#do not perceive the timestamp on when this got posted

[lesbianracecars]

SV5 & MS47 Nothing Feels Right Or Quite The Same

#sebastian vettel #mick schumacher #i do realize that by making edits to songs that only i like is making things harder for myself #however i have been Thinking about this for a While #f1 #f1 video #video #mine #rbr seb #ferrari seb #am seb #i Will Miss Them So Much #do not perceive the timestamp on when this got posted #especially if you are pax

[autisticempathydaemon]

Hello! Are you hyperfixated on RedactedAudio?

Do you want (need) to know who to follow to cultivate your dashboard and feed your gremlin brain good, good boyfriend roleplay content?

Cool, I’ve got you, and I’ve got hyperlinks. Buckle up.

(Note: This is by no means a comprehensive, objective, or complete list. I've only been in the fandom for six months or so. I have biases and favorites and limited time. I hope to update this list periodically, and if you feel I've missed someone, please feel free to reblog with your additions! I just would have loved a guide like this when I got into the fandom back in August and wanted to spread some positivity~!)

Fanfiction:

@angelnoodlesoup: she/her

Sophie is just one of the sweetest David stans that's ever existed who writes, like, the sweetest things about him. Her posts are just going to make you feel warm, fluffy, soft things in your heart area; give into the sweetness. Highlights: Sophie writes this adorable timestamp series of vignettes exploring Davey and Angel's day, but I'm particularly attacked to their David/Angel neighbors to lovers AU~

@arrowfleur

I was actually going to put Max in the visual content portion of this post, because they post delightful Redacted edits on Tiktok (under the same username, highly recommend~), but then they made a uquiz that gave me an existential crisis, so here we are. Highlights: This quiz sent my whole server for a loop and has made me reconsider my relationship with Lovely as a character and kin; it's a great time.

@batch-of-pengwings: robin/bird, she/her

Robin, an absolute sweetheart who makes all the fun ask games that keep the community interconnected and thinking and talking which is just really sweet and fun in the best way. Highlights: The Winter Wonderland game is the one who went around most recently, and it’s so fun to engage with the fandom and discuss who we think is stupid enough to get their tongues stuck on a telephone poll~

@bicyclepainting: they/them

Clover, the fandom's resident Smartass, doing the lord's work and reminding us all how fucking smoochable Aaron is on a regular basis on top of being the coolest astrology nerd don't give them your birth chart you will be perceived /lh Highlights: No one is doing Aaron/Smartass like they are; like, read and absorb the delicious, domestic delight that is them. I also recommend their deep dives into the Redacted bois signs, if you're into that; they're very thorough and fun to read!

@cashandprizes: she/they

My Lexi, my queerplatonic soulmate… She is on a quest to dissect and critique fandom brick by philosophical brick, and I both love her and fear her in equal measure. (That’s a lie, I love her infinitely, more than anything, but she is in fact incredibly intelligent and intimidating.) Highlights: Come for the scathing insights into gray-morality and DD:DNE’s place in fiction, stay for the stripper!Gavin fic they’re working on and their sequel to Lasko’s SexTember audio because she really wanted to make him cry

@ejunkiet: she/her

EJ, the very first of my Redacted loves~ Not only is EJ an endless well of kindness and positivity, but she also writes fucking bomb ass everything. You get angst, you get smut, you get fluff- We stan a multitalented, ace queen. (She also writes really cute CastleAudios fanfiction and original stuff as a cherry on top.) Highlights: EJ writes just some of my favorite David/Angel smut; she captures Angel's little shit nature perfectly. She's also written the sweetest thing of Damien meeting Huxley's moms that I can't get enough of~

@dominimoonbeam: she/her

Domini, truly one of the pillars of the fandom. I don't know what'd we'd be without her fantastic fics or her original novellas or her fantastic, beautiful, rarepair-creating brain. Highlights: God, there's too many to choose from! There's the Sam/Darlin fake dating AU that has us all gripped by the proverbial balls. There's the David/Darlin tattoo shop AU that has me frothing at the mouth because tattoo artists are stinkin hot. That's not even getting into their Cam/William fic, because god, that is such a good rarepair. We love two immortals finding love with one another, we really do. My personal favorite has got to be their Huxley/Darlin piece though, because Darlin gets to be cute and awkward and so, so loved in it.

@frenchiefitzhere: she/her

Frenchie, the fandom's unofficial (but basically official) Marie Greer, not only a gorgeous writer but also the creator of the most fantastical and unique fansongs (who makes original audio content to boot~) Highlights: We would be nowhere as a fandom without the Marie/Colm greer backstory and saga or her audios as the Greer Matriarch herself, but personally? Her Imperium!Lasko/Adam fic kind of changed my life, I'm kind of obsessed with it.

@friendlyfaded: he/him

Miles, the king and professor of the rarepairs! Beware, you will leave his blog wishing for fics for a ship that doesn’t actually exist yet. It’s unavoidable when you read the careful, creative, thoughtful way he considers seemingly silly pairings and makes them gorgeous. Highlights: I recommend his whole rarepairs with prof tag for a snack and his Sweetheart/Lasko/Milo fic for a whole meal~

@gingerbreadmonsters: she/her

Ginger, literally one of the sweetest, friendliest people in the entire Internet. I cannot adequately describe the absolute magnificent poetry of Ginger's prose, so you just have to read it for yourself. You will not be disappointed. Highlights: Ginger's Milo/Sweetheart series is for if you're feeling sweet, and her Vincent/Lovely/Gavin/Freelancer foursome fic is if you're feeling spicy~ Or if you're like me and are longing for an character we'll never see again, you can read her gorgeous, Doctor Who-inspired look in Marcus's mind.

@glassbearclock: she/her

Beans, also known as the best Milo/Sweetheart writer in the game. Their banter is taken from the mouth of god and first name Erik last name Redacted himself, and you could not convince me otherwise. Highlights: I’m a big fan of her sweet, wholesome, Jewish!Milo sick fic, but aYO her Milo/Sweetheart first date fic is so good y’all like goddamn Sweetheart phases through their door and makes Milo faceplant it on accident man that shit is so good

@horrorscoupes: they/he

My beautiful, darling Lotus, my gloriously deranged brother in arms (affectionate). The way they write each and every d(a)emons is just so -chef kiss-. Highlights: I think about their Regulus/Doll fic, like, literally every day, it's just yummy and depraved. Though, for a true taste of genius, for a galaxy brain treat, you've got to read his Shark!Vega/Pet masterpiece.

@k9rage: he/xi

My beloved Calico, our helpful Image Description fairy. He is just so cool and writes the most glorious smut like the world has ever seen. As of publishing, he's writing a Vega/Lasko street racing AU that's gonna be just smoke ash cinder fire hot. Highlights: You need to read his Damien/Gavin waxplay fic; like, this changed my life, I think about it daily. Ooh, AND his Aaron/SmartAss/Gavin threesome fic, because he didn't do all that thinking and imagining for us to not appreciate it. I'm also reccing @calicostorms, his other blog and spotify, so you can get at his stellar Redacted character playlists!

@lovelylonerliterature: 

Lovely, absolute stand-out writer in the fandom! Would you believe they have a whole (as of posting) 95 works for the RedactedASMR fandom on AO3? There’s <2000 fics, which makes Lovely a whole five percent of the fanfiction on their own. That’s wild and so hella cool. Highlights: Literally everything they write. Explore their extremely well done masterlist, it’s beautifully put together, and you’ll find something you love. (I’m particularly fond of the Darlin/Vega fic they wrote based off of one of FriendlyFaded’s posts~)

@romirola: she/her

Dr. Romi, the one and the only and one of the legitimate sweetest goddamn people that has ever existed. You've never met a more polite, darling person in all your days. How did she write all these thousands of words of art while getting a doctorate? God, I wish I knew... if only we could also be so beautiful and wonderful and accomplished. Highlights: You haven't existed until you've read her Milo/Sweetheart Tangled AU; like, what are you doing here? GO. (I also deeply recommend her found family Shaw Pack + Sam fic, if you're looking for something that's still ongoing!)

@sealriously-sealrious: they/them

Chrys who writes- no contest I think we can all agree- the best Huxley that this fandom has ever seen. He is just so well-explored and so multifaceted, just the top-tier himbo content we all need and deserve. Highlights: Huxley and Freelancer at the aquarium, Huxley and Freelancer going camping, sfw, nsfw, whatever you want, we've GOT. (There's even some imperium!Huxley, if you're so inclined >:))

@starlitangels: she/her

Starlit, another absolute powerhouse of the fandom. Just look at this masterlist, I think there’s something here for literally every character. That’s what babes call RANGE. Highlights: The way they explore the Shaw pack is so fun; I’d highly recommend her fic exploring Gabe and his backstory or her fic exploring the Shaw’s future pups~!

@taelonsamada: she/her

A pillar- or should I say fence post?- of the fandom and just an utter peach. Always has a nice word to say and says the best nice words about Sam and Darlin- Highlights: Her nsfw Geordi/Cutie fic holds a special place in my heart (the blindfold? the gag? Be still my beating heart), but you haven’t lived until you’ve read her Shaw-centric Ranch AU~!

@teasandcardigans: she/her

Mads, another lovely creator that could be in either section of this post- that's how talented she is! Not only is she a lovely writer but she also designs the most fun Redacted stickers! Also, she's got the only Redacted fan tiktok that Erik has confirmed seen and liked, can't not mention that it's so cool Highlights: Honestly, there's too many to mention! A really popular of hers is a "What If" echo-esque reimagining of everyone's stories which is so fun, and my personal, biased favorite is her Alexis & Gavin fic hear me OUT-

@the-sugar-crash

Cait, out here doing the most and the best. They’ve run the Redacted Winter Gift Exchange for the past two years, connecting blogs who might have never spoken to each other, inspiring creativity, and spreading holiday cheer~ Highlights: I recommend taking a look-see through the “Redacted 2022 Winter Gift Exchange” tag- much thanks to Cait for making it possible- to consider if you’d like to join next year! Until then, there’s a compilation of their cute headcanon posts to inspire you!

@zozo-01: she/her

Zo, one of the sweetest people in the fandom~ Not only is she a fantastic writer, but she is also one of the friendliest people in the space! Constantly excited and supportive and positive and a joy to follow and befriend. Highlights: Her Sam/Darlin Deity AU is going to change the world and break some hearts, I just know it. (Just like her Alexis and Darlin meeting fic broke mine-) If you're not up to getting your heart broken and just want a friend, I recommend asking her about her Powerpoint of Bollywood scenes that could be Sam/Darlin moments~!

