren, Karim, and Kpp'Ar: mages who chase political power are more likely to go out of control, and mages who rescind political power are more likely to... end up being Better and with happier endings, at least in theory.

In my mind, the main reason to set the mage warlords up in "magic as a tool for political power" is to demonstrate the dangers of Viren and Karim's ways of thinking, as well as for arc 3 with Aanya's mages (brother?) potentially seeking her throne and war with Xadia.

The good news: while Callum is still part of the occupational high mage line of Kpp'Ar to Viren to him, and has acquired the literal embodiment of it through the Staff of Ziard now being his (more on that here), Callum has never wanted political power in his life!

Knowledge and power seeking are still things he has to contend with, the way any mage would, but since Callum is far more oriented around love than ego or anything else... while other mages have repeated the history of waging war at Aaravos' behest, and others likely will in arc 3, it is less certain that Callum will be one of them.

He's a mage, but not a warlord; he has no reason or desire to be. Because magic in TDP is about knowledge and power, yes, but it is also about Love, particularly for him.

Rayla's note in Callum's spellbook: That's not cheesy at all Callum. Love is magic!

A simplification, perhaps, given that Claudia is also driven by love (as Terry spells out in 7x05, even if it's becoming warped as part of revenge) and because Callum still has ambition... but unlike the bulk of the show's other high mages or mages turn warlords, he is not ultimately More Ambitious than he is Loving, and that, I think, is what's gonna Save him.

[vague-humanoid]

Not My Type: Automating Sexual Racism in Online Dating

A new book by Dr. Apryl Williams exposes how race-based discrimination is a fundamental part of the most popular and influential dating algorithms. “Not My Type: Automating Sexual Racism in Online Dating” (Stanford University Press) provides a socio-technical examination of the AI systems powering Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, and other apps. Williams uses deep analysis of companies’ patents and technology to reveal how racism and romance are now inextricably linked through computer code. She also interviews more than 100 app users, exploring why online dating as a person of color is so fraught.

Dr. Williams explores the dating platforms' algorithms, their lack of transparency, the legal and ethical discourse in the context of these companies' community guidelines, and accounts from individual users in order to argue that sexual racism is a central feature of today's online dating culture. She discusses this reality in the context of facial recognition and sorting software as well as user experiences, drawing parallels to the long history of eugenics and banned interracial partnerships. Ultimately, Williams calls for, both a reconceptualization of the technology and policies that govern dating agencies, and also a reexamination of sociocultural beliefs about attraction, beauty, and desirability.

This event features Dr. Williams in conversation with the Cyberlaw Clinic’s Kendra Albert, a legal scholar of computing, gender, and society.

[spot-the-antisemitism]

Saying this anonymously to spare me the discourse headache cause I do not come on this site to fight people.

I do identify as a “Zionist” because it is a Jewish word coined by Jewish people for their right to safety, a homeland, and self determination, three nothing colonial about that. That said I am critical of the current Israeli government… it is the normalizing of the gut reaction from 2,000 years of antisemitism conspiracy theory that gets me, people will understand why talking over x minority or marginalized group is bad… unless it is the Jewish people. I am not even unpacking the dual means of “Zionist” but begging people on this site to reexamine their word view and biases and understand history and current events are interconnected and therefore nuanced and morally grey and scapegoating strangers on the internet is media illiterate behavior.

Dear anon,

You are not alone in fact most Zionists share your beliefs more or less

don’t lett them make it mean “Jew it’s ok to kill”

yours

Cecil

[lostinhistory]

Heritage News of the Week

Discoveries!

The tomb of an ancient Egyptian royal medical professional, who happens to have also had the role of magician, has been unearthed. The discovery of the tomb and the physician’s dual roles highlights the reverence ancient Egyptians held for both magic and medicine.

Excavations at Saqqara uncover several tombs

A joint Japanese-Egyptian archaeological mission has uncovered four tombs at Saqqara from the late 2nd and early 3rd Dynasties, along with ten burials from the 18th Dynasty of the New Kingdom.

A big week for Saqqara!

Egypt uncovers blocks from 18th dynasty Queen Hatshepsut temple

Archaeologists have uncovered intact portions of the foundation wall of pharaonic Queen Hatshepsut's valley temple in Luxor and the nearby tomb of Queen Teti Sheri, grandmother of Ahmose I, the first pharaoh of Egypt's golden New Kingdom era.

Turkish farmer unearths massive Roman mosaic while planting cherry trees

At the end of last year, a farmer in eastern Turkey discovered a rare, largely intact late Roman mosaic while planting a cherry orchard. Spanning almost 1,000 square feet, the mosaic is thought by archaeologists to be the largest example of its kind unearthed in the country.

