#so many moments!

[respectthepetty]

I feel like it's been awhile since we've had a good example of a purple pair... would you say this is being overshadowed by pink = love as a narrative color choice?

Also, what are some of your favorite purple pair / pink = love moments?

Anon, I'm tickled pink due to your amazing questions, so let me give you some answers!

Would you say [purple pairs] are being overshadowed by pink = love as a narrative color choice?

No.

Purple Pairs normally come from couples being color coded red and blue. When those two colors are combined, they make purple. For example, Oh! My Assistant showed the gay man as red, the "straight" man as blue

And the bisexual man as purple since he is "between" straight and gay.

But if the people aren't color coded red and blue, it doesn't make a lot of sense to use purple to show them coming together, and in 2023, a majority of the shows I watched had a black x white color-coded pair, not a red x blue, so purple wouldn't be the obvious choice for love.

Also, sometimes it's difficult to distinguish colors.

Are we looking at pink, purple, or blue?

Or is it bisexual lighting?

In the first photo from Kiseki: Dear to Me, to me, it's pink with purple in the background, but in the second photo from KinnPorsche, I'd argue it's purple since I can see the red and blue lighting components, but . . . colors are a spectrum. They bleed into one another so where one stops and another begins is blurry, and sometimes hard to decipher.

Which naturally flows well into your second ask:

Top Ten - Favorite Purple Pair/Pink=Love Moments

given in no particular order

Run for Love - My School President

Tinn was a Blue Boy. Gun was a Red Rascal. And yet when they went on their run, their colors morphed into pink and purple. They were learning more about each other with each passing episodes, but the colors clearly showed that the love was going to get them through no matter what obstacles they ran into.

Love is Intense - The Sign

Both couples got this treatment in the show. When they kissed at the beginning, it was a soft pink, but once their love escalated to sex either fictional or real, the pink intensified. It is such an amazing narrative using lighting that it earned FOUR nominations for my upcoming 2024 Colors Awards.

Love is Soft - Never Let Me Go

Palm and Nueng flipped the dynamic we saw in The Sign, but Cinematographer Rath, who is behind Moonlight Chicken, Only Friends, Last Twilight and many more beloved BLs was the one in charge here, so it's not surprising. The boys started off with a vibrant purple that slowly transitioned into a soft pink throughout the series to show their differences melting until there was nothing left but each other and the loved they shared.

Love Games - Dead Friend Forever

Even though this show filled my Macau x Porchay shipper heart after manifesting for two years that Barcode and Ta from KinnPorsche kiss, it also broke me in less than two seconds with this scene. The lovers kissed in an arcade under the pink neon light, but did the red creeping in over Phee signal they would be tied together forever like their bracelets made of red thread suggested or that danger was awaiting both of them? I never feel sure, but I do know this moment is evidence that they did love each other, once, and it was real for both of them.

Love Blooms - Be My Favorite

This actually won the 2023 Colors Award for Best Pink, and it's all thanks to that pink wisteria. Going through this list, most of the love is shown through lighting or clothing, but this show made it clear through a plant that symbolizes friendship, love, and longevity which perfectly aligned with the themes of the show and this couple's relationship. It earned that award!

Signs of Love - Semantic Error

This is visual rhetoric at its finest, and it was THE moment. We got the pink and purple neon sign that read, "Lovely pink. Love Me. Kiss Me" boxing in a boy who was running away from love as his pursuer attempted to make it clear that he loved him after they kissed. Sang Woo didn't stand a chance, and all signs pointed out that he was already in love with Jae Young too. Amazing, right?

Love, Meta - Middleman's Love & Last Twilight

These aren't "love" moments per se, but they were amazing nonetheless because they were a little nod to what pink represents. Middleman's Love saw our lead's love life color his world and everything in it pink, and when he asked his boyfriend why, the simple response was because they were in love. Then, Last Twilight gave a small ode to pink milk which was once a staple in BL series and put the "love" in Boys Love.

Anti Love - Love is Better the Second Time Around

After an ex-love told Hiro he was still very much in love with Hiro, Hiro immediately ran off to propose to his girlfriend during the cheesiest proposal dinner possible. Thankfully, she rejected him, but this scene was meta without saying it was meta unlike Middleman's Love and Last Twilight. It leaned all the way into what the pink represented then bashed it like it was a piñata at a six-year old's birthday party. It was glorious.

Between Love and Like - Deep Night

These two have liked each other since the first episode, but this moment visually presented what it feels like to realize it actually might be something more. They themselves aren't pink, but they are caught in the pink with the blinding light of realization (or love?) right behind them. Do they just like each other? Are they just caught up in the moment? Or might they actually love each other?

Open Your Heart to Love - Dangerous Romance

Ending where we began, this list finishes with a Blue Boy and Red Rascal but instead of purple and pink windbreakers, we got matching pink shirts and purple water. After failing to impress a girl, Kanghan had to change his clothes and was forced to wear a pink "Open House. Open Heart" shirt. Unlike Kanghan, who looked miserable in his new outfit, Sailom was more than excited to get a free shirt out of their adventure. It's not Semantic Error, but the visual rhetoric is clear - Kanghan had already opened his house to Sailom, so why not his heart as well? And once Kanghan was finally ready to make his love clear, the bath he shared with Sailom was magically a blend of their colors, and we finally got purple.

Regardless of how people felt about the show, it understood the color assignment, and I loved it.

