#this storyline might end up as the most memorable one in the drama for me

[sapphic-eclipse]

"Love, show me love. I place a bookmark on the memorable night, and open it up without anyone knowing. In spite of it all, my love has the same dream. In spite of it all, I will not delay the dream I’m dreaming ever again." - jannabi's "for lovers who hesitate"

[heartofstanding]

Rewatching old favourite crime dramas...

I just finished rewatching Vera up to Series 9, am in the middle of a rewatch of Death in Paradise and have started rewatching Wallander as well and am having some thoughts so I'd thought I'd write a post instead of just stewing in these thoughts.

Vera

I love her, your honour.

I love Vera, I love the location and how it's so beautifully shot, I love the slightly gothic edge to the mysteries. Most memorable episodes for me are "The Crow Trap" and "The Deer Hunters". It holds up really well too - sometimes I'll rewatch a crime drama that I once loved and find myself getting increasingly intolerant of the way it deploys certain tropes, like the tortured brooding lead detective with anger issues and/or a tragic backstory or "internal investigations are bad actually" or "it's fine for the lead detective to lose his temper and almost murder someone" which spoiled Waking the Dead and The Inspector Lynley Mysteries for me (the latter in the final seasons, mostly). Vera lacks most of that kind of drama. Vera is, in a way, a tortured, brooding detective but it never takes over the story.

One thing I did pick up on is that while I don't really have any preference for Aiden or Joe as Vera's offsider, I do miss the way that Joe's character opened up different storylines. We don't get nearly as much about Aiden's family and home life as we do about Joe's, and we got more about Vera's past and private life with Joe, like the subplots about her half-sister and her angina. I do feel cheated that Joe's exit happened off-screen, between series, but apparently he's coming back in Series 13?

(n.b. I finished at Series 9 because I don't have Series 10 on DVD, I started Series 11 but it was a bit too fresh in my mind and Series 12 isn't out on DVD yet.)

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Death In Paradise

This isn't the first rewatch of the show I've done (the early seasons I've rewatched multiple times, they're very familiar and I can remember whodunnit) but I haven't watched any of the newer seasons since Series 8, except for a couple of episodes (I watched the one with Sam West and the one where Camille came back). I'm halfway through Series 9 at the moment so officially this is no longer a rewatch but a first-time watch.

It's interesting to see how my opinions have changed. I still think the show was strongest in relation to its core concept in Series 1 and 2. You can really tell the way they were planning the show to unfold had they managed to hold onto Ben Miller as Richard and Sara Martins as Camille, and I do really like that version of the show. But they didn't and the show had to change and that's fine. I used to be very fond of Humphrey but I found him painful in the rewatch - he hits my second-hand embarrassment squick much too hard and his unrequited love for Camille was... ah, not good? I was glad to see him go, tbh. Perhaps because of that, I appreciated Jack a whole lot more - I previously felt he didn't really have much of a character beyond "rambling Irishman" but that is really unfair. I just watched his last episode and I'm very sad to see him - I also felt his ending felt a bit... contrary to the character and the way he threw himself into island life, becoming part of the community in a way neither Richard and Humphrey never did. Neville seems a bit of a return to Richard, in that he doesn't want to be on the island, except by making him have so many medical issues, it really feels like that yeah, he really shouldn't be there.

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Have been pondering how awesome it'd be if the next Death in Paradise detective is in the model of Vera.

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Wallander

I needed something to watch in the space where I normally watched Vera and I remembered how I was going to try and watch some things in Swedish in effort to help myself learn Swedish better (I'm doing the Duolingo course, it's not going well), and well, this isn't in Swedish but it's set in Sweden so it might just do for now. I went... slightly insane* over it in my first and only watch but I thought I was safe now.

Yeah, well that happened again.

The thing I really like about it is Tom Hiddleston's face the way in which it spends a fair amount time of the affects of coming face-to-face with violent, brutal crime. How intensely Wallander feels everything, how involved he gets, and how all of that just means he's held at a remove from his family, friends and co-workers. He has this remarkable empathy that keeps him cut off from them.

It's also beautifully shot and I'm obsessed with the title credits.

Parts of it hold up fairly well - I feel "Faceless Killers" is still very pertinent to today, though I suspect there would a bit less... "both sidesing" within the main cast. Parts of it do not hold up well, like "One Step Behind" which, uh, is kinda extremely transphobic in a way that does not refute the transphobia.

The language and accent choices throw me occasionally in this rewatch. I think what they ended up going for is the translation trope/convention where the characters are not actually speaking English but are actually speaking Swedish, we just hear them in English, and a similar logic applies with the British vs. Swedish accents. When we see text, it's in Swedish, not English, which tends to confirm my hypothesis. Given the unlikelihood of the BBC doing the series in Swedish and the perils of getting the cast to put on an accent (no one wants to accidentally invoke the Swedish Chef in a brooding crime drama), I think this "they're speaking Swedish, we just hear it as English" thing works pretty well. But there still moments where it pulls me out of the story because the dialogue sounds so terribly British.

Random note: the cast of the first episode is like, full of pretty damn famous people? Obviously, there's Kenneth Branagh and a pre-Loki Tom Hiddleston as series regulars. Plus there's Nicholas Hoult and Rebecca Ferguson in guest roles. There's also a lot of people who are the sort of people you know for turning up in British TV shows, like Sarah Smart and Sophie Stanton (who, most memorably for me, was Falstaff and Caliban in the Donmar Warehouse's Henry IV and The Tempest).

Also, this reflection from when I first watched the show is still true. I thought I was over my Hiddleston phase but he's so fucking pretty in this show. It's distracting. It's literally sir, sir, sir, I am trying to watch Kenneth Branagh have a mental breakdown while solving crime in Sweden here. Take your cheekbones and go somewhere else.

Which he does at the end of Series 2 and then I miss him. Obviously, it doesn't impact the series that much - I enjoyed Series 3 and 4, his character isn't important to the story and isn't that interesting. But I liked the dynamics of the team and I dislike losing that (we also lose Lisa at the same time, and Ann-Britt only sticks around for a bit longer before she's gone too). I'm sad we lose that. I'm also a depraved whump lover and frankly think it was a wasted opportunity. Send Magnus off horribly (as Ann-Britt and Svedberg were sent off) and let Wallander writhe and wallow around in the guilt and grief. Also, I am completely shallow and didn't really want Hiddleston to take his cheekbones and go.

* I, uh, may have written an 87k word thing that's 3/4 whumpy fanfic and 1/4 origfic because it was November and I was doing NaNoWriMo and I was too hyped up to research and too scared to commit fully to the fanfic. I've reread and I feel like it holds up ok. I think the Kurt voice is good, as is the "gets too invested without being able to show it" thing. I am experiencing the urge to turn it into proper fanfic. I need to see how S2 ends and S3 begins but it could even work well as a "and that's where Magnus went" fic. But I don't think there's a fandom for the show outside of the migratory Hiddleston smut fandom.

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That last point is one of those things with British crime dramas. It's quite common for some of the regular cast to leave between series and you might get a throwaway line about why they're no longer there but there's no proper send-off, no real resolution for the character, and sometimes there's no explanation. It happened in Vera, Death in Paradise, Wallander, Waking the Dead, and probably more than I just can't think of. I understand why it happens but it does make for frustrating storytelling.

The most egregious is Joe leaving Vera - he was the most important character after her! We were invested in his relationship with his family! The relationship between him and Vera was so paramount to the series! And he just disappears between series and his departure explained in a line about a "big promotion". Sure, this ties up one of the parts of his storyline quickly but there's no scene to say goodbye to him, no sense of closure. He's just gone.

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Both Vera and Wallander are based on novels by Ann Cleeves and Henning Mankell. I've read a few novels of both series (and Cleeves's Shetland series) and I have to say... I feel the TV series really elevate them. With Wallander, maybe it's a case of a bad translation or something else but it seemed to lack something - perhaps the prose felt too simplistic or too blunt? With Cleeves, I think it's a case of has all the right elements, just doesn't have the ability to take it to the next level... I find I enjoy her novels more when I haven't seen their TV adaptation or are significantly different, but they're still not novels that I have to read. I wish the Shetland series had stuck with adapting Cleeves' novels because I'm obsessed with their first/second series (it was released as one series in Australia) which were based on the Cleeves novels, and I feel like the Shetland novels that weren't adapted would make excellent TV.

There are also four Death In Paradise spin-off novels that feature Richard - I've only read two of them and only really remember the first, which was OK - not great, not as fun as the show but still fun. It's nice to get more Richard but it comes with a trade off: Camille, Dwayne and Fidel play much, much, much smaller roles than they do in the TV series.

[ryansjane]

Hello Axelle!! I'm trying to get back into BL dramas but I don't know where to start. I saw on your MDL that you're watching quite a few things, would you mind telling me what you think about each of them? If it's too bothersome it's OK, just thought I'd ask you. Have a good day <3

hi anon! of course I can! it's true that after the covid drama drought, rn there's so much airing & it's probably gonna continue all throughout 2022 as well lol. here you go, in order from most loved to least loved (though I'm enjoying most things I'm watching rn tbh):

bad buddy: ngl this has me in a chokehold I didn't expect, I expected to love this but instead I literally ADORE it! might become my fave thai bl with itsay & tol, couldn't recommend it more!

baker boys: I really like this, actually more than I thought as well. I didn't expect to get so attached to the characters, I would legit die for pooh & krathing, they're my absolute faves! overall I know down the line this will not be the most memorable show, but it's such a fun one to watch & it really soothes my weeks tbh.

55:15 never too late: it just started so I don't have the MOST to say, but it's really fun already. it's typically the type of shows I enjoy, mostly focused on character-development, & I can't wait to see what type of adventures this unlikely group ends up in!

utsukushii kare: this one has been getting quite a bit of backlash for not being particularly healthy, but I actually like that about it. I do enjoy morally gray relationships, & even though I'm not necessarily rooting for the ship, I enjoy the storyline aspect of watching all of it unfurl & I think the story-telling is strong. for me not every bl has to be #relationshipgoals, & it actually makes the show stand out in that aspect.

kieta hatsukoi: I really like this show, though it has lost a bit of its momentum tbh. I feel like at some point the lack of intimacy that was tolerable at first just gets a bit too annoying & starts impeding on the story-telling of the show imo. I love the characters and would die for my disaster bi child aoki, though <3

paint with love: I'm really enjoying this! it feels like no other bl show I've seen before, which is definitely a breath of fresh air! that being said, after only 2 episodes, I feel like I haven't seen enough to make me really care for the characters yet, & that's why the show isn't higher on the list.

love with benefits: MEH. a big, huge meh. the acting is good & I love best & gameplay, but tbh the low budget production & boring writing impedes greatly on the potential of the story.

loveless society: even more meh, wouldn't recommend. the writing isn't there, the production isn't there, the acting is only decent... if it wasn't only 3 episodes I wouldn't have watched it.

xxx

[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

Episode Spotlight: M*A*S*H, Season 1, Episode 17: Sometimes You Hear the Bullet

Frank Burns throws his back out and applies for a Purple Heart.  Meanwhile, Hawkeye Pierce meets, and later operates on, an old friend and struggles with the decision of whether or not to send an underaged soldier home.

More than halfway through season 1, M*A*S*H wasn’t exactly killing in the ratings.  The show wasn’t quite sure of itself yet, with tons of recurring characters that would end up dropped and other characters not yet added to the main cast.  Airing at eight o’clock on Sunday nights, M*A*S*H was, at this stage in the game, a relatively normal sitcom, albeit one with a bit sharper sense of humor.

That all changed with Sometimes You Hear the Bullet.

I’ll show you what I mean.

The episode starts humorously enough: Major Frank Burns throws his back out during a rendezvous with Major Houlihan.  He is placed into traction, where he applies for a Purple Heart for his ‘injury’.  Meanwhile, Hawkeye is visited by an old friend and kindred irreverent spirit: Corporal Tommy Gillis, a journalist who signed up for the front lines as he writes his book: You Never Hear the Bullet, a book meant to be written from a soldier’s point of view, instead of a reporter’s.

A helicopter full of wounded arrive at the unit, and Gillis returns to his post.

Among the wounded is a young man with a burst appendix, a Private Wendell Petersen, who is very anxious to get back to the front lines.  Hawkeye tells him that he has to rest for a few days before returning to his unit.  This doesn’t stop Wendell from attempting to steal an army jeep to try to get back, afraid that he was going to be sent home.

After talking with him, Hawkeye figures out the truth: Wendell Petersen is actually Walter Peterson, and he’s not even sixteen years old.

It turns out that Walter posed as his brother, Wendell, and entered the war to impress his girlfriend back home by returning with a medal.  He begs Hawkeye to keep his secret, and, after returning him to his bed, Hawkeye agrees.

Shortly, more wounded arrive, and among them is Tommy Gillis.  Hawkeye operates on him, but even his best is not enough, and he dies on the operating table after telling Hawkeye that he did hear the bullet.  Hawkeye tries to revive him, but Colonel Henry Blake orders him to move on to save another life.

Afterwards, Hawkeye breaks down crying.

“Henry, I know why I’m crying now. Tommy was my friend, and I watched him die, and I’m crying. I’ve watched guys die almost every day. Why didn’t I ever cry for them?”

“Because you’re a doctor.”

Hawkeye asks what that means, and Henry answers with one of the greatest lines in the show’s history.

“I don’t know. If I had the answer, I’d be at the Mayo Clinic. Does this place look like the Mayo Clinic? Look, all I know is what they taught me at command school. There are certain rules about a war. And rule number one is young men die. And rule number two is, doctors can’t change rule number one.”

Right then and there, Hawkeye decides to change rule number one in some small way, and calls the MPs on Private Wendell, really Walter, outing the fact that he’s underage.  Walter, outraged, tells Hawkeye that he’ll never forgive Hawkeye for the rest of his life.

Hawkeye replies: “Let’s hope it’s a long and healthy hate.”

In one final scene (one that’s usually cut from syndication), Henry Blake begins to present Frank with his Purple Heart, only to find it replaced with a purple earring, while outside, Hawkeye pins the Purple Heart on Walter to make up for turning him in, sending him home, but home a hero.

The end.

Sometimes You Hear the Bullet is considered one of M*A*S*H’s best episodes for a reason.  This is an early episode, one that is regarded as a tone and trend setter for the rest of the series in terms of both storyline balance (one or two serious plotlines, one humorous), and content itself, one of the first episodes to sit down and truly explore the characters within this tragic situation.  At this moment, M*A*S*H ceased being a comedy show and became a dramedy, with one of the most memorable moments and exchanges in the show’s long history.

While this episode may seem like a standard half-hour of television, at the time, especially for this show, it was something different.  It was no longer a slapstick grittier Hogan’s Heroesque irreverent comedy about soldiers, it was a show about a group of people stuck in the middle of a war, with death all around them.  And no matter how good Hawkeye, or any of the doctors, are at their jobs, they’ll never be able to save everyone.

It’s sobering, but it’s a truth that the show had, for the first time, truly explored, and it’s that initial exploration, that glimmer of what this show was going to become, that puts this episode under so much recognition: Sometimes You Hear the Bullet was the warning sign, the first moment that the writers got a handle on the show that would become a classic.

Of course, it has it’s problems.  

Not tonal ones, at least, not exactly.  Throughout its entire run, M*A*S*H often had two or three plots going, one serious, one humorous.  This is a smart strategy: balance out the dark with the light, giving each episode a more even feeling instead of being too much one or the other.  Although the show would get darker and more serious as time went on, the writers never abandoned this plan, allowing M*A*S*H to remain a consistent dramedy throughout the show’s run, keeping the audience laughing and crying at the same time.

In the case of Sometimes You Hear the Bullet, the ‘funny’ subplot is obvious: Frank Burns and his Purple Heart.  The other two storylines are the serious ones: Hawkeye’s friend, as well as the underaged soldier.  However, in most cases, as in this one, these plotlines inevitably intersect, and it’s here that this particular episode might cause a few problems.

I mentioned that the final scene in the episode is typically cut from syndication: the sequence where Frank’s purple heart is stolen and given to the underaged soldier, instead.  While this scene may not, at first, seem inherently out of place within the context of the rest of the episode, swinging from comedy to drama within a minute, there are those who believe that this scene unintentionally undermines the rest of the episode, or the main thrust established a few moments earlier.

And those people aren’t exactly wrong.

I certainly agree that the episode would have been stronger had it ended with the soldier’s final interaction with Hawkeye been proclaiming his hatred, only for Hawkeye to soberly respond that he hopes it’s a long and healthy hate.  Changing that to this new ending, where Hawkeye sends him home with a medal, seems almost out of character for Hawkeye, taking away some of the sincerity and severity of the message just a moment earlier.  The idea that this soldier could bring himself to forgive Hawkeye so soon, before realizing what exactly he’d been saved from, seems a little disingenuous after the weight previously given to this subplot.

In later episodes, it’s possible, even probable that this episode wouldn’t have ended tied in such a neat bow.  But that’s one of the things that’s so interesting about this episode.

Sometimes You Hear the Bullet isn’t the first episode of ‘true’ M*A*S*H as it would be remembered in the future, but it is the first episode where M*A*S*H comes into its own themes, looking hard at war, and the toll it takes not only on the soldiers, but on the surgeons, as well.  Before this, for the most part, ‘characters’, friends of the cast, did not die on the operating table.  Not when Hawkeye could save him.

