#western viewers all missing

[kkglinka]

It's called the Cat's Cradle cuz Bea's a baby butch.

[silviakundera]

with the conclusion of Snowfall...

why do i enjoy Republican Era chinese dramas so much?

aesthetics! there is this blend of 1920-30s western fashion influences and traditional chinese garb & architecture that just pleases my eyes.

everyone looks very depressed & dangerous & sexy

chaotic period of transition - no matter if you're in the 1910's, 20's, 30's some absolutely wild historical shit was going down

cars and guns and gloves and swords. rotary phones!

dancing & drinking in night clubs, in glamorous pockets amid the violence & instability outside; a lil touch of mask of the red death vibes

end of empire themes, as a country tries to find its way after the end of the last imperial dynasty

there's those gangster, mob boss vibes from american and british dramas set in the 1920s, except everything is cranked up x100 because of general lawlessness; central government and law & order was a paper thin veneer over warlords

the start of WW2 from an entirely different perspective than the common narratives that I was exposed to growing up in the US (which is 99% stories about the european stage)

sino-japanese war / war of resistance material like Hidden Blade is fucking badass ok 🤷

in a time of resistance to occupation, colonizers encroaching, warlords fighting over cities, brewing civil war.... there are many different options of protagonists and unlikely "heroes" who are picking their battles and discovering what they are willing to fight for

Beautiful 👏 women 👏 in heels 👏and 👏 slinky 👏dresses 👏

Lots of revenge narratives. I love an over-the-top, bloodthirsty & destructive revenge narrative

Depending on the genre, there might be little or heavy politcal /patriotic discourse. But tbh none of the rah rah patriotism stuff distracts me much, because all the american and british produced stuff set around WW2 has rah rah patriotism & propaganda in it, so I just consider that part of the essential genre vibes. It's just another country's version. (Of course, others will have less patience when it becomes heavy-handed. YMMV.)

Dark & Gritty

Hidden Blade (film) - a masterpiece, if you enjoy dark WW2 spy films that play with narrative style and challenge the viewer to follow the story as it's woven. Had to review detailed historical context for the years in question, to be ready to consume. But worth it. I've watched it 3 times. 💀

Heroes (2024) - the very beginning era of this genre/the transition into repulican period. rocks fall, everyone dies. Primarily a tragic wuxia & pre-republican fusion. Excellent enough that I didn't mind the bleak storyline. 💀

Detective-ing

Miss S - adaption of 1920s Australian mystery procedural Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, staring Vengo! ML actor of Snowfall

Checkmate - Agatha Christie stories adapted to the setting & time period, plus bromance. I watched half the episodes w my brother, as we are both huge agatha christie fans. It was fun if you can be chill about adaption changes.

My Roommate is A Detective - for mystery & bromance lovers. Same actor duo as Checkmate.

Detective L - don't know much about this one tbh

Romance arc, with a somewhat happy ending for the 2 leads

Provoke - Gorgeous, glamorous, vibes vibes vibes all day long. Revenge and romance. ❤

Fall in Love - sons & daughters of warlords and their supporters get sexy and dangerous and decide even joining the civil war is better than the prior generation's bullshit. This is an objectively bad drama that I really enjoyed anyway (it helps that I skipped every scene for the 2nd and 3rd couples). This one turns v propaganda heavy at the end, if that bothers you. ❤

Arsenal Military Academy - military training hijinks w a side of cross dressing romance. Xu Kai and Bai Lu! It's soliders and japanese invasion et al, so be prepared for the standard patriotism. Comedy & drama. HE for the FL/ML but expect character death in this subject matter. ❤

Rookie Agent Rogue - Late 1930s spy drama with small romance side-plot. Expect the standard wartime patriotism, like with Arsenal Military Academy. The draw is the lead actress, the FL from Princess Agents, Minglan, Legend of Shen Li. HE for the FL/ML but expect character death in this subject matter. ❤

City of Streamer - Older woman seduces younger man who is the son of her revenge target. Melodrama with people serving looks. ❤

War of Faith* - Young man just wants to join the banking industry and have a subtextually gay relationship with his mentor in peace, but there's a civil war going on. Protagonist would like to be excluded from this political narrative, but ultimately is forced to pick a side. ❤🌈 *(Is it censored gay romance? No, not based on a gay novel. So not officially! But some viewers felt there was a subtextual romance storyline #shenlai ; YMMV. The happy ending is Untamed-esque; implied only)

many, many pulpy mini-dramas about revenge! warlords! ladies with pistols! (Miss Mystery, First Marriage, Maid's Revenge, etc)

Also... (happy ending not guaranteed)

Siege in Fog

Love in Flames of War

Couple of Mirrors - censored F/F 🌈

Stand by Me - censored m/m 🌈

Killer and Healer - censored m/m 🌈

Winter Begonia - censored m/m 🌈

[hillbilly---man]

Saiki Kusuo no Psi-nan: Character Guide Book THE FULL PDF ------------------------------

To view online: https://online.fliphtml5.com/mbugx/mnpd/

To download: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13R9hLERuJcW1uh0DQZz5UnLmqLAeQIEJ/view?usp=sharing Transliterations of all of the names from the character profiles are at this link: https://textdoc.co/Byd6PsanXmrf8txK (I tried pasting the list here under a read more, but Tumblr wasn't letting me publish it that way)

This book has character profiles for 254 characters, including birthdays and blood types.

(note: the book is in the usual Japanese right-to-left direction, but I couldn't get the FlipHTML5 PDF viewer linked above to stop splitting the pages if I made it that way. So it's on there left-to-right like a typical western book. It shouldn't affect much; just pretend it was printed that way to begin with) ----------------------------------------

Just a heads up: they weasel out of giving a handful of characters full names. Mrs. Kaidou, Matsuzaki, and others will sadly have to continue to be mysterious...

The book was published August 4th, 2015, before Chapter 159 was released. Notable characters missing: Satō Hiroshi, Suzumiya Hii, Akechi Tōma, Aiura Mikoto

(I tried to stick to ONE romanization system despite the fandom often using different systems at once [for example: Nendo vs Nendou vs Nendō], so if the spellings are "off", that might be why. Or I could have screwed up in some unrelated way. I don't know Japanese very well lmao)

[hotdaemondtargaryen]

PHIA SABAN INTERVIEWED FOR CONTENTMODE MAGAZINE.

CONGRATULATIONS ON HOUSE OF THE DRAGON! HOW HAS THE PROCESS BEEN SO FAR?

"Thank you! It’s a cool thing."

"When we’re working on it we’re in our own little microcosm with each other and those characters, and now it’s coming out and we’re seeing it all link up and become something else."

"It’s very new to me."

"Acting on screen still feels very new to me."

"I am so lucky to get to work with this group of people, they are so clever and loving."

"Recently we’ve been promoting the show and have been asked for opinions and explanations about our characters and the story."

"I’ve found it a new and funny facet of the job, to be asked sometimes to represent myself and speak from the character and for the bigger picture."

"It can feel different from acting, where you engage with the contradictions and spend more time with the mystery and the magic than the answers."

"I guess I’m saying that I’ve found this process contains multitudes."

"And watching the show is surreal — there are all my pals in wigs!"

MANY DIE-HARD GAME OF THRONES FANS HAVE READ THE BOOK SERIES AND ANTICIPATE PLOT POINTS IN THE TELEVISION SERIES. HOW DO YOU PROVIDE A FRESH TAKE ON FAMILIAR MATERIAL?

"It’s major to be part of something that people already feel passionate about, but it’s also exciting to have the chance to subvert expectations."

"It’s fun to make up little secrets that only you know about."

"As a viewer, I always like to be surprised anyway."

"I think it’s important (and fun) to have some irreverence for the genre so that you’re not patronizing your audience."

"The hope is to be part of something that challenges people!"

YOU'VE FOUND SUCCESS IN THE FANTASY AND DRAMATIC GENRES. ARE THERE ANY OTHER GENRES YOU'D LIKE TO EXPLORE?

"Yes! I miss being in plays so much."

"I cannot wait to be in the theater again."

"I’ve never been in a film, I’d love to make an independent one."

"Oh! To be in something people call a ‘picture’!"

"Recently I’ve been fantasizing about learning motion-capture and playing some sort of animal or creature."

"I’d love to be part of a suburban coming-of-age film, like the ones I obsessed over growing up."

"I’d like to do a great limited series, an intense crime one."

"And I could narrowly avoid being eaten by a shark, or an alien."

"I have dreams of doing a time-spanning project."

"I’d like to be the voice of an animation!"

"I‘d love to have a go at the present day."

"And maybe a dystopian future."

"And a Western?"

"I always want to do something funny."

"And strange."

"There are so many TA and filmmakers I admire (I won’t list them but they’re always being lovingly scribbled in my notebook.)"

"I’ll learn Norwegian and French for them!"

"I’m excited to keep finding new people too."

"More than all these, there are so many more things I hope to do, if I’m lucky."

"Not that I give it much thought or anything…"

HAS YOUR REAL LIFE INSPIRED YOUR APPROACH TO YOUR CHARACTER IN ANY WAY?