Fanart:

@andr0leda: she/they

Androleda’s art is so gorgeous in that most of them are uncolored or working with a smaller palette, and it just makes those colors stand out and the line work all the more elegant. Highlights: Their wolf!Darlin piece got so popular, and you can see why! It looks like the cover of a really cool YA fantasy novel. Also, her Sam/Darlin art just melts the heart- the gentle hand, the key around the neck-!

@artbykays

Kays, a fantastic artist who plays around with the prettiest, brightest colors and has the prettiest (hottest) fem listeners. They also have super fun Redacted playlists! Highlights: Their Sweetheart, Valentina, is kind of smokin hot, I mean look at her, but also good lord, have you seen their Warden like lock me up anytime hello-

@belovedbow

Bow’s art just makes me so soft and gooey inside I dunno. Their art is so pretty, and they always have the most expressive faces. Not to mention the colors- like, Bow uses the simplest but most emotionally evocative shades of pinks and blues that make me inexplicably feel things, and I love it. Highlights: Literally all their Davey/Angel is the sweetest, but I also have this deep fondness for their imp!FL and Vindemiator pieces, because look at these deep, mournful blues, they’re beautiful!

@cascadiiing: they/them

Atlas creates the most beautiful, squishable, smoochable characters on top of being the most beautiful, squishable, smoochable (platonic) sweetie in existence~ they’re so sweet and friendly on top of being so talented at such a young age, and I would protect them with my life. Highlights: Their Sam kind of makes me so lovesick, I could barf- he’s just that pretty. Their Alexis/Christian art is fanart of my own fic, I’ll grant you, but it’s also so fucking pretty look at the dreamy colors and it MOVES-

@claracatlady

Where would we be without Clara, like honestly- What really stands out about their art is- other than the overwhelming talent- the obvious thought and joy that went into designing the outfits. Only the best from our resident fashion design student! Highlights: literally everything. If I must be specific, the David design pinned to their blog is utterly ahdhkakshdjsk, and I am particularly partial to their Alexis design, because I love my beautiful, possibly complex lady okay-

@fregget-frou : he/they

Mal has the prettiest Listeners; I’m lowkey in love with all of them~ I love the way he does such fluffy, voluminous hair, and I dunno, all their listener OC’s have this fashion model-esque glamour and posture about them that’s really attractive. Highlights: Of their listeners, Mal’s Angel has got to be my favorite. Look at this fluffy-haired cutie! Look at this menace! I would also propose to them, they’re gorgeous!

@gwenifred: she/her

Gwen draws the most gorgeous, swoon-worthy Huxleys and is just a big sweetpea to boot. Her and Pali sharing OC’s and art trades here and on Twitter is a testament to how friendly and sweet the fandom can be! Highlights: Everything she draws is gorgeous, but you haven’t lived until you’ve seen her animation work!

@ice-palace-art: They/It/He/Dae

Darby has some of the most beautiful designs, I can hardly stand it. He creates the most gorgeous, realistically proportioned characters and listeners, and they’re just really smoochable okay let me live- Highlights: It has this one piece of Gavin and Lasko having a sleepover that fills me with the warm fuzzies every time I see it, and their Aaron design fills me with longing I am hopelessly in love with their dad-bodded Aaron.

@itsdaifuku: she/her

Y’all don’t even know the little happy stim storm Fuku’s art sets me on; like, all her art is so cute and joyful and somehow colorful even when it’s in black and white? It just gives the vibe of life and vibrancy constantly? How does she do that? Highlights: Literally, everything she draws is gorgeous and sweet, though her designs for the Shaws and their mates are so S-tier and so cute. (I’m also particularly fond of her designs for Love and Alexis, my favorite characters, I’m biased, sue me)

@mr-laveau: he/they

Laveau, my favorite Milo kinnie~ (Yeah, I said it out loud; I’m callin you out.) Charming, thoughtful, friendly, much more talented than they have any right to be when they’re also so funny and sweet, AND also writing at their other blog @bratty-telepath. You’ve never seen such a double threat. Highlights: Literally, everything he makes. All his designs are colorful and gorgeous and filled to the brim with deliberate, intentional details (though I am incredibly partial to their Alexis and Darlin designs and the parallels he included between them.)

@nais-doodles

Nai is a fucking blessing unto this fandom, and we are not worthy. You haven’t really lived, haven’t experienced all the pure, positive silliness that this hellsite has to offer until you experience Nai’s Redacted Actor AU. It’s pure serotonin, and we’re all here listening to Boyfriend ASMR, I know we could use it. Highlights: Other than said AU posts (which really are so fuckin good), have you seen their drawing of Vincent and Sam’s Monarchal ball? Ooh, and if you go to their tiktok under the same username, you can see some of the really cool dating sim they’re working on!

@nanowatzophina: any pronouns

Na’no is not only a must follow on tumblr, but I also highly recommend their tiktok if you wish to wade through the horrid cesspool of that app (I say with tiktok as one of my top social media sites- we have a codependent relationship) Their art is super cute and expressive, and I get massive gender envy from the way he draws hair and teeth. Highlights: Her aspec Freelancer is just so close to my heart; I adore Avery so deeply. Also, the way they draw imperium!Vega and Pet makes my heart fucking melt and want to jump out my chest- the size difference, my god

@obsessivedino: they/them

Mint’s contribution to the fandom cannot possibly be overstated. Their art style is just so clean and neat and with the cutest expressions, and I love their designs so much, especially for the d(a)emon bois I just ahhhhh Highlights: If you’ve joined the official unofficial Redacted Discord server, you’ve seen their adorable stickers reminding you to kick that ass or hydrate unless you want to die-drate, and you haven’t truly embraced life unless you’ve seen their two-year anniversary masterpiece. Ooh, or pocket caelum!

@palilious: she/her

There is no Redacted fandom or fandom list without Pali, and we’ve all accepted that. Her style is so uniquely and instantaneously recognizable as hers, and everyone adores it, including but not limited to GBA, Nomad, and Cardlin! Highlights: Literally everyone she draws is so pretty, though I have a soft spot for her Vincent or her Nomad drawings if you’re looking for more VAs to listen to!

@pearl-kite: she/they

Kirehn has the most huggable humans and the most awe-inspiring d(a)emons. The way she draws the d(a)emons with constellations worked into the designs and color palettes is just so gorgeous and purposeful and thoughtful. Highlights: Their Vega is so frightening but beautiful, you just can’t look away from him. I’m also particularly in love with their Darlin!

@queendread

Do y’all ever do this thing when you see an ethereally beautiful person and you have no words, all you can do is giggle like a vapid schoolgirl(gn)? That’s me with all of Anna’s paintings: no words, just awe. Highlights: I don’t even really like Gavin, okay, he’s not my type, but lord above, Anna’s Gavin is something else. Their Sam also has those Captain America, boy next door good looks I imagined, it’s like they took him right out of my daydreams.

@ryokoaoi : they/them

Ryo has the absolute cutest, most adorable art style, one can barely handle it! Everything they draw is just so pretty and so colorful and detailed and sweet. (Except the sad things, those are less sweet but gosh they’re still so pretty.) They also have this Magic Swap AU that they design that is so fun to read about! Highlights: Their swapped! Gavin and Avior designs are so fun, I adore them deeply, and if you need something to cheer you up, you can always depend on their DAMN pieces that always include a little invisible Caelum to bring you joy~!

@slushrottweiler: she-they

There is nothing like seeing Slush’s signature blue linework on your dashboard, it’s such a sweet treat- or spicy. There are also very good, very spicy treats. Her blog is a magnificent roulette wheel of blue surprises. Highlights: I love their Sam/Darlin stuff, especially this one because wowee them shoulderblades, but their HuxDami BA piece takes the cake.

@spookybeandoodle

Spooky has my whole heart and wallet and my other heart if I had one I fell in love with their rich color palettes and shading and Alexis right away and had to commission them. Could not recommend enough, they were a treasure to work with~ Highlights: I’m not biased- okay yes I am but not now their Alexis is fuckin smoking hot but also their Cam might be my favorite Cam look at that smile-!

@sri-rachaa: she/her

Rae is such a treasure to this fandom, we hardly deserve her. Her art is so ethereally pretty and delicate? The way she draws hair and noses and silhouettes- her line work is just phenomenal. Everything she creates is just a delight to look at. Highlights: The Southern Siblings AU is a gift, a treasure, a boon that cannot be ignored. I’m also a big fan of her Lovely OC who is ridiculously pretty~

@tankwolf : she/her

June has been posting fanart for only two months, but I’m already absolutely obsessed. I just find her monochrome character portraits so visually engaging and interesting. I would love so badly to be friends with her listener OC’s… Highlights: …or more than friends, because her Sweetheart is something else good lord. I would just love it if June could stop putting the hot people in crop tops please (but also don’t cause whoa)

@terrazaurio

All the fanart Terra creates is so bright and vivid and colorful and expressive, they’re really such a treat to see and experience. I’m a sucker for the colors they use, cause it makes my lizard brain all happy and go “shiny pretty happy.” Highlights: Everything they draw with the Shaw Pack is pure dopamine, like this one of the bois and their mates hanging by the pool. I am particularly attached to this piece from Milo’s HBS, because they’re so fucking in love, your honor, I love them.

@thefablefoxart : she/her

Angelina’s Redacted couple series is one of the truest delights of the fandom; like, they’re so colorful and cute and just adorably designed. I’m also deeply in love with the way she does hair. Everyone just has really fucking good looking hair, and I can’t get over it-Highlights: On top of the aforementioned couple series, I just want to bring attention to this adorable chibi Sam that she drew- it brings me so much serotonin- and their Darlin, Kai who I wish would just give me a shot okay I have a Southern accent too-

If you’re reading all the way here, I hope you found the post helpful and smiled while making your way through it! Or both! The RedactedAudio fandom is truly one of my favorite spaces on the internet; it’s so intimate and creative, and I’ve found some amazing, perfect friends here, so I hope you will too 💖

again playing around with the formatting please stop hurting me tumblr I’m trying to be nice

If you can see this, I love you, and you’re watching me try to format this post so tumblr doesn’t cut off the bottom of it please ignore the Android behind the emerald curtain go about your day

#redactedasmr #redactedverse #redacted asmr #redactedaudio #redacted audio #redacted

[mcybree]

On 3l!Jimmy and guilt and FH and various tangential things: a post that got out of hand and morphed into something completely different by the end. Enjoy?