But I’m going to quote Hawkeye from another season 1 M*A*S*H episode, Yankee Doodle Doctor, as I think that it sums up this the point of this episode pretty well:

“Three hours ago, this man was in a battle. Two hours ago, we operated on him. He’s got a 50-50 chance. We win some, we lose some. That’s what it’s all about. No promises. No guaranteed survival. No saints in surgical garb. Our willingness, our experience, our technique are not enough. Guns, and bombs, and anti-personnel mines have more power to take life than we have to preserve it. Not a very happy ending for a movie. But then, no war is a movie.”

That right there is the point of Sometimes You Hear the Bullet, to the point where the doomed Tommy Gillis even references the film tropes of a young, fresh-faced kid hearing the bullet that kills him.  This is the message that Hawkeye must grapple with: he cannot save everyone.

No matter how much he knows, how good he is, he can never save everyone.  No guaranteed survival.

It’s sobering, but it’s the truth.  And it’s what makes this episode so memorable.

M*A*S*H at this point was still mostly a comedy, a series full of jokes and the occasional serious moment, and it would continue to be so for another few years.  But it was this episode, episode seventeen of the first season, that signaled to audiences that this show could be more than that.  It could make you laugh, sure, but it could make you cry, and it wasn’t that surprising: this was war.

In short: by itself, is Sometimes You Hear the Bullet one of the greatest episodes of television, or even M*A*S*H, ever written?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  But what it is, without much doubt, is the first sign of maturity in a show that had a lot of growing up to do.

Whether the shift was instantaneous or not, the fact is, Sometimes You Hear the Bullet was a game changer in the show’s history, the first break in format that truly showed audiences what they could expect in the years ahead.

On top of that?  It’s just a good episode.

The plot balance is decent, without too much mood-whiplash that could so easily occur in a war dramedy.  The characters, decently familiar to audiences by now, all work off of each other just as well as ever, funny, interesting, and heartfelt in turn.  It’s an example of early M*A*S*H at it’s best, overshadowing many first season episodes with a level of depth previously mostly unexplored, delivering on every scene and remaining mostly genuine.  It’s an engaging episode, full of memorable moments that are thoughtful and earnest, making this episode a standout, a moment in television history, and an unmissable installment for avid watchers of M*A*SH, and television fans in general.

Don’t forget that the comment box is always open for anything from suggestions and discussion ideas to questions and conversations!  Thank you guys so much for reading, and I hope to see you guys in the next article.

[xiaosean]

why you should watch douluo continent

the drama adaptation is such a good rendition of “soul land” and stayed true to the plot line and character development. it was fast-paced (perfect for me) but may be confusing for those who don’t know the story. i personally love the donghua, and i think the drama did an adequate job of portraying everything in their own way 😁 (read at your own discretion; this contains spoilers)

things i liked:

initially, i didn’t like the dreamscape bc wtf is it doing there? why is he hearing his mom’s voice in episode 1 (it just kills the entire momentum of the plot); and then after i got to episode 39... fucking ep. 39, i knew the dreamscape needed to be there in order to save tang san’s life; mr. wang who wrote the script, props to you.

the cgi 🥰✨ i had really low expectations bc if there’s shitty cgi like cql... i wouldn’t be able to handle it. but it’s so good ??? please, i know the ape soul beast was small and funny looking (bc they had to spend money on the water dragon lmao), but other than that, it was so good and how each and every character’s powers were able to shine

le outfits + makeup - they’re not super pale 😭😭😭 finally !!! and the outfits are so nice, SO SO NICE, each and every character holy hell

how they changed hu liena’s (aka. qian renxue) role in the drama --- she’s my fav female antagonist; she’s so good here, her character was annoying at first, but she’s so dynamic and independent, and just wants to impress her mom. you see her helping tang san + his squad during the last 5 eps because SHE CARES about her mom despite her strict upbringing 🥺 her and tang san have a ship name called 糖葫芦 (candied hawthorns) and i think that’s so cute hehe

the seven devils 😂 i loved the seven devils in this adaptation almost as much as i loved them in the donghua; each and every character got their own storyline, they’re not boring nor do they draw attention away from the tang san’s main plot, and you see so much development (esp. in ou sike and dai mubai)

headmaster, da shi, and er long trio! 黄金铁三角 iconic and they captured it so well 😭 they chose the actor for the headmaster so freaking well i’m screaming! he loves money so much and his little facial expressions as a third wheel is everything, the comedic relief! and da shi... i see y’all thirsting over calvin chen okay 😌 he’s so much better in the drama tbh & er long is majestic and amazingly powerful and cunning, i love her !!! and props to luo san pao, the best doggo ever!

the seniors! they basically perfected tang san’s relationship with dugu bo... it was antagonistic at first, but then they became besties over poison 😭❤️ i loved dugu bo’s character in here bc he was so funny & didn’t get social cues LMAO // the ape soul master was brief but he honestly made my day with how much he respected the tang family & how he took care of his father back in the day // 七宝琉璃 squad was also 🥰 (less hot than in the donghua lol) but they also somehow made jian yeye the comedic relief? i love how they’re so accepting of ou sike despite him being a support soul master

tang san’s mom - i can only hear her voice, but she made me cry & i love her for that

tang san ❤️❤️❤️ xiao zhan’s voice over just blended in with his character & it was just so wonderful; tang san in the donghua was smart, so fucking smart, cunning, but the kindest at heart; xiao zhan truly portrayed that and my most memorable part was when da shi said “your only flaw is that you let your emotions get the best of you” (this is so important), and you see him later try to control his emotions and not act rashly, especially when confronted with 时年 & 比比东 --- also crying scenes 11/10

bibi dong powerful, POWERFUL WOMAN, props to her voice actress, i got chills when she said, “你根本没有资格知道” // tang hao, wow he’s just like i imagined, but i wish he was a little more emotional in ep. 1 bc the blue silver plant in tang san is essentially his lover’s martial soul

how the concept of family was generated within the shi lan ke academy squad 🥺 it’s such a feel good drama, istg, makes you so happy when you’re having a bad day ✨

things i didn’t like:

xiao wu’s character portrayal (the scriptwriter’s fault, not xuanyi) // i honestly let it slide for the first 10 episodes bc i usually start falling for a character later on, it’s normal; but drama xiao wu didn’t fulfill the 小舞姐 in my heart 😔 i get that many people like her, but it’s not the same! xiao wu in donghua is beautiful, independent, and outspoken, BUT MOST OF ALL HER LOVE FOR TANG SAN IS OBVIOUS, you don’t need to say “一起去” every other line in the drama; i think this could have been remedied if they stayed true to the storyline and let tang san enter the secret dimension alone, bring the mythical herbs back, and have xiao wu prick herself to activate 相思断肠红 (they completely butchered the significance of the flower i’m so angry; fyi: the flower can only belong to you if your heart loves one person --- there’s the most beautiful backstory to the flower but drama douluo said nah). also, drama xiao wu is so clingy and she started exposing herself from the beginning... no momentum build-up whatsoever 😔 it’s 斗罗大陆, not 斗罗大陆: 小舞传 and sometimes it felt like she was being so insistent on following tang san around, i’m just 😓 

the whole canghui academy scheme --- it was confusing for 10 eps straight until they got to the end of it, but I guess the drama wanted to add that part in because they wanted to focus less on the competition and more on 变异武魂 (the mutated martial souls) in order to defeat bibi dong

how the beginning was so confusing 😫 i wish they just stuck with child tang san remembering his past life as a disciple in tang clan & then learning 玄天宝录 on his own bc that was such a great part of his character development + understanding of soul masters/their weaknesses; and the fact that he would rely less on his parents 

the kiss + confession at ep. 40 // could have done w/o it or even a simple forehead kiss; the confession from tang san was way too quick considering there’s little to no emotional build-up towards that moment (other than bibi dong doing all the work like the queen she is) and there’s no surprise element either? like we’ve been knew she’s a soul beast since ep. 5 🥲 and the kiss was awkward & like i said, sanwu’s love doesn’t need words or actions to confirm... it’s this innate thing that the audience should be able to see (if the scriptwriters focused a little more on BIG plot points that boost the sanwu relationship, then it would have been perfect) ^^ i wish they spent more time on the romantic aspect of the relationship bc even after 30 eps, they seem like siblings when OP said They’re Not.

overall thoughts:

this is purely my opinion, so please take it with a grain of salt! the cons imo were minor except for the development of the sanwu relationship; it doesn’t seem like romance to me 😔 but hopefully it’ll get better in the (maybe) second season when they take some time apart to grow? i’m surprised how much they referenced the original story (characters and such), and i am thoroughly impressed with WHERE THEY ENDED IT, and how they rounded all the new/old plot points together in a way that makes sense. i also don’t hate any of the antagonists, which is why this drama is so lighthearted and easy to watch. it’s not emotionally taxing (sans tang san crying bc xz breaks me heart 😭💕), and safe + enjoyable to watch with family! you’re gonna miss it once it ends, and i think that makes a drama successful 😁 also i’m not gonna go into depth about the mysterious ending bc i might spoil it for those who want to watch the donghua LMAO (but if you want to know my theories, shoot me an ask)

[literatigifs]

Anonymous asked: It always amazes me that Jess wasn't in that many episodes yet had so much of an impact on the show and in fandom. He really was that character! The only one of Rory's boyfriends I think that was really well developed outside of his relationship with her and his own storyline. Might be my bias as a literati shipper but damn it really indicates to me that they were meant to be

Jess was actually in the least amount of episodes out of all of Rory's boyfriends, yet is the most memorable, and I think there's a few factors that enabled it. One of them is definitely that he is well developed outside of his relationship with Rory, and this is tied with how he's Luke's nephew, who also exists as a character outside of Lorelai and Rory's lives on the show. But even when he wasn't with Luke, we still got some small, but very important scenes with him featuring Jimmy, and even his work at Truncheon. Dean's family life was never as explored as Jess's, and Logan's was almost always used for something that was also in connection to Rory rather than just himself, like Mitchum giving her the internship after his family offends her, or taking Logan away to London at the end of season 6. Even the fight he has with Logan after Martha's vineyard or Logan cutting business ties with him in season 7 have somewhat to do with Rory and how they needed his character to propose to her in the end. Both of them as characters are never fully developed outside of being Rory's love interests whose storylines affect her own, in comparison to Jess, whom we see change his life for the better for himself, not for Rory's sake or Luke's wishes.

A lot of people that dislike the character chalk up his popularity to Milo being a young hot actor, and while I personally think that he's the best looking out of all of Rory's boyfriends (partly because Dean is also just awful to watch when he's angry), Milo does such an amazing job playing Jess and all his complexities as a character. I would've loved to see Jess develop by himself in season 5 or even after season 3 in his own spin-off series, but at the same time, I'm more than happy with what we got from season 6 particularly because of Milo's performance. His appearance in 'Let me hear your Balalaikas' is notable not just because he gets Rory to finally take a step in getting her life back together, but also because of just how different, yet still Jess-like he seems to be. He's still Jess, but a much calmer, more stable and even serene version of him, and it's not just because he wrote a book and works at a printing press now, but because he just feels a lot more calm, and he even sounds and carries himself differently. That's all part of Milo's portrayal of the character that just works insanely well in Jess's favor, the same way that he amazingly captures Jess's behaviors before season 6, where it felt like he always had a chip on his shoulder.

I also think that another reason why he's still such a popular character outside of Milo's success as an actor is because he's one of the most memorable parts of the first half of the show, that coincidentally, a lot of people prefer as opposed to the latter half. There's multiple reasons for this but I feel like a lot of nuance is just lost in the second half, what with the convoluted drama between the characters, the weird, almost comedy-like introduction of the Huntzbergers and Emily and Richard's rich lifestyle (I can never take it seriously because I don't even know if I'm supposed to like it or laugh at it based off of Amy's writing of it). When Jess comes back in season 6, that shifts the focus of the whole season, as Rory goes back to Lorelai and chooses to leave her grandparents' lifestyle once she's found her calling again. In comparison, Logan's often connected to that really annoying part of the show that focuses on rich people and how "different" their life can be, which has aged pretty badly. It doesn't help that the show also kind of feels like it works against him, since we never really get any bigger scope of his "being pushed through one door" aside from his drunken speech at Rory.

I think that even if Amy didn't plan from the start that she wanted Jess to be with Rory, she obviously wanted Milo to be on the show for a longer period of time, which makes me think back to how Lorelai and Luke were never planned to be a thing in the first place, but they were just something that happened based off of the character's dynamic. So even if Jess and Rory didn't get as many scenes as they should've gotten throughout the show, I still think that in Amy's general plans, they were always meant to have a long-lasting influence on each other.

[yourwannabekpopidol]

Project 15

Apprenticeship Program Name: Radio Campbuzz Project Name: RJ for Rangdhonu and script writer for shows Program Date: Fall 2017 – Fall 2018 Program Description: I joined this program when Kashfia Ma’am was the advisor for the program. She assigned me to a RJ position for a weekly show called, “Rangdhonu”. And I had to write the script for the show as well. What I had to do was be a host for the show and the show is about pop culture and entertainment. So we had to talk about any new update on Hollywood and Bollywood. Program Justification: What the show provided was to let the students know about any pop culture and to let them enjoy some entertainment before going back to class. There were other shows but this show made me realize how fun it is to be a RJ. Due to this show, I was even awarded the best RJ in Radio Campbuzz of Spring 2018. Program Name: Rangdhonu. Program Time: Every Wednesday from 12 pm to 1 pm.

Picture 1: This is me before the show of Rangdhonu at the station.

Picture 2: This is the poster that declared that Nabeela apu and I were the host of the show, Rangdhonu, on social media.

Picture 3: This was the award and the certificate of me winning the best RJ.

Script for the 5th Rangdhonu show: Written by: Wangkhem Thonglen

Link 1

Sonam Kapoor ties the knot! Celebrity marriages are always the talk of the town, especially when it is the much-awaited wedding of one of Bollywood's most beloved stars, Sonam Kapoor. In an event of grand celebrations, Sonam Kapoor has finally tied the knot last Tuesday, May 8, with her long-time boyfriend Anand Ahuja. For those who don't know, Anand Ahuja is a businessman who has founded his own fashion brand named Bhane. His Delhi-based business has made him quite successful despite his young age, and fans know him well for always being addressed fondly in Sonam's online posts. The couple is active on social media, and has never failed to win hearts through their messages of adoration and love. Radio Cambuzz wishes the couple a happy conjugal life!

SaRa May 12 marked the grand opening of SaRa's first showroom in Mirpur. The fashion house made a huge statement with endorsements from stars like Sara Zaker, Oyshee, Shahtaj, Pritom, Xefer, Azim, Doyel and many others. They were present during the opening, along with the owner S.M Khaled.

RABINDRA FESTIVALS AROUND THE COUNTRY The celebration of 157th birth anniversary of Tagore in Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka. Artistes performed in a programme by Jayita Rabindra Sangeet Shomillon Porishod in Mymensingh. Artistes did a cultural show in Rabindra Mela, Channel i premises, Dhaka. Artistes from Bangladesh and India performed in Rabindra Festival in Shelaidah Kuthibari, Kushtia. Also Sirajganj.

30 years of BAMBA - More than just bands After a break of almost four years, Bangladesh Musical Bands Association, better known as BAMBA, recently arranged a mega concert, 'BAMBA Live Chapter 1', in Dhaka. The turnout was huge, with the spacious hall room of the International Convention Centre, Bashundhara, filled to the brim with fans eager to get a glimpse of their favorite bands and listen to their all-time hits. 11 of the 27 bands under the umbrella of BAMBA, including Warfaze, Miles, Shunno, Aurthohin, Nemesis, Vikings, Feedback, Dalchhut, Maq O' Dhaka, Pentagon and Arbovirus performed at the concert. Star Showbiz recently invited BAMBA to participate at a roundtable discussion at The Daily Star Centre. Hamin Ahmed, President of BAMBA; Sheikh Monirul Alam Tipu, General Secretary; Fuad Naser Babu, Vice President; Maqsoodul Haque (Mac), Executive Committee Member; Mohammad Ali Shumon, Treasurer; and Doza Alan, CEO, SkyTracker Limited, took part in the roundtable discussion. It was facilitated by Star Showbiz Editor Rafi Hossain. The discussion focused on BAMBA's current activities and the way forward in the face of the challenges confronting our music industry.

Link 2

Zoe Saldana on the Hollywood Walk of Fame After smashing success as the alien warrior Gamora in the Guardians of the Galaxy films and more recently, Avengers: Infinity War, Zoe Saldana is on a path to eternal stardom, literally. She joins the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin and her co-actor Chris Pratt, by receiving her very own star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Zoe Saldana took to Instagram to express her gratitude, saying she is blessed and honored to be a part of the history of Hollywood. “May this open more doors for Latinx and all other under-represented community!” she further stated. Zoe Saldana has also appeared in James Cameron's 2009 film Avatar and the recent Star Trek trilogy. Being a constant presence in blockbuster sci-fi and fantasy films, Zoe Saldana is expected to become a top name in this specific genre quite soon. 2018 71st Cannes Film Festival From Tuesday May 8th til Saturday May 19th. Australian actress Cate Blanchett has been named as the President of the Jury. Asghar Farhadi's psychological thriller Everybody Knows, starring Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz and Ricardo Darín, opened the festival and competes in the Main Competition section The Han Solo spinoff Solo: A Star Wars Story touched down Tuesday at the Cannes Film Festival, bringing its cast and a full-sized Chewbacca to the French Riviera extravaganza. Director Ron Howard, wearing a hat that read “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” introduced his cast before the film’s international premiere at Cannes. Sonam Kapoor wows at the red carpet of Cannes Film Festival 2018. Bollywood superstar Aishwarya Rai Bachchan once again stole the show as she walked the prestigious red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, this time in a stunning ultra-violet, blue and red gown that reflected the metamorphosis of a butterfly. History was made at this year's 71st  Cannes Film Festival on Saturday as 82 women, representing the limited number of women filmmakers selected over its more than seven-decade history, made a symbolic walk up the red carpet. The stars, filmmakers and other professionals ascended the steps of the Palais des Festivals at the Cannes Film Festival, protesting for the solidarity of the women in the industry who are struggling for a voice, equal pay, as well as a safer work place. The five female members of this year's Cannes jury-- Cate Blanchett, Kristen Stewart, Ava DuVernay, Lea Seydoux and Burundian singer Khadja Nin, along with Jane Fonda, Salma Hayek and Marion Cotillard were among the group of women.