"Sometimes a character can be an expansion pack for your real life, like a new way to see things."

"So maybe it’s more that the fantasy inspires your real life!"

"It’s been really fun to explore Helaena’s interests."

"I’ve thought quite a lot about bugs."

"I get a huge kick out of investigating how her mind works and finding all the ways her’s overlaps with mine."

"I do lots of people-watching, which is great because now when I’m staring at people on the bus I can tell myself that I’m ‘working’."

WHILE FANTASY CAN SEEMS UNTETHERED FROM REALITY, DO YOU THINK IT CAN REFLECT THE REAL WORLD?

"Haha I hope so, otherwise that would be boring!"

"I suppose these stories are full of archetypes, which should mirror universal truths."

"But maybe that’s just good TV?"

WHAT TYPES OF NARRATIVED DO YOU FIND YOURSELF DRAWN TOWARDS WHEN READING SCRIPTS AND CHOOSING ROLES?

"Something surprising and honest that doesn’t tell me what to think!"

"And I love it when a script lets sad things be funny."

WHAT INSPIRES YOU AS AN ACTOR?

"Other actors, a lot."

"On a good day, almost everything can…"

"That might be one of the best things about being an actor."

[incandescentflower]

When I first yelled about Doctor Slump to my friend she said to me "I love that your narrative kink is mental health" and despite me being yes, I know, but hey about it, it's true. I was trained as a mental health professional and the majority of times I've seen therapy or psychiatry depicted in either western or eastern media it has been for dramatic purposes and often ethically questionable.

Doctor Slump wasn't perfect for me in that area, but it was pretty damned close. It depicts therapy and psychiatric treatment as pretty mundane. It's not big and dramatic. It's small steps as you work to get healthy. And yes, drama is happening around these characters in pretty big ways, but their work on themselves is something required every day, consistent and steady, and taking time to heal.

And somehow Doctor Slump was very serious about mental health but at the same time was sometimes absurdist in it's depictions of the emotional roller coaster of life. I appreciated this dichotomy. It allowed the viewer to face the reality of very familiar emotions in a humorous, non-threatening way. Every time Jeong Woo would kick his feet in a full on tantrum I would think dude, get it together (even while I was laughing) but he would always face the conflict as an adult, even if his first impulse was to melt down.

The emotions were extremely relatable to me as I try to adult. I have those reactions all the time internally. I tell my therapist how I have "don't wannas" constantly and this show simply dramatized those feelings in actions. I liked that it showed that even if you've matured it doesn't mean you don't have those impulses anymore, it just means you're working to manage them. And what is ultimately important is how you act as you face your emotions.

Doctor Slump comes to a close with a message about mental health that is quite powerful. They say outright that being mentally healthy doesn't mean being happy all the time. It means having the coping skills to manage the hard times.

My only wish is that they had left it a bit more open. They do make it sound like mental health treatment is one and done and once you learn how to cope you are cured. That is where I wish Ha Neul's psychiatrist would have said she was ready to move forward but she could come back if she need to. Healing isn't a straight line. It can ebb and flow when you least expect it.

That wish doesn't detract from how nice it was to see mental health treated with kindness, empathy and respect as a significant part of this drama. I really truly loved going through the highs and lows with Jeong Woo and Ha Neul and I am going to miss them very much, but I'm really glad they have each other for the future bumps in the road.

[joyburble]

DFQC costumes master post

Some of the costumes in this show are doing a lot more than the basic functions of reflecting the characters' tribal allegiance, social roles and status, or current activity. Especially Dongfang Qingcang's costumes are doing a lot more than this: they're suggesting or reinforcing ideas about the character's state of mind. I loved this about it, I noticed it a lot, and I want to talk about it.

Someone put a lot of work into imagining, designing, and making these clothes, and since I can't read Mandarin I don't know who those people are, but I want to point out some parts of their work I appreciated.

Assumptions: in this genre the clothes aren't supposed to behave like real clothing - the whole point of them is to be artistic drapery, to carry meaning and feeling and beauty. Any resemblance to real clothes of any location or period is purely an artistic reference. Their effects in telling the story rely on the viewer's own experience and whatever associations her mind draws from the visual elements provided. What I draw from them with my Western eye, informed by Western art history (including its relationship with Chinese arts and crafts made for export), is going to miss all the things that rely on Chinese art history and culture for specific meanings and associations. On the other hand, I'm going to see parallels, and maybe make accidental or wrong associations, that might be interesting and entertaining.

These are the costumes I want to write about. So this is my listing post, and then I'll edit these and make them links as I go along. The list might change.

The hunting dress

The badass look, and varations on black and gold

The boots! (I want them)

The honey-coloured gown (wow)

The déshabillé

Human Realm outfits: the Black Satin (with diversions to the National Gallery, the Rijksmuseum and the Prado) and the Moon Gowns.

The chrysalis gown

The fire gown

The mourning suit (OMG!)

The crowns

I might do some other characters as well, but maybe not yet. Feel free to get there first!

[eretzyisrael]

by Dan Perry

The serious international media is most comfortable when it can maintain a comfortable distance from any particular protagonist. Generally, this is wise. It's also good business, because the media is struggling to stay afloat financially and doesn't need the headache of political controversy—as Michael Jordan famously said, Republicans buy sneakers, too. And so, it generally gravitates toward a type of bothsidesism that suggests to readers and viewers that there are no good guys on any given field. Usually, that is sufficiently accurate that it works quite well.

It breaks down when the market of news consumers—or other powerful players—has chosen sides. The media has largely presented Russia's President Vladimir Putin as satanic, and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky as impishly heroic. So, coverage of the Ukraine war has been a tad simplistic and has hardly reflected the Russian case. But this is not, on balance, the worst thing in the world: Putin is odious and Russia's attack on Ukraine was, in the final analysis, a mistake and a crime.

No such luck in the case of the Gaza war. The media has largely stuck to its instincts for impartiality: "Both sides" have their narratives, and both have good and bad. One may be a terrorist group and the other a Western-leaning democracy—but in this era of progressive decolonization narratives, an association with the West will not get you very far with much of the Western media. Ironic.

The Israelis indeed have good and bad. But Israel is a democracy that can dump its useless government and probably will. Israel's mainstream wants to be rid of the conflict with the Palestinians and views the issue largely through the prism of security. Israel has ultranationalists, violent settlers, and religious fanatics, but the bulk of the population inhabit the same Euclidean universe, share the same values, and believe in the same primacy of reason as most news consumers abroad.

None of that can be said of Hamas, and since Hamas is omnipotent in Gaza it should be the center of media scrutiny. It is a violent fundamentalist movement that seeks not just the demise of Israel but also, with its jihadi fellow travelers, of the West. Hamas and its accomplices share none of the values that drive the modern world, from respect for human rights to freedom of speech to the rule of law.

Are so many Westerners, especially Gen Zers, too feeble-minded to get this? Perhaps to a degree. But I say that a major factor is that they are not being informed.

Is it antisemitism on the part of the foreign press corps, as some Israeli partisans will rush to charge? Not much, in my experience. It mostly stems from intellectual laziness typical of our era, a surfeit of cynicism typical of journalists, and a dollop of woke-ish fuzziness.

Some argue that no one appointed journalists to connect the dots for people, and that the wisest approach would be to just "report the facts." The self-righteous just-the-facts school misses something basic. Every nanosecond in the universe throws up an infinity of facts. The choices of which tiny minority among them to pursue and how to present them are already judgement calls.

When the result is the normalization of a monstrosity like Hamas, that is malpractice. Have I been guilty of it myself? All I can say is, like Oscar Schindler in the film, I feel I did not do enough.

[sqewed0722]

The Unflappable and Enigmatic Divine Lord Xingzhi

I tried rewatching key episodes of TLOS on Viki with the running commentaries enabled and I was shocked to find a lot of foolish comments from a good number of viewers.

Many revolved around Xingzhi, who some perceived was a weak, useless character who only came in when the battle was over. They couldn’t understand why he refused to intervene in so many key events involving the three realms. In particular, they’re peeved that he doesn’t always come to Shen Li’s aid, especially when Shen Li and Fu Sheng engaged in that epic battle that almost cost Shen Li her life. They felt that if he had intervened, Fu Sheng would have been soundly defeated immediately and Shen Li wouldn’t have had to suffer nearly fatal injuries.

They can’t understand why he’s so emotionless and bland in his expressions and moves so leisurely, even in moments when the three realms seem to be falling all over his ears. They can’t grasp why he doesn’t swoop down to save the day every time there is a problem in any of the realms under his care, which is how they believe gods should act.

And they are puzzled over his behavior towards Shen Li. He sends mixed signals, one moment caring and concerned, another moment cold and indifferent.

It sometimes comes to a point when these viewers think it’s all because of Lin Gengxin’s lack of skills in acting, which, to me, couldn’t be further from the truth.

What these viewers fail to realize or perhaps miss out altogether is the context of what an ancient god is supposed to be and how he’s supposed to relate to the lesser beings who depend on his providence and benevolence.