Medieval crowns of Eastern European royalty hidden in cathedral wall since World War II finally recovered

A set of 16th-century royal burial regalia concealed in a niche under a staircase for nearly a century has been recovered from the Vilnius Cathedral in Lithuania. The gold crowns, rings and other accessories have been missing since 1939, when they were hidden at the start of World War II.

Byzantine monastery with ‘unique’ mosaic floor uncovered at Israeli construction site

A Byzantine monastery with a colorful mosaic floor bearing a Greek inscription has been uncovered during work by the Israel Land Authority on a real estate development in Karmey Gat North.

'Huge fortune' from the 1600s, including gold and silver coins, found in German church where Martin Luther preached

Four bags of money hidden around 1640 and worth "much more than a craftsman could earn in a year" have been found inside a statue at a Gothic church in Germany.

2,100-year-old coin hoard dating to dynasty of Jewish kings discovered in Jordan Valley

A coin hoard dating back about 2,100 years, during the time of the Jewish Hasmonean kings, has been discovered at a site in the Jordan Valley.

1,700-year-old Roman hoard includes gold coins depicting illegitimate emperor

Archaeologists in Luxembourg have discovered a lavish 1,700-year-old hoard of Roman gold coins that had been placed near the foundations of a small, tower-like Roman fort.

'I was shaking when I first unearthed it': 11th-century silver coin hoard unearthed in England

Archaeologists have discovered 321 silver coins still wrapped in a cloth and lead pouch from a time in English history marked by upheaval due to the coronation of a new Anglo-Saxon king.

So many coin hordes!

'Surprise find' of 300-year-old ruins at Castle Ward

Archaeologists have been taken by surprise by the chance discovery of the remains of a collection of buildings in County Down believed to be more than 300 years old.

Forgotten paintings rediscovered in Mexican church restoration after 80 years of obscurity

For decades, the interior of the Temple of Our Lady of the Assumption, a church in the town of Santa María Huiramangaro in Mexico, stood stark white, with blue accents. But the parish was not always so bare. A new restoration has revealed a host of resplendent 16th-century religious paintings that once spanned the ceiling of the historic church.

Archaeologists uncover a 1,500-year-old Byzantine monastery

Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) have uncovered a 1,500-year-old monastery north of Kiryat Gat in the Southern District of Israel.

Study reexamines Magyar burial in Hungary

The researchers noted that jewelry has been recovered from men’s graves in the region, but weapons had not yet been identified in a woman’s tenth-century burial in the Carpathian Basin.

2,000-year-old painted penis bone found in quarry shaft from Roman Britain

While excavating outside London, archaeologists discovered thousands of bones thrown down a quarry shaft in Roman times. But one, in particular, stood out: a dog's baculum (penis bone) that had been painted red on one side.

Archaeologists discover Charles XII’s secret Galärvegen

Archaeologists from NIKU, working in collaboration with the Bohusläns Museum and the Vienna Institute for Archaeological Science (VIAS), have discovered traces of the Galärvegen during a georadar project near Blomsholm in Bohuslän, Sweden.

'Big surprise' reveals supposed skull of 'Cleopatra's sister' actually belongs to an 11-year-old boy

A skull long assumed to be from Arsinoë IV, Cleopatra's half sister, is actually from an adolescent boy who had a genetic disorder, according to researchers.

Slovakia sinkhole reveals historic underground structure

A sinkhole in western Slovakia has revealed a loch, an unlined, underground structure that was used to store food or as a refuge in times of unrest.

Ancient 'Stonehenge' in Golan Heights may not be astronomical observatory after all, archaeologists say

An ancient and enigmatic stone circle in the Middle East may not be a prehistoric astronomical observatory after all, according to a new study of satellite images.

Jamestown archaeologists hope ancient DNA can solve a gravesite mystery within historic church

The team at Historic Jamestown recently ruled out Sir George Yeardley as the identity of remains found within the oldest known section of the fort’s churches.

Museums

After laying off its 10-person team and cutting its hours ahead of the new year, the Pacific Tsunami Museum in Hilo, Hawaiʻi, is doing everything it can to stay open in light of mounting financial troubles that threaten to shutter the space entirely.

Heritage at risk

Flames from one of the wildfires raging across the Los Angeles region reached the grounds of the Getty Villa in Pacific Palisades on Tuesday (7 January) but only affected vegetation on the campus. The museum, which is operated by the J. Paul Getty Trust and houses its collection of Ancient Greek and Roman art, is located in a re-created Roman country villa on the west side of Pacific Palisades, one of the neighbourhoods that has been most affected by the rapidly moving wildfires, which continue to rage out of control amid strong winds.