Link 3 Mim Mantasha Superstar in the making Winning the country's biggest pageant is not an ordinary feat. Mim Mantasha has won not just a crown, but also the hearts of millions. Awaiting a new journey, the Lux Channel i Superstar 2018 winner shares her story with The Daily Star. A final year student of Fine Arts at Jahangirnagar University, Mim has always been a creative and curious soul. She was an avid follower of the contest for a long time. This year, she finally took the decision to compete. Taking part in the competition was certainly not a cakewalk. “We went through vigorous training sessions. We did yoga in the mornings,” explains Mim.  Before the task rounds, the contestants went through fifteen days of training for ramp walk, acting, dancing, and many other skills. The photo shoots, acting, and improvisation rounds were Mim's favourite tasks in the competition. “I was nervous but in a scene, I got to convince people through my acting that my child was lost. I enjoyed it,” Mim smiles, adding that the competition was an overall memorable experience. Although she is highly enthusiastic about working in the media, she wants to take more preparations before doing so. She is now Lux Bangladesh's brand ambassador and has also won the opportunity to work on television and feature film projects of Impress Telefilm. Before hitting the silver screen, Mim wants to explore the world of television. Being a painter at heart, Mim also wants to continue painting and have her own exhibition in the future. Further to this, she intends to work for children who need special care. “I am in a fortunate position and it is our duty to take care of those in need.” says Mim. With great intentions, we hope Mim Mantasha excels at every step of her future endevours.

Link 4

Avengers Infinity War Review The plot itself is pretty simple. There are six stones that possess mystic powers and he/she who possesses all the stones is by default the most powerful being in the universe. Our Marvel superheroes must forget their own conflicts and join forces against Thanos to restore the fate of the universe and its inhabitants. Of course, watch the movie to know how things pan out. Avengers: Infinity War is the movie of movies, and let me tell you why. Most, if not all, the characters of the MCU are present in this film and bring their own flavour into the mix. Thor is mourning the loss of his home and hammer, Stark feels he needs to take a break from saving the world, Captain America is still out to bring justice the right way, and Hulk has no control over himself. I don't know what formula the Russo brothers have applied in their direction but I watched in awe how all the characters blended to deliver multiple storylines within a movie. Yes, I have also compared this movie to a mega three-hour episode of your daily soap opera. Avengers: Infinity War is the comprehensive Marvel movie; it is the beginning of an end. It lifts you, it hits you, and leaves you with a cliffhanger extraordinaire. See it to believe it and it'll still be unbelievable. By next weekend, Infinity War will top $1.78 billion and could sit around $1.8 billion, ensuring Marvel's year-to-date tally exceeds $3.1 billion by next Sunday.

Deadpool 2 Marketing Right off the bat, you see how Deadpool has scratched out the 20th Century Fox logo and put “TBD,” which is a sly allusion to the ongoing Disney/Fox (and Comcast?) merger drama. The content of the letter is exactly what you might expect from the Merc with a Mouth. Pop culture references, silly puns, bad language, and Ryan Reynolds bashing. Then, at the bottom, instead of the #ThanosDemandsYourSilence, we get #WadeWilsonDemandsYourSisterSorryStupidAutoCorrectSilence. See, you guys, it’s funny! And not at all trying too hard. Kidding aside, the marketing for “Deadpool 2” has been pretty top notch, but perhaps not as great as the first film. Recently, the film premiered a music video for the soundtrack featuring Celine Dion singing an over-the-top ballad while a high-heel-wearing Deadpool does an interpretive dance around the diva. It’s ridiculous and fun. And also, the most recent trailer seems to have struck a chord with fans, who are coming down off their ‘Infinity War’ high.

Link 5

Top 10 Hollywood Box Office Weekend 1. Avengers: Infinity War - $62,078,047 (Total Grossing – $548,090,150) 2. Life of the Party - $17,886,075 (New) 3. Breaking In - $17,630,285 (New) 4. Overboard - $9,864,415 5. A Quiet Place - $6,455,396 (Total Grossing - $169,608,030) 6. I Feel Pretty - $3,805,437 7. Rampage - $3,462,442 (Total Grossing - $89,827,105) 8. Tully - $2,248,945 9. Black Panther -  $2,077,207 (Total Grossing - $696,331,818) 10. RBG - $1,188,186

Billboard’s top 10 Hits 1. This Is America – Childish Gambino (New) 2. Nice For What – Drake (Last Week: 1) 3. God’s Plan – Drake 4. Psycho – Post Malone Featuring Ty Dolla $ign (Last Week: 2) 5. Meant To Be – Bebe Rexha & Florida Georgia Line 6. The Middle – Zedd, Maren Morris & Grey 7. Look Alive – BlocBoy JB Featuring Drake 8. Never Be The Same – Camila Cabello 9. Perfect – Ed Sheeran (Last Week: 12) 10. No Tears Left To Cry – Ariana Grande Learning and reflections: This program made me realize the inner potential I had to be so extrovert and be a good host. I learned what to do or say after getting stuck during a live session. I have improved my speaking skills and the flow of a RJ host on how to talk and say because they have a different tone when it comes to a live session. I have taken all these skills from this program and I even got selected and did a short commercial video for Spice FM Radio. I also learned how to write a script for a radio show.

[kitsbookshelf]

The Twilight Saga: a detailed review of why I can’t stand them and love them in (almost) equal measure

Before I start this borderline scathing review, I just want to let you know that it's full of spoilers, so if you haven't read the books, look away now. This is your only warning.

Now that that's out of the way... I can't stand the Twilight saga. Twelve-year-old me is cringing at my hatred for it, and Twilight fans are waiting to set me on fire, but it's true. I think they're poorly written, and there are soooo many parts of every book that just...missed the mark, at least for me. Let's start at the beginning, with the first book: Twilight.

Bella, our darling main character, moves in with her dad, Charlie (let's take a moment to appreciate perhaps the only normal, mentally stable person in this entire saga), in the rainy small town of Forks, Washington.

Bella is quite a bland character, but that just makes her easier to project yourself onto when you're reading the book if that's how you immerse yourself. For me, I found her obsessive and definitely not emotionally stable, and it did honestly feel like reading the diary of a manic and very unstable 17-year-old. On one hand, that's good--I'm reading from Bella's perspective, and it's written exactly how I'd expect her to write--but on the other hand, the writing feels...cheap? I completely blame my own taste in writing style for my opinion on this one, but I just couldn't enjoy the very boring storytelling happening here. It was all very 'tell-tell-tell' instead of the 'show-tell-show' way of writing I prefer.

Now here is where my adoration for this book comes in: Edward Cullen. Specifically, the interactions between him and Bella. They have conversations, and banter, and it's a fun little human-vampire-friendship that isn't awful to read (I will never never forgive the films for leaving some of the dialogue out, it's pure gold and possibly the only saving grace of this book). The characters felt like teenagers here, but it was only for the few short pages we got of them interacting without the overly-exaggerated brooding that our sweet Ed is known for.

The romance between Bella and Edward is...concerning. For me, I couldn't find a single bit of actual romance between the two of them beyond Bella's obsession with him and Edward's bloodlust and weird self-control thing he has for her. It felt really unhealthy, and I couldn't wrap my head around how people actually think there's romance there.

The whole James thing...I don't know about anyone else, but it felt really random. Yes, it added a conflict to the book, but I felt like there wasn't really any good development to make it more relevant. That all seemed to happen later with Victoria, but James didn't really feel like he fit into the story very well. I think I would have preferred it if he was gradually brought in through the book, or if there was some sort of lead up to the conflict instead of just--WHAM! Tracker dude wants to kill Bella because Edward got protective and now only the final section of the book has any action.

Twilight completely had the potential to be a good vampire-human romance novel. There was no real need for the James-Victoria storyline, even in the later books. What did they add? Only the entirety of Eclipse, but that book could be taken out completely without disrupting the story all that much.

New Moon feels like a completely different book, and I actually really liked it. The writing style still got on my nerves and made it more difficult for me to enjoy the book, but the content was so much better.

Bella's spiral in New Moon really added something to her character. Instead of another book of her constant Edward-Cullen-is-the-most-beautiful-man-to-ever-exist inner monologue, we got a whole book of her.

Jacob Black was introduced, and he was a genuinely likable character (the one thing I will say is that his inability to take 'no' for an answer really did put me off him for a large portion of the book and the next one) who brought some more normality into the book. It didn't feel like I was reading an overly-exaggerated supernatural romance, and I enjoyed it. The banter between the two of them was so realistic, and I actually really loved how Meyer explored Bella's coping mechanisms and her dependency issues when Jacob phased and Bella was left without him again.

The conflict here was much more well-executed than in Twilight, with the Volturi having been mentioned before and now becoming established properly in the saga. They're the perfect villains, and I enjoyed reading about them much more than I enjoyed the rushed few chapters of James's story in Twilight. I loved how Meyer kept Bella awake the entire way home from Italy. You really got to see the sort of wild relief that she felt when getting Edward back, and I think it was well-written and made me feel like there was slightly more going on here than the forced romance in Twilight.

I really do feel like the subject of them being mates should have come up a lot sooner. Maybe some questions on how a human could be a vampire's mate, or exploring the complications of it, because then maybe Bella's obsession would have been far more understandable earlier in the saga, and it might have felt more 'organic' than the relationship I read until Bella became a newborn later on.

And now we reach Eclipse... Eclipse, Eclipse, Eclipse... I hate it. There isn't a single part of this book that I can honestly say I enjoyed. I felt like it could have been taken out completely, and it wouldn't have made a difference to the story.

The whole book felt like a filler, purely there to resolve the issue of Victoria before moving on to Bella's pregnancy and vampirism in Breaking Dawn. It didn't feel like any part of it was important, or really memorable.

Victoria's whole storyline could have been erased without destroying the saga. The only interesting thing about the whole conflict with her was that she managed to orchestrate it without Alice seeing her, and that was the one thing that kept the book rolling on instead of it being a handful of chapters of the newborns being defeated.

The one thing that this book set up was the truce between the werewolves and the vampires, and I definitely think that could have been done in another way if James and Victoria had never existed (if you can't already tell, I really don't see the point to James and Victoria, and they don't add anything to the books except for a tiny, irrelevant bit of drama).I enjoyed how Meyer wrote the love triangle, and how she made Bella love them both. It felt, to me, more realistic that Bella would feel something for Jacob after everything we read in New Moon and how much she cared about him.

Beyond those things, though, this book really did feel completely useless to me, and I couldn't wait to stop reading it and get back to something that felt like it had a decent plot.

Okay, last one (I commend you for surviving this far). Breaking Dawn.

I...didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. I think it's a good conclusion to the saga, and I like how the characters all got a happy ending, but I can't say I think it's amazing or even close.

Bella becoming a mother felt strange and disjointed to the rest of the books--she'd never said she wanted to have a baby, and had even stated that she didn't mind not having a child if it meant being a vampire with Edward. Then suddenly she's pregnant and will let herself die to give birth to the baby? It doesn't fit with what we've read of her character up to this point, and it irked me.

And the baby name...Renesme... Can we take a second to appreciate how stupid that sounds? There were so many other options--honestly, I'd have taken literally any other option--and Bella chose to mash their mothers' names together in the worst possible way. Renesme. Ugh.

Don't even get me started on Jacob imprinting on a baby. The whole thing of imprinting makes perfect sense, but why, why, why did he have to imprint on a baby? A half-vampire baby? Surely his wolf-y instincts would be telling him to get away from her, not throw him right into her tiny little arms and have him fall in love with her. I don't get it, it creeps me out, and that's all I'm going to say about it.

As for everything else... I think it was good, it just sort of felt flat to me. All of the good parts seemed to happen intermittently through the book, scattered between barely tolerable sections and parts that, in my opinion, were shoddy. It made for a difficult book to get through, but the conclusion to the saga was almost worth the trouble.

[carlosjijonwrites]

Death Stranding’s ending kind of ruins the whole thing, doesn’t it?

You know, I really liked Death Stranding’s storyline when I first started playing the game. It was the one thing that kept me going after finding out how boring and frustrating the gameplay was.

It's a straightforward enough narrative if you’re not bothered by all the weird bullshit in it. Basically, you are Sam Bridges, a dude tasked with helping out the people in the post-apocalypse by connecting them to a network that allows them to communicate. Of course, that's just the boring plot part. The important part is that doing this will help Sam rescue Amelie, a woman who's very important to him being held hostage by terrorists in the other side of the country.

Then, your mission is to cross the ruins of the United States to get your friend while helping people and fighting terrorists along the way. That’s a perfectly fine setup for a videogame if you ask me. What’s even more interesting is that, in your path, you come across many memorable stories. There's a cool encounter with Nicolas Winding Refn where he stops his heart every five minutes to explore the game's version of the afterlife, which is a both beautifully cinematic sequence and exactly what I picture meeting NWR in real life is actually like. We also have a fun villain who can teleport and shows up to cause trouble whenever the game needs a setpiece for the trailers - I mean, drama. But my favorite bit is the relationship between Sam and BB. That's right, the little baby you carry around with you is an actual character and it's your job to keep him happy throughout the game. Honestly, that baby is the whole freaking emotional core of the title. Every so often you see weird flashbacks involving the baby's father, who seems to be coming back from the death to get him. And it's effective because I like that baby and no way ghost Mads Mikkelsen is taken him away from me.

But, while all of these things are fun, getting to them isn’t. That’s mainly because of how incredibly awful the gameplay is. Still, it can be done. The real problem comes with the ending. It’s the point where all my good will completely disappears.

In the last chapters of the game, we reach Amelie and instead of killing her (yeah, we were supposed to kill her for some reason) we decide to let her live. And I think that’s a perfectly fine conclusion to the story. It should have ended right there. Instead, we get a weird three-hour explanation of stuff from the past. We find out that Amelie didn't even exist and was just a ghost created to motivate Sam... or something like that. Well, that’s disappointing. But, fine. Can the game end now? Nope. Okay, fine. We then start spending time with Die Hard Man, who tells us this weird story about how he wouldn't die in war so people said he died hard and now he has a mask and... Sure, that doesn’t work at all at this point but who cares. Credits, finally? No such luck. After all of that we get a flashback revealing that Mads Mikkelsen wasn't really the father of BB but OUR father, as in, Sam's father. That's kind of neat but... at this point... I don't fucking care anymore. This information doesn't change anything. I already beat the game HOURS ago, why do I have to keep listening to this nonsense?

And I know what you might be thinking. “If you were on board with the craziness before, what’s the problem with the ending going full throttle?” Well, it has a lot to do with pacing. Whatever sense of momentum the story was carrying completely vanishes when you have four hours of dramatic climax.

I’m reminded of the ending of Metal Gear Solid 3, where you fight the main bad guy, then his robot, then the final boss and then, as a reward, you get hours of epilogue. But Death Stranding is even worse somehow. At least Snake Eater had the good sense to still include some gameplay here and there. In order to trigger the animations that tell you that Amelie is a ghost you need to, and this isn’t a joke, run around a beach aimlessly for like an hour. How is that not insane? Just think of it in terms of gameplay. You fight the final boss. Then you fight another final boss. Then, after all that, you fight the real actual final boss. That’s obviously supposed to be the ultimate challenge, the moment of catharsis where you finally get satisfaction and can just sit back and enjoy your accomplishment. Fighting final bosses is no joke. It’s fucking stressful. That’s why the formula usually goes “you kill them and then you get cake” or at least the game has the good sense to roll the credits and disappear from your life forever.

This is normally the part where I try to argue with a hypothetical reader who tells me that “actually games don’t need to follow strict formulas and that it’s fine that the story goes on for hours even if challenge isn’t there anymore”. But I don’t need to worry about that because I know that person doesn’t exist. According to my PS4, most people who bought the game didn’t even finish it and the chances of me finding a Death Stranding enthusiast in real life are roughly the same as me being mauled to death by a sasquatch in the coming months.

I guess the lesson here is that endings are important. If you’re going to fuck up somewhere, don’t let it be the ending. It just feels like all that work I did to get here was for nothing. Also, if you’re going to give a random character some extensive backstory, please don’t do it in the epilogue. Or, alternatively, if that character’s name is Die Hard Man, maybe don’t do it at all.

[juniaships]

Vanessa Marble-Whittaker Bio **redux**

I had to delete the old post due to spelling mistakes and to add more info, but here is the official character bio for my AIO OC....possibly the only one in existence 😅 Contains spoilers and subject matter of abuse & postpartum depression; if you're curious you might have to do look into the main story arcs of AIO for easier understanding.