As an ancient god tasked with making sure that all the three realms are kept in perfect balance, Xingzhi cannot use his divine power to unduly give advantage to one realm over the other, much less give marked preference to one individual over all of the other beings, be they mortal, demon or immortal.

As for his emotions, he doesn’t lack them at all. As with all other ancient gods, he feels all of the emotions that lesser beings have. The difference lies in his willpower. Ancient Gods like Xingzhi are at the highest level of the hierarchy because their level of cultivation and enlightenment is such that they have supreme self-control. They don’t allow their emotions to drive their actions. They always let their minds prevail. It’s a conscious effort for lesser beings but one that ancient gods have mastered to the extent that it has become instinctive to them to do so.

Shen Li understood this perfectly in that scene when Xingzhi came between her and the fiery balls that were falling all over the immortal realm ad almost destroyed the Western Garden where Xingzhi stays, near the portal to his Heavenly Domain. It took all of her powers to counter the attack, to the point that her fiery phoenix form had manifested itself. Yet when she was already weakened and failed to react in time to a gigantic fireball going directly at her, she saw a shield made of white energy protect her from the fireball. And then Xingzhi materialized in front of her, literally in the blink of an eye, and with an almost casual wave of his hand, hurled back all of the fireballs and dissipating them all.

It was then that she realized why her adopted mother and master, Demon Lord Shen Muyue, and the Immortal Lord, Tian Jun, as well as most of the beings in the three realms, warned her that it wasn’t a good idea to provoke Xingzhi’s emotions and desires. Gods are so immensely powerful and their divine essence so connected to the realms, that any slight disturbance in them can cause an imbalance in the three realms.

What’s worse is that if these divinge emotions drive the god’s actions, like what Xingzhi was starting to do because of her, it can be fatal to all other beings. This was proven when Xingzhi practically went berserk when she fell into the East Sea. He channeled all the powers of the heavens and even defied the immense powers of natural law, resulting the demise of many sea creatures. It wouldn’t be too farfetched to say that many mortals probably lost their livelihood because all the fish in the sea had died.

Another thing these viewers failed to grasp is why Xingzhi was thrashed by Fenglai when he’s supposed to be the most powerful being in the universe. Also, why was he dying slowly in Shen Li’s arms after he connected the Xutian Abyss to the Sky Above Heaven.

To answer the first part, he was already severely weakened. The injury that he suffered was dealt by the powers of natural law, the only power capable of fatally injuring an ancient god. Between trying to contain the abyss and blocking Fenglai’s fiery attack, even as he had already spent much of his power rebuilding the Sky Above Heaven, Xingzhi was near the lowest point of his power, though still very powerful compared to other beings.

For the second, his divine life is tied to the Sky Above Heaven. He knew that the only way to totally destroy the Xutian Abyss without harming the other realms is to link the seals to his own source of power: his heavenly domain. But he also knew that it would mean his own demise. Essentially, what I think Xingzhi did was to make himself the ultimate seal upon the five elemental seals. Very effective but very fatal for him.

It destroyed the abyss, but also destroyed the Sky Above Heaven, and finally brought the age of the ancient gods to an end.

It was a long drawn out and painful death for him because of the sheer power that was involved in the destruction that he had to cause to save the realms.

Another key element these viewers miss out on is the recurring theme of fate coupled with the free will of all the beings. Xingzhi as a god is actually fully aware of the fate of Shen Li, but he cannot divulge all his knowledge to her because it can adversely influence her actions and the way she will live her life. He has known from the start who and what she is, and I think he also knew how critical she would be to his own life. He also knows her power and abilities as the Phoenix and Lord of the Azure Sky and he respects that. Hence, he doesn’t fight her battles for her, nor does he insist in always interfering in the way she lived her life. Shen Li has free will and he respects that. God though he may be, but he can’t force any of the beings in any of the realms to live their lives the way he thinks they should be lived, even if this leads to their own destruction.

Many times, I don’t know if some of the viewers even pay attention to the story or, even more, to the story that not’s being said. I guess many of them - though not all - just watch for the eye candy. I feel so sad for them because they’re missing out on so much.

TLOs is such a beautiful tale and acted out perfectly by the actors. Too bad they only choose to look at the surface

[pi-ying-xi]

The extended fight sequence in ep 6 of Heroes, and the minor key comedy of the last fight where they all play dress up, was such fun to watch!

Of course, the hat tip to spaghetti westerns with the sound track was hard to miss, but it wasn't overdone, which was nice.

I don't really care about ratings and that stuff, but this drama needs to have more viewers.

[batsplat]

thoughts on challengers ? 👀

haha okay sure. I was overthinking this when I first saw this ask but since then I've sent half an hour worth of voice notes to my number one person I send half hour's worth of voice notes to (listen she keeps encouraging me to) and I've ironed some of my thoughts out. also I should probably watch it again. some of this might be me misremembering shit. also it's not that serious. quick warning, this ended up being just. too long. it's basically just a long rant. under the cut it goes

so first of all, I really enjoyed watching this film. I liked the central premise a lot, I liked the chemistry between the characters, tashi was very hot, the score was fantastic, the cinematography was at least interesting, and a lot of the non-tennis bits are interesting

having gotten that out of the way. there's an interview where guadagnino says he doesn't watch tennis matches because he finds them boring, which to be clear is completely fair enough - but I do think it does slightly come across in how the tennis is filmed. there's definitely fun, neat stuff in there: the shot where it follows around the ball, the shot from underneath the court, all of that stuff. and I think there's obviously a lot of challenges with filming tennis when you have to make sure you can't, like, see the actors actually play tennis, and I don't know anything about film-making so I don't want to judge it too harshly. but there are a few established angles from which tennis looks good, and this film doesn't really use them all that much. it was interesting to what extent they went for side shots (basically from the tashi pov in the final match) rather than... well, picking a side, and at different points of that match actually giving the viewer a clearer sense of the visceral nature of what they're doing here. like, if you're going court level from behind the player, that's how you capture the weight of the shot on screen. which felt was a little bit... missing

okay... ffs this next section ended up kind of being tennis tactics 101, and then the other bit ended up being about how matches work. my basic point here is that I think this film did some interesting stuff with the tennis but, and this is part of my more longstanding frustrations about the untapped narrative potential of sports, I think you could've done a lot more and communicated a lot more through the actual tennis. not just for annoying people who want to go 'oh look that's an extreme western grip and explains why her forehand has so much spin but can also be fragile when absorbing pressure!!' but for the general viewing audience. I want to be very clear here: I do not really care about realism except when I'm being annoying in voice notes, I care about storytelling. if you understandably do not give a shit about all this tactics and match construction stuff, skip to the bit marked 3 for more of my thoughts related to the actual film

1

now you might go 'okay but this film isn't about capturing tennis and doing it justice - it's not even about tennis'. yeah, but tennis is the central metaphor! tennis is a relationship, right, but it's also a conversation. it's a way of communicating something to the audience, yes, in a way non-tennis fans can also pick up on. and a lot of the tennis looked pretty same-y. the points were very similar - the intensity was ramped up mainly by the characters just... whacking the ball harder, running side by side, and then sometimes they both move forwards. this isn't a realism issue, it's a storytelling issue. you can tell a story with a tennis point, you can construct these points in different ways to tell you different things

just to give you an example (I promise this is relevant): okay, the most common rally pattern in tennis is hitting cross court. so either you hit on the deuce court (from your pov, this is from the right side of your court to the left side of the other player's court, aka the forehand side for right handed players) or the ad court (the opposite, and thus the backhand side for right handed players). this is for a bunch of tactical reasons. the net is at its lowest in the middle so, y'know, you're less likely to hit it. perhaps most importantly, it's a question of angles and... okay look I don't want to bore the two people reading this with the details but just to very quickly explain, here:

say player a is hitting the ball along the red line to player b, the orange zone depicts the theoretical area in which the ball trajectory of player b's answering shot can go. like, if you want to get the other player to move 'out of the court', you can only do so by going back cross court... which is obviously where, in a cross court exchange, the other player is already standing. this is why a lot of the times, players don't 'recover' after their shots to the exact centre of the court, but instead make a judgement of where the centre is of the theoretical zone the opponent can hit. to put it in plain english: I hit a forehand cross, I don't move back to the exact middle of the court because I know where you can hit the ball back and I need to be in the middle of that - which skews to the right of centre. also, I just know it's more likely you're going to go cross again, because that's just how this works

you want to move the other player around, right, first of all to get the ball past them - but also to make it harder for them to attack you. you're trying to construct a point so that eventually they are the one who can't reach the ball/makes an error, not you. a lot of the times, continuing to go cross court is the smart option. it's less risky than going down the line, and also if your down the line shot isn't perfect, where it isn't a winner or at least a shot they'll struggle to attack, then you're setting up a situation where they have all the angle in the world to work with, where the centre of their theoretical hitting zone is nowhere near where you're actually standing and they can easily whack the ball past you