I read a good Jimmy analysis post a while back on how important Jimmy’s pride is to him, and how he’ll back himself up when no one else will, often to his own detriment. And this is such a key part of his character, right. Jimmy doesn’t often withdraw or get all nervous and shy when bad shit happens to him, he gets louder and angry and all riled up about it. He projects his insecurities outwards and then picks battles over anything he perceives as an insult.

So it is strange how that seems to be… almost missing in third life. In that series specifically, he withdraws more often than not, he fears making independent decisions, and he makes concessions he typically would rather make a stupid hill to die on than consider:

Joel and Martyn tell Jimmy they feel lied to, and Jimmy is quick to ask how he can make it up to them, agreeing to give them cows for free. Jimmy is threatened by Grian and Scar into giving up his diamond chestplate and he folds easily, then goes home to tell Scott he just “wasn’t thinking.” Jimmy gets blown up by Grian’s tnt trap and says the walls around the flower valley need to go up, he says he’s never leaving his house again, and after it’s all settled he’s afraid to even walk home without Scott.

Honestly the only time he ever picks a fight in true Jimmy fashion is in Episode 1 with Martyn over some stupid sign placement, and then with the red army negotiations when he burned the banner— but that, notably, wasn’t a personal pride thing! It was a very Jimmy way to go about it, but he got defensive because he thought they were going to hurt Scott, and spitting in their faces was the best way he knew how to protect him (as this is how Jimmy typically protects himself).

He’s just very tame, overall. Defanged. He doesn’t stand up for himself like he usually does.

And yknow. If I had to take just. A personal guess as to why that is. I think the difference primarily stems from 3l!Jimmy’s tendency to take on personal blame for things that aren’t even his fault. A Jimmy character feeling bad about the things he’s done isn’t new, he often does do regrettable things, but what sets 3l!Jimmy apart is that he excessively self blames for what are often unsubstantiated reasons.

Grian’s tnt trap triple kill (emphasis on Grian’s) is the most dramatic example. After Jimmy accidentally activates it, he repeatedly stresses just how bad he feels about it, and apologizes to skizz directly, telling him he feels like he’s “ruined everything.” Jimmy blames himself entirely for this incident, to the point where it allows for him and Scott to team up with desert duo, who DIRECTLY SET UP the trap and OUTRIGHT TOOK CREDIT FOR the kills, in the next episode without even a mention of caution or bitterness. This is irrational; if Jimmy were to ask any given person if they genuinely think the deaths were ENTIRELY his fault, I don’t think anybody would seriously say that it was.

Except for Scott. Scott would say it is, and that’s the issue. He did say it, actually, first implying it (“Jimmy I told you that we needed to shoot it from a distance!”) but then outright telling him (“You killed two people!”)*. Scott later backpedals a bit, telling Jimmy that it was Grian and Scar who gave him the loaded gun, and it wasn’t him that brought it. While nice, that sentiment was seemingly too little too late.

* (both of these are said in the scene at about 25:33, ep4 of Scott’s pov in case anyones curious. assuming my timestamps from a year ago are correct if theyre not lmk. I also have rough timestamps for like everything else referenced in here in one big document so if anyone needs them feel free to ask)

This is all to say: I think Jimmy’s self blaming tendencies and, by extension, his unusual lack of self confidence this season are a result of his relationship with Scott. While the TNT trap incident was the catalyst for those feelings being brought so front and center, I believe that Scott created an environment which normalized Jimmy taking on personal blame for things aren’t his fault beforehand, or at the very least disproportionate amounts of it (so when he legitimately fucks up and makes a disastrous mistake, it’s the only thing he thinks to do). Primarily because Scott, himself, blames Jimmy for a lot of things, but also because Jimmy doesn’t understand the motivations behind a lot of how Scott treats him, and has to retroactively fill in the blanks with what makes sense. Full transparency: I am staking this ladder claim on both his undying admiration for Scott seen throughout the entire series that would require a thought process like this to support, and one (1) interaction between him and Martyn in episode 1. However, I’d still argue it’s a significant interaction.

MARTYN: I just seen you get slapped around, like what’s- what’s going on?

JIMMY: I just- Y’know- just. well we’re living opposite each other…

MARTYN: Are you happy living with Scott?

JIMMY: WE’RE LIVING— We’re living opposite each other! And he builds fantastic. And mine just looks like- I’m just not a builder, y’know? Just not a builder.

And. Personally. To me. Answering “What’s going on?” with “I’m just not a builder” in regards to Scott pushing him around implies that Jimmy made a connection between him being a bad builder and Scott’s reaction. In reality, Scott “slapped him around” because Jimmy showed up too early for a deal that he didn’t know about. But Jimmy doesn’t accept that as the reason, and instead traces it back to a personal fault, something he will go on to make a habit of until he dies in the desert.

After all, it becomes very easy to explain away various mishaps and misfortunes as “oh I’m just not a builder” or “oh I must not have been thinking,” when Scott’s favorite activity is implying Jimmy is incompetent and can’t be trusted to do anything on his own. (Some fun scott quotes being “why do I let you do things” “as long as we dont let jimmy do anything we’ll be fine,” and most directly, “see that’s why I said, ‘I dont trust Jimmy with anything’ because he’s incompetent”)

And it’s funny, right? Because Jimmy isn’t one to just let people put him down like that. When other people in other series tell Jimmy that his house is ugly, Jimmy will defend it with pride and stand up for it twice as much to compensate. But when Scott calls his house ugly, he tells Scott to stay put while he quickly runs to try and fix it, and then hurries back to ask if it’s better. Because he admires Scott, he never stops admiring him, he’s always expressing that (“you’re good at everything” “you’re full of good ideas, aren’t you?” “how are you such a good builder?”). And he doesn’t get defensive when Scott says these things, not in the same way— He tries to, but it comes across more desperate than anything (“say something good about me!”) because he places Scott on such a high pedestal and yearns for that approval. Scott is different.

This is how, despite all odds, it gets to him. And it changes how Jimmy perceives himself. Scott doesn’t trust Jimmy not to fuck up any given task, so Jimmy doesn’t trust himself in later episodes, especially post-Dogwarts explosion. The cake scene, while admittedly a very cute moment (so I do hate to cite this here but it’s a good example), works because Scott left a cake in Jimmy’s room without saying anything, and knew that the first thing Jimmy would do is get scared and come get him. Because that is the first thing 3l!Jimmy thinks to do when he’s scared! And it’s entirely unsurprising how it got that way! In the very first episode, Scott tells Jimmy that if it wasn’t for Scott finding him in the beginning, he would’ve been the first to die. It’s generally a joke to point to fh and go “Jimmy is like Scott’s pet lol, Jimmy is like a lost puppy without Scott” but there really is some truth in that, and I find that to be somewhat haunting considering Jimmy takes so much pride in his independence usually. Jimmy’s hesitance towards making independent decisions can also be traced back to Scott finding Jimmy’s independent decisions inherently frustrating but that’s already part of the FH dissection essay I have in my drafts and this post is long enough already. There’s also a whole other discussion to be had about how Scott’s say is the final say no matter what and Jimmy knows that which further deincentivizes independent decision making (REPEATEDLY POINTS TO “I’ll try and sweet talk him, but if he starts hitting me, what can I do?”) but that is also for the essay

I dont know where I was going with this. I think I made my point in the third paragraph but I feel lots of things about these characters and have lots to say so as I kept writing I got more and more emotional and now I think I’ve driven my little block people shaped autism car into a brick wall. I think I’m going to go throw up and then let the earth reclaim me. yeaj that sounds good

TL;DR: girl I dont even know

#TRIED SO HARD TO MAKE THIS A LIGHT READ BY LIKE. BEING VAGUE ABOUT SCOTT HITTING HIM EVEN THOUGH I HAVE THINGS TO SAY ON THAT #FH FANS IM BEGGING. DONT READ THIS ONE #deranged.fh.posting #tw abuse #< I FUCKING GUESS #sorry I was going to make this post eventually. it was going to happen it was inevitable #i debated actually postinf this for like three hours i really cant go back on this now #and I have ten million more things to say this is like only one aspect of my thoughts on this its been bottled up in my little brain

[the-conversation-pod]

On Time And Memory

AND WE'RE BACK!

This week we're doing a thematic comparison about how our memory of the past impacts how we perceive our present. In a surprise for us both, we had a lot of positive things to say about Krist Perawat. We're talking about trauma and how we connect to wounded characters this week with Tokyo In April Is... and Be My Favorite.

Timestamps

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

00:00 - Welcome 01:16 - Intro 03:10 - Tokyo In April Is... 11:01 - TIAI: Comparisons with the manga 14:15 - TIAI: Strength of execution 26:23 - Be My Favorite 34:00 - BMF: The time travel mechanic 44:47 - BMF: Dings 52:57 - BMF: Jittirain and Gawin and Krist 01:00:58 - Outro

The Conversation Transcripts!

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01:16 Introduction

Ben

And we're back.

NiNi

Welcome, welcome, to our On Time and Memory episode. And why are we calling it On Time and Memory? Well, we're back in the second chance romance space. And when we're in second chance romance space it always ends up somehow being time fuckery versus head fuckery. So [laughs] what are we talking about this episode? We're gonna talk about time fuckery in Be My Favorite, and headfuckery in Tokyo In April Is…

Ben

I think for both of these shows you have characters who are emotionally stunted by their feelings for each other that they don't deal with for years. In Tokyo In April we have a story about two boys who were very close in high school, and a troublesome event separates them, and they don't run into each other again for…ten years. And there's a lot to unpack in the trauma between the two of them that we'll get into in the episode. With Be My Favorite, we have a young man who, approaching 30, isn't really doing anything and is still caught up in his bullshit from when he was in college. Until a magical McGuffin allows him to go back in time to college and re-experience some of these events—with a very strict time travel mechanic that I really liked how it was used. 

Both of these shows offer us some interesting things to talk about with how we perceive the events around us, and how that tends to linger with us and inform who we become.

NiNi

Okay so let's dive right in.

03:10 - Tokyo In April Is…

NiNi

And now we're going to talk about Tokyo In April Is... Ben, what is Tokyo In April Is… about?

Ben

Fundamentally, at its core it seems to be a show about nostalgia? But the description of the setup is, this young man named Takizawa Kazuma is returning to Tokyo after being away for ten years. He left at the end of middle school, finished his studies in America, and is returning to Japan as a pretty well-trained human resources professional and is joining some sort of company that's got office space in a tower. There he runs into another guy who's his age named Ren, who was his friend when he came back to Japan originally when he was a teenager, and they haven't seen each other in ten years. We learn over the course of the show that they were each other's first big loves, and they were each other's first experience sexually. But that encounter ended on a rather sad note for them as Kazuma ended up sick—had to be rushed to the hospital. The relationship became public knowledge to their families, and then Ren was summarily disowned by his family, kicked to France, and forgotten, only to eventually return to Tokyo. 