Bonus - Purple is the New Pink - Wandee Goodday

Hopefully, you noticed throughout this list how often pink and purple reside in the same scene, and how we see purple more often when the pairs are color coded red and blue. But Wandee Goodday is giving us an actual purple color-coded character in the form of the main character Wandee, so instead of seeing the normal pink for love in this behind-the-scene image, we see Yak being engulfed in Wandee's purple, which means he is probably realizing in this exact moment not just that he loves Wandee, but just how intense that love really is.

But it should be obvious how much Yak loves Wandee if he is willing to be the little bunny wunny for his big cat.

So, all in all, thanks for the ask and for coming with me on this pink (and purple) adventure.

[macdenlover]

it came to my realization that 99% of my fandom related headaches would be cured if everyone understood this

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Must be a Sugondese joke.

[ruporas]

dragon meat, you, and me

[roz-ani]

THIS TOOK ME SO OFF GUARD

IT'S HIS NORMAL VOICE- THERE WAS NO RADIO- THE FACT THAT IT HAPPENED- IT'S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT EVERYONE'S ASLEEP AND I CAN'T SCREAM

[melimelotus]

[blueboyluca]

“When I first heard it, from a dog trainer who knew her behavioral science, it was a stunning moment. I remember where I was standing, what block of Brooklyn’s streets. It was like holding a piece of polished obsidian in the hand, feeling its weight and irreducibility. And its fathomless blackness. Punishment is reinforcing to the punisher. Of course. It fit the science, and it also fit the hidden memories stored in a deeply buried, rusty lockbox inside me. The people who walked down the street arbitrarily compressing their dogs’ tracheas, to which the poor beasts could only submit in uncomprehending misery; the parents who slapped their crying toddlers for the crime of being tired or hungry: These were not aberrantly malevolent villains. They were not doing what they did because they thought it was right, or even because it worked very well. They were simply caught in the same feedback loop in which all behavior is made. Their spasms of delivering small torments relieved their frustration and gave the impression of momentum toward a solution. Most potently, it immediately stopped the behavior. No matter that the effect probably won’t last: the reinforcer—the silence or the cessation of the annoyance—was exquisitely timed. Now. Boy does that feel good.”

— Melissa Holbrook Pierson, The Secret History of Kindness (2015)

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

getting older can be so amazing? you get more familiar with yourself. learn tips & tricks for troubleshooting your own brain. trial & error helps you build routines that minimize discomfort, maximize reward. your preferences/interests don't get set in stone, but you do find out which ones are going to stay with you in the long-term, and which ones are fun but transient joys to appreciate in the moment.

you learn that the world is so much more complex than you were taught, and that that's okay, and that there's an endless supply of things you can learn or watch or experience or think about if you want to. if you're lucky, you loosen up, stop putting so much pressure on yourself. if you're lucky, you learn to recognize that negative inner voice, and whack it with a baseball bat until it hushes up. if you're lucky, you learn to treat yourself gently, not because you are fragile but because you are worthy of gentleness. (i hope you are lucky.)

and some things will change. some things will get better. some things will get good. and maybe you start to recover from the dehumanizing stress of childhood/education. maybe you learn the power of your own autonomy. maybe you learn how to walk away from bad situations (which is a superpower even if you don't realize it yet). and you get to choose your own clothes. and your own food. and which relationships to pursue! and what you do with your free time. and with your life (but don't worry you get to choose that gradually). and that's crazy! and sometimes scary. and extraordinarily, indescribably precious.

[riickgrimes]

I know who you are. You're Fire and Ice, right? Which one's which?

CHALLENGERS (2024) dir. Luca Guadagnino

[lieu-rey]

first meeting

[ohbother2]

do you know what?

I miss long seasons.

I miss seasons that had 20 episodes and half of them could be cut and nothing would be lost to the story.

I miss the episodes where nothing fucking happens but you get to see the main cast goofing around with one another. You get to see their interactions, their relationships develop, their day-to-day lives and how they all fit together in them.

You get the Christmas/halloween/valentine's special -is it needed? certainly not. but is it good? is it entertaining? does it give the show and characters life? do we, the viewers, enjoy it? YES!

give me long stories!! give me little quarrelling spats between characters that can be resolved in one episode with no need to have an impact on the greater story! make these stories real!

let me enjoy them before they end!!!

I absolutely love Hazbin Hotel and the little world that's been created, but I can't help but feel disappointed we're only getting two seasons of 8 episodes.

back in the early 2000's 16 episodes would have been ONE season, never mind the entire thing.

show my angel dust and husk and nifty and sir penthouse living their daily lives in the hotel! show me Charlie brainstorming ways to redeem sinners! give me Charlie forcing the hotel staff to do cringe-y exercises! give me an entire episode of Vox trying to follow alastor through security cameras! Give me husks typical day! Give me a special through the eyes of nifty on a mission to irradiate the hotel of bugs! Give me sir penthouse and the egg boys up to no good!

give me something other than the bare necessities to make the story flow

6 months have nearly gone by in the hotel, and it feels like 1 month.

[twilight-zoned-out]

The Ken dance is so magnificent because it’s reminiscent of the Golden Age of Musicals when there would just be artful dance sequences for no reason other than the director wanted to have one.

[thefrogdalorian]

Goodbye Carl Weathers 💔

Thank you for bringing so much to The Mandalorian as Greef Karga. Your acting and directing contributions will never be forgotten. May you rest in peace.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Soup solves everything.

[ruporas]

your love returns in tragedy (ID in alt)

[twisted-deal]

Spreading my agenda that Ace Trappola might be the worst and best option for Heartslabyul's next housewarden