now, why the fuck does this matter when we're talking about the tennis threesome film? obviously, I don't expect the director to interrupt the film to explain angles to the audience. in tennis terms, 'go cross court' is tactics for babies, but it's still not something most viewers will be instinctively familiar with. but think about what it actually does if players keep exchanging shots cross court because they can't risk going down the line: they're engaging in a direct contest! they are measuring one shot against the other, my forehand against your forehand, my backhand against your backhand, and they are trying to assert dominance. sometimes, you have no choice to escape that exchange even when it's risky because their raw cross court shot is better than yours. sometimes, you're trapped in that exchange. how you can extract metaphors from that should be fairly obvious, and I don't think this should be visually too tough to get across - it's a power struggle between two people contained within a simple shot pattern. it adds variation to what the viewer is being shown (and, yes, it does make the points feel more realistic), but it's also a way of gradually ramping up intensity. my shot against your shot - who wins? who is willing to risk deviating from the norm? who sets themselves up for a trap - does patrick sucker art into attacking him down the line? can he then manage to counterpunch (to use attack as defence) by making it to art's shot in time and placing his response into the open court? who blinks first etc etc

look, this is only one way you can visually use tennis to add to the story. another common tactic is (if you're a right handed player) hitting forehands from the ad court, to 'run around the backhand'. that's an expression of dominance, it's a power play - you're trying to bully your opponent with your most powerful shot (which is the forehand for 99% of players, some might have better backhands but they won't have stronger ones), and you're deliberately recovering less to the centre. you're camping out on the ad side, and going 'yeah I don't actually think your down the line shot is good enough to hurt me, I actually feel very comfortable standing right here so I can more easily move far enough to the left to continue hitting forehands'. it's a tactic that is implicitly passing judgement on the opponent, and again, I refuse to believe you can't show this in a way that the audience understands roughly what's going on. have patrick bully art with his forehand into the weaker backhand or vice versa - they can use their faces to show how comfortable they are with their respective positions. y'know, make the actors act. have one of them find the backhand down the line, fire it into the bit of the court the opponent has completely left open. your characters are using tennis to assert dominance over each other, to manipulate, to deceive each other - you can do that with the actual tennis they're playing

you can also express character through tennis. I'm not saying different play styles function as a personality quiz, but inherently the way you play is going to reflect what you feel comfortable with doing on the tennis court. is your preferred point three shots long or twenty shots long? are you looking to dominate your opponent with your big weapons, or are you looking to trick them with your variety of shots and smarts in using them? or are you looking to just grind them into submission with sheer relentless consistency?

take the drop shot: a shot that 'drops' right after it clears the net as a result of how the player has put a different kind of spin onto it. ideally, it's so close to the net the opponent can't sprint forward quickly enough to reach the ball. how effective your drop shot is depends on several things. obviously, it's how good the shot and the placement and the spin you've put on it is. it also depends on where you're standing and where your opponent is standing, which means that particularly effective dropshots usually come after big, heavy attacking shots that have forced the opponent to move back and have allowed you to move into the court. and it also depends how good your disguise is: for as long as possible, it should look like the shot you're playing is going to be a bog standard forehand or backhand - until you readjust your grip at the last moment and slash the racquet downwards (vs the upwards motion you'd make with the bog standard forehand or backhand). this is a shot that depends on the element of surprise. it's about trying to fuck with your opponent, it's about choosing your moment. it's about playing with them! and you can get pretty memorable reactions from your opponent. if you wrong foot them well enough, they'll literally stumble when they realise what's happening and never even start running. maybe they'll comically flail their arms

I feel like when the men's world number seven throws his arms up in shock every time somebody hits a short ball, you can probably convey this kind of dynamic in a film

and think about what it says if somebody's using a shot like that. again, you're trying to fuck with the other player, and you are relying on your knowledge of the opponent to figure out when they might be susceptible to it. now, obviously, this is tough to do when you're playing someone for the first time and (unlike top level professional players) don't have a vast amount of data to work with and how often xyz shot works against them in xyz situation. this is generally why early in a match, it's a good idea to just like, test some stuff out to give yourself a sense of how they'd react, if it's a good idea to use it in a pressure situation (you also do a version of this in the warm up if you're smart, just check how they react to that high ball to the backhand! all about being curious y'know). but if you know someone, if this is an established rivalry, if this is someone you've played with since you're kids... well. then it's a different ball game entirely

patrick has the psychological edge in that match-up, right, and the whole point of that final match is that it shouldn't be that close but it's that close due to the mental dynamics between the pair of them. patrick constantly wrong-footing art and frustrating him is the easiest way in the world to visually demonstrate that dynamic. you're constantly trying to guess what your opponent is going to do, you're constantly trying to anticipate, yeah? you know what I said above about how you're 'recovering' to the centre of the theoretical zone and all that? well, sometimes you don't do that - you guess where the opponent is going to go. most often, you've got to do that when you know the opponent has a relatively easy shot and they can hurt you with it, so you have to play the probabilities and hope you get it right... it's basically like a penalty kick in football. it's a quick judgement you're making on the basis of past data, of what you think your opponent is thinking, of how big a risk you want to make - of when to time it, because if you move too early they can still change the trajectory of their shot and go the other way. maybe you even feint one way before darting the other. and your opponent might shoot one way or the other... but, sometimes they'll drop shot you while you're moving in one direction as you frantically try to change course. or, which is even more humiliating, they'll go straight down the middle - since you're no longer standing there

in narrative terms, what does it tell you if a character guesses rightly or wrongly? what would it say if art or patrick had that kind of intimate knowledge of each other - I know you usually do this, but I know you know that so I'm going to go the other way - round and round in circles, a mental contest between people who are so familiar with each other that it can become actively confusing to try and preempt their moves. tennis is a relationship and it's a conversation and the way we construct a point tells us a story about the history between you and me. it tells us a story if art, the six time slam winner and more accomplished player by far, is being read so perfectly by patrick that he's tripping over himself and getting in his own way and flailing. one of the most common commentating cliches is about the ball, or indeed the player, being attached to the end of a string. the extension of that metaphor is that one player is the puppet master and the other player is a puppet. easy visual metaphor bingo

you can literally express how the characters feel about each other by... where they're standing. if you're scared of your opponent's shot, then you're going to try and give yourself more time to react. if you are on the attack, then you need to move in, to take the ball earlier, to take time away from the opponent. to me, if you're showing fictional tennis, you really should be playing with time and how you can use cinematic techniques to play with that sense of time. now, you can do this on the broader level of the match, because your subjective sense of time is dependent on how well you're doing in a match. time never moves faster than when you're losing a six love set. but it's also obviously integral to actual points, because you are usually trying to maximise your own time and minimise your opponent's, trying to make sure you will always have enough time to get to the ball and making sure they won't (obviously often u kinda have to pick one of those because of how time works)

where you stand on the court is an integral part of that, for obvious reasons related to 'basic physics'. and, again, it's also psychological. take the return position, right, aka where you're standing when the opponent is serving. most people have a built-in preference for both the first and second serve, and a kind of basic 'return strategy' of what kind of shot they'd like to use and where to move. generally, you'll stand further back for the first serve because it's more powerful... but hey, maybe you have a slightly unorthodox return strategy where you're just trying to 'block' the first serve and use the weight of the opponent's shot against them, and then you step back for the second serve and have a massive whack at them. just as an example

and, again, this is another way in which you try to fuck with your opponent. there is nothing more annoying than seeing the twat on the other side of the net move in to the court by an insulting amount because they don't respect your shitty second serve and think they can take a swing at it from in front of the baseline. some players just do this in general - prime offenders on the women's side are garcia and ostapenko (and with all love to them, they do this more than is perhaps tactically prudent)

(for the other end of the spectrum, see another place from which you can theoretically return a serve from if you're out of your fucking mind) (this particular player's return strategy has been like a top five discourse point over the last few years but we do not have time to get into all that)

but you can also vary it up in a match, and you probably should if you're being smart. so for instance (and there's a specific match in 2022 I'm thinking of here), if you know your opponent has an awful second serve and a lovely little habit of double faulting when under pressure, maybe as the returner you just... well, look, the ball from the first serve has rolled right to your feet, so obviously you need to politely pass it to the ballperson, and maybe it just takes a little bit longer so that you know the server is looking right at you when you meander in front of the baseline to wait for their second serve. and then they double fault and that's the break of serve right there. you're not always standing that close to return second serves, but you're standing there when you know it'll make them most nervous. again, I am not saying the tennis threesome film needs to explain the difference between jelena ostapenko's and daniil medvedev's return strategies, but these ARE the kinds of things you CAN organically integrate, and give you very blunt and easy to understand messages about the characters and their dynamic

and like... different people have different play styles, yeah? let them express a little character! tashi is relentless, maybe she's constantly attempting to take everything with her forehand to attack and attack, or maybe she trusts herself to attack from any place with any shot. maybe she's so lively and confident and uncompromising that she uses down the line shots more than anyone else, or maybe there's surprising subtlety there in how the intensity and rage fades away for a moment as she flutters a slice across the net. what is it about her game that so captivates the two boys, its aggression or its complexity? is her game already more complete and well-defined and self-aware than it has any right to be from a high school student? or is it raw and untamed and a little wild and so full of potential?