The two of them have a difficult way to go because Ren doesn't want to talk about what happened when they were 15, and Kazuma—who had a horrible bout with pneumonia and I believe meningitis?—he ends up not really remembering what happened after that night. He and Ren end up in an intimate situation, and Ren establishes a friends with benefits arrangement for them. And Kazuma decides to be patient with this so Ren can work through what he needs to as the two of them become closer. 

Ren also gets involved in a very Me Too era storyline with his work, where one of the women that he works with discloses that she was a victim, and that another member of the team was recently victimized. That the perpetrator has been preying upon the female staff at the company for over a decade. Two like really big threads in the show and I got a little bit lost towards the end there. But, the core of the show is about the…I guess it's sort of a second chance romance? Between Kazuma and Ren.

NiNi

I think we came down on opposite sides of this one, so I want to let you go first. How did you feel about it? What was your take on the show?

Ben

Overall I ended up liking this show a lot—and I tend to like shows that hearken specifically to things that I think are distinctly queer, also distinctly very male queer, because despite how femme our friend group is [laughs] and how many femmes are on Tumblr, I watch BL because I am a gay man who likes stories about gay men. And so I really connected to the youth portion of the story, where both of them were in love with the other, but couldn't conceive of a reality where the other boy also liked them back. And I really like how earnest that felt? Maybe I'm projecting a little bit of the manga onto this, I think it's a little more explicit in the manga, because we get more internal monologues? But I really like how that felt. The reality of that being snatched away from them at 15 was also something I connected to, having something really special and then having it basically ripped from you. In my case by circumstance, but them by being literally outed. 

And then when they get together as adults again, I really appreciate Kazuma’s patience with Ren. I think it's very difficult sometimes to care about someone who's clearly suffered—and you'd like to help but it isn't necessarily your problem to solve or your angst to unpack? Sometimes you just have to love someone very firmly, until they start to settle down a little bit. And I also really liked Ren's friend Ryunosuke, who he met when he was in Paris. I really liked in episode…7? Seven, when he reads Kazuma for filth—because he can't conceive of a reality where Kazuma doesn't understand what happened to Ren. It's less of a thread in the show, but Ryunosuke and Ren identify as gay, which carries political connotations. Kazuma doesn't necessarily think of himself as queer in any way, and so as a result he doesn't seem to consider the social, economic, and political ramifications of being gay, and how that impacts his feelings for Ren. Ryunosuke has been with Ren for ten years, has cared about Ren, has tried to be more than just friends to Ren, unsuccessfully, multiple times—that's text. And he hates Kazuma because this is the person who is the source of this huge knot that's got his friend locked up. And when you meet Kazuma, you understand instantly why Ren likes him. If I were Ryunosuke I would hate Kazuma even more [laughs] because he's so likable.

NiNi

[laughs]

Ben

You would almost want Kazuma to be a selfish prick who didn't appreciate what Ren gave up for him. But the fact that Kazuma is so earnest and gorgeous and naive and kind, makes you hate him even more because you can see what Ren may have been trying to protect. And he succeeded! Oh, I would hate that so much! 

[both laugh]

Ben

And so I really, genuinely loved Ryunosuke’s confrontation with Kazuma about that. I also really liked their domesticity. Because Japanese BLs are always using food as a love language. Food is love is a very common theme, especially when you have so many tsundere seme types, or even ukes who can't necessarily say the things that need to be said, but they can make a mean souffle. Ren doesn't have cooking skills. He's so stunted by what happened to him that he is missing love languages. The only thing he can really do is quality time and physical affection, but even then he's super restrictive about it with his rules. 

I enjoyed a lot of the gay shit in this that sticks with me.

11:01 TIAI: Comparisons with the manga

NiNi

Okay, so here's a question. I did not read the manga, manga's not really my thing, but you read the manga before you went into the show. Do you think that that influenced your experience of the show in any way?

Ben

The simple answer is yes? It's kind of hard not to…when you know the story, you're watching it differently. And that's true for anybody who read source novels watching adaptations, or saw the original work when it's been adapted to another language or something. Your prior familiarity does impact your viewing experience. I will say in the case of Tokyo In April Is…the show is better, significantly. Whatever I would rate the show, it is a full point higher than I would rate the manga. The manga…is, one, way more erotic, and it uses eroticism kind of poorly sometimes? And there's one particular one that is extremely distasteful. There's other really tactful changes they made to the source material. Some of it was just moving the reveals of certain information around for better coherence. 

I think the show is significantly better than the source work. Not in a way that makes me want to say the source work is bad, but very much when they were adapting they were like, [laughs] ‘we have to move some of these pieces around and restructure some of this.’ Some of the stuff when they were kids is far more explicit. They have to say it because they're not relying on the actors to deliver it. So Kazuma being as in love with Ren as Ren was with him is far more legible in the manga I think? And, like that scene on the roof where they're talking about having girlfriends: Kazuma in his own internal monologue in the manga says he's just going to say what straight people are supposed to say, because he thinks it would be embarrassing to admit how much he likes Ren. I don't think that's as legible in the show. Unfortunately.

NiNi

Yeah, and it's strange because the show does use internal monologues, so I'm not sure why it wouldn't have used internal monologues to get those bits across.

Ben

There's this weird dynamic with trying to be a little bit subtle about certain things? Less explicit sometimes about the queer stuff—with the main couples—that I don't know what the party line is on this, because they didn't have a problem doing with Ryunosuke, but he doesn't have any romantic potential, so they can say it for him. He can say the thing, because he's not getting anybody's booty in this show, so whatever. But like there's a whole thing with Kazuma and Ren that was only alluded to in the show. 

I think the young actors are fine, but I don't think that they necessarily conveyed on their own, the missing bits of the internal monologue that I think should have been voiced over.

14:15 TIAI: Strength of execution

NiNi

Yeah. And that's kind of my whole thing with the show? So, Ben and I, I think, fell on opposite sides of this particular one. I thought that this was written really well; I am not sure that it was performed well. Or performed in a manner that grabbed me, let's put it that way. Intellectually I feel the tragedy of the story, but I'm not feeling any of it? And I think the performances had something to do with it, and I think a little bit of it was the staticness of the direction. This is the same team that did Our Dining Table, which is also based on a manga, but that show does not feel as static in the direction as the show does. Sometimes the whole manga styling, it works for me—they linger on a shot and it's very clear that that was like, a full page panel, or something like that? Sometimes that works for me with Japan, and sometimes it doesn't. 

Some of the times that it's worked for me have been, like, Our Dining Table and What Did You Eat Yesterday? But then there are times that it didn't work for me, like here, and The Pornographer. It's the same kind of like static direction, but the acting is not coming through in the same way as it did in Our Dining Table and What Did You Eat Yesterday? I felt at an emotional distance the whole time I was watching the show. It was very clear what I was supposed to be feeling, because the writing's very good. It's partially the staticness of the direction, but it's really the fact that the actors aren't acting through that direction. 

To be fair, when I'm talking about Our Dining Table and What Did You Eat Yesterday? I’m talking about Iijima and Inukai, talking about Uchino and Nishijima, these are top tier actors. These actors are very new. They've clearly been through the training, but they didn't bring out, for me, the emotionality that I would expect to get in a story like this—because this is a very tragic story. It's a tragic story with a happy ending, which is nice, but I neither feel the tragedy nor the joy. I can see that I'm supposed to feel it. The writing is telling me that I'm supposed to feel it. But I'm not feeling it, it's just not hitting for me, I wasn't getting enough of the inner from the performances. And it wasn't coming through in any other way. So if I'm not getting the inner from the performances I have to get it in some way, through a dynamism in the direction, or something in the set design, and I didn't get it through any of those means that I would normally use to soak up a vibe from a show? I wasn't getting that normal kind of pull that I would that I would usually get, that would suck me into something. Objectively it's good, but it didn't touch me? The production did not capture the depth of the story, for me.

Ben

I like Japanese static framing, because sometimes I think you have to just sit in whatever situation you're in. And sometimes that's really fun, like all of the fun eating around a table in What Did You Eat Yesterday? or Our Dining Table. Sometimes it's not fun. When you're watching Kazuma respect Ren's boundary, not asking a question that needs to be answered in a show like this. I totally see what you mean with the set design, about how things feeling kind of generic and bland. But I also feel like that's sort of the point, like, Kazuma is recently back in Tokyo. And the very first thing I thought about his place was that it was too big. But I feel like that's also the point. Missing part of himself because Ren has been gone for so long, and he's willing to provide so much space for Ren. I liked the use of earth tones in the few things that he did have, to ground his place and make it feel more alive than Ren's own place, which was so forgettable.

NiNi

Yeah, this is what I'm saying: normally in Japan, the set design, it pulls you in, the sets say so much about the characters.

Ben

But I feel like that's the point here! The lack of definition from their physical spaces is part of the point, that they're both so ungrounded. With Kazuma’s space in particular…the whole domestic episode of theirs, we kept calling it the What Did You Eat Yesterday? homage episode—but that also feels like sort of the point. That Kazuma is trying to model what he hopes will be helpful for Ren.

NiNi

I just feel like, if it's intentional, then when things shift between them, that it should then change. Because I could have bought the sterility of both of their places at the beginning of the story as intentional, and demonstrating how stuck they both are, that they can't even extend themselves to their surroundings because they're stuck in this moment that happened ten years ago. I could buy that as an argument. But then when they become unstuck, I feel like I want to see that reflected in some way. The story doesn't get there, because when they're moving in together, we only see like the barest bit of their place, and it just looks the same. 

So I can take your point and buy your argument, but then to me, they missed a trick towards the end of the show by not making it clearer that now they are unstuck, and their lives can begin, and their lives together can begin, so their surroundings should start to match the new vibe that they're building together, to me anyway.

Ben

I do get that, I just don't know that I want them to do that in either of their apartments. Because both of their apartments look and feel temporary to me. And I'm really okay with the show starting where we began, with Kazuma on the street reminiscing about Tokyo, with the reveal that now he's with Ren and they're walking off together, and now they can casually talk about their time as teens. I'm okay with them completely starting over. 

Like I take your point. It just didn't bother me because of how it instantly read to me. Like everything seemed off, and that felt intentional.