Several Los Angeles museums and galleries are closed in response to Palisades, Eaton, and Hurst fires

Two museums burn in Los Angeles fires while others remain closed

Historic buildings destroyed in Southern California blazes

A running list of resources to help artists impacted by LA fires

(Going to add an editorial note: if you are asking yourself how these fires happened, the short answer is climate change. Not an attempt to cover up the crimes of Epstein and/or Diddy. Not DEI. Not Jewish space lasers. Not direct energy weapons. It's climate change interacting with the geography of Los Angeles. If you want to read about what makes LA so prone to fire, may I direct your attention to Ecology of Fear by Mike Davis.)

Utah authorities seek climber who inserted bolts into ancient petroglyph site

Utah authorities are seeking more information about a climber who installed climbing bolts into the site of an ancient petroglyph.

Off-road bikers using ancient monuments as racetracks

Ancient monuments across the UK face "complete destruction" from off-road bikers illegally using them as ramps and racetracks, archaeologists have warned.

Behind Ukraine and Russia's battle over 19th-century seascape painter

Both countries lay claim to Ivan Aivazovsky and his works, many of which were in Crimea when it was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014

National Trust for Canada Endangered Places List 2024

This year’s list highlights many of the underlying barriers to preserving places that are valued by communities. Losing historic places erases part of our shared past, removes landmarks from communities, and throws away embodied carbon. This year’s list illustrates how difficult it can be for historically marginalized communities to save places of importance to them.

Odds and ends

A 15th-century monastery in Tibet is still intact after a deadly 6.8 magnitude earthquake shook the northern foothills of Mount Everest.

Experience: I found treasures in a shipwreck

Ancient fish fossil suggests ‘living skeletons’ evolved 460 million years ago

X-ray analysis of bony scale shows vertebrates developed ability to remodel and repair bone much earlier than thought

[whencyclopedia]

Interview: Her Lotus Year. Wallis Simpson in China

Wallis Simpson (1896-1986) is often remembered as the wife of King Edward VIII, the Duke of Windsor. British monarch for less than a year in 1936, Edward preferred to abdicate the throne to be free to marry Wallis, an American woman who was considered unfit for the role of queen consort due to her previous two divorces. Before meeting Edward, Wallis spent a year in China, a period of time around which many rumours have spread. In this interview, James Blake Wiener speaks to Paul French, author of the book Her Lotus Year: China, The Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson (2024). Paul French is a British writer and journalist who worked in Shanghai for many years.

JBW: Wallis Simpson is often remembered for her role in the British abdication crisis of 1936, but Her Lotus Year reframes her as a more complex figure. Paul, what was it which motivated you to reexamine Wallis’ sojourn in China and write this title?

PF: I lived in Shanghai for many years and visitors would often ask about all the infamous rumours surrounding Wallis’s time in the city. The British tabloids particularly repeatedly bring up rumours of her sexual infidelities in Shanghai, suggested involvement in everything from prostitution to gambling rings, liaisons with opium dealers, horse nobbling gangs, posing for pornographic photographs, numerous affairs etc. I thought it was time to look a little closer at these allegations – which did so much to ruin her reputation in 1936 around the time of the Abdication Crisis.

Additionally, the year she spent in China – summer 1924 to summer 1925 – was an incredibly turbulent and politically fractious time of strikes, warlordism, and banditry. It’s a really pivotal year in China’s modern history between the end of the Qing and creation of the republic in 1911 and then the Japanese onslaught on China in 1937. I thought it would perhaps be interesting to show that year and its events through the eyes of someone a western audience perhaps has some familiarity with.

JBW: You have long specialized in Chinese history, and it is clearly a passion of yours. While researching this book, what discoveries or archival findings most surprised you as to Wallis’ time in China? Is there any single discovery or fact that we ought to know about in particular?

PF: Well, the rumours were all false. But, the stories all really did happen, just to other people. The British Intelligence officers who compiled the so-called ‘China Dossier’ on Wallis knew their Shanghai and old Beijing underworlds!

About Wallis herself I think the major revelation to me (the rumours of her in Shanghai never sounded right to me) was that she had come to Hong Kong initially with her husband (her first husband Win Spencer), a commander in the US Navy stationed there. He was a violent drunk who physically beat her repeatedly and she had to escape him. I don’t think that, whatever you think of Wallis Simpson, many think of her as an abused woman forced to flee a violent man into the dangerous hinterlands of 1924 China.

JBW: As a woman on the verge of divorce in a foreign country, Wallis faced the conflicting pressures of social conformity and personal ambition. In many ways, she was concurrently a product of her time and a woman ahead of it. Would it be fair to say that Wallis’ time in China served as a force in a personal transformation that would later color her life as the Duchess of Windsor?

PF: Absolutely. It took her a long time, and a lot of fights and beatings, before she left Spencer in Hong Kong. Her genteel Baltimore upbringing was adamantly against divorce and always assumed the breakdown of a marriage was the woman’s fault. But she finally plucked up the courage and left him. She went to Shanghai thinking she could get a divorce at the US Consulate there. She couldn’t as it transpired, but by then she had made the break and was in China.