art has a one-handed backhand and uniqlo gear in a very obvious federer allusion, but does he share any more with federer than that? is he particularly prone to rushing the net, especially after the serve? does he want to end points quickly? does he have good hands, is he trying to wrong-foot his opponent - or is he the one constantly getting wrong-footed as the others dance around him? is he constantly trying to assert his dominance, to end points quickly, and initially you think it's a sign of his power and confidence... but then you realise that it's insecurity - he's worried what will happen if they go on too long, if he gives too many chances to other players to outsmart him, if he's uncomfortable playing defence because it makes him feel reactive and weak. maybe in the second set he has to knuckle down and accept the rallies will be long and gruelling - which is a central aspect of tennis, it's about patience and managing risk. maybe he's so tense and nervous that he's just an error machine in the first set, but then he decides to just slow the pace and live with patrick in those forehand to forehand exchanges, let his natural weight of shot do the talking for him and force patrick to change things up

and patrick, with the unorthodox technique and the sleeveless shirts and the money and how he never really grew up - what does that tell us about his tennis? is it rough and energetic, big swings at the ball, layering on more and more spin to propel it high over the net? does he throw a massive forehand at art's backhand, making him hit it at a high point that is naturally uncomfortable for the one handed backhand? wouldn't it be interesting if you had patrick have a strong point to his game that naturally matches up to art's weak point, the chink in the six time grand slam champion's armour? what about the physicality, does he lunge further and harder and throw himself into balls just that little bit more? is he stronger than art, or is he faster, or is he neither? is he driven by instinct and gets in his own way less than art does, or is he tactically more astute and gets the better of art that way?

obviously you can't do all of those things in a film and you shouldn't because it's distracting. but what I'm trying to demonstrate here is that there is a whole range of potential storytelling you can tap into here. now, nobody's actually doing this, and my thing with challengers is that in many ways it came closer to the kind of narratives I would like to see. but then it still falls short just a touch, which is where the frustration comes in

a rivalry has got a history that is woken up again every time you step on court to face your old foe - you remember how they play, you already know what you want to do to beat them this time. you are trying to unsettle them. you know how they want to play and you want to deny them that opportunity. inevitably, any defined play style tells us something about the player and their personality and their approach to the game. the film is quite scarce on details about its lead characters and using the tennis more deftly would've been a great way to give us a stronger sense of who they are in a very economical, concise way. what does it mean for tashi's game that she can no longer run? yes, obviously it means she can't compete any longer, but the injury does different things symbolically depending on how big a part movement was of her game. often, tennis injuries directly affect your strengths. take a player who puts a lot of heavy spin on the ball by snapping their wrist - they are putting more strain on said wrist and may end up injuring it (a particularly terrible part of the body to injure for a tennis player). there's something extra cruel about that because it also affects how they'll recover, if they'll ever be able to trust that body part again. these are career-threatening injuries not just for physical but for psychological reasons. same thing if you're a great server with a shoulder injury... or if you're a great mover with a leg injury

also, and okay this probably did come across as nitpicking and it's not really an issue if it worked for people who aren't familiar with tennis... but omg the last point was so confusing. did check and this wasn't just a me problem, though I'd be curious if it worked for people less familiar with the game. when they came closer and closer to the net and hit back and forth, I thought what was happening was that they'd like, given up competing and were just hitting back and forth as a symbol of defiance or something. that they'd basically decided to stop playing the match and just play with each other. because like, you just can't do that in a match, the point would immediately be over especially if they're just standing there - they're too close! you'd immediately get the ball past! so I only realised when the film was over that it was supposed to be a really intense point... but I think that's the kind of thing where most people watching will probably be fine with it, so again. y'know. whatever. I do think you could have staged that point a little more cleverly to get to the same conclusion in a more natural way, but also. whatever. it's fine

(obviously there are also some other broader suspension of disbelief issues that I'm far less bothered about. the technique was like, not great, but also probably about as good as you'll get from actors, though again I would've liked a little more thought put into what they're doing beyond 'art's got a one handed backhand and patrick's got a quirky serve!' I thought the patrick serve thing was really neat and fun and theoretically you could hit a serve like that, though quite frankly in the men's game you'd probably be fucked because you need more racquet acceleration than that - but that does fit in with his character and the stubbornness and all that so it's fine. the art serve quirk... well, most players deliberately construct serving rituals like bouncing the ball several times or ball placement or whatever because it's the one shot in tennis that's completely 'on your own racquet' but is also really tough, so you're trying to trick your brain into always doing the same thing. I find it a little tough to believe art wouldn't have been aware of what he was doing, but again, not a massive issue. beyond my concerns about the lack of variation in the points they were showing, it did also trip me up whenever they were obviously stranded in no-man's land - you need to be either on/behind the baseline or right at the net and there's certain areas of the court where if you spend too long in them you are very much fucked. the whole concept of 'recovering' after a shot is like, as important part of tennis movement as getting there in the first place, and there's whole footwork patterns you use while you're hitting the shot and immediately afterwards to get yourself in position again. at times they'd just be standing in place in the fuck end of where on earth are you standing until the next shot comes and. listen. it really Does Not Matter beyond how it's fun to be annoying about this stuff but it did make me a bit twitchy)

2

so. match constructions and narrative arcs. I think if a literal match of tennis is the framing device of your film, you should think about the natural narrative tension that exists within a literal match of tennis. again, a match is a conversation, it has its ebbs and flows and peaks and troughs and all that other stuff. you are more tense at *4-5 30:30 than you are at 1-1* 15:0. you are feeling better about your life choices at 6-4 *5-3 than you are at 7-6(8) 0-6 *1-3. you change over the course of a match, as you test yourself physically and mentally and acquire a situationally specific data bank about yourself and the other player, as you notice and learn certain things about what's going on in your own game and your opponent's game. maybe you have a moment where you go 'yup the backhand's a catastrophe today, time to slice everything and hope for the best' or you go 'lol that's the third consecutive djokosmash they've hit, maybe I'll throw the ball high up again next time they get to the net'

also obviously all these things vary over the course of a match - and they do so more than they have any right to! there's no logical reason why 6-1 1-6 6-1 scorelines should happen, but they do! because game breaks and changeovers and set breaks and all of it can represent massive shifts in momentum. you play a *5-0 game differently than a *0-1 game, and suddenly those beautiful forehands you were ripping for half an hour are all flying out of the stadium and, shit, time to change tactics to defend more except now you're really screwed because you're playing your opponent's game. the most important thing to remember about tennis is that it fucking sucks. matches are psychological torture. I want to feel that part when watching the tennis threesome film

the basic mechanism of narrative tension in a match is the serve vs return dynamic. if you serve, you need to protect your serve, because those are the games you are supposed to be winning. if you return, you need to attack the opponent's serve, because those games represent opportunity. you want your service games to be short and fast and you want your return games to be long and tough and miserable for your opponent. and after every game, it ticks back again - you are literally passing the ball to the other side of the court. your turn, have fun!

there are a million different ways you can construct tension on a micro level within a match. you have breakpoints/matchpoints, obviously, which to some extent the film did feature. you have games that just get stuck on deuce, with neither player able to win the requisite two points in a row to release them, so it's like... basically groundhog day in sports as you keep trotting from one side of the court to the other, both players frustrated, one unable to escape the danger and the other unable to seize the opportunity. battle of the wills. games can completely realistically last more than twenty points. obviously you've got tiebreaks, which again the film did feature (though icl I had no clue what the score was supposed to be, again it doesn't matter but). you have the old cliche of 'it's not a break of serve unless you've backed it up' (aka by holding your own serve) and how common it is to be broken straight back for various nasty psychological reasons

I wish they'd played with this a little more, just showed a little more of why the players were reacting emotionally in the way that they were at certain stages of the match - rather than just basically reacting to the flashback we've just seen. like, there's plenty of reasons why a player might get particularly angry at a certain point of a match in a way that just feels a bit more organic. if tennis is the medium through which to explore this three-way relationship, then showcase that push and pull factor, those changes in momentum. the film suggests patrick has always had the upper hand - I'd make more clear this is the classic 'pigeon' dynamic where basically the head to head between two players is more skewed than it has any right to be given how 'good' those two respective players actually are. usually that means there's something funky going on with the play styles or it's something mental or it's an interaction between the two. patrick really cares about art, right, and then he's always able to beat him because he gets him and knows how to mess with him. art has the more raw ability(?) but it takes a bit longer for him to actually realise how good he is, in part because he always lost to patrick

the way they should've done this imo have a place where art does actually choke a sizeable lead, a kind of unexpected switch of momentum. like have this be the first set where art comes in hot and is y'know the obviously better player and all that, but then patrick just increasingly manages to unsettle him. make it a proper bad one, say *5-2 to 5-7. throw in a long deuce game. and then art is confronted with all his old demons again, his inadequacy, all that stuff. and then you've got the momentum switch after the set break when art manages to pull himself together. the thing is, they do actually show a fair bit of the match, but it's not always that interesting because it lacks a little bit of specificity, a little bit of detail... just make a few adjustments that accentuate the central dynamic. you don't have to go with this exactly but go with SOMETHING, 6-2 2-6 is such a nothingburger score lol like what does that tell us... 7-5 1-6 is what it's all about