NiNi

When we were talking about this a little bit earlier you brought up pulps. Because you know how I feel generally about the pulps. I'm most familiar with the Thai pulps and the rhythms of the Thai pulps, so I can point to a Thai pulp and be like ‘that's a pulp.’ But normally you have to like, guide me into realizing that something from somewhere else is a pulp, because I don't have the same familiarity with the rhythms. This now, you described it as a Japanese pulp, and I had to sit with that for a minute, because I'm like ‘oh okay, is this what it is, is this what I'm feeling?’

Ben

We talked about this a little bit. This is not me reading you, don't take it as such.

NiNi

Why would I ever? If you're going to read me, you're going to tell me you’re reading me.

Ben

I will read you on this podcast, but I’m not reading you here. I just think, like one of the things that I've gotten used to as a queer cinema viewer is: we don't get big budget money, we don't get big actors in our stuff. And if we do, it's like, ‘this is their formative work! Look how bad they were in 1992!’ I get used to a certain raw quality or newness with these actors? And I am not put off by it. I appreciate that they were willing to do the work, and I appreciate when they take the work seriously. Like at no point do I think that Sakurai Yuki and Takamatsu Aloha are afraid of each other. And afraid to play two men who are into each other. And I have felt that from Japanese actors…we get the sense that they're not necessarily comfortable working with their male co-star. I did not feel that here from these guys, I just felt inexperience. And I don't begrudge people the experience they don't have. I care about the work that they're trying to do. 

This is a very poignant story about a very specific kind of relationship, that I think is fairly familiar for a certain type of queer viewer who has dealt with familial homophobia and the consequences of being discovered at a young age? Something else the show did that the manga didn't—the manga doesn't do much develop Kazuma’s despair at Ren leaving, and it's one of the things that I really like in the show, because he was very strictly adhering to Ren's rules…about not asking questions that Ren didn’t want to answer, obeying the rules about their intimacy, even though Ren was modifying them, breaking them or changing them on the fly. And you can see how he turns into this shell of himself because Ren's gone. That was so well done, the manga does not develop that at all. 

NiNi

Ben's like, ‘inject the sadness directly into my veins!’ [laughs]

Ben

I need to know these gay boys have been through the suffering! And the knowing, it's my favorite part. There's also the mom. The mom is way better in the show. There's a bitterness about the whole resolution with the mom, that is correct in the show. In the manga they make it seem like…it's almost comedic that she separated them for ten years? The conversation she has in the show with the other woman, about how strong their love is and how special it is and why she separated them? Yeah, she has that with the boys in the manga. I hated that shit. I'm so glad she had that conversation away from the boys. 

The show is better. I gave the show a 9, I would have given the manga like an 8.

NiNi

It’s hard for me to talk about this show because intellectually I got it, but I still felt mid about it. It is well done. It's well written, it does not look cheap. They put work into the show. It's very clear that everybody from top to bottom on this production put the work in. But it didn't hit me. 

Ben

It’s okay, I think, for a viewer to recognize the quality of a story, the intent of a story, but to not necessarily personally connect to it.

NiNi

So you gave it a 9, I would say…objectively it's a 9 show, I would agree with you there. It just, these are two different 9s, let's put it that way.

Ben

[laughs] I get that these are not currently the most compelling actors you've seen. But we're seeing a lot of people early in their careers, when it's cheaper to maybe hire them for these things. And I'm okay with this being some of the first work that people do.

NiNi

So Ben gives it a 9, I give it a 9, that's a 9 for Tokyo In April Is…

26:23 - Be My Favorite

NiNi

Ok Ben, so let's talk Be My Favorite. We, well I, had no intention of watching this, you were going in hostile…Ben, tell the people, what is Be My Favorite about?

Ben

Be My Favorite is about Krist Perawat’s redemption arc. No, Be My Favorite is about this young man named Botkawi, who is thirty years old and still stuck in all of his mess from when he was still a student. He is invited to the wedding of the girl that he has had a crush on for ten years—who he has never really spoken to—has an entire crisis about it, then a magic uncle gives him a plot device to travel back in time to try and change his future. Along the way he ends up realizing that he didn't really understand any of the relationships in his life, and because this is a BL, ends up with the guy who Pear, the girl he was into, was going to marry. 

Honestly, describing the show's plot is going to make it sound really silly, but fundamentally it was a show about the importance of kindness, and just choosing to be a little bit decent to people, even when it didn't feel like it benefited you at all. And how that can have transformative effects in the lives of everyone around them.

NiNi

I think that's a good descriptor, and I think you're right that if you just dryly explain what the show is about, it seems like it's a little silly—but it was really really affecting, I found it quite deep and quite emotional in a lot of ways. Kawi is a loser, but he's a loser because he chose to be. He got into his head that he was a loser and he just cut himself off from all the people in his life, and sort of manifested his own loserdom. When we meet Kawi, like we can see that, because people are trying to be his friend, people are trying to be close to him, people are trying to socialize with him and have him as part of their crew, their group, their whatever, and he is just not having it. He's stuck in his own head and his own sadness and his own perception of himself? And the way that his life has gone? And he can't seem to unstick himself. 

The catalyst for him starting to unstick himself is when this wedding invitation arrives. That's when you start to get the full story of how Kawi even landed up here. You get to go back in time with him to the point in time when the decisions that he made landed him here. He thinks of it as nothing having worked out for him for twelve years, but what it really is in actuality is that he hasn't tried anything in twelve years. He's just allowed himself to become this sad sack of a person, and just told himself that he was a loser. 

The show is very…it delves into the idea of how you can turn your perception, however misguided it is, into your reality. It's a lot about not being able to see the good things that are in your life, only being able to see the bad. There’s a few threads in there that are interesting that the show runs with: threads on alcoholism and binge drinking, threads on decentering yourself from other people's stories. There is a lot the show says about being an active participant in your own life. I thought it was a really interesting show, and well done. Well written, well produced, well directed, and very well acted, I think. I did not go into this as a Krist fan, because I did not think that he was a good actor. And I was very surprised and quite pleased with his chops in this. I love Fluke Gawin, I think he ascended to another level in this particular show. I think he put more of himself into this show than he has into some of his other roles, and I was impressed already with some of his other roles. 

Ben, what did you think about it?

Ben

I went into this show…ambivalent? Many of us in the BL-sphere had fallen out of favor with Krist, and I'm also really hit or miss with Jittirain's work, because I don't like how much lying is a big part of her stories. I was really surprised by how much lying was not part of the story of this. This show cared so much about earnestness. It was very determined for people to say what needed to be said to each other, and begged people to treat each other kindly. 

One of the things that I really liked early in this show was that three different characters confessed to each other in this love triangle. Pear has a crush on Pisaeng, Pisaeng has a crush on Kawi, Kawi has a crush on Pear. They all reject each other, and it ends up improving their friendships, because now that nobody is withholding their feelings for fear of rejection, they can treat each other properly again. They did the thing that Korean stuff does a lot, which demands that people confess, but they did it in a way that showed that it's actually beneficial, and it can get better for people after you confess, even when you're rejected. I thought that was really really lovely. The show just begs you to choose kindness, to be a little bit nicer to people. To not be so selfish. 

And I was not expecting that [laughs] from a Jittirain adaptation with such an unlikable character in Kawi? Because Kawi was not an easy character to like on the front end of the show. It felt very…calculated in the casting, to use an actor that had such a complicated relationship with the BL community? Who starts off so unlikable, and then to make us like him over the course of the show, by letting him grow and change, and letting us grow along with him. Like that was really restorative, in a way that I am genuinely floored by. We didn't want to like him in the beginning, but I genuinely cared about him by the end of the show.

34:00 BMF: The time travel mechanic

NiNi

Let's talk a little bit about the time travel, Ben, because I think that the time travel mechanic is kind of important to the story. So, let's break down a little bit how they do the time travel. 

So like you said, there's a McGuffin object that they use, one of those little music boxes thingies? And when you turn the music box the first time, nothing happens. But then the next time that you turn the music box, you are taken back in time to the first point at which you turned the music box. From then on, you're slingshotting back and forth between two points in time, which is the last time you turned the music box in the past, and the last time you turned the music box in the future.

Ben

The big thing with the time travel mechanic is that you're not in a Groundhog Day story. You're not reliving the same day over and over again. This is not about Kawi having to keep retrying the same moments over and over again. The big thing with the time travel mechanic is that you create a checkpoint in the future and a checkpoint in the past, but every time you go back to one area or another, you're still moving forward. So he comes back to when he first buys the snow globe. He goes back the first time to when he bought it and he tries to give it to Pear, but once he tries to go back to the future after the first jump, whenever he goes back, he's back to wherever he was after he attempted to give it to her. So he has to keep moving forward; he gets one redo of what he did before. And so he's still forced to live with the consequences of his choices, he can't just keep trying over and over again. That's also kind of a metaphor? You can maybe mess up something once, and try again with people? Before they're like, ‘okay well this is who you are,’ and then they leave you alone. 

I really liked this particular time travel story, because so much about jumping forward for Kawi represented where he was in the moment. So the first time he thinks he's accomplished all the things he came to, to do, like save his dad, become friendly with Pear, etc, and he jumps forward—his life is a mess. Because he was overindulgent when he was last in the past, and that played out to him becoming an alcoholic in the future, who was not great in his relationship with Pear, because he hadn't really committed to being in the relationship with Pear, he just wanted to have the relationship. And this caused friction with all the other people in his life. Particularly Max, his gay bestie, who was one of the first relationships he fixed. Like, he had stopped hanging out with his gay bestie because people were like ‘are you guys, like, homo because you guys are besties?’ So he avoided Max to avoid conflict with other people. But he fixes his relationship with Max, and Max ends up staying by his side through most of the timelines that we get to see in the future. 

But a big part of the way this time travel mechanics works, by like—you move forward in both the future and the past—it forces Kawi to be present in either place while he's there. And he eventually learns the theme of the show, which is, live a life that you won't feel like you need to change. We get a great use of this towards the end when Pisaeng, in a moment of fear about Kawi potentially dying, jumps back to the past to try and somehow fix it. Kawi clocks him as a time traveler right away, but they end up revisiting like their first proper date? And end up facing each other as two time travelers trying to fix their past. Kawi really rises to that moment, and tells Pisaeng, ‘don't worry about it.’ I found that in particular to be really satisfying. That for somebody like Kawi who could only see the world negatively, by the end of the show he's able to give his partner—who is incredibly optimistic as an individual, who's facing a really terrifying loss in potentially losing him—the courage to face that eventuality, and say that our lives are still worth living and enjoying even if they might be a little bit short. Which is…kind of a heavy theme for the kind of upbeat Friday BLs that GMMTV likes to do. 