After Shanghai, Wallis went to Beijing and fell in love with the ancient capital. It was here she had a genuine and passionate love affair, mixed in diplomatic circles, both foreign and Chinese, lived on a hutong in a charming courtyard house and really transformed into a more cosmopolitan woman able to mix in international society. She also developed a love of Chinese style – cheongsams, jade, embroideries, furniture etc – which stayed with her forever and wherever she lived afterwards.

JBW: Her Lotus Year vividly presents expatriate life in China during the 1920s. You also highlight Wallis’s interactions with other colorful characters. How representative – or exceptional – was Wallis’ experience compared to other Western women in China during the 1920s and 1930s?

PF: Independent western women were surprisingly common in 1920s Beijing. I think there’s a number of reasons for this including the many single (often widowed after WW1) intrepid European and American woman, the extension of the ocean liner routes to northern China, and the fact that in a Chinese city (as opposed to a colony like Hong Kong or a foreign-controlled treaty port like Shanghai) they could be entrepreneurial. They simply weren’t governed by the rules and social conventions of their home countries in Beijing. I think this is similarly why so many gay male aesthetes congregated in Beijing too. It almost became a kind of Asian outpost of the famous Lost Generation we normally associate with Paris in the ‘20s.

JBW: Your background in narrative nonfiction and storytelling is evident throughout this work. How did you balance historical accuracy with crafting a compelling and humanizing portrait of Wallis Simpson in Her Lotus Year?

PF: In my two previous books – Midnight in Peking and City of Devils – I’ve tried to reconstruct true crimes in inter-war China using literary non-fiction, by which I mean that I do all the research and then write it up using the techniques and style of the novelist. But I never invent characters, names, places or events. So I footnote, and list sources. You can check my research. But I want to write compelling narratives that take aspects of Chinese modern history to a wider audience than those who would buy a more straightforward history book. Let’s be honest, Chinese history is tough for many western readers, however fascinated they are by the place and the times – China has a LOT of history, the names can be tough for western readers, the places and events (who does any Chinese history in school in Europe or America?) unfamiliar. But perhaps wrapping it around popular genres like true crime or royal biography I can entice in a wider readership, but always making sure that the China history crowd feel they’re getting something original too.

JBW: Paul, we thank you very much for lending your time and expertise to our readers! On behalf of World History Encyclopedia, I wish you many happy adventures in your research.

Read More

⇒ Interview: Her Lotus Year. Wallis Simpson in China

[waitmyturtles]

Turtles Catches Up With Old GMMTV: The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine "Genre BLs," Along With a Critical Take on Branded Ships

[What’s going on here? After joining Tumblr and discovering Thai BLs through KinnPorsche in 2022, I began watching GMMTV’s new offerings -- and realized that I had a lot of history to catch up on, to appreciate the more recent works that I was delving into. From tropes to BL frameworks, what we’re watching now hails from somewhere, and I’m learning about Thai BL's history through what I’m calling the Old GMMTV Challenge (OGMMTVC). Starting with recommendations from @absolutebl on their post regarding how GMMTV is correcting for its mistakes with its shows today, I’ve made an expansive list to get me through a condensed history of essential/classic/significant Thai BLs produced by GMMTV and many other BL studios. My watchlist, pasted below, lists what I’ve watched and what’s upcoming, along with the reviews I’ve written so far. Today, I take a look at my very first GMMTV series that I ever watched, The Eclipse, to examine its prowess as a "genre" BL, and to take a critical stab at the branded ship model vis à vis a successful narrative.]

HELLO. Due to BIG SUMMER LIFE (!!!) (WOW -- work trips, work changes, new projects, the regular family stuff, so much travel!), I've been a couple months delayed on getting some words down on my recent rewatch of The Eclipse for my Old GMMTV Challenge project, but I'm glad to take some time now to talk about this show.

I'm at a point in the project where my syllabus (pasted at the bottom of this post) will take me into the territory of many shows that I've already watched since starting my Thai BL journey in the fall of 2022, shows that I watched while they were airing, such as Moonlight Chicken, Bed Friend, Be My Favorite, and others. (I will be offering short, non-rewatch notes on some of these shows as I go along in the chronology.) The Eclipse is one of these.

I wanted to specifically give The Eclipse a full rewatch for a couple of reasons, the biggest one being very personal, in that The Eclipse was my very first ever-EVER GMMTV series (!!!). And, the only Thai BL I had watched, in the late summer and fall of 2022, prior to The Eclipse was KinnPorsche.

So! At the time of my watching The Eclipse in 2022, I had nooooo idea who First Kanaphan or Khaotung Thanawat were; I didn't know about the existence of branded ships in Thai BLs yet; I didn't know about the prevalence and regularity of side couples in Thai BLs, as VegasPete had been my first exposure to that; I didn't effing know about the fabulousity that is Neo Trai, none of it.