Full Name: Vanessa Crystal Marble Whittaker (nee Marble;)

Age: Unspecified but around late 20s to mid 30s

Birthday: May 15th

Race: African American (with European ancestry on both sides)

Fandom: Adventures in Odyssey

Voice Claim: Cree Summer; Vivica A. Fox is also a good alternate

Character Role: Heroine & love interest/spouse of Jason Whittaker

Items: Cross necklace, Midnight Manor (formerly Blackgaard's Castle)

Relationships

Family: Robienne Marble (mother), Regis Blackgaard (father), Edwin Blackgaard (uncle), Jerry Jr. (son, infant), John Whittaker (father in law), Monty (nephew in law), Jana (sister in Law)

Friends at Whit's End: Whit, Eugene, Connie, Katrina, Angel (pet doberman)

Acquaintances: Nuns, denizens of Odyssey

Love Interest: Her primary love interest and eventual husband is Jason Whittaker. They began as tensse & awkward relationship during the Blackgaard Saga duento their contrasting personalities, before becoming close friends and allies. They do not become completely official until after Novacom. Their relationship is regarded as the bonafide example of "Opposites Attract" in Odyssey.

Enemies: While enemies are far and few, she considers her own father as the major obstacle between her and a peaceful life. She was a major player against Novacom. She had a brief yey tense rivalry with Monica Stone (partly for Jason's affections) but the two made peace at the end.

Appearance

- Average height (say, 5'7)

-Brown skin, light brown eyes, and wavy-curly black hair

-Has an average body type (pear shaped) and seemed to gain a few pounds since giving birth

-Typically were darker shades of purple, blue, with the occasional maroon

-Sense of fashion is put together, professional even if casual

- Still has her nun fatigues

Personality

Vanessa is a composed and reserved lady with a deep connection to God, while respecting other religions (and non religious). While seen as a cold person at first glance, she is actually very kind and open-minded, though she isn't immune to making sardonic comments once in a while. While not really great around kids, she has moments of being supportive. After becoming a mother she is rather clueless, though well-meaning and tries her hardest to be the parent her father wasn't.

One of her biggest obstacle is overcoming her aloof demeanor. She needed to learn to open up to others and to out faith in her new friends. Even now she still has her moments of keeping her true emotions, though she has a wide circle of friends and a spouse to talk to. Vanessa was also ashamed of her Blackgaard blood, though she learns to come to terms with her past in order to create a brighter future for herself and the rest of her family. Sometimes she is prone to feeling inadequate and jealous, especially during brief periods of romantic rivalry.

There is a fierce protective side that comes out when loved ones are threatened, as seen with the Blackgaard and Novacom Sagas. She dislikes staying on the sidelines and does whatever she can to help out. She even broke her vows to protect her mother Robienne when Regis came into town, and later inspired her uncle Edwin to stay and fight her father to help save Odyssey.

While studious snd intelligent, Vanessa is not very tech savvy, naturally preferring traditional mediums such as writing letters and books. While she learns how to use computers and cellphones, don't expect her to be a technophile anytime soon. She expresses curiosity and concerns over the next invention hubby makes.

Abilities

Vanessa can memorize a lot a bible verses which she uses as prayer, or as a quip. She also has taken self defense classes to hold her her own.

- Strengths: In her early years she proved to be surprisingly strong and fast when need be. She can adapt to certain situations and keep her cool. Clever and resourceful, Vanessa often thinks and plans her actions. She can speak three languages (Spanish, French, and Mandarin Chinese) and plans om studying more.

- Weaknesses: After pregnancy she isn't as physically strong and has to limit herself to recover, and can be overpowered by much stronger foes. Vanessa is not very good at advanced technology, and she is a bad cook (Jason keeps her away from the stove as much as possible).

Backstory Vanessa was the only child of Regis and Robienne Blackgaard. Their marriage had be a short and rocky one marred by neglect, emotional manipulation and mental abuse. Finally, on the guidance of Edwin (Regis's brother) Robienne decided she had enough and divorced Regis when Vanessa was two years old. Robienne moved her daughter to New England to be with family, and the two lived peacefully after that. After graduating high school, Vanessa went to the nunnery and stayed there for a few years, while Robienne moved to the Midwest to pursue a career in teaching.

However Vanessa soon grew discontent, feeling as though she was missing out on normal young adult life. Should she stay as a nun or forge her own path?

She would find clues to her answer in the form of receiving news about her father moving to Odyssey - the same town her mother lived. Fearing for her mother's life, Vanessa requested a temporary break in vows, family business, she had said. Settling in Odyssey (under the surname Newman) she got a job working at Whit's End and as a private tutor.

Following major and minor events including the Blackgaard, Novacom, and Green Ring Conspiracy drama, Jason proposed to Vanessa, and they had a summer wedding (but not before overcoming premarital jitters and a threat from Jason's past). Two years after their union (or as of current Odyssey storyline) they had a little boy named Jerry Jr. (named after Jason's deceased brother). Vanessa continues to work at Whit's End as a curator and artist.

Major Storylines: If she was canon she would've been a major player in some of Odyssey's biggest stories including:

- Blackgaard Saga: Her debut, she came to town to take care of her mother & to confront her father on troubled past. She was hired to work at Whit's End where she met then-owner Jack Allen & the previous owner's son Jason for the first time. The townsfolk were.mesmerized by the seemingly mysterious woman and rumors started to abound. Near the climax, Vanessa revealed to Connie and Eugene that came to Odyssey to protect her mother from Regis. Towards the end of the saga, she, her uncle Edwin, and a few townsfolk helped to set up a trap for her father to save Odyssey.

Novacom Saga: She was a big player in taking down Novacom, using her skills writing letters to raise awareness on Novacom's shady actions. This is where her rivalry with Monica Stone began as Vanessa feelings for Jason turn romantic. After Novacom, she would be involved in more stories.

Green Ring Conspiracy: Following Jason's supposed "death" she briefly left Odyssey in mourning. Her uncle and mother managed to convince her to come back to Odyssey. She was unaware of Jason's secret of being alive and working as the Stiletto, and had several encounters with the Stiletto where the mysterious man left her roses and notes of endearment. The two would later reunite after Jason retuned to town, but Vanessa was angry with him for keeping secrets from her. After a long time (and counsel from Whit) she forgave him, and the two reconciled with the promise of being more open with each other.

Courtship Of Jason & Vanessa: An original storyline where the romance between her and Jason comes full circle, leading to their engagement! If only they could overcome personal inhibitions, a hateful doberman, past rivals and a threat from Jason's spy work!

Junior's Birth & Beyond: A couple of years into their marriage Vanessa became pregnant. She was anxious over multiple scenarios, her growing appetite and mood swings. After her son was born she developed symptoms of postpartum depression and sought medications and therapy. Slowly but surely, her mental health improved, & her anxieties faded away. As of now she has gotten involved with the current Rydell Saga.

Trivia

Vanessa won several awards for her artwork and has them on display everywhere in Odyssey

She is one of my most complex characters, but also one starting to really grow on me mostly out of nostalgia for the series

- Characters that inspired Vanessa's creation are Megara (Disney Hercules), Rei/Sailor Mars (Sailor Moon), Esther (biblical stories), Tzipporah (biblical stories esp. Dreamworks The King of Egypt), Talia Al Ghul, and Elisa Maza (Gargoyles). Other inspos include Maria Von Trapp and Marian Ravenwood.

- Vanessa was made to have a unique female character to contrast Connie and Katrina. Also because I have a soft spot for the Forbidden Love trope (if done right).

- She is the only main character OC of mine that is explicitly religious. She was Catholic and while she converted to Protestant, she still holds on to Catholic values. She is also the only main OC to be a parent as of current.

- Vanessa still visits her old nunnery when she and Jason goes to New England.

- She has bouts of postpartum depression, and takes medication to regulate.

- Her favorite things are the color blue, making her own pigments, and coffee flavored ice cream

Quotes

"Blackgaard already made our lives miserable uncle Edwin! If you leave now you're only giving him more power! You helped mama and I so many times, so it's my turn to return the favor!"

"Connie I'm a nun not a miracle worker."

"If my mother superior saw what I'm doing right now I would've had an early meeting with the Lord!"

"No more secrets. From now on it's just truth and nothing but the truth. Except for my age, don't ask me how old I am."

"Sheesh with all these buttons I'm surprised we didn't destroy Odyssey yet!"

"Jason I know you're worried about the baby but did you have to baby proof the doghouse too?"

"My little Angel! Who's a good girl? Who's a good girl!"

"I can't believe I can still wear this after all these years!?"

"Jason Whittaker you have got to be the most stubborn, reckless, foolhardy man I have ever met, and I wouldn't have it any other way."

"You call it junk I call it avant garde."

"I'm not responsible for my father's sins but I am responsible for mine. But my mother and uncle are in trouble. If not for me then please, do it for them!"

"She doesn't hate you Jason, she hates everyone equally."

"I guess God had a plan in store for me after all. I would've never met such wonderful people."

"Are you going to keep talking or should I start the kissing?"

Pictures

I haven't drawn any references for her yet, so that's going to be on a separate post

[minghaocouture]

Pyrrhic Victory: Chapter 1

A/N SO I did the thing and ended up making a full storyline for the SVT write night prompt I did. Please keep in mind that this is a work of fiction and I have no issues with any of the idols featured in this! I’m saying this because a lot of people will be dying in this fic. 

Battle Royale AU!

Warning: Blood, Violence, Death, Language, Angst, Descriptions of Anxiety and Panic (If i missed any, please tell me)

Rating: M (for Warnings listed above)

Pairing: Jeonghan x Reader

Chapter List: One/Two

Eyes sluggishly pushed open, your body feeling the hard floor beneath you. Uncomfortable and cold in your school uniform. Your thoughts reeled, the last thing you remember was being in a school bus. Your class had been...going on a trip? Yeah you had a school trip, everyone had been looking forward to it since it had been announced around two months ago.

So now the question was, where were you now? 

Pushing yourself up from where you had been laying, feeling the cold tarp underneath your palms. Looking around you noticed familiar faces, classmates, some had also woken up but others still lay there unconscious. The room looked a bit like a classroom, wooden chairs scattered the room, but no desks. The strangest thing was that the floor and walls were covered in a clear tarp. Scanning the room you eyes landed on your best friend, Kim Sojung, still asleep on the floor. As quickly as you could you crawled over to her, gently attempting to rouse her from the confines of unconsciousness. 

As she slowly came to, you took another look around the room. No one else seemed to know what was going on either, and they were only talking in whispers to their friend groups. Turning your gaze back to Sojung as she pushed herself into a sitting position. Muttering the question that had been in your mind since you had woken.

“What’s going on? Where are we?” You simply shrugged and shook your head in response. Her hand quickly grasped yours, the two of you watching as other students woke up. As you looked around you noticed class heart throb Yoon Jeonghan had woken, he was now conversing with his two best friends, Hong Jisoo and Choi Seungcheol. Something strange caught your eye, a metallic choker on each of the boys necks. Glancing over at Sojung, you noticed the same choker. In fact, everyone seemed to be wearing it. Reaching a hand up to your own throat you realized that you were as well.

You felt a bit of relief as the door to the tarp covered room slid open, and your teacher Kim Heechul stepped into the classroom. Maybe he could explain what was going on, he was always such a fun teacher and seemed to really enjoy his students. As he entered, the room seemed to burst into noise as everyone directed questions towards the eccentric man. He ignored everyone as he made his way over to a small TV set up, it looked rather old in style, like one you would have seen in primary school. 

“Hey! Mr. Kim, what’s going on here?” One of the louder students, Jennie, yelled advancing towards him. She stopped dead in her tracks as more men and women entered the room. Each of them dressed in military fatigues and holding very real looking guns. She stepped back, rejoining her friend circle but still yelling at your teacher from there. 

The soldiers filtered themselves to all corners of the room, pushing you and your classmates closer towards the center of the room. The chatter only seemed to grow louder as some students began crying out of fear, others screaming and cursing while demanding to know what was going on. A feeling of dread filled the room.

Shots rang out, and everyone became silent as Heechul casually placed the gun he had just fired onto a small table next to him. He turned his attention away from the box TV and back towards your class, huddled tightly together.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why you’re all here instead of on a plane to Hawaii.” He began, placing a hand on his hip as his eyes scanned over your class. “Well, you’re in luck. You’ve all been chosen to be the participants in this year's Program.” 

Of course you had heard of The Program. It was a television show, a drama where the characters, students, would fight to the death. Only one would survive it, and then they would even have little ‘interviews’ with the winner to simulate it being a real game.  It was a work of fiction though, everyone knew that. It was just something entertaining to watch, like found footage horror movies. 

No one responded to your teacher.

“That little show you’ve been watching, well it’s all real. It’ll be a fun learning experience for you. Don’t you think?” You felt your blood chill at his words. He seemed so nonchalant about the whole situation, as if he were actually hosting a game show and not sentencing you and your classmates to death. He even let out a small laugh before continuing. 

“I’m sure by now, you’ve noticed your new accessories? The collars. Pretty chic wouldn’t you say? Well I have a fun video that’s going to explain everything for you! So i need you kids to sit down and stay quiet so you know how to play the game.”

“This is bullshit…” Glancing to your left you noticed, Oh Seunghee. Her eyes were narrowed as she watched your teacher. Next to her sat Ogawa Mizuki, a transfer student from Japan. The girl was latched onto Seunghee’s arm, as if it would be the thing that kept her safe now. 

“I thought I asked you to be quiet?!” Before anyone could react, another shot rang out through the room and Seunghee’s body slumped to the floor. Blood trickling from the newly formed bullet wound on her forehead. Everyone’s eyes were on her now lifeless body, as your teacher clutched the gun that killed her in his hand.

Girl; Oh Seunghee - Dead. 23 to go 

Screams, it was all you could hear as Sojung pulled you as far away from the now deceased Seunghee as she could. Mizuki sobbed loudly, scrambling to get away from the corpse, blood splattered slightly on her face because of how close she had been. A few students even dashed towards the door, in an attempt to escape. Only to be shoved away by the soldiers. You were frozen, unable to move on your own as your wide eyes focused on your former classmate. In the front of the class you vaguely heard Mr. Kim said something about how he wasn’t supposed to kill anyone.

This couldn’t be real.

The soldier’s fired off a few warning shots into the air, which caused the students to freeze once again. Everyone looking around to see if anyone else had fallen as Seunghee had. This time, thankfully, everyone else seemed to accounted for. 

Mr. Kim clapped a few times, gaining everyone’s attention as he then pointed towards the screen. Taking the remote and starting the film.

On the screen appeared a symbol, a large ‘BR’ with a laurel wreath surrounding it. After a moment text appeared over that symbol. 

“The Correct Way to Fight in Battle Royale. By the BR Law committee. ” Everyone knew this video, we had seen it on television, back when this all seemed like a tv show meant for our entertainment. The text faded away and a young woman appeared. You recognized her as a young idol, Jung Eunbi, or as she was know to the public, Eunha. The young idol wore a pair of cute camouflage overall shorts, and a bright orange shirt. The overalls had the letters BR embroidered into them, once again reminding you of exactly what was happening. Her hair in cute high pigtails, curled lightly and her makeup was done up quite nicely as well. The last detail that stood out was the fact that she was wearing a collar that matched the one that you and your classmates were wearing. 

She smiled brightly as she began her speech. “Hello everyone!” She greeted, her perky voice seeming far too chipper for the situation she was about to be explaining to you. Mr. Kim clapped as she appeared, and even encouraged the student to greet the woman behind the screen. 

“You students are the lucky class chosen for this year’s Battle Royale! Congratulations!” No one dared to speak, or even whisper to each other. Some students even continued to cast their gaze over towards Seunghee’s body, scared that they would be the next to go. The only thing that kept you grounded in the moment was Sojung’s hand tightly clasped in your own. Her grip so tight that you had started to lose a bit of feeling in that hand, but you didn’t push her away. 

“Now I’m going to explain the rules, Listen carefully and then fight correctly! You have all been brought to this island. It is about 10km in diameter, and currently you are the only people alive on the island!” As she spoke, the screen changed. She was now standing beside a model of the island, giving you an idea of where you were and the terrain you might be dealing with.

“The island has been divided into all these little areas!” The map on screen once again transitions, placing a grid over top of the map. Making the island look almost like a chess board. “Your teacher will make announcements at 12:00 and 6:00, both AM and PM! These will tell you which areas are going to be dangerous and from what time.”

The screen transitioned again, Eunha stood in front of that same background as before. The large ‘BR’ with the laurel surrounding it. Her smile filling everyone in the room with a sense of dread. 

“If you are in one of these areas, move! You want to know why?” She questioned, pausing as if she was waiting for your response. No one spoke, all simply staring at the screen. Some students, like Mizuki, were still crying, others seemed to be glued to the screen as if trying to memorize all the information that was being thrust at you. You were a part of the latter grouping.

Mr. Kim beamed at the screen and played along. Giving the most childlike ‘why?’ one could possibly exclaim. 

After her pause, Eunha spoke once more “That’s where these necklaces you are wearing come in.” As if on cue, everyone reached up and touched their collars. Fearful as Eunha gestured to the collar she was wearing.

“They are completely water and shockproof, and there is no way of getting them off.” She pointed to a spot of the right of her collar. “This sensor monitors your pulse, and tells us exactly where you are and what you are doing. If you are still in a danger area when the time runs out or doing something ‘naughty’, we will send our own signal to you!” She exclaimed, a bright smile on her face as she pointed towards the screen. 