So. I was really impressed with the way they handled the time travel mechanic in this. I think it offered a lot to the storytelling, I don't think this show works as just a relationship show otherwise, I think the fact that it's a time travel show is the only reason this particular story functions. And that makes me very fond of it as a result.

NiNi

Yeah, I like all of the time travel mechanic work specifically because one of the things that it makes you think about is that every time Kawi jumps forward to the future, there is a sense that, almost in a way that time stopped—obviously not, because time has kept going—but more that he stopped developing or he got stuck at the point in time where he jumped forward. So when he jumps forward to the future, he's still the Kawi that jumped forward from the past, he has not grown, has not evolved, has not anything like that. And it feels like all the people around him are stuck too? So it's almost like at the point in time that he jumps forward he freezes everybody in amber, which I really appreciated as a metaphor for, you can't fast forward through your life. You have to live it. Which is one of the themes of the show that I think was executed really well, utilizing that aspect of the time travel mechanic. Every time he tries to short circuit and just go from the past to the future without living through the bits in between, the future doesn't go well, it doesn't end well for him. I really did like that about the way that they use the time travel mechanic. 

I like how this team deals with science fiction mechanics, because this is the same team that did The Gifted and The Gifted: Graduation, which are probably two of the best Thai dramas that I’ve ever watched, and the way that they think about the genre implications and the genre aspects of the shows that they do—they put effort into it, they're not lazy about the genre work that they're doing. And they deeply integrate it into the story that they're telling otherwise, so to to your point about how this story wouldn't have worked if it wasn't a time travel story: completely agree about that. The time travel is absolutely necessary to the emotional core of the story, and to the core of who the characters are and how they move through their lives. It's really…critical aspect of it. If Kawi hadn't already lived through to the version of his future where he's a sad sack, he might not have been motivated to fix his past. And then if he hadn't jumped forward to a point in time that he thought he fixed everything, and realized that he just made it worse, he wouldn't have, again, tried to go back and fix it properly. And then in going back, decided to live his life rather than trying to fast forward to the end. 

One of the things that it really forces him to do as well—because there are rules to the time travel mechanic—basically there are some things that you can't change? There's some things that you can't avoid, there are some things that you can't fix. And this is shown in the person of Kawi's dad. One of the things that Kawi tries to do when he goes back to the past, is he tries to prevent his dad from dying? And he thinks that he's succeeded, because he knows when his dad is gonna die. He knows why he's gonna die. He succeeds at getting him medical help, but he dies anyway, because death is one of those things that you can't avoid, you can't change, it is what it is. Between the discussions of alcoholism and that fact of there being things in the timeline that you just can't change, it led me to the serenity prayer as a reading of the show. You have to know what you can change. You have to have the courage to change that stuff that you can change. You have to have the serenity to accept the things that you can't change. 

So for Kawi, he knew he could change things about himself, things about the decisions that he made in the past. Those were the things that he had to change, and he had to discover the courage to change those things, which he did. But he had to also accept the things that he couldn't change. He couldn't change his dad dying. He couldn't change the fact that Pear did not feel the way about him that he felt about her. He couldn't change the fact that Pisaeng felt the way that he felt about him, or that he felt the way that he felt about Pisaeng. He had to accept those things. And then he had to determine, he had to learn, the difference between those two things—because that's the basis of the serenity prayer, right? You have to accept what you can't change, you have to change the things you can, and you have to have the wisdom to know the difference between those things, which is also what the whole time travel thing is giving him.

Ben

It's the kind of show that makes the audience feel smart because they were paying attention to what was happening. It doesn't require the audience to notice a bunch of things in the set design or the costuming, or easter eggs that are planted all over the place. It just rewards the audience for leaning in a little bit and participating in the themes. Recognizing the kind of story that they're telling, and they're very up front about it, they're very clear that kindness, even small amounts, is transformative. And that just choosing to be nice to someone and not be a dick to them, in a critical moment—even if it's a small moment for you—can affect the way that they view themselves and their life. 

44:47 BMF: Dings

NiNi

Because we always have to talk about our dings: what are the elements in the story that you were hoping that they were going to deal with that they didn't deal with?

Ben

So I wrote a post about Pisaeng's mom, and how she is engaged in some of the worst kind of evils that queer people have faced. Pisaeng’s mom is a wealthy woman pursuing a political career, and you get the sense that his being out is inconvenient for her. Later they tried to recontextualize this as, ‘she was just concerned that his life would be harder if he chose to be out.’ But one of the things that's revealed in around episode 4, I believe? Is that her employees are spying on Pisaeng, and reporting on him when he goes into queer spaces. She jacks him up about that, and then tries to manipulate him into going back into the closet now that he's trying to push the door open. He knows who he is; this is not a discovery story for Pisaeng. And it was frustrating for me that with all of the evils about her trying to manipulate her own son back into the closet—they also have Max, who's presented as wise in the story and woke as shit, admire her for the things she said when Pisaeng feels some kind of way about her because of the way he treats her. And that is never dealt with in the show. Irked the shit out of me. It raised my hackles when it came to the mom so much, that her resolution with Pear’s dad, to just let the kids sort their lives out, was not enough for me. 

On the other end of things that were frustrating for me…I don't like the resolution for Knot. I'm really glad that he got his ass handed to him by Pear and Kwan, because he was a dick. But in a show so much about kindness and change, it feels kind of weird that we leave Knot when he has basically hit rock bottom, and then don’t talk about him or acknowledge him. He just appears at graduation, and he appears at the wedding, and seemingly is a novelist—no matter what history we're in, Knot will be a successful novelist. Max wasn't allowed to have an on-screen boyfriend, but Aou was serving.

NiNi

You talked a little bit about episode 10, and Pisaeng and Kawi's first time, and how it felt like somewhere in there, between them getting together and that moment happening it felt like there was a conversation missing. Now I definitely agreed with you with that, I think a lot of people agreed with you with that. But I do also want to talk about Kawi’s journey with intimacy. There were a lot of people who were reading Kawi as ace-coded throughout the show. I don't think that I ever bought an ace or aspec read on Kawi—well, I wouldn't say not aspec, because I feel like maybe a demi read would be a read that I could get down with. 

But I never bought an ace read on Kawi, and there was a lot about the ways that Kawi was discovering his sexuality, not just in the sense of…sexual identity, of being gay or of being a man who likes men, but also in terms of the fact that, when we meet Kawi in the original timeline, Kawi is a 30-year-old virgin. It's sort of put together as part of his whole loser aura that he never got it together enough to be with anybody? So in going back in time, he's going back into his 18-year-old self as a 30-year-old virgin. So this is somebody who has not experienced any sort of intimacy: emotional, physical, any sort of intimacy in his life. The lift that he's lifting, in terms of discovering who he is as a sexual person—not just as a queer person, but just as a person discovering his sexuality period—that was the read that I bought?

Ben

I guess I'll disclose a little bit before I pooh-pooh on the ace Kawi read. I identify as demisexual, and I don't like the ace read of Kawi. Kawi is almost very much in the BL space of, he's happy if they just cuddle and hold hands only. Which is the space some of the readers of BL and yaoi like to put these boys in. The reality coming from Max to Kawi is that Pisaeng is a gay man, who knows he's gay, who's into you. You must face the reality of male-male intimacy if you're going to be in a long term male-male romance. Which—all I think the point they were trying to make with Kawi and Max. By seeing Kawi choose to face that, in the episode with the amusement park about how Kawi needs to face some of his own uncertainties, and go on the ride that might be a little bit scary for him, ha ha, they're getting that particular point across. 

It's a little bit muddled, but I'm not a fan of the ace Kawi read, because it feels that we project asexuality onto prudish characters or chaste shows. And that's not always what's happening. I don't want to claim Kawi for the ace side of the board? Because while I do think that a demiromantic, demisexual read is totally valid for him? You must respect that that is a read on the character from the place where you're sitting: don't think that is part of the canon of this show. I think the show is making a different point about male-male intimacy, not trying to make a point about ace spectrum existence.

NiNi

I agree with you that the show muddled that point. But it tried to pull it back by having the do-over of the amusement park beats.

Ben

And that's the really muddled part, because by going back to the amusement park date and doing it better the second time, but not taking us to that moment because they didn't want future Pisaeng to take that moment from their past selves, I think it still leaves the audience hanging. It's okay for them to say that that moment is between them, but it feels like we didn't follow Kawi's arc through that big step. We've been with Kawi for so many personal and really ugly moments, that it was kind of surprising that they would slam the door on us right there.

NiNi

They did show us the first time, and they showed us the aftermath of the first time, and whatever they did, Kawi seemed pretty happy with it. It's not that the arc wasn't complete, it was that a piece of the arc felt like it was missing.

Ben

I'm not necessarily mad about it, but it's why I did not give this show a 10. It's one of the reasons I did not give the show a 10.

52:57 BMF: Jittirain and Gawin and Krist

NiNi

You talked a little bit in the beginning about Jittirain stories, because we were both not feeling Jittirain. I am a known non-fan of Theory of Love. I skipped, and Ben did not enjoy, Vice Versa. Ben likes 2gether for reasons, I have never been particularly interested in it. Jittirain is not particularly my cup of tea, I don't really think that you are a great fan of them either? So why does this story work for us?

Ben

Because the show is not about lying. The show is about telling the truth. And almost all of her stories are built on a core lie underpinning the show. I was waiting for some huge lie to upend this show around the midpoint and it really doesn't. This show was about being earnest and forthright with people. And it was fascinating to see an adaptation of Jittirain work—because I understand that very many liberties were taken with the source material—to tell a story that was not about withholding for some sort of power play over the other person. It was very much a show about how our lives are better when we're earnest with each other. I don't know how much Jittirain's original writing had to do with that or not, because I have not read her books? But this particular story really worked for me!

NiNi

I was so surprised that the Krist and Gawin pairing ended up working. The chemistry was there, the emotional resonance was there between the two characters which I really liked. A lot of time when we talk about chemistry in these shows, we end up talking a lot about the physical chemistry or the sexual chemistry, but something that gets sort of thrown to the side a lot is the emotional chemistry between the characters, and the way that the actors play that emotional chemistry. I really enjoyed the emotional chemistry between Kawi and Pisaeng, and I really enjoy how Krist and Gawin played that emotional chemistry and emotional tension.

Ben

I believe that one of the directors talked about this, that Gawin and Krist are kind of playing against type. They had to really push Gawin out of his shyness to play the Pisaeng character, and they talked about how they struggled in some of their early cues trying to get Gawin and Krist to fall into alignment. 