(dumb nitpick corner: unlikely a time violation would get called between first and second serves, and if you do so then you'd better hand out a time violation if the receiver starts faffing about between points right after, rather than quietly talking to them off-mic. but hey, the establishment is corrupt, they obviously wanted art to win. also, there's a mistake on the scoreboard at the *5-6 game where they accidentally make it look like art is serving for the match at that stage, which would completely change the dynamic of that game and the previous game and the implications if art had let it go to a tiebreak - aka he would have choked. just slightly confused me when the umpire called out 'thirty love' after patrick won the point lol)

3

so maybe this all does come across like I hate the film, which I really did not. I enjoyed it a lot, and honestly it's not like there's much to choose from in terms of 'sports media that seriously engages with the narrative potential of the actual sport'. there were plenty of storytelling details I really vibed with, especially the dynamic between the central three characters and the push and pull between them and how they work as a trio. all three sides of the triangle were good fun. the way the two blokes were so in sync at times, that kind of easy intimacy and familiarity - again, I think you could have expressed that more through actual tennis but that did absolutely work for me

the actual 'playing a challenger before uso' thing was also fun, though I was wondering what his ranking was like because it must have still been kinda in the pits. like, you can't show up to a challenger as a top ten player. not that it actually matters matters but just. whatever. I do think the premise is neat

(though, that challenger audience was not keyed in enough! like omg if you're showing up to some random challenger to watch a top player on the injury comeback try to rack up some wins and the final is against the guy he played doubles with to win a junior slam, everyone watching would be SO aware of it. those spectators aren't just randomly being drawn into the drama, they know what's up!! you just know the challengers tv stream is racking up crazy figures. idk this is obviously more of a subtle thing, but I feel like it was supposed to give off the vibe of the non-tashi viewers being surprised by why they were being such weirdos all of a sudden but nah they would be ON IT with their patrick zweig backstory. including the fact he used to date tashi lol, like yeah they'd Get It)

I loved a lot of tashi's characterisation, how fucking obsessed she was with tennis and how everything was About Tennis for her... like yeah very real!! of course it eats her up!! I had a bit of a debate about this but I personally really liked the college tennis thing because it felt like a complete curve ball given her characterisation. it's good though, this idea that she wants to fool herself into believing she's more than hitting a ball but she's actually not... because of course she isn't.... none of these people are.... I like that element of self-delusion, even though it still... hm, I'm not entirely sure the film COMPLETELY sold me on that level of self-delusion because it was so obvious she didn't care about anything except for tennis... like it never quite felt entirely clear what she thought she was getting from that experience. but yeah, the central premise of it all... like the fact she just can't say goodbye to that world, that she can't really escape it, that she has to pursue something related to it to feel alive, even by proxy, the suspicion that all she needs art for is to have that kind of second hand thrill... really good!!

I was talking about this with the unfortunate recipient of my voice notes, and she's more familiar than I am with american college tennis than I am for the fairly obvious reason that only one of us has attended an american college. she said she'd discussed this with some of her friends and that that kind of injury did feel a touch unrealistic in the context of college tennis, partly because you're less likely to be playing with the kind of schedule that professional tennis requires of you. now, this doesn't really bother me, but I almost wish they'd leaned into the tragedy of it more - that it was unlikely and she didn't even get it while playing professional tennis! she was engaging in this grand act of self-delusion that there was more to her than tennis, which, let's face it, just really isn't a thing when you're a very good junior player, and she got injured before she ever even got close to 'making it'. it's tragic because it should never have happened. whatever injury art picked up (can't remember if they mentioned) would be statistically more likely to actually fuck you over, given their respective ages and time on tour and all that. you don't typically randomly get career ending injuries when you're running for a ball, not if you've trained properly - both in the sense that you're moving 'correctly' on the court and you've developed the muscles to protect yourself (which admittedly she was looking a touch light on). perfectly fine as a narrative choice, lean into it more

the churro college conversation between patrick and art was good, but that's another thing I would've integrated more into the tennis. like, the thing about him actually going for what he wanted and all that? you can do that through tennis! I also kinda wanted more of a sense of what tashi brought to the coaching dynamic, just something very simple and straightforward even the non-tennis viewing audience can understand. again, you've got this fairly obvious federer expy set up going on with art, and the glimpses we got of his game ... I mean mainly the one handed backhand, it does lean towards him being a player that's naturally oriented towards aggression. I would've maybe gone for the whole.... y'know. him not really being able to embrace that, him always holding himself back a little bit, not willing to fully give himself over and throw himself into the game. that tashi kinda has to get him to go for it, to go after the ball, to step into the court and use that technically excellent flat forehand stroke and trust himself to find those angles and rush the net and play the game, rather than letting the game play him. linking that into his loss of motivation post injury, where he feels like he's achieved what he wants to, where maybe he kinda retreats into himself. which is partly a motivation issue but also about trusting yourself post injury... not really being able to go after it in the same way any more, struggling to commit to that kind of aggressive mindset when your heart just isn't it any more. or something! just a thought!!

that's the thing right - sure, tennis might be a relationship, but the tennis will always be a character in its own right in whatever twisted threesome thing they've got going on. at the end of the day, the real toxic relationship is with the tennis! it's sad tashi can't leave it behind, it's tragic she's organising her whole life around something that'll always be lost to her. but it won't ever let her go, even though it hurt her, even though it caused her physical pain as well as emotional. it's the truest love in the whole film, tashi and the game itself, and all other love is subservient to that. it's also the most interesting relationship that needed to be... well, a little more foregrounded. she's always chasing that high, that moment of perfect communication and understanding and all that - and it's an entire lifetime of work, chasing the briefest of moments and now even that is gone. something she won't ever be able to recapture. she can't live her dream and she can't move on, so she is forever trapped, in stasis, frustrated and tormented by desires she can't act upon, the worst kind of repression imaginable. and it's not just about playing tennis in general - it's about playing matches. the height of competition, the moment in the point and in the match in which losing or winning feels like an equal possibility, where anything could happen but only one player will eventually emerge victorious... she's chasing the high of uncertainty, of suspense - the equivalent to showing up to the bedroom of two blokes and knowing anything could happen, not knowing yet what choice she will make, who will win, who will lose. if you really want to get abstract about this, she's essentially functioning as, y'know, the tennis gods with these two boys, where she is the one to make the choice of who wins and who loses. she is the one creating the uncertainty, the suspense. and she's doing it all for the love of the game, because that's all she ever truly loved

or that's what I think they should've gone for idk. I also have a few kinda dumb thoughts like 'ugh I needed more of a sense of what patrick's career looked like, are we talking never made it to the main draw of a 250 or slam quarterfinalist because both are plausible'. but anyway I think narratives in sports are neat and I wish more people did stuff like challengers did, even if I think I was just looking for something a little different from what that film was doing. you do kinda need somebody who's really into sports to do some of this stuff I feel, but. well. sports rivalries really is a bit of a tragically under-explored storytelling set up. they're good narratives. somebody write them

[dark-nimbus]

My Opinions on Anime and Manga in Western Countries

CW: fetishization, oversexualization, racial stereotyping, as always lmk if I’m missing anything

Everytime I tell someone I'm not an avid fan of anime or manga, the usual response is shock and confusion, paired with "how?? But you're Asian!"

What hasn't occurred to them, I assume, is that those kinds of stereotypes are part of why I'm not a huge fan

Do I hate all anime and manga? No, not at all. In fact I do have a few books and shows that I enjoy, my favorite manga of all time being Arslan Senki (go check it out, the series is criminally underrated). However, I'm very picky about which ones I read and watch, and for very good reason. To be more specific, I'm not a fan of anime and manga as it's been generally received by Western countries

For the record: if you're from the Americas and like manga and anime, this is not me dogging on you. Everyone has the right to enjoy what they do, as long as they aren't harming anyone or their integrity

Now unfortunately, in my experience I've had to deal with the not harmless enjoyers more often than not

Take the first sentence of this post as an example. People always expect me to be largely enthusiastic about East Asian-originating media, despite knowing I've spent the vast majority of my life living in the middle of the US and was raised by people who are the furthest thing from Asian. I know next to nothing about my heritage or my culture and have grown up completely in American society, but even with this knowledge I'll still be met with shocked expressions when I say I've never watched whatever show or how anime isn't my favorite thing in the world. All because I look a certain way

That stereotyping attachment of race to media is just one of the many reasons I don't like anime or manga, and it unfortunately goes deeper than that

Japan already has an issue of oversexualizing women in their media, and you can see it in the skimpy outfits, big boobs, giant eyes, petite forms, and overall simping mannerisms they have towards male characters. This is by no means found in every show or book, but it's present in most. Even Arslan Senki, my favorite manga, favors putting Farangis, a priestess, in a sexualizing outfit over living up to the rest of the story's historical authenticity. With anime and manga growing more popular in the West, the impact of how women are portrayed is reflected in how people interact more and more

I can't tell you how many times I've had to hear about how people, from first dates to classmates to random strangers have fetishized Asian women because they wanted someone to live out their weird anime fantasies with. Hell, I have some stories of my own too. I've known Asian content creators who've been left creepy comments from viewers, some of which asking for them to talk in a high-pitched whiney "anime girl" voice and say a sexualized line using Japanese honorifics in a fetishizing manner. Asian cosplayers will constantly get demands to dress up in a maid outfit or cosplay certain anime characters for them to "simp" over

Even other cosplayers aren't safe from fetishizers. Other PoC cosplayers, black cosplayers especially, are consistently put on blast for cosplaying anime characters because those characters "aren't black." If it's not an Asian cosplayer, the creeps' fetishizing fantasies can't be lived up to, so they give black cosplayers shit instead. But gods forbid they do the same to white cosplayers, since being white is always the default to them apparently. How dare anyone try to give a white cosplayer shit for cosplaying a Japanese character when all anime characters are Japanese, that's unfair to them, right? But it's okay to have a double standard because the characters look white enough, right?