“The necklace will sound an alarm and then...boom!” She threw her hands up, jumping slightly as she did. “It will explode!” 

This caused more silent panic between the students. Your eyes met Sojung’s, both of you silently asking each other if that could possibly be the truth. You don’t remember the collar’s ever being a part of the show before, so they must have implemented a new design to...to make things more exciting. 

“Also, trying to force it off will also cause it to explode. So please don’t try, okay?” No one dared to attempt at this point. You had already seen first hand that the people in this room weren’t above just killing you, so you had to believe that these collars were also prepared to take your lives as well.

“Ah! There is something else I need to tell you.” She said, clapping her hands together. “There is a time limit for this game! Three days is all you have! If a single survivor isn’t determined in that time then all the necklaces will automatically explode!” She explained, once again mimicking an explosion as she mentioned it. “If that happens, it means no one will win.” Pulling her hands up to mimic tears on her face. As you watched you started to hate her, you hated how happy she seemed while giving these instructions. Did she still think this was fake, just for a tv show? Or was she aware of the danger that you were all in? You didn’t care, you just hated it.

“So please, fight as hard as you can to make sure that it doesn’t end like that! Okay?” The video froze as she struck a cute pose. All eyes turned to Mr. Kim, remote in hand as he had obviously paused your instructions. Somehow his familiar cheerful smile still graced his face. “Does anyone have any questions for today's lesson so far?” 

“I do.” Glancing over, Jung Wheein had her hand raised. Tear stains littered her cheeks, and her other hand grasped tightly onto the hand of her best friend, Hyejin. 

“So only the person who is alive after everyone else is dead can go home?” Her question had everyone’s eyes on Mr. Kim once again. If possible his smile got bigger, and he clapped lightly. 

“That’s correct Wheein. You can only go home if you are the last one alive.” He seemed proud that she had understood. He brushed a strand of black hair behind his ear as he continued. “You lucky kids get to experience the real world first hand. Life is a battle of survival, and the one who survives this will that they are worthy to continue living in the real world.”

You wanted to throw up. Anxiety pooled in your gut and ice practically ran through your veins. Before you could stop yourself, you raised your hand.

“Why us?” You tried to sound strong as you asked your question, but your voice wavered and cracked lightly. Which caused Sojung to rub her thumb over the top of your hand to try and comfort you.

Suddenly all eyes were on you and you felt yourself freeze once again, eyes locking with Mr.Kim’s. Dread set in, what if you had asked the wrong question. Would he kill you as quickly as he had Seunghee? Thoughts raced through your head in the few seconds it took for your teacher to respond once again. 

“Great question, you all were chosen at random.” 

So...no one had done anything wrong? It was just luck of the draw that your class was chosen for this horrible game. Was this how the previous participants felt? You didn’t think you could last through the whole game, there was no way. You weren’t even that good at your sports classes, and you didn’t think you had any skills that would help you get through these next three days much less skills that would help you...murder your classmates. 

After a few moments of silence, Mr. Kim clapped his hands once again. This prompted the door to the classroom to slide open once again. Four new soldiers walked through the door, dragging large carts behind them filled to the brim with duffel bags. Mr. Kim continued to smile at the class as he started the video once more. 

Eunha once again began moving on the screen. “Now you’re going to leave the classroom one by one. But before that, you will be given a bag!” She clapped excitedly as the camera panned out, showing a table in front of her. The table was littered with different items. “Inside is food and water.” She gestured to a few bottles of water on the table, and a small loaf of bread. “A compass, map, flashlight,” Her hands moved once again, this time lifting up a small resealable bag that held the specified items. She even took the flashlight out and shined the bright light directly into the camera. “And a weapon! Each bag contains a different weapon, but not everyone will get a knife or a gun. It’s completely random, with some good and some not so good at all. This will give everyone a fighting chance!” As she spoke, she lifted an ax from the table, it looked like one that a fireman would use. But in her smaller hands it seemed much too big. “Seems like I got lucky with this one!”

“Get ready everyone! You will be leaving by class number! When you hear your name, I want to hear a big ‘here’!” She gave a nice big wave before the tape ran out. Heechul turned the tv off and was handed a clipboard by one of the soldiers. 

The Game Begins  Day One - 1:40AM

As students were called forward, each once far too scared not to shout that they were indeed here. They were each thrown the heavy duffel bag before then ran out the door into the night. Much sooner than you, Sojung was called which forced her to leave you alone. Glancing around the room after she had left, you noticed only a few of your classmates left. As you did this your eyes locked with Yoon Jeonghan and your heart sank. He was staring at you and smiling. 

If this had been any other situation, you would have been over the moon that your crush was smiling at you, but here and now all you could feel was dread. You mind instantly thinking the worst, he could probably tell that you would be an easy target. 

“[L/N], [Y/N]!” The call forced you to tear your eyes away from Jeonghan, as you called out that you were here. You rushed forward and a soldier threw a duffel bag at you, the weight of it almost knocking you backwards. Somehow you kept your momentum and ran out the door into the darkness. 

Once outside, it took you eyes a minute to focus in the darkness. The chill on the autumn air hits your legs as you look around, hoping to find a safe spot to hide so that you can look in your bag. You don’t see any of the other student, not even someone camping out in front of the exit. For that you’re grateful. So with this in mind you simply run as fast as you can for as long as you can. 

Your heart pounding in your chest as you dashed through the forest, doing your best not to trip in the darkness. In the distance you hear a scream and sounds of a scuffle. This only furthers you to keep running despite your lungs burning and begging for you to stop. 

Suddenly, you were flying. Your feet coming out from under you as your foot hit a tree root that you couldn’t have possibly seen in the dark. You have no control over your body as you tumble forward, unable to stop yourself. It felt like you would go on forever only for you to stop as you body just so happened to collide with a tree, causing all breath to leave your lungs.

Gasping desperately, you lay there for a minute before you can will your body up. Crawling towards a nearby bush and ignoring the pain in your knee, you must have hurt it when you fell. You finally unzipped your duffel bag to figure out what weapon you had received. You hands desperately grasped at the flashlight that had been in the bag, grateful you quickly pressed the button to turn it on as you looked through your bag. You felt a chill make it’s way down your spine as you pulled out your designated weapon.

A pocket knife, still folded and it fit snug into the palm of your hand. After a moment of hesitation, you flipped it open and examined the blade. It had obviously been sharpened before it had been tossed into your bag. You gripped it tightly, not wanting to be unarmed if someone came for you. Despite that resolve, just holding it felt wrong. You couldn’t imagine plunging it into any of your classmates. 

Deciding it would be smarter to use the darkness as a cover, you decided to turn your flashlight off. It would also keep the battery life, as they hadn’t provided you with batteries for it. So what you had would need to last for the next three days. 

***

You didn’t move from your hiding spot until you heard footsteps coming your way. Carefully, you began backing further into the bush as an attempt to keep yourself covered. Unfortunately, as you did this your classmate heard the rustling as you moved. 

“Who’s there!?” The voice called out. You recognized the voice of Choi Seungcheol, a friend of Jeonghan’s. He was strong, one of the strongest in your class. The different tests during P.E. had shown you that. 

In that moment everything felt hopeless, if he found you it would be over and you wouldn’t have even survived the first few hours of the game. You could see the light of his flashlight moving around in an attempt to light up whoever was in hiding. In this case, that was you. His footsteps crunched a few leaves as he continued to advance towards you. Your heartbeat was so loud at this point you swore that he could hear it and it had become harder to breathe as panic began to set in. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. 

Once you heard a battle cry, everything sped up once more. Jennie, jumped out of the darkness and lunged for Seungcheol. From your viewpoint you saw a rope clutched in her hands, holding Seungcheol from behind with that rope tightly pulled against his neck. He reached for her, no weapon in his hand. This made you wonder if he had gotten one of those ‘not so good’ weapons that Eunha had spoken off. His hand gripped her hair and pulled as harshly as he could, leaning forward and hurling her over his back. 

She landed on the forest floor with a harsh thud, the rope escaping her grasp and falling just close enough that you might be able to reach it. As the two continued to struggle, you took the opportunity to inch forward to try and get closer to the rope that had fallen. After all, it was safer for you if you had it and they didn’t. 

While you had been distracted trying to reach, Seungcheol had kept the upper. His flashlight had come across the back of Jennie’s head in rapid succession, not giving the girl a chance to get off of the ground. Before you realized she had stopped struggling. 

Girl; Kim Jennie - Dead. 21 to go 

You were just barely touching the rope when an eerie red light turned towards you. 

“[Y/N]?” 

You had been caught. Forgetting the rope, you gripped your knife tightly and pointed it at Seungcheol as you scrambled backwards. 

“Stay away!” You exclaimed, terror gripping your words as you brandished the knife as bravely as you could.

Seungcheol ignored your words and took a step forward, regret shining in his eyes as he did so. You noticed small streaks of tear stains on his face as well as specks of blood...Jennie’s blood. 

“[Y/N], I don’t want to hurt you. Please…” He couldn’t think you would possibly believe that? Not after what you had just seen. Not while you were still in view of the corpse that had once been your classmate. He continued to advance towards you, keeping the high ground as your legs lacked the strength to let you stand. 

Apparently, he had had enough of you running and wanted to end things quickly. He jumped onto your form, knocking the knife out of your hand in the process. Instantly you back kicking your legs wildly as you tried to get him off of you. While his hand wrapped around your neck, you continued to thrash around in an attempt to get free. He sobbed as he clenched his hand tightly, cutting off air flow to your lungs. Muttering apologies but refusing to let you go of your throat. You could hear strangled screams leaving your lips but they didn’t feel like they were coming from you, it was like someone else was in your body and you were just an unwilling passenger.

Instead of trying to push his hands away, because he was much stronger than you were and there would be no way you could get him off of you that way, you began grabbing randomly at the forest floor. Hoping to get your knife back or at least grab a rock large enough to hit him with.

Luck was on your side at that moment, as your hand grazed the blade of your knife. Not caring if you cut yourself you grabbed the blade, feeling it slice your skin as you did. As quickly as you could, you turned it in your hand and jabbed it harshly into the man’s skull. In surprise and pain, he let go of your neck letting you gasp out for air. Without really thinking, you pulled the knife out before he could move out of range and once again thrust it into the side of his skull. It took a minute, but soon his body fell forward crushing you underneath him as he bled out. 

Boy; Choi Seungcheol - Dead. 20 to go 

As you realized what had just happened, you pushed his body off of you. He fell limply to the side, eyes drained of any life. Without even really thinking, a loud wail left your lips as you began sobbing at the realization of what you had just done. Sure it was in self defense, but that was Seungcheol. Just a few days ago you had been tutoring him so that he wouldn’t fail your English class. You weren’t the closest of friends, but now you would never have the chance to talk or laugh with him again. All the hard work he had been putting into his studies, into sports, into his life...it all meant nothing now. All you could do now was sit and sob, praying that no one heard you.

[reachexceedinggrasp]

Fated to Love You here reaffirming my long held conviction that no pure romance drama should be 20+ episodes.

This show is... really something. It is, in the fullest possible sense, A Lot. It starts out as an all-out screwball comedy wrapped around a troperiffic romance fluff plot. Wall to wall clichés, but not in a bad way; in a meta, self-aware, peak performance, finest Velveeta way. And if you’re not familiar with screwball comedy, think ‘light-hearted crack fic with slapstick and farce’. There is nothing believable or grounded about any aspect of it, it starts at Bonkers Level: Platinum and it only climbs higher as it goes on.

(On a side note, this results in the leading man being possibly the most memorable love interest in romcom history. His introduction scene is nothing short of batshit insane and you can't reliably predict how he will respond to anything. I have never seen a main character like this, he is all over the shop and utterly singular. Your first reaction to him is ‘wtf?’, your second and third reactions are ‘really?! this guy??’, your fourth reaction is ‘okay he do be mad hot tho’, your fifth and final reaction is ‘I cannot believe this performance exists, I have no idea what he is doing, but it is amazing.’

Appropriately(?) the actor who plays him is an uncanny Korean doppelgänger of Johnny Depp and- between the resemblance, the mannerisms, and the fearless total commitment to a bold as fuck acting choice with the very serious chops to back it up- I’m not convinced they aren’t half brothers separated at birth.

They do sabotage my happiness several times by starting to randomly style his (long, beautiful) hair very weird, fixing it right when the plot is rapidly circling the drain so he looks his hottest just as the show becomes briefly unwatchable, and then ruining him for the entire second half of the series by shearing it all off. WHY, my anguished cry goes up. Why do you do this?! Why does he have like seven hairstyles over the course of the show? Much later they even briefly give him that ubiquitous Kdrama Second Lead haircut with weirdly forward combed fringe in a solid straight line across the brow all the way back from the crown. It looks terrible on everyone and I hate it so much. This version was less bad than most but it is still bad. Anyway.)

So it’s an incredibly fun time to start but there are some problems with the tone and plot even in the first 9 episodes, including when the lovers start getting along really well right away and they’re both thoroughly decent people so there’s nothing keeping them from having a lovely time together making the best of the circumstances (forced/fake marriage). And, instead of introducing new conflict or advancing one of the dozen conflicts previously established and actually moving forward, there is a painfully contrived rehash of something they already dealt with which is then just never resolved. They make the hero leap to a conclusion his wife is nefarious after he’d already decided once that she isn’t (though it was completely reasonable for him to think she was- the fact that he decided to trust her so quickly just speaks to what kind of person he is), never try to find out more or talk to anyone about it, start pushing her away because of it, and have all this come to absolutely nothing. It only exists so he’ll stop being so incredibly nice to her and they won’t fall in love too fast.

You’d think they would have to eventually clear the air before the romance advances right? No. It wasn’t a real plot point, it was just a reset button to get them estranged and hostile again after they connect over their kindred spirits and we’ve spent a bunch of time showing how profoundly supportive and honourable our hero is. He’s being beautifully mature and selfless because he’s a really good dude (unusual for a romcom drama, right? for the main guy to be nice and considerate? to accept responsibility even if he doesn’t have to? Gun’s weird but he’s wonderful), but the writers need him to be cold and standoffish, so they just make him act like an unreasonable idiot for a while. He’s been thus far hugely proactive and direct and honest about everything, it’s one of his most prominent character traits, but suddenly he’s going to avoid confrontation in favour of being super passive aggressive?? Then the writers never solve it. Never! It just goes away. He got over it, I guess? He decided he doesn’t care if she’s a gold digger who deliberately trapped him? God forbid we have motivations that make sense and organic character drama, right? It's not like he didn't have totally valid reasons to be suspicious that could have led to legitimate conflict our heroine would struggle to vindicate herself from.

But anyway, apart from that kind of lazy bullshit, it’s a fine romance plot with extremely endearing characters who have great chemistry. They are fun and well-rounded and incredibly human despite all the silliness and OTT antics. Their relationship is hugely, hugely engaging and the dynamic is perfect, they really complement each other as characters and organically drive each other's arcs. There's the genuine depth and warmth and quiet pathos so often lacking from this kind of show. Things progress at a semi-reasonable pace. They work up to confessing their mutual feelings and get into some cute shenanigans before making out. It happens soon enough that you are not frustrated, but there's still plenty of build-up. Then- uh oh! We’re only 9 eps in and we have another 11 hours to fill with this fluffy plot!

Time for a bunch of absolute fucking nonsense. Time for our show, which has been so goofy and removed from reality it occasionally resembles a Monty Python skit, which has been so light it asks you to ignore the frankly incredibly fucked up implications of its premise for the sake of comedy (they were both drugged and proxy raped resulting in a pregnancy- the FL was a virgin prior to this and Gun had a girlfriend he wanted to propose to- and it was the FL’s family who did this to them: SUPER FUCKED UP), so farcical that it makes Some Like it Hot look like a gritty crime drama, that show to cover a bunch of serious heavy shit.

First, the rankest of melodrama. The families and the world all turn on our couple, but their love is true and will conquer all- UNTIL, he randomly collapses and gets convenient Soap Opera Amnesia. He’s forgotten their entire relationship and a series of coincidental pieces of misconstrued evidence, the machinations of his scheming ex girlfriend, the Soap Opera Doctor’s advice, and his closest confidants all going along with this conspire to make him believe (AGAIN) that his wife just wants his money.

This whole terrible episode is mercifully brief, but it just gets worse after his memory returns. This is where we get into the Noble Idiocy. The ‘pretend you don’t love them to “save them” from getting hurt by hurting them and making their important life decisions for them as if they don’t have a basic fucking right to decide that themselves’ kind. Which goes on for three FUCK years in the show. He wastes three years of their lives they could have spent together because he’s worried he might die young (in a terrible way) and doesn’t want to put her through that. And, of course, they inevitably get together later, so all he did was make it infinitely worse for her either way. To say nothing of how he thus couldn’t be there for her through the loss of their child. Possibly my most hated fucking trope of all time when done this way.

And, yep, you read that right. This show that has the single most batshit bonkers over the top slapstick I have ever seen in a kdrama, this show has a storyline where the fluffy romcom trope accidental pregnancy ends in massive trauma. Because she was standing around in the street after realising he does remember her (he continued to pretend he had amnesia after his memories came back, it’s all part of the stupid noble idiocy so I glossed over it) and gets hit by a car in the middle of their angst staring.