I wasn't worried about Gawin, because Gawin is always playing the emotionally repressed gay man who is sad, because he can't be gay the way he wants to be, in the world he finds himself to be in. That's what he's good at! He's done it three times now! He did it with Mork in Dark Blue Kiss, he did it with Dan in Not Me, and he did it again here with Pisaeng. As soon as they’re like, ‘he's been gay the whole time’ I'm like, ‘there it is! I knew there was a reason we cast Gawin!’

[both laugh]

Ben

But Krist was a real surprise for me, and there were a bunch of interesting callbacks to SOTUS that a couple of us caught along the way, with the way some of the shots are set up, some of the way some of the moments were reconstructed…definite callbacks to SOTUS asking us to compare who Krist was in, say 2016, to who he is now in 2023. And I liked the show giving us all the chance to move on from how we felt about who Krist was at the beginning of BL.

NiNi

It's deliberately done. The creators of the show, they chose Krist deliberately for this role, and part of it was about his public persona; this was a rehabilitation role for him. They've talked about that, and he talked about how hard he worked, because he wanted to change the way that people in the BL fandom thought about him. And I thought that was really neat. I didn't get too much or give too much to whatever the controversies were? My issue with Krist was always that I didn't feel like he was giving 100% in the role that he was playing? And I can't say that I knew why, but there was an eau de homophobia around it, I do have to say. I didn't get into the behind the scenes stuff, and the, whatever he said on the IG live, and, like, that wasn't my thing about it. My thing was that, if you're going to act in a role, play the role, no matter what the role is. So that was always my issue with Krist, I felt like he didn't put his all into the role. I can't say that about him here. Whatever happened back in the SOTUS days, Krist was really young, he was new to acting in general, he was new to this particular industry. Did he make mistakes? He might have, he must have, he probably did. But he put, like, whole pussy into this role, I cannot say that he left anything on the table, and that is definitely the opposite of the way I felt about him when I watched the five episodes of SOTUS that I managed to get through before I quit.

Ben

I'm okay with it! Krist, you may have a plate, sir. You can sit with us now.

[both laugh]

NiNi

I feel like you have done the work, sir. You have earned this plate that you're getting. Good job. So, ratings for Be My Favorite? You said that you rated it a 9, and you had some specific dings on it.

Ben

The mom stuff bothered me, the Knot stuff felt like a thematic misstep, and I don't really think that Aou's character has an arc in the show, he's just there as the wise gay—who has great pants, and nice legs. And like these things are fine. I think the show is fine, but I don't think I'll be rewatching it, and I don't think it's my first recommend. It's a 9, you can have it.

NiNi

I gave this show a 10.

Ben

This show does not get to sit next to La Pluie, Moonlight Chicken, and My School President this year!

NiNi

My 10s are unrelated to all of my other 10s.

Ben

Mine are inherently related to each other.

NiNi

All my 10s are very different 10s! And I gave Be My Favorite a 10 because it nailed, for me, its core premise, like absolutely nailed it. There are, to me, no holes in the core. There are some wobbly edges…there are some little tweaks and stuff that could have been done around the sides, but to me the core of the show is absolutely solid. I got myself a nice few emotional moments, there was nothing about it that bothered me so significantly that I had to ding it. For me, it was a 10. 

So 10 from me, 9 from Ben, so that leads us to a 9.5, which I think is a good place for this show to sit personally. Ben, I think, feels a little like ‘ugh, 9.5 is giving it a lot!’

Ben

It's a 9.

NiNi

Yes, but we have a rule.

Ben

I am weighting the average down a quarter of a point.

NiNi

That is…not how maths works, but okay, I will let you have it. 9.25 instead of 9.5, even though that is not how mathematics work, it is fine. [laughs]

1:00:58 - Outro

NiNi

So, Ben…now that we've got some distance between us and these shows: what are some of the things that are sticking with you? What's lingering?

Ben

Tokyo In April Is... was really really gay, and that was preserved from the manga adaptation. Like I was listening back to it and my love for Ryunosuke holds firm. I really liked that this show and Be My Favorite has a very self-affirmed queer character holding the line on the bullshit. In Ryunosuke’s case, he doesn't like Kazuma, because Kazuma should know better, and he doesn't like what that did to Ren. I like that he's in a position to call that out and it's like, ‘we are gay; that means something in this world.’ 

I really like that both of these shows are pushing past the boundaries of the BL bubble, and reminding the genre and the people who enjoy it that queer people matter, that their lived experiences matter, that there are consequences to the things that queer people experience, that don't go away just because they got some dick. So I ended up, even further away from these shows, like, I find myself thinking about Ryunosuke a lot, and I find myself thinking about Max a lot. I like that Max told Kawi that he does need to reckon with the physical realities of being in a relationship with someone. Felt like very specific shade about BL itself not really considering the physical realities of two men being together. 

NiNi

For me, the further away I get from Tokyo In April Is... the less it sticks with me. But I'm having the opposite reaction to Be My Favorite. The further away I get from it, somehow things are popping up in my mind and I'm finding myself thinking about it.

Ben

I'm on the opposite side of that. I thought Be My Favorite was solid, but I watched like 22 things this season: Be My Favorite is not on my ‘I'm thinking about that motherfucker’ list at all. And it's not like [laughs] it's bad in any way. It's just not the show I'm thinking about. 

Like I really like the way they handle grief, I really like the way they handle people having unrequited feelings for other people, I really like that show's messaging about how unrequited love is still good, and it should be expressed, because it can help that relationship become a more healthy balanced version of itself. I like how that show says that telling people you love them is one of the best things you can do. Like that's a pretty cool message! But this is not the show this year that makes my, even top 10, in terms of things I'm going to be thinking about long term.

NiNi

I think while you were talking about it I figured out what it is. It's the thing about having to live your life; that you can't short-circuit it, that you can't fast-forward it. That you can't even really go back and do it over, in the way that you might want to. ‘The only way out is through’ is one of my mantras, and I feel like that was also one of the mantras of the show. You can't avoid things, you can't circumvent them, you can't jump over them: you have to go through them.

Ben

I think, as always, Be My Favorite was not gay enough for me.

NiNi

We're going to be talking a lot about that, I think, over the course of the next few episodes and the next few seasons, because I think we've hit a point in BL where it kinda has to shit or get off the pot on being queer rep, and what they are deciding to rep for queerness?

Ben

I don't know how exactly to describe it. For me…Max is pretty gay in a way that I found really accessible. Pisaeng is gay in a way that I found mostly accessible? Kawi's queerness was…a bit difficult for me to grasp. I'm not necessarily keen on the ace Kawi read, because it feels like a cop out. I don't like calling characters ace because they are sexually inexperienced and/or repressed. Either make a story about the complexities of asexuality or shut the fuck up. I don't like the way the cutesy shit reads for me these days. 

With Tokyo In April Is... I like how specifically queer their story feels. That you had two boys who loved each other in high school; did not believe the other boy could reciprocate; they have one night together before everything goes horribly wrong; and then one of them tries to take on all of the suffering for the other one, and mostly succeeds? And then they run into each other again, because of course they do. Particularly because the boy who was saved™ never got over the other boy, and has been trying to get back to him for ten years. And that just really works for me. I get the way that both of them are wounded. It doesn't have to be explained to me. Even if the actors may not have consistently landed the performances? Tokyo In April Is... hits for me because it's the kind of experience that I am unfortunately familiar with! And that's the kind of stuff that's going to stick with me more.

NiNi

In winding up here: we talked about second chance romance in the spring, and I feel like we had a lot to say about why we like it? And I just want to get a sense of…how you’re feeling about second chance romance coming out of these two particular shows. 

For me, I was really happy with what these two shows said about second chance romance. In both of them there was in some ways a forgiveness of self that needed to happen, in order for these two couples to get their shit together. And it was a forgiveness of self that needed to happen on both sides of the couple? So it wasn't necessarily that one had done something wrong to the other, it was more that…these are people who were living half-lives. In some ways beating themselves up about something that had happened in their past? And I liked that these two shows really put an emphasis on self healing as prerequisite to love. These people had to find themselves to find their love. I like that message.

Ben

Like I said last season, second chance romance is important for me as a gay person. Our youths aren't easy; I'm feeling a whole lot better about myself in my 30s than I did in my teens or my 20s. I do think that second chances are important for queer people, because a lot of people didn't figure it out until they were away from their families and in school and stuff, and a lot of us who did figure it out early did not talk to anybody about it, or did not have a great time with it, or were interested in people who hadn't figured it out yet. And so second chance romance in BL remains super important for me. It's probably the current style of story that most appeals to me.

NiNi

That is going to wrap us up on our On Time and Memory episode. We out! Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace!

#podcast #lgbtq #tokyo in april is... #be my favorite #the conversation #ben and nini's conversations #on art #fall series #fall 2023 #thai bl #bl series #season 4 #s4e3 #shigatsu no tokyo wa... #Spotify

[theyarebothgunshot]

jib 7 breakdown and analysis 

a little while ago i said that i am open to requests for making analysis posts when it comes to cockles panels and just cockles in general, and i got quite a few responses. the first person who asked me was my lovely tea anon, and the panel in question is jib 2016 aka jib 7. 

first of all i want to give you my take on the overall vibe, and then second of all i will get into the details and link to certain timestamps in the video. 

standard disclaimer: i am not gonna be linking to every single thing i talk about, but i will try my best to link to the moments that stand out to me the most. my recommendation would be to watch the panel in its entirety alongside my comments. i have read long posts about this panel before, so not everything in this post is gonna be original or said for the first time ever, simply because there is a good chance that information has stuck in my mind and has subconsciously formed my view of this panel. this is also in no way, shape or form gonna be coherent, unfortunately. i’m just gonna hope that the cockles hivemind will be able to make sense of this regardless. love and light. and lastly, this is all in good fun, so don’t come at me if you think this is too out there please and thank you.

the overall vibe that this panel gives me is that jensen and misha are a unity at this point. they are in sync with each other, and this whole panel is very relaxed and in good spirits. there is also the fact that their outfits match very well. and with jensen ross ackles involved, that cannot be a coincidence, so i love that a lot. 

another thing that i cannot ignore is that it’s also a very sexual panel, with a lot of double meanings and innuendos and remarks that can be read as sexual if you are as pervy as me. 

now let’s get into the specifics. 

although i am sure this is not going to be news for any of you, i feel like a little background knowledge is in order. before this panel, misha had had a panel that day with j*red. the mishalecki panel was really fucking funny and filled with sexual innuendos. 