I simply just watched the show on the recommendation of a dear mutual. And, fuck, man, I totally had expected WAY more salacious material in The Eclipse coming off of KinnPorsche! At first, I was like, Thailand is WILDIN', and then it was just the GMMTV-PG FirstKhao smooches, which was fine, they were great, ha! I wasn't disappointed, but lmao, that was my mindset and understanding of my very brief introduction to Thai BLs at that very moment -- I thought it was all guns and butts and mafiosos and pool sex.

Besides rewatching The Eclipse with my now-very-experienced Thai BL glasses on to fix ALL of those past assumptions, I also wanted to rewatch the show in the understanding that filmmaker and former politician, Golf Tanwarin (the first transgender member of parliament in Thailand's House of Representatives) was addressing homophobia and leveraging their screenplay to talk about themes of stifling conformation in Thai society vis à vis the fictional environment of the Suppalo boys school. I want to demarcate this moment as an important one: at this point of my syllabus, the late summer and fall of 2022, the Thai BL landscape exists still mostly within the no-homophobia bubble, with only a handful of shows (He's Coming To Me, Secret Crush On You, etc.) stepping out of that bubble to grab the theme of homophobia and really wrangle with it frontally by way of familial and social acceptance.

However, I have to admit something as I write this review. During this recent rewatch, I had the benefit not just of my past historical chronological viewing of old shows behind me to judge The Eclipse's success as a show and as a messenger of deeper themes past straightforward romance; but I also had the benefit of foresight into the future, seeing how First and Khao served as a branded couple again in Only Friends, a series that, I believe, flopped in its narrative end due to the show prioritizing happy endings for its branded couples, rather than taking the time and the risks to break the branded ships up (or, at least, rock their foundations) to offer sophisticated social commentary on casual sex, as the initial marketing for Only Friends had initially promised.

In other words, I had critical glasses on for FirstKhao's performance, not necessarily for the actors themselves (well, kinda, lemme be for real), but I also wanted to understand better how The Eclipse centered THEM as an IT, a tangible IT, the branded ship, either against and/or vis à vis Golf's underlying critical messaging on social conformity and homophobia.

Unfortunately, through that critical lens, what I gained out of this rewatch of The Eclipse is a confirmed judgement that the common Thai BL structure of very much CENTERING a branded ship, especially emanating out of GMMTV, the central home for branded ships in Thailand, will almost CERTAINLY render a show attempting to make higher messages a weaker one in the end.

I found myself FULLY enjoying The Eclipse out of the FirstKhao sequences. When I first watched The Eclipse in 2022, I was a Thua hater, and I engaged for the very first time with @respectthepetty and others on subsequent defenses of Thua's outing of Akk and Ayan in the context of Akk and Ayan acting like loose-cannon-dillholes themselves. (This was a fabulous intro to my engaging with others on Tumblr, by the way, and I remember this discourse fondly!)

This time around, with the blessing of hindsight, I fully appreciated Louis Thanawin's FANTASTIC performance at the end of the series, as an overly frustrated and overwhelmed student wrangling with his sexuality, his attraction to Kan, and watching Kan's own struggles with his own sexuality, along with dealing with an overbearing stepfather -- and all of that happening while he was watching the hypocrisy of Akk slowly warming to Ayan, while Akk simultaneously punished The World Remembers gang. Louis, as Thua, fucking nailed it, and was an utter cutie at the end with Kan (including in Our Skyy 2, swoon). And forget about Neo Trai: Neo as Kan was one of the best performances I've seen of Neo's, as a student struggling literally to the second to manage his outward displays of automatic attraction to Thua for the sake of maintaining a façade of "order" for the Suppalo environment.

How does all of this impact my thoughts on FirstKhao as a branded ship, and AkkAyan as a fictional couple in The Eclipse?

There was so much great commentary on mental health, on social pressures and conformity, and on the reliance of history to contextualize and engage in suppression, in this show. The show hit hard and impactfully on these themes. As I just mentioned, the story of Thua was a welcome inclusion of the various ways in which homophobia impacted the Suppalo environment on micro- and macro-levels. The story of Dika is also gutting, and I appreciated The Eclipse for never turning an eye away from Ayan's continued suffering at losing his uncle so traumatically. (I also understand that there was quite a lot of conservative protest against The Eclipse in Thailand, and that the show being shortened by two episodes may have been related to this, along with the show airing during ongoing student protests.)

Unfortunately, I believe The Eclipse tripped on itself when it stepped away from these themes to move to more lighthearted moments with AkkAyan. I think the centering of this ship led to a number of key unfulfilled narrative moments, including a key factual skip later in the series, when Ayan indicates to Akk that Akk had made a promise to reveal his work against The World Remembers, a promise that did not have prior reference in earlier episodes.