There was even a Japanese boxer from a few months ago that people latched onto, because apparently any East Asian guy with messy blond hair looks like Bakugo. MHA fangirls, many of which being minors, went crazy on him, making comments that are far from appropriate for that kind of interaction and fully reimagining this completely real human being as a fictional character for their own fetishizing purposes

If we're not stereotyped, we're being sexualized. The spreading influence of fetishizing Asian people only grows with the popularity of anime and manga in countries further west. It's been used to thirst, hit on, even threaten East Asian people, women especially. Our safety and comfort has been royally screwed by anime "simps" and it only continues to worsen, even more so for Asian Americans and content creators

One of the worst things about being Asian and growing up in America is how anime was the closest thing to connecting to my culture, and what did anime tell little me about being Asian? That my skin had to be pale, my eyes wide, I had to be short and curvy, and I had to sound ultra-feminine. Those were the values that the world expected out of me. Cassandra Cain was there to be my saving grace, thankfully, but the impression anime girls have on others will never be a positive or realistic one unless Japan re-evaluates its media as a whole and non-Asian viewers can find the maturity to not implement the same things on other people

[absolutebl]

Hi there! I've just returned from a two-week holiday (as I'm writing this I'm actually still driving back home, but I want to get on top of it lmao), so I would like to defer to your knowledge:

could you pretty please provide me with an update on what series ended/started while I was away? I have a vague idea, but I don't want to miss out on the things that didn't get as much promo and are therefore not on my mdl.

if you can, my watchlist will be forever thankful!!

July Report: BL that Stopped & Started & Is worth Your time

Ended July 2023

Step By Step

This was Thailand’s answer to The New Employee, and everything I loved about that show I loved about this one.

This was an office romance between stern boss and sweet subordinate that felt more authentic to an office environment than previous Thai BLs of this ilk. And that authenticity added tension to the narrative and character development (how novel). Now that might be because it has western source material, or it might be because it is actually kind of old-fashioned (it’s been years since I worked as an office grunt). I also really enjoyed the brothers’ relationship, and kinda wished they hadn’t attempted (and failed) to give said brother his own side BL. That one flaw made it a 9/10 for me.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

La Pluie

This BL takes to task the fated mates trope and what it means to have love chained intimately to predestination. It’s about how faith in destiny before choice diminishes the authenticity of emotion, relationships, and connection. This is a high concept to examine through the lens of a BL.

By activating + examining the soulmates trope this show is challenging a foundation of romance: the idea that there is one person meant to be your one romantic partner all your life. This means that we, as viewers, spend much of the show worried about it having a happy ending, and that’s the source of both its brilliance and tension: would the narrative have the strength to truly challenge its own romantic core? But, ultimately, all this elevated complexity was executed in a somewhat shaky manner with the narrative derailing into some serious pacing issues and characters manipulated by miscommunication.

However, with good chemistry and decent acting all around, plus some excellent high heat and representation of consent and a few other rare tropes, this one has to (like it’s sibling show My Ride) earn a 9/10. I enjoyed it even as it made me think, so despite its flaws:

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Started July 2023 & Looking GOOD

Jun & Jun

Korea Thurs Viki 8 eps

THANK YOU BL GODS. It is so good. Like everything I want in the world. I’m incandescently happy with this show.

It’s office set,

it’s an ex idol,

everyone is pretty as peaches,

and it’s all about remembering somebody’s smell!

I could not be more delighted.

Laws of Attraction

Thai Sat iQIYI 8 eps

(Icky picked it up but they are serving it in a complicated way that may require a VPN.)

Stars the pair from To Sir With Love with the same production team. IT’S SO GOOD. A morally corrupted trickster lawyer with a tragic past, sad eyes, and a beautiful smile that he uses like a weapon. Meets paladin martial arts instructor from other side of the tracks (who is out, at least to his baby sister).

Corrupt police.

Spoiled rich kid evil.

Ambitious politician.

Tragic death.

Terrible subs.*

This show is very like Manner of Death but so far it is a much better/tighter story (there's a Devil Judge aura happening). It’s NOT BL but it is fucking phenomenal. And you should watch it. Not wait to binge it. WATCH IT.

On a global scale this might be the best thing currently airing featuring gay romantic leads. Its really fucking good. It’s Lawless Lawyer but more complex character motivation and gay af. Fuck yes please and thank you. FINALLY.

Triggers for violence, beatings, death & torture depicted on screen. Like MoD they are not holding back. 

(* A lot of the familial names they are using are not gendered in Thai but translated as such, like “nephew”. This one is gonna go down a lot easier if you know some Thai.)

ALSO:

Stay By My Side - Taiwan Fri Gaga 10 eps

Hidden Agenda that isn’t hidden - Thailand Sun GMMTV YouTube 12 eps

Low Frequency - Thailand Sat iQIYI 8 eps

Started But You Can Probably Wait IMHO

Dinosaur Love (Sun iQIYI)

Be Mine Super Star (Mon Viki)

Wedding Plan (Weds YT & iQIYI) it's mame so A trash watch is happening! 

Minato Shouji Coin Laundry Season 2 (Japan Thu Gaga)

Hope this is what you wanted.

[oscarwetnwilde]

James Wilby in You Me, And It and the birth of his daughter during the filming of it.

James’ real-life baby Florence, was born during filming for the series- a happy but rather ironic coincidence.

“In fact, there’s a scene where I have to visit Barbara in hospital, after she has had an exploratory operation- and that was when I’d just hot-footed from seeing Shana in hospital with our brand-new baby girl!” “I’d missed Barnaby’s birth because I was in Manchester filming A Tale Of Two Cities, so I was determined to be there this time. Shana went into labor at 2 a.m., Florence was born at 5 a.m. and I ended up having to tear down the M3 for the fictional hospital scene, having been up all night; I was singing, quite euphoric. You might just detect a daft, permanent smile on my face in that scene; I’d just become a father! It really brought home to me the frustration of our characters."

-Western Daily Press, March 27, 1993

“I’m a happy father of two. But our second child was a wee while coming, and then my wife had a miscarriage. The whole thing was very traumatic and certainly gave me an idea of what it must be like not to be able to have children.” In one of the hospital scenes, James confesses to feeling very sleepy because he’d just left another hospital where his real-life wife had given birth. “I was in a daze,” he remembers. “I was so happy, I was there at the birth, had been up all night, then had to jump in the car and go to work.”

-Kensington Post, March 24, 1993

“She arrived at 5 a.m. and I was back on the set of You, Me, And It three hours later. I was totally knackered.” He was delighted to see Florence’s birth as he missed Barnaby’s delivery, as the baby arrived 7 weeks early: “I was filming A Tale Of Two Cities in Manchester at the time, and I had to drive through the night to get to the hospital where Barnaby was born."

-Bristol Evening Post, March 26, 1993

James and Shana’s joy was shattered when she suffered a miscarriage, but she became pregnant again and Florence was born, ironically, while James was filming You Me And It.

“It was while we were filming You Me And It and Shana had gone into hospital because her waters had started to leak. But the doctors said it could still be a couple of days. I happily went home, relaxed and went to bed after a couple of glasses of wine. Then I got a call at about 2 a.m. and had to drive to the hospital-probably over the limit. The baby was born at 5 in the morning and then I had to go on to another hospital where we were filming one of the scenes. I just hope the viewers don’t notice the permanent smile on my face- I did have rather a lot of champagne that lunchtime!”

-Mercury, April 2, 1993

“I was there for Florrie’s birth,” said James. “My wife, Shana, had already gone into hospital-they intimated it might be 3 or 4 days but it wasn’t- it was that night. So I rolled up at about 3 in the morning and the baby was born at about 5. I spent about an hour and a half with her and Shana, and I was on set at 8. Funnily enough, we were doing a scene in hospital about Barbara having a laparoscopy. It was very strange.”

-Liverpool Daily Post, March 23, 1993

[hybbart]

i saw in the master list thingie that tiny tom is with joel and as someone who super loves all the tiny kids of joel but with tiny tom as my fave i wanna say thank you! even if he never shows up i love tiny tom :D

In general you can assume any Joel children past, present, or future are with the group, even if they aren't written. I just added the ones I know about but I'm not a regular viewer of Joel's or streams, so I might have missed a few. If I did they are there too!