It is nearly Meet Joe Black levels of hilariously abrupt and incongruous.

so, blah blah, they lose their baby (there’s a very stupid whole thing about her telling everyone to save the baby instead of her- the baby is not far enough along for this to have been remotely viable. She is like 3 months pregnant. They all act like there’s a choice to be made between them and she’s mad at her husband for choosing to save her, but there was NO CHOICE. Either she lives or they both die! ffs I’m so irritated about this) and then he dumps her ~for her own good~~ because he loves her too much to make her go through losing him? So she loses him sooner?? right after their baby died???

Why do people in these stories always think being betrayed and abandoned for no reason and being incredibly angry at someone you love while also not getting to be with them is somehow less painful than making the best of your life together and then losing them against their will? ‘I will make her hate me and then she won’t be sad we broke up/I died!!!!’ is such a fucking galaxy brain take and I despise it with the heat of ten thousand suns. Fuck you, Spider-Man. You aren’t protecting anyone, the villains still know you love MJ and will still use her against you, you clod. Emotionally torturing the person you love is not going to make them not a target because the villains are not as fucking stupid as you two. Anyway.

Amnesia was right where I started fast-forwarding and skipping around (because I couldn’t bear it), but it only goes downhill from there. Maybe I would have toughed out more of the wretched middle part plot twist if they hadn’t cut all the hot guy’s hair off. If I’m going to watch total nonsense tedious melodrama, I need it to at least be pretty. I understand it was a Symbolic Haircut but damnit! Let me have this!

And it ultimately does the thing that kdramas seem obsessed with and which makes me want to claw out my own eyeballs with frustration. There’s a giant time skip, the female lead gets a personality transplant, all narrative momentum is lost, and the characters who eventually (at ENORMOUS length) get together permanently are essentially completely different characters with a completely different dynamic than the couple you were shipping for 90% of the story. It is so FUCKING unsatisfying and it is EVERYWHERE.

Not so much with this one because this one still had a lot of very romantic scenes late in the game, but most that do this, it’s also like all the romance is sucked out of the post-time skip episodes and the ending is a consolation prize instead of a triumphant culmination. Inevitably, the heroine abruptly cools off and is suddenly wary of the hero and wants this Important New Career she never mentioned until the penultimate episode but is now her one true life’s dream. What the apparently irresistible appeal is of these contrived separations and demure conclusions is I CANNOT FATHOM. I’m here for the fucking romance guys, you have not made Citizen Kane, please just indulge me with a big schmoopy finale.

And if not that, it’s frequently that there’s been so many random mood swings and so much shitty behaviour by the end that the relationship doesn’t make sense and you don’t know why they even bother to get back together.

I’m not inherently against all misunderstandings (they are the bread and butter of low stakes romance let’s be real) or attempts at noble idiocy from misguided characters, but the duration and seriousness of the drama these generate needs to be in proportion to how ridiculous they are. If your entire plot can be solved by a thirty second conversation there is NO REASON not to have and the continuation of the misunderstanding is a result of someone just NOT SPEAKING UP when any functional human being would have spoken up seven times by now IT’S BAD.

Do little cliff-hangers, whatever, but don’t draaaaagg out silly misconceptions into Shakespearean tragedy, it’s just wearying. It makes me hate the characters for acting like emotionally constipated toddlers with terminal stupidity. If there is so little trust, so little understanding, and so little basic patience between these people, they probably shouldn’t be dating, so try fucking harder, writers. And noble idiocy that is more than an impulse they fairly quickly see the error of is just insulting. You are not helping the other person, you are being domineering and selfish. I have a whole complex about wasting time and seeing endless parades of characters flushing years down the toilet for literally no reason gives me hives. Especially when the whole issue is about time!

(And, btw, so much of the plot is about how desperately the family needs an heir and everyone still wanting them to have kids the second time they get together- while the ~dilemma used to keep them apart is a GENETIC DISEASE which could STRIKE AT ANY TIME. Do you SEE THE PROBLEM WITH THIS WRITERS????? NO, I KNOW YOU DON’T. ommmmmmmmggggg that’s awful! So they’re just dooming more kids to Soap Opera Brain Disease? And maybe growing up without a father just as Gun did? And no one even considers suggesting adoption??? He never considers that he shouldn’t have biological children despite thinking he shouldn’t have a wife?)

ANYWAY. Please do watch the first nine episodes and the last three, it’s bananas. They are cute as fuck, Gun is The Best, and the tropey romance scenes are top quality. You don't get those things executed so well, it doesn't happen, so you need this in your life. The acting is of a calibre you never usually see in modern romcoms; these are people at the top of their game committing utterly and taking these characters completely seriously. In that way it is pure wish fulfilment for me as someone who loves romance and is almost always disappointed by popular romance media, and thus the show is incalculably special. But skip the middle. Just skip it. It's not worth the suffering. I find the tone whiplash honestly just this side of crass.

I’ve been thinking about it for over a week and I truly love the main characters so it did plenty right, but I just cannot with wedding the two things this show is trying to be together, especially when it goes so hard in two mutually exclusive directions. but also the Meet Joe Black sudden car accident device is not redeemable under any circumstances. Can we never do that again, please.

[peterstanslizzie]

Re-watching Lizzie Mcguire: Episode 2.8 (Inner Beauty)

Miranda and Lizzie making detention fun

- Gordo wants to expand his filmmaking repertoire and so, he wants to shoot his own music video for the song, ‘Us Against The World’ by Play, starring his best friends, Lizzie and Miranda whom are both practicing their dance moves in Lizzie’s living room:

“Britney, Britney, Janet and J Lo” vs “ Brtiney, Janet, Janet...”

- The both of them then take a snack break to which Gordo get all concerned about because he thinks they’re not taking his new venture seriously. Relax Gordo, there’s nothing wrong with taking a break lol. 

- In school the next day, we see Miranda being upset about getting a B on a recent Science test. She basically feels like she’s coming up short, which I can totally relate. 

- To make matters worse, she now thinks she’s fat after looking at the stills Gordo took of them from rehearsals the other day. It’s sad to see her nitpick every single body part on that photo. Anyways, it’s pretty clear what direction this episode is going to take and what issues that are going to be tackled, which are body dysmorphia and eating disorders. I definitely have my own personal opinions regarding how Miranda’s storyline was handled in this episode but I’ll save it for the ‘Overall Thoughts’ section. 

- Lizzie and Gordo are clearly shocked to hear how negatively Miranda views herself and she also declares to them that she’s going on a diet. 

Crash Diet Woes

- At lunch, Gordo notices that Miranda isn’t having anything to eat. Miranda gives the excuse that she had a very heavy breakfast in the morning. Even after Lizzie tries to offer her some of her own lunch, she strangely acts like she just got a paper cut and has to go to the bathroom to run her finger over cold water. Girl, we know you’re not a good actress...stop it! 

- After leaving in a hurry, both Lizzie and Gordo are even more concerned now because it’s obvious that Miranda is forcing herself to go on a strict diet. Lizzie even points out that Miranda is not that kind of person to starve herself like that.  

-  After school, Lizzie and Miranda are going through another practice session and this time around, they’re showing their moves in front of Lizzie’s mom, Jo. Jo is super impressed with the girls and asks Gordo if she can be in his MV (music video) too. but he kind of indirectly shot her down lol. But worst of all, she was trying to act all cool despite being disappointed about being turned down:

Her face here definitely does not read “I’m kidding” lmao

- Anyways, throughout the rehearsal, it’s very apparent that Miranda is starting to feel woozy based on her facial expressions. Despite this, she still insists that she and Lizzie continue practicing. Big mistake here because a few seconds into their next run-through, she becomes lightheaded and drops to the floor. They all rush over to help her up and they ask her what’s up. Miranda lies again and says she had a really heavy lunch when she definitely did not. Lizzie is definitely concerned about her best friend’s wellbeing. 

Defensive Miranda

- Some time after Miranda’s fainting spell, Lizzie and Gordo are discussing what they should say or do with regards to Miranda’s problem. Well, it’s mostly Gordo who’s talking because he’s not giving Lizzie any chance to give her two cents. But I got to say this; It’s unfortunate that Gordo thinks that just because Miranda is a girl, he feels like he can’t talk to her about the issues she’s facing with her body image. As her best friend, I feel like he should at least hear out what's going through her mind. But again, I need to remember that Gordo is just a teenage boy and he can’t help but to feel awkward in this type of circumstance.

-  Next, we see Lizzie at the mall with Miranda to shop for new outfits for their upcoming MV shoot. As I’ve predicted, Miranda feels dejected going through the rack of clothes she thinks she won’t look good in. Lizzie tries putting things into perspective with Miranda but she just gives off this nasty and defensive attitude towards Lizzie.

Again, what’s with the attitude?

- Lizzie decides to come clean and be honest with her best friend by saying that she’s making a bad decision by going on all these crazy fasts. I generally feel like what Lizzie said to Miranda was appropriate, especially after reminding her that they’re best friends and she should feel comfortable being able to open up to her. 

- Miranda is just not having it with Lizzie and says something really passive aggressive and in the end, she just storms off. I feel like being Miranda’s friend is exhausting at times. 

- At home, Lizzie is feeling down about what just happened and she explains to her mom about the problems she’s facing without revealing Miranda’s identity. Poor Jo first thought that her own daughter was the one with body image issues. Also, who is Lizzie fooling when she tells Jo that she’s talking about a friend? It’s pretty clear that this friend she’s referring to is Miranda lol. Well, at least to me it would have been obvious.

-  Well, Jo is just as shocked to find out that the person is actually Miranda and she freaks out about it some more after connecting this to the fainting incident in their living room a few days ago. Luckily, she calms down and tells Lizzie that if the situation doesn’t improve in a few days, she will have a sit down with  both Miranda herself and with Miranda’s mom. Daniela. 

Opening Up

- It’s the day of the actual music video shoot and Miranda surprisingly shows up. Gordo tries apologizing to her for the comment he made about her eating too much but Ms. Sanchez is still upset at him for who knows why. Lizzie then steps in and apologizes to her for butting into her life and her issues at the mall.  But she also tells her that she’s very concerned about her wellbeing and it’s actually scaring her. Aww poor baby.

- In my opinion, I feel like Lizzie doesn’t have to explain her concern over Miranda. I think it’s very obvious that Lizzie only has good intentions. But I guess sometimes it’s good to break it down to the other person who is going through the motions. Fortunately for all three of them, Miranda opens up to them about all the issues she’s facing at school and the pressure she feels coming from her parents regarding what she wants to do in the future. 

- Because of the overwhelming pressure she’s facing, she feels like she needs something in her life that she is able control, which are her eating habits. I think this is a very common feeling to have amongst people who suffer from eating disorders or body dysmorphia. And I like how Miranda explains that it’s something that she really feels deep within even though it doesn’t make sense on paper. It’s just how our brain works really. 

I wonder if that look Miranda is giving to Gordo is a good one or a bad one lol

- Lizzie explains to Miranda that she relates to her struggles as well because she too, feels pressure to fit in. Even Gordo shares the same feeling for being non-muscular and probably short lol. She then reassures Miranda that being her best friends means that they will support her through this no matter what.  And  in the end, Miranda thanks them for having her back. I'm glad she came around lol.

Rock those flips Hilary!

The teacher definitely has some moves of his own too!

- The episode ends with our favorite trio watching the fully-shot iconic MV of Miranda and Lizzie dancing incredibly and looking amazing together at the same time. But most importantly, they look healthy and happy.

Miranda is definitely feeling herself in this music video

B-Plot: Matt’s 5687th Career, An Artist 

The resemblance is uncanny

- In this episode, Matt’s storyline centers around him being an artist, to which his school apparently thinks he’s a very talented one at that. They notify Jo about his ‘newfound talent’ and she wants to nurture that in him. I can already tell this whole plot is going to be campy. At least Sam is questioning this whole thing:

“Sensitive? Matt eats mud!”. ICONIC

-  We then see Matt creating a portrait of Lanny in the backyard using the splatter paint technique, if I’m not mistaken. As expected, he makes a mess outside because he got his paint all over the patio, the plants and even Lanny himself. I don’t get why Jo is encouraging this given all the shenanigans he  pursued in majority of the past episodes. But most of all, I wonder who is the teacher at his school who thinks he has this talent? I could be wrong though; He might actually have a gift....

- Later, they decide to take Matt’s work outside and both Matt and Lanny are now going through pieces of junk outside to see what can be used for his next masterpiece. I smell disaster in the horizons for sure.

- And I was right! The Mcguire home is ridden with all the trash Matt and Lanny brought home with them from the junkyard.  Jo and Sam sees this and they are just shocked. But I’m very surprised to see that Jo is still trying to encourage Matt. I thought she would put her foot down by now. 

OK. This should be the trigger lol

- Matt pretty much butchered poor Sam’s car. Jo finally sees that Matt has crossed the line (when she should have reeled him in days ago) and tells him to stick to creating art on paper. This boy needs to be restricted, which come to think of it...it’s not really an appropriate word to use given the main storyline of this episode but I’ll just leave it at that lol.

Overall Thoughts

- I feel like this is the first episode of Lizzie Mcguire so far that dealt with a very serious topic, apart from maybe the bullying situation Matt was facing in the season 1 episode, ‘Sibling Bonds’. Episodes like this one really stood out to me over the years till today because it was mainly on an issue a main character was facing both physically and internally.  And it had nothing to do with relationship drama or girl drama. So naturally, the episode was very memorable.

- In terms of the execution of Miranda’s eating disorder storyline, I had issues with it but I also have some positives to say. Let’s start with the negatives; I just feel like the show kind of made it seem that Miranda’s body image issues went away within a week of it popping up. You can see by the end, Miranda was happy with how she looked in the music video. In fact, she was even praising herself. And that’s just not the reality of most people’s struggles with ED and body dysmorphia. These things just don’t go away so quickly. That being said, I definitely don’t think Miranda had an eating disorder based on what I’ve seen in this episode. But because things are shown through the lens of a children’s TV show camera, things might not appear to be so clear cut. 

- But I could view them having showed the viewers that Lizzie and Gordo having Miranda’s back no matter what means that they will continue to be there for her in case the issues she’s facing do come back. Moreover, I wish that the show would’ve added a separate conversation between Miranda and her mom or at least show Jo talking to Miranda because I think including adults in this would add more seriousness to the situation. Again, this is a TV show that is targeted towards kids and young preteens. So, there’s bound to be some problems here and there. 

- As for the positives, I recall myself pointing out earlier in this review that Gordo should feel like he should be able to talk to Miranda about her issues. And so, I’m very glad that he was included in the scene by the school staircase with Miranda and Lizzie. If it were just the two girls, I would honestly be upset because Gordo is supposed to be Miranda’s best friend too and differences in gender shouldn’t dictate the conversations best friends should have with one another. So, that made me feel really glad.

[spaceorphan18]

SpaceOrphan vs Glee Season 3

for @yesandmusicals who wanted to know

Yes, let’s talk about my dislike of season 3, because that’s always fun!

So, first of all, I want to say for the record, I actually don’t believe Glee was ever that well written.  I’m not one to bash RIB (though I have issues with them), but I think the novelty of the show, coupled with the great music, good performances from the cast, and some fun things within production, made this show memorable.  And, in the beginning, it had Jane Lynch delivering some dark and edgy comedy, which people were fascinated by.  

But were season 1′s plotlines all that good?  There’s a fake baby, and standard teen drama, and Will going through some kind of weird mid-life crises at 29, and most of the interesting characters were really in the background for most of season 1. 

And then season 2 happened and... I don’t think it’s that great?  You’ll have to forgive me - cause I’m a Kurt/(Blaine)/Klaine fan - and I do think Kurt’s story in the first two seasons is best this show ever is as a whole, but I think a lot of season 2 was a mess, and kind of coasted on being popular.    Season 2 became big and flashy and everyone loved it until they didn’t anymore.  The show really had a quick shelf life, and looking back, it’s kind of surprising the show made it all the way to six seasons.  

(I actually really enjoy season 4-6, so I’m glad they stuck it out.)

Anyway -- by the time season 3 came around, the burnout was real, and they brought in new writers (who I don’t think helped much) -- and the show was now trying to service so many characters that most of the (terrible) plot lines they had were stretched way too thin -- with the exception of the Finchel story line that went in circles cause they were waiting for the inevitable conclusion to happen in season 4.  

To be more concise, though, here is a list of reasons why season 3 is my least favorite:

The aforementioned big cast of characters who got episodes devoted to them instead of the long arcs that seasons 1 and 2 gave the characters.  This made the season feel disjointed and messy, and no one got a satisfactory amount of screen time.  

On top of that -- they were backed into dealing with The Glee Project, and while Unique and (arguably) Joe were decent characters, Rory was not. He felt like the most pointless character to ever waste time on.

The season is broken up into three segments (1-8; 9-14; 15-22; sectionals, regionals, and nationals) and while this structure is all fine and dandy on paper, the plot lines for the first and third segments were terrible.  (I don’t necessarily mind episodes 9-18 plus The First Time, but the beginning and the end of this season just kinda sucked.)

In the first third -- we have possibly the worst story lines of the series.  I don’t think Santana’s coming out was done very well.  No one cared about Sue and Beiste in a love triangle.  The student elections just were weird.  And then there was Shelby and Puck -- and I can’t say how much I HATE that story line, because it leads to some of the worst moments the show has.  People often don’t even think about Puck that much, so this isn’t talked about very often -- but even beyond the grossness of a teacher/student relationship, how Puck treats her is truly one of the most disgusting displays of a relationship on this show.