This isn't to say that a budding couple can't have sweet moments. And we saw a tremendous amount of trauma coming from both Akk and Ayan, with Ayan's ongoing anger at Suppalo, and Akk's fear of rejection for his and his family's financial state, leading him to embody Suppalo's culture of suppression for the sake of his own survival at the school. These very-deeply messed-up fictional boys absolutely deserved and needed love.

But I found myself taking the most notes on this show when I felt the tones of previous scenes of protest, trauma, or attack were juxtaposed against getting Akk and Ayan together for a subsequent scene, especially later in the series, when their flirtation continued to grow. I felt this particularly during the outdoor Twitter scene in the bleachers, when Akk and Ayan were using tweets as a means of finding out who was running the counterprotest Twitter account, which was placed right after a particularly brutal attack against The World Remembers. I needed to flip my emotional attention back to a practiced GMMTV routine of watching a ship continue to warm up to each other for memorable and meme-able moments, and I found that juxtaposition jarring.

As opposed to Not Me, GMMTV's first "genre" BL that played with a sandbox outside of romance, The Eclipse was on steadier feet. While Not Me really tried to play around de-centering a shipped pair in OffGun, it truly stumbled in rushing back to inject romance throughout the storyline, particularly with DanYok taking up unexpected and discordant room (ACAB, YOK). And outside of GMMTV, we've seen many "genre" BLs actually work really well, most notably to that point in 2022, the crime-driven Manner of Death (MaxTul, my beloved), which balanced a developing romance with a legitimately interesting and unwinding mystery, all with a sharp and solid screenplay that didn't stray from its intended purpose. (Maybe I'm getting my hopes up too soon, but we're seeing "genre" BL doing well right now with 4 Minutes, and GMMTV has another, riskier, "genre" BL coming up in its crime-driven series, Kidnap.)

GMMTV, however, demands something economically from its shows, a sellable final product that can be transmogrified into fan meetings, branded items, and most of all, enduring and memorable legacies for the branded ships that center most of its BLs. At the time of The Eclipse's airing, both First and Khao had been previously paired with others (First with Gawin Caskey in Not Me; Khao with Podd Suphakorn in Tonhon Chonlotee), and the sao wais had been eagerly awaiting the debut of FirstKhao, and were fed nicely.

I can't say, quantifiably, if the majority of the global Thai BL fandom, or even the majority of the GMMTV fandom, are sao wais who only watch GMMTV shows for branded ships and guaranteed happy endings between shipped actors that only partner with the same person over and over again. I also believe that at this moment in time (in 2024), that we may be seeing differences in preferences emanating from fandoms based in Thailand, China, elsewhere in Asia, and globally, particularly in Europe and North and South America, between fans that will willingly support branded ships through very bad narrative shows, versus fans that prefer well-scripted shows above all else.

I think, after the economic earthquake that was the airing of 2gether in 2020, that GMMTV made a hard-turn decision to prioritize series that centered repeating branded ships above all other kinds of investment in other shows, including excellent screenplays.

I say this not to bemoan the opportunity for Thai filmmakers to have economic success. If these shows are making coin for Thai creatives -- maybe even the kind of coin that will allow these creatives to have more artistic freedom in their futures -- then I cannot begrudge that at all, and I wish these artists economic success.

But from a critical viewpoint of artistically narrative success, I'd argue that the last truly great narrative show of GMMTV's portfolio is 2021-22's Bad Buddy, featuring a branded ship in OhmNanon that I'm sure the network wanted to use again, one that both Nanon Korapat and Ohm Pawat knew they didn't want to repeat. Since then, while we've had a small amount of storytelling gems out of GMMTV like Moonlight Chicken, Cherry Magic Thailand, and Cooking Crush, most of what's come out of that studio has been mediocre for the past few years, with some aching stumbles having been had in shows like 23.5, Wandee Goodday, and My Love Mix-Up Thailand, which is airing now.

A major complaint across social media right now about My Love Mix-Up Thailand, centering Gemini Norawit and Fourth Nattawat, is that the show rushes to create meme-able moments between them, which is more in line with GMMTV's bottom line of engagement first. My Love Mix-Up/Kieta Hatsukoi is an utterly beloved Japanese manga and dorama. While G4 fans are drumming up the level of social media engagement that GMMTV judges "success" on, many other general BL fans have been left disappointed by the show's pulling back from honoring certain moments of hilarity and connection with the original Japanese source material (how could Fourth NOT go into the trash can?!).

I posit that it was 2gether's 2020 airing that encouraged GMMTV to make the pivot from investing in well-crafted screenplays, and taking risks to split ships up -- as the network did with Tay Tawan in 2019's 3 Will Be Free -- to center the branded ships.