Fun fact: Tiny Tom was actually going to be in Day 414, giving Hermes his sheriff doll, but I was already having trouble with there being so many characters and deciding on Lizzie's design, and I hadn't actually decided on a Tiny Tom design yet so I decided to remove him and save him for later.

(There's a LOT of really cute designs and ideas for Tiny Tom out there, I'm struggling to decide which I vibe with the most. I'm leaning towards Void Cat, but calf, bird, enderman, and slime Toms are all also so cute. I might try to combine two, I don't know.)

Him and Hermes are both big fans of The Sheriff so they share a lot of their toys, the hat Hermes is wearing is his. He gave it to him so Hermes could be brave visiting the doctor. In this setting it's probably a kids western show like how Sheriff Woody was in Toy Story.

[radspeon]

Pinned Post

jo/yasha/radi/radicat, he/him, based in washington, tech enthusiast, HTML hobbyist, digital artist, occasional music maker, aspiring scene kid, archivist, lover of all things online

want to just scroll through my original posts? go on over to #yasha's spoken word!

YOU CAN FIND ME ON

ao3 , dreamwidth(long blog posts) , bearblog(short blog posts), youtube , my website , toyhou.se, bluesky, twitter

DNI

-please do not interact if you age/pet regress, my blog is not kidsafe, and may be distressing or inappropriate for someone in a regressed state. -please do not interact if you consider "cringe" a valid and/or clever insult.

BYF

i am 16. if i interact with you and it turns out that you do not want teens to interact with you please shoot me a message letting me know so i can block you(not out of malice, just so the mistake won't happen again). please also understand that 'dni' goes both ways, and i do not want to interact with anyone with 'minors dni' in their bios either. my blog contains many posts that may be eyestraining to certain viewers, and i largely do not tag eyestrain on this blog. i do tag flashing/flickering lights as much as i can, but i may miss some, so you might want to be cautious. i am always online, so feel free to shoot me a message any time if you so wish.

SIDEBLOGS

@puppyyuri - my art blog @bucktoothngapi - blog for a webcomic featuring the titular characters, Bucktooth and Gapi, who are roommates and live in an ambiguously-blue fifth-story apartment. @pseudofujo - my yaoi sideblog where i review BL stories, mostly terrible 90s ova's. @rainbow-dash-sideblog - ....kinda what it says on the tin. i reblog any art of rainbow dash that i find @moichinagae - a blog to chronicle the archiving effort for YASHA by Akimi Yoshida. it's much more professional than this blog. @amamiyarin - a blog to talk about YASHA by Akimi Yoshida without the professional tone of moichinagae. @nocula-drasferatu - a blog dedicated to my fursona and furry stuff in general. @godlyfoals - a production diary blog for my furry fantasy-western novel, Godly Foals. @buttonbunnyadvicecolumn - an askblog where you can ask my childhood plush, Button Bunny, for advice on just about anything. still a WIP, but it'll be done soon.

URL CHANGES

vampiricspectrumdisorder --> radspeon (April 24th, 2024) ibmeduquest --> vampiricspectrumdisorder(March 11th, 2024) radiationcat196 --> ibmeduquest(Nov 6, 2023) r3dyasha --> radiationcat196(Apr 1, 2023) mudmaude --> r3dyasha(idk when but sometime in 2022 i think?)

[magentagalaxies]

Uh-oh Ze's Writing A Kids in the Hall Essay for Fun Again

aka i wanted to infodump but i didn't know who to send the infodump to specifically so i'm making it a post

basically i was thinking about the iconic man-in-a-towel "character" that's become ubiquitous in kids in the hall projects and how that's an example of how queer culture is such an integral part of kids in the hall even in basic ways people might miss. not just bc paul bellini has been openly gay for just as long as scott has, but also because the towel thing itself is literally a reference to queer culture

(side note when i was watching kids in the hall for the very first time i had no idea bellini was gay, and now after diving into mouth congress and every other piece of kids in the hall related media i could get my hands on, plus becoming close friends with bellini himself, i'm just sitting here like "how was there ever a time when i didn't know he was gay???")

like, here's the explanation of the source of the "man in a towel" aspect of the bellini contest from Paul Myers' Kids in the Hall biography "One Dumb Guy":

i just find it so fascinating that the towel thing specifically came from the idea of this "character" being in a bathhouse, and how watching the series in 2023 without that context may lead to that aspect being lost on viewers entirely because that's not something that's as in the public consciousness when it comes to queer culture anymore. you see a guy walking around in a towel in a piece of media in 2023 and your first thought is of a gym locker room or something like that. and this lack of context doesn't take away from the joke at all, the surreal humor of this random guy wearing a towel being the prize for the kids in the hall viewer contest and appearing in the background of numerous sketches works regardless of why he's in the towel in the first place, but as someone who loves kids in the hall in large part because of its attitude towards queerness refusing to play along with respectability politics, the way gay sex is a part of this seemingly-unrelated gag is incredible. like, it's almost framed as though the world is his bathhouse, and he's just wandering around waiting for something to happen. like a more zen version of the "running faggot" character. and even in the above section, when he's like "i knew it would make me famous, and maybe that would help me get laid." that idea is so normalized when it comes to straight guys wanting to get laid, but it still feels so revolutionary to be like "yeah, this can be a part of it as well."

but beyond that, the way bathhouses in particular come up in kids in the hall related works is always going to be fascinating to me, because i feel like they're a part of queer culture and queer history that is so often either forgotten or treated as shameful. like, prior to getting into kids in the hall, the only times i ever heard about bathhouses were when people talked about the AIDS epidemic, and even when people were trying to sound queer-positive there was always this implication that bathhouses were just a place where disease was spread and they all ceased to exist after the 1980s. kids in the hall on the other hand? any time bathhouses are brought up, it's treated in a similar way to just going to a bar. some people like to get drunk, some people like to get high, some people like to have casual sex with men. there's comedy to be found in any of these environments but there's nothing inherently morally wrong with any of them

in most other western media, bathhouses are forced to carry this stigma, but in the works of kids in the hall (especially scott thompson) the carefree attitude towards sex is almost enviable. a STEPS sketch where the trio are in conflict ends with the group setting aside their differences to head to the bathhouse. the scenes in buddy babylon (the fictional autobiography of buddy cole, written by scott thompson and paul bellini) depicting a bathhouse encounter are surprisingly un-sensationalized. it's just a casual fun night out and a way to meet new people, and even the sex scenes in that book aren't typically framed as spectacle. (this goes along with buddy babylon's unique tone as the most down-to-earth buddy cole media, but that's a whole other essay). even scott thompson's standup set "the human urinal," which revolves around a particularly embarrassing bathhouse encounter, thrives on its observational humor and self deprecation. most strikingly, the human urinal story is a recent example, and in this set scott even acknowledges the reputation bathhouses have as this shameful relic of the past. i actually highly recommend the human urinal standup set, though it's absolutely a "dead dove do not eat" for exactly what it says in the title.

and, of course, on this topic i was thinking about the way gay sex is portrayed in kids in the hall season six (aka the revival season for amazon prime). in it, we have two main sketches that center this particular theme. the first is sole buddy cole sketch of the season, "the last gloryhole" (featuring paul bellini as the voice of the gloryhole, fun fact). this sketch highlights the exact theme this essay has been getting at, directly calling out the way respectability politics has erased the more "nsfw" history of the queer community through the surrealist premise of buddy cole getting the last remaining gloryhole in the city declared a national landmark by the late queen elizabeth. the only other sketch to center around gay sex happens as a 70s flashback, and even that one is actually moreso focused on the idea of the partners in this gay relationship getting jealous of each other for sleeping with a woman (honestly i don't have much deep analysis for this one because tbh i didn't like the sketch that much).

the most striking thing about these two examples is the weird paradox kids in the hall season six finds itself in when it comes to censorship, or lack thereof. now, censorship and kids in the hall season six is a loaded topic that could spawn its own essay, but this isn't about direct censorship (i.e. someone explicitly saying "you can't show that"), but instead about cultural ideas of censorship, what is and isn't normal to show on television. ask any kids in the hall fan who's seen all six seasons and the most jarring difference between the revival and the original show is the amount of nudity. amazon let them show dicks, so they're gonna show dicks, and also dave foley has fake tits in the latter of the sketches mentioned above (though they were technically also able to show dave with tits in the original show too). however, even though visually seeing nudity gives the implication that this is a fully uncensored production, there's still this hesitancy towards some of the gay topics that were freely explored in the original series that's definitely a product of respectability politics. gay male sexual desire is de-centralized in a way it never has been. the reason the above sketches feel out of place is not because they're not typical of the kids in the hall, but because the rest of the show is not matching the tone in the same way.

anyway, thank you for listening to this infodump. gay male sexual desire has always been integral to the kids in the hall and the fact that the show's queer creators refused to conform to respectability politics allowed them to treat this topic with far more respect than anyone has since.