There was the issue that they literally did not know what to do with Quinn so they made her crazy, and then hit her with a truck.  I’m not even a Quinn fan but, good god.  

The last third was marred by the fact that Rachel Berry was given everything on a silver platter and I wasn’t here for the -- give Rachel everything show.  I don’t hate Rachel, she was a great character in season 1.  She’s a great character later on in the series.  But the writing around her character, especially at the expense of many other characters, became grating -- especially in episodes like Promasaurus and Props.

One of the by products of season 2 was that Hummelberry became a thing, and instead of understanding that Kurt worked just fine as his own character, they now had to tie Kurt in with Rachel, their stories became paralleled, her issues became his issues, and he became her emotional prop of a sidekick.  

Which also made Finchel and Klaine stories become paralleled a lot (glee loves parallels, and it used to parallel Wemma with Finchel - which makes more sense, tbh.) 

Because Kurt was relegated to sidekick for Rachel, Blaine ended up being relegated jukebox singer, with little to no development outside his one episode and the rare Klaine story line.  

I think they mishandled some of the bigger social commentary stories.  The Kurt/Bullying storyline resonated with a lot of people, so suddenly Glee felt the need to go address all the issues facing (young?) people and it ended up doing a 180 from its darker roots.  And thus we get an awkward Santana coming out story that focuses more on Finn; Karofsky’s suicide attempt in a tonally disjointed episode, and Beiste’s spousal abuse story line - which is... what?  

Also, let’s not forget that Sue being pregnant for half the season is indeed a story line.  

The competitions I think were pretty bland, since it was already telegraphed that they were going to win Nationals because they lost the year before -- and half the cast is graduating.  The show outgrew it’s original premise of underdogs trying to win a competition, and while the writers clearly needed these posts for their structure, the character arcs were far more interesting than the weak aspect of competition. 

And then, of course, the whole issue with the Tongue Tied scene during Nationals, which yes does annoy me about the lack of Klaine kiss (the fact that the writers didn’t even think that Kurt and Blaine should celebrate together tells me that it’s more than just censorship) but more so the fact that Emma gives her virginity away as trophy for Will that disgusts me more. 

As for the censorship thing, while I think there might have been some, I think it’s more so that the writers couldn’t focus on any one character for any length of time, and Klaine in the background was not Tike in the background.  And in comparison, when Finchel is getting all the foreground, fighting for scraps made it difficult to watch everything else.  Not helping is the fact that Darren was doing movies and musicals, and wasn’t around for a bit that also added to lack of screen time.  

Oh, and Finchel had an argument over chairs.  I don’t actually hate the scene, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it.  

Did I forget anything? 

And I know, I know - damn, S.O. that’s a lot.  Believe it or not, there are some good things (COOPER!) about season 3, I don’t hate it to the point where I can’t watch it or anything, and all the rest of the seasons have a ton of flaws as well, but unlike every other season, the high points don’t outweigh the “meh”-ness that this season unfortunately suffers from, hence me liking it the least. 

...and now you know the rest of the story.  

[im-just-here-for-the-drama]

LGBTQ Characters in Asian dramas: The Good, The Bad, and The Mediocre: 2019 Edition

No one asked, but here it is-all the gay I saw in 2019! 

SPOILERS AHEAD!

The Bad (I’d say don’t waste your time on these, but who am I to tell you what to do?)

Graceful Family: Mo Wan Joon 

The Story: Blah blah blah, revenge or something- at a point it’s revealed that Mo Wan Joon is a trans woman. 

Should you watch?: If you really like revenge melos maybe, but if you’re looking for this show to do something good and offer up some good trans rep? Nope. 

Literally nothing about Mo Wan Joon’s story is watchable. I wasn’t even entirely sure the show even knows what being transgender even means. It comes off as more of a plot twist  to put the family all in a tizzy more than anything else. They don’t really show much of Wan Joon’s struggle or anything poignant or engaging. 

TharnType

TRIGGER WARNING:  Sexual assault/rape

Country: Thailand 

Official Links: https://www.facebook.com/notes/line-tv/tharntypetheseries-line-tvs-official-links-for-international-fans/2525229217761969/

The Story: Type is a homophobe who ends being roommates with the openly gay Tharn. 

Should you watch?:  No. The good you get isn’t worth sitting through the bad. But if you really can’t help yourself, you’ll have to learn to ignore its problematic elements.

Type was molested as a child, and as a result he hates gay people. He’s clearly still traumatized by his experience. He has nightmares and is triggered by Tharn at least once remembering his assault. Type eventually tells Tharn about his assault and it’s pretty much never brought up again. 

Type is shown to be ridiculously homophobic and he equates gay people with pedophiles and is never really corrected in this logic (even though his boyfriend is a whole gay man). Even after Type starts dating Tharn, Type’s homophobia is never really properly put to rest. 

For some reason, the writer of TharnType loves incorporating rape/sexual assault into her shows when it’s clearly a sensitive topic she knows next to nothing about. And it’s clear in this show, because the show take the topic way lighter than it should.  Because of what happened to Type in his childhood, he believes that gay men like forcing themselves onto others without their consent, and then the show proceeds to have Tharn do exactly that to Type multiple times. Also, thankfully, this happens offscreen, but another character pays several men to gang rape another character and that’s too heavy for a show that clearly wasn’t going to address it properly. 

At the beginning of this show, Tharn had a huge issue with knowing what boundaries and consent were, but by the second half, Tharn chilled out and Type stepped up and became ridiculously childish and violent towards Tharn. Clearly these two have no real business being in a relationship with each other if you ask me.

Though there was a lot I hated about this show I did like some of it. I think this writer writes some really nice and sweet scenes between Tharn and Type.  Mew and Gulf have great chemistry. I’ve seen plenty of videos of Gulf and Mew together and they are adorable. They work well together and they come off more natural than some other couples, but the way the relationship is handled  in TharnType and some of the things that are glossed over in this show leave a bad taste in my mouth. 

The Mediocre (These aren’t the best, but they’re watchable.)

Moment at Eighteen: Jung Oh Je

Country: Korea

Official Links: https://www.viki.com/tv/36633c-moment-of-eighteen?q=moment%20of

The Story: Transfer student Jun Woo has no interest in school life, as he is traumatized from being expelled from bullying. Meanwhile, Soo Bin has been watching Jun Woo all this time. She sees a different side to Jun Woo than the one that other people see. Oh Je, is Jun Woo’s best friend who starts to discover his sexuality.

Should you watch?: Hmmm… sure. 

Oh Je has a decent side plot. It was interesting to see him figuring out he liked Hwi Young and coming out to his ex girlfried, Da Young and his friends. I do wish his story was expanded a little more though. There were several things I would have liked to have seen, like coming out to his family, and I thought they wrapped his story up a little too quickly at the end. 

2moons2

Country: Thailand 

Official Links: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdoEouCtbBvjdNkB5Wl0eYS4V4Zx-1MZY

The Story: Wayo is accepted at the Kantaphat University, in the Faculty of Sciences. Wayo has always been in love with Phana, who studies at the same university. When Wayo has the chance to become the “moon” of his faculty, the two begin to spend time together because Phana himself has been the “moon” of the medical school the previous year and must supervise the freshmen participating in the competition. The two slowly get closer and closer. 

Should you watch?: Yeah. 

Honestly, it’s not super memorable,and not super impressive, but there’s some cute moments, and an easy storyline. We get to see more of the other two couples (MingKit and ForthBeam)  than we saw in the original 2moons. It’s fun and interesting enough. I’ll look forward to the next one. 

Theory of Love

Country: Thailand

Official Links: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVsizYwoQ6B3LsKmcDDMNtHGXnjG88i4C

The Story: Third is a  filmology major and a member of the Savage Team along with his best friends Two, Bone, and Khai, but he has a secret. Third has been secretly in love with Khai for years. 

For three years he has kept his secret love in his heart, silently supporting and loving Khai while knowing there is absolutely no future between them since Khai is as straight as a streetlight pole and also an absolute player. 

To make matters worse, Khai has a “no dating friends” policy.  How long can Third love Khai silently while watching Khai bring a different girl home every night? Third has tried to see Khai as just a friend.  But has failed time and time again. Because as easy as it is to fall in love, to stop is just as hard.  Maybe even harder.  But when Third finally decides to stop loving Khai, Khai decides to start loving Third.

Should you watch?: It wasn’t my cup of tea but, yeah.

Who knew one of my most anticipated shows of the year would turn out to be one of the most disappointing? The show spent way too much time on Third crying, wallowing, and letting his friend walk all over him, and not nearly enough time on Khai making a believable turnaround. Khai spent at least half the show being a dick of a friend, to the point that I was unsure as to why Third liked him for so long. Then when Khai started to have feelings for Third, I just thought it happened way too quickly and unbelievably to me. But despite all that there were some cute moments in the end that made all of that kind of  okay and kind of worth it. And the side couple was cute. 

Dark Blue Kiss

Country: Thailand 

Official Links: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdoEouCtbBviEVFNHbg7dKw7Lfd8-6zB1

The Story: Kao and Pete being in a blissful romance, have grown closer. But Kao is closeted, and he fears the thought of others finding out. His mother introduces Non, a son of a colleague, to be tutored by Kao. With Non constantly giving off ‘iffy’ vibes towards Kao, it only fuels Pete’s jealousy. Their relationship is put in strain, but through this, they must ultimately overcome each other’s flaws. 

Whilst Sun pushes his brother Rain to stay away from Mork, the younger man’s uncontrollable behavior brings him in. As his wildness is intriguing, Sun’s seriousness holds Mork down somewhat. Underneath it all, the two start to care for each other. However, with Mork’s dangerous life, he can’t shake who he is. But maybe he can for someone like Sun.

Should you watch?: If you’re a fan of Pete/Kao or a fan of the typical GMM show.  

I wasn’t a huge fan of Pete and Kao from the series they were originally in and this show honestly didn’t really help. Pete and Kao’s relationship is pulled into an annoying direction when an outsider tries to come between the two of them. It’s classic bl tactics and frankly it’s boring and frustrating to watch when it drags on for multiple episodes. I did love Sun and Mork from the beginning, but even the writing for their storyline got annoying towards the end. The huge problem in this series is that none of our leads really communicate with each other. There’s some enjoyable things in this show but it’s ultimately more frustrating than it should be. 

Ossan’s Love: In The Sky

Country: Japan

The Story: Haruta, a 35-year-old single man, has to switch careers and he begins a new career as a cabin attendant in Tenku Peach Airlines. Even though he’s clumsy, he seems to be protected by the Great Captain Kurosawa. One day, he finds drawings of himself in a locker and accidentally discovers tries to figure out who drew them. Haruta discovers that not only is the mechanic Shino in love with him, but Captain is secretly in love with him too. Meanwhile, Haruta takes an interest in the co-pilot Naruse.

Should you watch? Yes, but you might be disappointed by the end. 

I’m a fan of  the original Ossan’s Love and I know what this show usually gives so I expected this show to be silly, ridiculous, fun. And it was for the most part. I always love Haruta. I would literally watch him in any reincarnation of this show and not complain. He’s always a joy to watch and that’s still true here. But this time around, things are a lot more messier than usual. There’s a complicated love triangle, which I hate, but  even that was fine because I enjoyed the other characters. My only complaint was how it ended, because I would have preferred him with someone else rather than who he ends up with. 

Love with Flaws: Won Suk and Ho Dol

Country: Korea

The Story:  Joo Seo Yeon, is a hot-tempered physical education high school teacher who always wears sneakers, jeans and training uniforms.  The death of her parents helped instill a deep sense of compassion, a generous heart and an outspoken objection for anyone who drinks and drives. Living in a house with three wild and very attractive brothers, she loathes flower boys. Her ideal type is someone who is “not handsome.” Won Suk is one of her handsome older brothers.

Won Suk has closed his heart to relationships and love, but he lives his life as an openly gay man. Ho Dol is closeted and lacks confidence. They meet one night at Won Suk’s bar.

Should you watch?: People have been kind enough to condense Won Suk’s and Ho Dol’s  story into parts on YouTube so yeah, go ahead and check it out. 

These two don’t get a whole lot of screen time, but the little they do get is nice. We get to see Won Seok help Ho Dol open up and be more confident with who he is and in turn, Won Seok opens up his heart. 

The Good (These are worth the hours of your life you won’t get back.)

History3: Trapped

Country: Taiwan

Official Links: https://www.viki.com/tv/36410c-history-3-trapped?locale=en

The Story: Shao Fei’s police officer mentor and Tang Yi’s gang leader father were killed in a gunshot attack. No one knows why or what really happened. The only survivor, Tang Yi, stepped up and is now the gang leader. Police officer Shao Fei wants to find out what happened that day and he’s sure that Tang Yi’s hiding the truth. Shao Fei decides that the only way to figure out the truth is to investigate Tang Yi to the fullest and Tang Yi just wants Shao Fei to leave him alone since he’s trying to take the gang in a more legitimate direction, but what happens when the two keep crossing paths and ultimately start to fall for each other? 

Should you watch?: Absolutely. 

I watched this show twice last year and somehow I liked it even better the second time around. The story is fresh-school/university plots get real old real fast (not that I don’t love them though). Instead we get a story about a mob boss and a police officer.  The plot is well written, coherent, interesting, and fun, and doesn’t revolve solely around the romance. And speaking of romance, it’s well integrated into the larger plot that focuses on figuring out what happened to Tang Yi’s father and Shao Fei’s mentor years ago. There’s just the right balance between plot and romance. There’s also a second couple that’s super cute. Both couples have great chemistry. What’s not to like?

He’s Coming To Me

Country: Thailand

The Story: After his death, Mes is a ghost that is consumed by loneliness. That is until he meets a strange boy that can see him. The two bond in a state of happiness and joy as they develop into friends. But what happens when Mes falls for the boy who is alive?

Should you watch?: Of course! 

This is by far, in my opinion one of the most slept on shows of 2019. Who would have thought things could work out between a ghost and human? I went into this show expecting it to be full of sadness and angst and it really surprised me. Of course it does have those things, Mes is ghost so… but  it’s definitely one of the sweetest dramas of the year. The boys forge a strong friendship and bond from the beginning, they’re ridiculously cute, the side characters are enjoyable, the friends are supportive,  and there’s an interesting story of Mes and Thun trying to figure out the mystery behind Mes’ death. You should definitely put it on your list to check out. 

What Did You Eat Yesterday?

Country: Japan

The Story: Kakei Shiro is a 45 year old lawyer who works at a small law firm. He is a good cook and a meticulous and thrifty person who keeps the monthly food budget to 25,000 yen. Shiro’s daily routine is to leave work on time and head to a discount supermarket nearby. His partner Yabuki Kenji is an affable hairdresser in his 40s. The two of them share a two-bedroom apartment and the finer points of two men living together comes up at the dining table every day. Although two of them have been in a relationship for three years and Kakei’s parents know he is gay, Kakei never shares the fact that he is gay or Kenji is his partner to anyone else.

Should you watch? Definitely.

Very slice of life, very sweet, very heartwarming. We get to see two older gay men navigate their lives and society. We see how Shiro struggles with coming out and being open and we see how he deals with his accepting but ignorant parents. We see Kenji struggle with Shiro’s closed-offness and the strain its puts on their relationship when Shiro refuses to let people know they’re together.  Shiro and Kenji interact with other gay couples too, and it’s interesting to see the dynamics between the different couples.  It’s a nice change of pace to the shows I’m used to.  Also, there’s plenty of food to salivate over. 

Hello? Spring Is Coming

Country: Korea

Official Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnyivXs1rWk

The Story: Every coming out is difficult, but most of all, coming out in front of  family is the hardest.

Should you watch?: We get way too few shows about wlw. And also they’re way too short, and on that note yes you should watch. It’s sweet. 

The Effect

TRIGGER WARNING: Rape, bullying, attempted suicide 

Country: Thailand

Official Links (in the comments): https://mydramalist.com/32424-the-effect

The Story: Shin, a shy and reserved 1st-year university student, admires his senior Keng from afar. Keng is tall, handsome, smart and owns the heart of many girls on campus. But what others don’t see is the pressure to be perfect from his family that weighs on Keng’s shoulders.  Due to Shin’s clumsiness, he becomes acquainted with the handsome senior. As Keng takes a liking to his junior,  jealousy from peers makes the cyber world a breeding ground for hate and nasty rumors. Shin falls victim not only to the strangers online but to Keng as well. Nobody but Shin can overcome the trauma that will be placed upon him. All he needs is for the strangers to listen. Because only then can they understand “the effect” that they have on others. 

Should you watch? Heed the trigger warnings, and if you can handle them, then yes. 

You know those BL shows where one of the characters is forced or coerced into having sex with their love interest and then falls in love with him at the end? This show is thankfully, not that. I wouldn’t even consider this a BL because, well because it’s not. It’s not a love story. It takes a very very different and serious path that most shows in this genre don’t even come close to. This show did a good job of really showing the effects of social media, bullying, and rape, what they could really do to a person, and the support system one needs after a trauma. At a (way too) short 3 episodes, it was super emotional, mostly realistic, and it really left a memorable impression. There were a few things I wish had been explored and fleshed out more and I wished they’d changed the ending from the novel. I would have preferred something more uplifting, less open ended potential tragedy. But on another note, James as Shin was a stand out here with such an emotionally draining role. I’ll definitely be looking forward to his future projects. 