And I think 2022's The Eclipse is an excellent example of the result of this decision-making: that while The Eclipse's core ideas within its screenplay were admirable, and much of the acting and romance outside of the branded ship were great to watch, that the show's needing to leave the central path of the narrative central story to spotlight the FirstKhao ship to create engagement-worthy moments ultimately took power away from the show and its message.

Only Friends -- a late-2023 show that initially marketed itself on breaking up ships and celebrating casual sex -- came back around in the end to scold any of us fans that wanted to see the ships sink. The dynamic between First and Khao in Only Friends was incredibly similar to their dynamic in The Eclipse: First acting as a tough-guy character who couldn't help being simp-ly swept away by an overpowering character played by Khao. I'm afraid the same will be repeated again in Jojo Tichakorn's next show, The Heart Killers, and I'd like to be proven wrong there, but.

It's incredible for me to reflect on what I know now about The Eclipse, and how this otherwise-excellent show was, in my eyes, economically impacted by the casting decision to prioritize a branded ship over the narrative cohesiveness of a screenplay. GMMTV has only committed even more to this path since The Eclipse's airing.

For the sake of excellent actors like First, and especially Khao: I hope they can have the future opportunity to spread their wings and act with other actors (as the very extreme majority of actors in entertainment get to enjoy), to shake off the economic prioritizing of branded ships in order to access better screenplays and stories. They deserve it, as hard-working creatives, and I'll certainly support them outside of the branded ship model, one that I believe is showing artistic wear and tear as more branded ship shows keep narratively sinking.

[Alright! So, where am I on the OGMMTV list? I've actually already finished the next show on my list, GAP The Series, this summer, and I hope I can pen that review in short order to get this series back on some kind of timely track.

HOWEVER, HEH HEH, that's actually going to be a bit difficult for me as, per the recommendation of a couple of BL elders, I am backtracking chronologically and tackling 2022's The Miracle of Teddy Bear, Thailand's first queer primetime, broadcast channel-level lakorn, which consists of 16 90-minute episodes, which, woof. Despite its hefty length, I am terribly excited to watch a show (a lakorn, EEEE!) out of the usual Thai BL bubble, one that I understand has been potentially misunderstood and/or mis-marketed to BL fandoms over the years. For the sake of its primetime airing alone, it holds an important place on the OGMMTVC syllabus. And I can't wait to take a crack at a Thai major channel's first attempt to make queer content and BL-genre-influenced content a primetime offering.

This means that, once again, My School President has been held at a delay, but I will get to MSP soon, I SWEAR! (And....oops. I'm thiiiiiinking that I might watch My Love Mix-Up after MSP at literal warp speed, literally 1.5x, to do another piece on branded ships vis à vis G4 and Au Kornprom in 2022 vs. 2024. We'll see. I may not wanna do that to myself, but... but! For science?!?! Maybe.)

Here's the updated OGMMTVC syllabus for your perusal. ONWARDS!

1) The Love of Siam (2007) (movie) (review here) 2) My Bromance (2014) (movie) (review here) 3) Love Sick and Love Sick 2 (2014 and 2015) (review here) 4) Gay OK Bangkok Season 1 (2016) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 5) Make It Right (2016) (review here) 6) SOTUS (2016-2017) (review here) 7) Gay OK Bangkok Season 2 (2017) (a non-BL queer series directed by Jojo Tichakorn and written by Aof Noppharnach) (review here) 8) Make It Right 2 (2017) (review here) 9) Together With Me (2017) (review here) 10) SOTUS S/Our Skyy x SOTUS (2017-2018) (review here) 11) Love By Chance (2018) (review here) 12) Kiss Me Again: PeteKao cuts (2018) (no review) 13) He’s Coming To Me (2019) (review here) 14) Dark Blue Kiss (2019) and Our Skyy x Kiss Me Again (2018) (review here) 15) TharnType (2019-2020) (review here) 16) Senior Secret Love: Puppy Honey (OffGun BL cuts) (2016 and 2017) (no review) 17) Theory of Love (2019) (review here) 18) 3 Will Be Free (2019) (a non-BL and an important harbinger of things to come in 2019 and beyond re: Jojo Tichakorn pushing queer content in non-BLs) (review here) 19) Dew the Movie (2019) (review here) 20) Until We Meet Again (2019-2020) (review here) (and notes on my UWMA rewatch here)

21) 2gether (2020) and Still 2gether (2020) (review here) 22) I Told Sunset About You (2020) (review here) 23) YYY (2020, out of chronological order) (review here) 24) Manner of Death (2020-2021) (review here) 25) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) (review here) 26) A Tale of Thousand Stars (2021) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For The Sake Of Rewatching Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (re-review here) 27) Lovely Writer (2021) (review here) 28) Last Twilight in Phuket (2021) (the mini-special before IPYTM) (review here) 29) I Promised You the Moon (2021) (review here) 30) Not Me (2021-2022) (review here)

31) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) (thesis here) 32) 55:15 Never Too Late (2021-2022) (not a BL, but a GMMTV drama that features a macro BL storyline about shipper culture and the BL industry) (review here) 33) Bad Buddy (2021-2022) and Our Skyy 2 x BBS x ATOTS (2023) OGMMTVC Rewatch (Links to the BBS OGMMTVC Meta Series are here: preamble here, part 1, part 2, part 3a, part 3b, and part 4) 34) Secret Crush On You (2022) (review here) 35) The Miracle of Teddy Bear (2022) (watching) 36) KinnPorsche (2022) (tag here)  37) KinnPorsche (2022) OGMMTVC Fastest Rewatch Known To Humankind For the Sake of Re-Analyzing the KP Cultural Zeitgeist (part 1 and part 2) 38) Honorable Mention: War of Y (2022) (for the sake of an attempt to provide meta BL commentary within a BL in the modern BL era), with a complementary watch of Aam Anusorn’s documentary, BL: Broken Fantasy (2020) (thoughts here) 39) The Eclipse (2022) (tag here) 40) The Eclipse OGMMTVC Rewatch to Reexamine "Genre BLs," Along With a Critical Take on Branded Ships

41) GAP (2022-2023) (Thailand’s first GL) (review coming) 42) My School President (2022-2023) and Our Skyy 2 x My School President (2023) 43) Moonlight Chicken (2023) (tag here) 44) Bed Friend (2023) (tag here) 45) La Pluie (2023) (review coming) 46) Be My Favorite (2023) (tag here) (I’m including this for BMF’s sophisticated commentary on Krist’s career past as a BL icon) 47) Wedding Plan (2023) (Recommended as an important trajectory in the course of MAME’s work and influence from TharnType) 48) Only Friends (2023) (tag here) (not technically a BL, but it certainly became one in the end) 49) Last Twilight (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as Thailand’s first major BL to center disability, successfully or otherwise) 50) Cherry Magic Thailand (2023-24) (tag here) (on the list as the first major Japanese-to-Thai drama adaptation, featuring the comeback of TayNew)

51) Ossan’s Love Returns (2024) (adding for the EarthMix cameo and the eventual Thai remake) 52) Dead Friend Forever (2024) (thoughts here) 53) 23.5 (2024) (GMMTV’s first GL) (thoughts here)]

[scruncheduppaper]

i find it interesting that this little revived dsmp era doesnt really talk about c!wilbur as a character anymore because obviously the issues with cc!wilbur (ALSO FOR THE RECORD I DO NOT FUCKIBG SUPPORT HIM AT ALL)

but like genuinely he’s actually one of the most interestingly written characters on the server (might i say the most interesting?) and like. even though cc!wilbur is a piece of shit i still think he was a brilliant writer and his character on the smp changed my life kinda

i think people tend to conflate character morality/character writing flaws/character likeabilty/creator’s status and while those things can influence each other its not like those are the same thing

i definitely feel like after his revival he became a little bit less interesting, i think ghostbur was kind of unnecessary and i also think his ending was incredibly underwhelming, but the recontextualisation of his character and relationship with quackity with tntduo was an absolutely insane move

honestly i kinda also feel like cc!wilbur being a dick irl makes me kind of reexamine c!wilbur’s character and overall arc in a whole new light, like both within his character flaws and writing flaws — i wouldnt call it wasted potential because i genuinely dont think this could have gone any other way

anyways all im saying is, if you truly want to make dsmp separate from the ccs, please dont be afraid to make more content of c!wil lol. like. dont rewrite history or whatever. i hardly even think abt cc!wilbur these days and i didnt really care for him back then, but just because hes outed as a dick now doesnt mean his art didnt have an impact on you back then

sometimes bad people make good art and thats okay

what matters is what you take out of it

[arinzeture]

Cheikh Anta Diop was a prominent Senegalese scientist, historian, writer, and politician. His groundbreaking works have significantly contributed to the understanding of African history and culture. Diop's extensive research focused on challenging Eurocentric views and promoting the importance of African civilizations.

One of Diop's most influential books, "African Origin of Civilization," presented compelling evidence supporting the idea that ancient Egypt was an African civilization. This work debunked the prevailing notion that African societies had not made significant contributions to world history. "Black Africa" further emphasized the rich cultural heritage of Africa, shedding light on the continent's diverse civilizations and achievements.

In "Civilization or Barbarism," Diop explored the impact of colonialism on African societies and highlighted the need for a reevaluation of African history. His works continue to inspire scholars and readers worldwide to reexamine preconceived notions about Africa and its contributions to human civilization. Cheikh Anta Diop's legacy as a multifaceted intellectual and advocate for African heritage remains a cornerstone in the study of African history and culture.