Mood Indigo/Indigo No Kibun

Country: Japan

The Story: The story begins with Shiro Kido’s reunion with a former classmate, Rio Kijima, at a college teacher’s funeral. In the past, when they were students, Kijima used to show talent as a novelist, even earning a big prize. Kido was jealous of Kijima’s success, but after reading his works he became aware of his lack of talent and gave up writing novels and became an editor of erotic novels. However, after reuniting, it became clear to Kido that Kijima was stuck; facing a wall. He had used up all his talent. With Kido also being in a lost state he offers Kijima the opportunity to write pornographic novels.With the intense eroticism and closeness, both men open up and feed into their desire. 

Should you watch?: Yeah. 

As one of the more erotic shows on this list, It was interesting to see the development between Rio and Kido. Their dynamic certainly isn’t anything romantic,cute, or healthy but still very beautiful, passionate, and raw. I wasn’t a huge fan of this shows predecessor Pornographer, but this one really made me appreciate it from another perspective. It helped me realize why Rio was the way he was and how this relationship impacted his later relationship with Kusami.  

Really Lily?

Country: Korea

Official Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=167D6kmuspU

The Story: Are we friends? Or…

Should you watch?: It’s short, sweet, and funny. Absolutely. 

Rural Outcasts

Country: Korea

The Story: Sun Hui moves to a small village where she lives her life as Soon Ho until she can make enough money to become her true self. Dong Ja, a feisty 12 year old, breaks into her house one day.

Should you watch? Yes.

 Found family always makes for a heartwarming story and this one is no different. I loved the bond between Dong Ja and Sun Hui and I loved their mother daughter relationship. Very sweet and heartwarming, but be prepared for some heartbreak too. 

History3: Make Our Days Count 

TRIGGER WARNING: Forced kisses, bullying 

Country: Taiwan

The Story:  At first glance, high schoolers Xiang Hao Ting and Yu Xi Gu appear to be polar opposites: While  Hao Ting is an outgoing, hot-headed extravert and some-time bully,  Xi Gu prefers to keep a low profile and focus on his schoolwork. They seem bound for totally different futures – the bookish Xi Gu looks destined for academic success, while life is just a long popularity contest for Hao Ting. But a quirk of fate – and a crucial intervention by a female schoolmate – results in the two young men’s paths crossing. But there is more to both young men than first meets the eye.  Hao Ting was not always this way. He started out as a perfect student until he discovered the joys of going off the rails.  Xi Gu has a reason for being so aloof and studious: His parents died in a traffic accident while he was younger, and he is being fostered by his aunt. As such, he works hard to get good grades in an effort to win a scholarship and ease the financial burden on his relatives. Xi Gu and Hao Ting find themselves drawn together, and passions ignite. The former notices that he has the unique ability to bring  Xi Gu out of his shell – and becomes intent on melting his cold-as-ice exterior. What will happen when their two worlds collide? And can love be the catalyst that helps bring these two unlikely students together – as their high school days draw to a close?

Sun Bo Xiang is Hao Ting’s friend who has a crush on a man, Lu Zhi Gang who he meets at the gym. Zhi Gang’s runs the shop that Xi Gu works at part time. When Bo Xiang confesses to Zhi Gang, and tells him that he’ll love hm forever, Zhi Gang doesn’t believe it because Zhi Gang is young and overzealous. Also, nothing lasts forever, or does it?

Should You Watch?:  Yes, but it doesn’t end happily so keep that in mind.. 

Given this show’s predecessors it had some big shoes to fill. I expected this show to be good and honestly, it was. The general consensus is that the ending ruined the entire show. And had I had time to sit on this series-if I had watched it over the weeks, I might have felt the same way. But I watched the entire show in one sitting over the course of a day and I just can’t bring myself to hate it completely. The writing was good, the directing was good, and the acting was so good I think a lot of the show was elevated because of it. This show made me feel so many things. The couples are great with natural chemistry, and the side characters fit so well (there’s never a dull moment with Hao Ting’s friends).  I smiled, I laughed, and of course I cried (#heartbroken). I was sad and upset when episode 10 came around. I wasn’t disappointed once the credits rolled because I was still riding the emotional high of the first nine episodes, but after I had time to sit and think about it, the more disappointed and angry I got. Just like grey rainbow and wise prison life- why did you give me everything I ever wanted and then rip it out from under me? But even so, the first nine eps were great. Does it have its flaws? Well obviously, some things in the show are a little iffy (Hao Ting and Sun Bo practice some problematic behavior at the beginning towards their love interests, that’s where the trigger warning comes in)  and the last episode is a glaring misstep. Do I wish things had ended differently? I think they absolutely should have. Even this ending would have been satisfactory with some proper execution and build up. Overall this show could have cemented itself as one of my favorite shows if not for the last episode, but I really don’t regret watching it, because when it was good?  It was gold.

Out of Breath

Country: Taiwan

Official Links: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuUQH5CiOw6n9Z0O5ytuQY2EFuvbF_7DX

The Story: Ha Eun has just broken up with her girlfriend when she meets out and proud Min Seo. 

Should you watch?: Yes! 

It’s a short webseries about coming out and no longer wanting to hide who you are. It’s very sweet and realistic. The ladies are cute and their characters are believable. My only complaint is that I wish the show was longer.

Until We Meet Again

TRIGGER WARNING: Suicide

Country: Thailand 

Official Links: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPXE51seODgcGxLQF_X5jzQ/playlists

The Story:  Thirty years ago, Korn and Intouch were university students in Bangkok. Intouch entered Korn’s life despite knowing that he was the son of one of the most influential people in Bangkok, the mafia. At first, Korn kept pushing Intouch away, but in the end, he couldn’t resist him. However, in a time where homosexuality was unacceptable and having parents that were against their relationship and each other, Korn and In’s love was bound to be doomed. Amidst the chaos, while Intouch kept on fighting for their future, Korn could not deal with all the suffering his lover was facing and decided to give up. That day, two sounds of a gunshot rang through the air. Their story ended with tragedy, but something had already tied itself between them, bounding them together even after they were dead. 

Years later, a freshly returned to Thailand, Pharm who is a  freshman in T- University has grown up always feeling like he is waiting for someone. Being riddled with sad dreams that always left him waking up with a wet face, fear of loud noises, and a birthmark on his temple, the boy has always felt like there is someone he is missing. Dean, the third year swimming club’s president at T- University has also spent his life searching for someone whose face he can not remember. The red thread of fate that had tied them together in their past life once again pulls the two boys back to each other, tying them to each other and a past that might not be worth remembering, but a love that is unforgettable. Because the red thread that binds the two hearts together will always lead one back to the other. Even though it might tangle or stretch, it will never break.

Should you watch?: 100% yes. 

This show isn’t finished yet, so I’ll just talk about what I’ve seen up to this point. I read a few comments about this show before I watched it and although it was one of the shows I was looking forward to the most, I was skeptical about watching it since the reviews were mixed. Lots of people love it, but there was also an overwhelming about of people saying it was boring and average at best. After watching the 12 episodes that are out, I gotta admit that it’s not perfect. It is a little slow in some parts, some times you feel like you’re watching Thailand’s version of the food network, the director needs to learn when a scene is over, the product placement can be distracting, the kisses are more awkward than I’d like them to be, and that sounds like a lot to be bothered by, but honestly- I love this show. I feel like Until We Meet Again is what happens when a production crew cares more about making a good show rather than making something that fuels the typical bl fan’s fantasies. It has an interesting storyline and it’s well acted. There’s great emotional moments filled with sweetness and sadness. It’s funny and there’s loving and supportive family and friends. A lot of the typical bl drama tropes aren’t involved here. There’s no girlfriends, no portrayals of women as evil incarnate, no cheating, no coercion into sexual activities, or the popular I’m just gay for you crap. I saw on Twitter a while back that someone was asking how they could get bl to branch out-how to reach a larger audience because there’s a lot of people that won’t watch it-this is how you do it. 

[butterflydm]

The Untamed Rewatch (ep 8)

Previous Episode | Index | Next Episode

I have added a rewatch-specific tag to these posts: cql rewatch. I’ll only put rewatch posts in that tag!

At the beginning of this episode, we sort of rewind a bit before we continue the scene from the ending of ep7. We find out that before he visited the bunnies, WWX went to say goodbye to Wen Ning only to find out that he'd already left. I'm sure this increased his suspicions of Wen Qing, due to the timing — he and Lan Zhan find out what the mountain was hiding and she immediately leaves? Suspicious, indeed.

For most of this scene, WWX is gentle with the bunnies (until his siblings show and then he just chucks a rabbit at Jiang Cheng which 100% made me flinch). He also essentially uses their silence as a sounding board for his own thinking process, where he's thinking aloud and supplies their answers for them. His reaction here is, I think, both about him thinking of himself and Lan Zhan as a team — they're supposed to do this together! — but also, independently, about his own desire to keep his promise to Lan Yi. The lantern scene in the last episode shows both sides of that — he makes the promise with the lantern but is also making a point of wanting Lan Zhan to be part of that promise and not have to do things alone.

After the sibs show up, we also get the first iteration of Jiang Yanli's character throughline, which is her desire to keep (her) family together, when she talks about how she wouldn't want them to take a bunny home because it would miss its family. Jiang Yanli's deep devotion to her family, especially her brothers, is a theme we will return to often in the future — and leads, ultimately, to her sacrificing her life to save her brother's. But here it is just a sweet character note.

LWJ saying goodbye to the bunnies is short but it's a lovely little scene.

The scene where Wen Chao comes to try to threaten Lan Xichen is mostly about setting out the stakes — that Lan Wangji is vulnerable now that he's left the Cloud Recesses and that the Cloud Recesses themselves are not invulnerable. Wen Chao is a bully, so he's big on threats when he feels like he's in a position of power. He speaks with the weight of his father's power behind him right now, so it's easy for him to make threats. He also very much wants to prove himself to his father, since he knows there are others in his father's court who are very ruthless.

WWX has taken off after LWJ and he signs his little note that he left behind for his family with a smiley face. I love him. Jiang Yanli knows immediately that WWX must have something more serious in mind than just a night-hunt. Jiang Cheng, though, took the note at face value, which is an indicator for their future behavior when it comes to WWX's post-burial mounds behavior. And JFM, of course, knows about the Yin Metal stuff, so I'm guessing he made his own assumptions about what WWX is doing.

And Wei Wuxian is out of the white guest disciple robes and into his own color scheme. Though, here he doesn't wear black but instead wears a deep blue, very similar to the color that Jiang Fengmian wears, though he accents with red instead of light blue.

It does connect WWX visually with JFM in a way that his two bio-kids are not, though Jiang Yanli's light blue accents do match her father's. WWX was cute in the guest disciple robes, but the dark colors do really work for him. From what I can see of the layering, it's a red inner robe, then the dark blue with black accents (where LWJ has his cloud embroidery on his own outfit). It's interesting because when I was just thinking of WWX's 'signature colors', it was black and red that came to mind, but this is definitely a very deep blue that echoes JFM's clothes.

WWX is here to lecture LWJ on trying to do the Yin Metal quest on his own. He accuses LWJ of wanting all the credit of being a hero, which LWJ takes as seriously as it deserves (not at all). And now that LWJ is off on his own, he's also wearing blue, though a much lighter shade, with white accents. This leads into the bonding/binding talismen scene, which I like on a few different levels. To start with, it feels like a physical/magical expression of WWX's desires in general — he wants LWJ to treat him like an equal in this journey. He wants to be closer to him, expressed here in physical distance, but WWX makes it clear he means emotionally as well. And LWJ resists because, for him, the closeness is a red flag of a whole bunch of emotional potential that he, at this point, does not want to let himself feel but WWX's entire personality and presence basically mean he's gonna be forced to.

So… in the town, they meet up with Nie Huaisang and I think… was WWX not actually kicked out of classes early? Maybe the lantern ceremony was actually the end of the studies for the guest disciples? Because Nie Huaisang has also left Gusu. And the conversation implies studies are over for all guest disciples. Now I'm trying to think of why I assumed he had been kicked out early — is that a book thing that enough posts implied must have also happened in CQL, maybe? Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian laugh at each other for not going straight back home after the end of studies, then NHS notices that LWJ is there and he's concerned.

At Lotus Pier, Jiang Cheng is sneaking out to go find WWX when his sister catches up with him. And because I'm noticing these things now, Jiang Cheng has dark blue inner robes with lighter blue over them and darker accents, while Jiang Yanli has white inner robes with lavender on top and darker purple accents.

Anyway, he thinks she's there to scold him or tell him to stay but she's just here to warn Jiang Cheng to be careful on his journey, much like we had the inner thoughts of Lan Xichen hoping that his little brother would be careful. Jiang Cheng isn't as noisy about it as WWX, but he also obviously craves his older sister's approval as well.

Hmm, I hadn't given enough thought to Jiang Yanli-Lan Xichen potential parallels before now, but they do both fit into the niche of protective and concerned older sibling (along with Wen Qing). I'm… going to think about that some more. Lan Xichen is definitely in a confidant type role to Lan Wangji, much as Jiang Yanli is to Wei Wuxian. They are both better at 'reading' the truth of their younger brother's emotions than pretty much anyone else is. And they're both calmer personality types, too.

Lan Wangji may be feeling a little left out now that NHS has joined their journey — once Nie Huaisang shows up, WWX is basically all over him, hanging around his shoulder and calling him Nie-xiong again. But WWX has not forgotten about LWJ at all — he notices when LWJ stops walking, and then grabs his wrist and tugs him along when LWJ hesitates because of the crowd. When they talk about poetry, we learn as a character note, that while NHS can't memorize the Lan Sect rules, he is very capable of remembering things that actually interest him, like stories about poetry, etc.

We do also see here that NHS has genuine admiration for LWJ — he isn't just intimidated by him, though he is a bit, he also admires his grace and elegance. Which makes a lot of sense, of course. A large part of NHS's character is his admiration of beauty and artistry. Of course he notices those traits in LWJ!

WWX turns it into a bit of a teasing thing, and NHS is very indignant about WWX's inability to admire LWJ's aesthetic beauty (he might also be thinking about how his own robes are actually whiter than LWJ's are at the moment), but then WWX steals another look at LWJ and smiles a little and doesn't look away until NHS elbows him (gently).

The three of them go to investigate the poetry story situation but they find an empty house and trampled flowers. NHS notices a feather on the ground and recognizes it as being from the shadow-bird that the Wens use to spy. Okay, so THIS is where the last piece of Yin Metal was. There was one with the Wen Qing goddess, one in the Cloud Recesses, one with the Chang clan, one here with this flower-poetry family (... I didn't catch their name), and then the last (unknown by pretty much everyone) piece with the murder turtle.

Okay, and this is what prompts WWX to tell NHS about the Yin Metal. That makes sense. He knows that Nie Mingjue knows, and now NHS has essentially been dragged into a potentially dangerous situation without much knowledge about it. So, I think it's fair and makes a lot of sense for WWX to read NHS in on the situation, given that he is the sect leader's brother and potentially now at risk. NHS is concerned about their safety while WWX is more concerned about the mission and his partnership with LWJ — and he makes it clear here that he doesn't consider telling NHS about the fragment as adding him to that partnership.

I am also intrigued by the mini-foreshadowing of NHS asking WWX to come to Qignhe for his safety. Someone who cares about WWX and is worried about his safety as he travels a dangerous path, asks him to come home with them so he can be safer. Huh. They discover here that they're being spied on by the Wen shadow-bird, so it doesn't go any further than that.

Okay, okay, I think I have the whole goddess-connection the way they did in the drama figured out. I mean, the reasons why they did it that way. Because they wanted a more straight-forward chronological narrative, they needed to add more plots to the younger storyline, but they didn't want to make up too many things out of whole cloth. So, they took the events that had happened in the present timeline and moved them to the past but made sure to have NHS there for this particular episode so that he would experience this event with WWX and LWJ. This creates an empty space in the present-day timeline that can be easily filled in with NHS once all the information is in place — NHS saw the goddess when she was active, we saw the fan behind the screen in episode 1 — so it's about placing NHS at the scene, essentially, imo. That's my theory.

Wen Qing is trying to figure out how to foil Wen Chao's plans without alerting him. Is it because of a fondness for WWX or, at this point, does she just feel like she owes him for what he did and was willing to do to protect her brother? When Jiang Cheng arrives, she realizes she has a chance, but she wants to try to be discreet (I think this ends up not working in that sense? Wen Chao realizes she's to blame, I believe. We'll see!). So she doesn't return his greeting (and he is happy when he initially sees her) and plays the echo game, essentially, to make him feel like she's mocking him, so that she can get up in his face and give him a private message without, hopefully, alerting the Wen guards that she's doing it.

Oh, is this Dafan Mountain lady the same 'granny' that takes care of Wen Yuan later on? I feel like she is and it would make sense given that this is Wen Qing and Wen Ning's original home. I do like the spooky atmosphere that's set up here. The actual effects and acting from the extras we get when the trap is 'triggered' essentially doesn't live up to the set-up, but I feel like a lot of that is budget issues, so I sympathize.

I don't, in general, have a lot to say about fight scenes, though this fight does have some visual echoes to the later fight with the Xuanwu, which I found interesting.

As to the puppeting of the off-shoot Wen clan here… I guess this is Wen Chao using the fragment of Yin Metal he has recently acquired? So their excessive slowness we can potentially attribute to him not being very good at it? I mean, the real reason is budgeting issues, I'm sure, but I can kinda squint and make it work. They aren't scary, though.

Next episode: the road trip/treasure hunt continues!

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