between these two panels, it appears that there was a break in which they all had nothing to do (i am basing this off other people’s experiences and reports that i have read in the past, as i unfortunately wasn’t there myself).

considering how this panel goes, i think there is a good chance that jensen and misha just had sex beforehand. and based on both of their demeanors, one could draw certain conclusions about who did what (i honestly don’t like talking about who tops and who bottoms because who gives a shit and things are rarely that black and white, but all i’m gonna say is that even though jensen has joked about his asshole before, jensen and misha clearly said switch rights).

from the very first second. the VERY FIRST SECOND. jensen is sauntering on stage like he is thee man. then the crowd is cheering ‘one more time’, and jensen looks at misha, starts cheering too, and makes a movement that is bordering on obscene before waving it away. conclusion: ‘one more time’ could also mean ‘one more round of hot steaming sex’ and he still had sex on the brains, so that was what he was thinking about. 

ahhh, the intricate ritual [1m34s] of greeting each other on stage as if you haven’t spoken to each other all day, even though you probably just had sex….. jensen ackles, i wanna study you. i wonder what the deal is with that. does he just like to pay misha extra attention on stage? does he revel in the fact that he knows that fans like this sort of interaction? can he just not help himself? questions that keep me up at night. 

also, there is just SOMETHING about the way jensen says ‘i’m doing well how are you?’ it’s almost flustered? borderline shy? and then he goes on to say that he did an impression of misha earlier, in a manner that’s just so flirty. idk guys. it’s flirty. kindergarten flirty, but flirty nonetheless.

misha, of course, immediately turns his entire body towards him. almost as if they both already forgot there is an audience in front of them. then he just gets closer and closer to jensen, for no reason whatsoever except for the pure magnetic pull they have on each other. pray4misha.

i think it is a testament to how in sync they are that misha immediately realises that jensen mentioned bicycle touring during his ‘impression of misha’, and i love the moment where jensen puts on an accent (something that misha normally does) and goes ‘is like sport’ and misha laughs and goes ‘is very similar to sport’ and they both lose it. idk, i feel like that might be a sort of inside joke to them as well. 

this might be slightly reaching, but hear me out: right away, jensen goes: ‘oh by the way, sore?’ why would he say ‘by the way’? what is he thinking about when he says that? is it about ‘is very similar to sport’? because i could totally see them having sex and refering to it as ‘well that’s kind of like a sport’, as an inside joke. it works. i’m just saying!!! 

look. i know this back and forth has been discussed to death. we all know that the implication is that jensen fucked misha and misha is kind of stunned that jensen actually goes there. so stunned that he repeats it: ‘sore? am i sore?’ almost as if to stall a bit in his response. yikes. 

i think that it’s fair to say that this is something jensen enjoys doing: riling misha up on stage. because a lot of the time, misha has the upper hand on stage (probably also in the bedroom but that’s another conversation), but sometimes. sometimes jensen just can’t help but throw a lil oil onto the fire. (see also: underbear panel, throwing himself on stage to get straddled, etc). 

misha goes on to say that ‘after the panel with j*red’ he is quite sore. you can take that at face value, and think ‘oh so he is joking around that the panel with j*red made him sore haha’ or you can see a little bit of the truth shine through: literally after that panel, something happened that made him sore. it’s always easier to lie when you are bending the truth.

i actually can’t believe i never connected the dots before, but when misha deflects and says ‘oh you’re talking about the bike riding’ jensen is quick to say: ‘oh no i was talking about what just happened’ but instead of pointing at the stage (which is where the previous panel took place) he is gesturing to backstage. i mean…. way to feed into my ‘they just had sex backstage’ theory, jackles. thanks for that. 

i cannot get over the way jensen is looking at misha throughout this whole ordeal, but especially when he goes ‘you heard it here first, folks’ and misha walks up to him. THAT FACE. fuck him. he’s so gone. 

sidenote: i have never wished to be able to read lips as much as i have since i have stumbled upon these two morons, because i WISH i could see what misha is mouthing to jensen. i know there is some spec that he might have said ‘i am a little bit’ (aka he is a little bit sore) and i could see that, but i just want to know for sure. and even though i have seen people state that jensen would have already known about the panel with j*red, i think it’s possible misha hadn’t filled jensen in yet, seeing as they probably were doing something other than talking. 

let me take this moment to tell y’all about one of my jenmish theories, and that is: i think that jensen sometimes is overprotective of misha and that can come across as jealousy when it’s actually just worry. and i think this panel is a good example of that.

misha says [4m25s] that in italy they call come influence and jensen just. straight up looks at misha like ‘what the fuck did you do, what mess did you get yourself into this time?’ this is another reason why i believe he actually didn’t know about what happened during that panel yet: the reaction looks very authentic. you see his eyes shift from one side to the other and back again, as he is trying to process it. and honestly when you look at misha, his face goes through this journey of ‘this is funny’ to ‘shit is this maybe going a bit too far?’ and ending on ‘okay wrap it up wrap it up’. this is further solidified by the fact that jensen starts to mime digging a grave (aka ‘digging your own grave’).

misha tries to ‘change the subject’ by saying cas is the bottom in the implied relationship with sam and jensen immediately brings it back to sports. see what i meant when i said that they are tying sex and sports together? here jackles goes again, doing exactly that. for no reason whatsoever. (except to once again proof my point). 

WHY [5m50s] do they both burst out laughing at ‘tight end’ why why why i don’t wanna know but why why also quick reminder of ‘are you sore at all’ help i am just. EVERY DAY they are making me perceive things and connect dots and i do not like it. anyways i’m not saying that this is all very graphic stuff about their sex lives but i’m also not not saying it, you feel? jensen’s face says it all tbh. on a more wholesome note: i love the fact that they basically wanted to say ‘we should take questions’ at the same time. again: in sync. 

when the first person to ask a question said ‘this is a serious question’ misha goes to explain to jensen that that was a joke during his panel with j*red, another reason to believe that he hadn’t told jensen about the panel yet. jensen’s face there…. heart eyes motherfucker. 

i really don’t see enough people talk about the ‘safe word’ [6m38s] bit. jensen is the one to bring it up ‘so we should probably establish a safe word at this point. mine is keep going.’ misha laughs, and then realises what jensen has said, and (here comes my dom/sub truthing) teases jensen by saying ‘what is your safe word?’ to which jensen replies ‘keep going’ but LOOK at jensen’s face after he says that. he shakes his head with a little smirk and looks at misha with such a knowing look in his eyes that says ‘you fucker you know damn well what my safe word is’ and he actually does a double take and immediately rolls his eyes at himself after that. it’s all very quick but it’s far from subtle and i am here for it. 

i fucking love this next part because when the person says ‘a real story about the real jensen and the real misha’ they both are just like ‘yes okay’ but as soon as they say ‘that you have never told anyone before’ jensen just looks down and moves his head as if to say ‘what the hell am i supposed to come up with then’ lmao it’s really funny, and they end it with: ‘to know you a little bit better’ and guys (gn) i beg of you to look at the way they look at each other here. [7m24s] jensen is just like ‘help wtf should we say to this’ and misha just smiles down at him fondly like ‘sigh our fans really want us to talk about our relationship and as much as we would love to share stuff we just can’t’.

when misha says ‘we have to dust off some of those stories that we usually try not to tell other people’, something comes to mind: the ‘3 least ordered items on the menu’ story, that jensen shared a year after this at honcon. i honestly think that maybe they started to talk about what else they could share with the public, after this panel, because they get similar questions like this one all the time. either that or jensen just thought about what he felt comfortable sharing, without talking to misha about it, and decided to tell that story. 

i also absolutely love when they say ‘this is a serious question’ at the same time. AGAIN: IN SYNC!!!

‘i actually have a voice for you’ jensen can you please tell me why this sounds flirty and charming while you are actually about to make fun of your husband? i hate you (no i don’t) the fact that misha immediately knows what will happen, says a lot.

then jensen says: ‘dust off an old story for uhh..’ and burst out laughing. i swear to god i’d give my left pinkie to know what came to mind and what he whispered into misha’s ear. and i’m left handed. but i think we can all agree that whatever jensen said, it was something sexual, seeing as misha goes ‘nope’. those fuckers (affectionate).

something that i have mentioned in the past is that jensen always sort of ‘jokey’ goes ‘oh shit’ whenever misha says he’ll share something personal/private about them. i mean. jensen, it would be less sus if you didn’t respond. just giving you some pointers here, bro. because misha almost never shares something strange, it’s actually your reaction that makes me go ‘hmmmm.’ this time he even gets kind of elaborate breathing?? [10m27s]

oh to be a fly in clif’s car… honestly, the things clif must have heard and witnessed lmao. he clearly knows what is up between them (has made enough remarks about thinking that misha would be the bottom and that misha on his knees was nothing new for me to see that he absolutely knows.) 

this isn’t really important when it comes to cockles but they talk a bit about j*red’s internet dispute with at&t and jensen goes ‘oh they know’ gesturing to the audience. so clearly, jensen is well aware of the fact that fandom gets involved whenever something happens online with any one of them. just. thought that is an interesting fact. just in general. also love how i can tell that they both think j*reds crusades are bullshit (as they should). 

there is something really cute [14m13s] about the way misha goes ‘do you want your apple juice?’ and jensen goes ‘yeah!’ it sounds so domestic and mundane and i just. god i love them so much. 

i know we talk about jensen’s heart eyes a lot. but y’all. look [14m52s] at misha right here. he’s SO in love.

the thing that strikes me about jensen putting on ‘that voice’ for misha is that misha is honestly not bothered by it at all, but i think if the shoe was on the other foot, jensen would definitely be bothered. i don’t know what conclusion to draw from that but i just thought that is interesting. i always laugh at that bit, though, they seem to have so much fun.

i REALLY wanna know how jensen got from ‘will you dance for us?’ to ‘no but i’ll tell you what, misha and i will write a song for you real quickly.’ it’s such a fast transition that i am tempted to think that this was something he had been thinking about for a while now. he just wanted his mish to sing a song. and that warms my heart.

if you think i will ever get over how soft jensen is here… ‘you’re smart, you think on your feet, you make brilliant videos, put them on facebook, write amazing texts (*coughs* poems) and tweets and stuff, go ahead. spit out some lyrics, big guy.’ there is not one single thing about this that i do not adore. an ode to misha!!!! so casually!!! fuck. it might be true that if you want jensen to do something, you get misha to ask him, but it’s certainly also true the other way around.

the way jensen just. stares [19m02s] at misha, trying to get inspired by him, trying to feel out what cords to play. yeah. the way misha stands up but instinctively turns to jensen when he starts to sing. yeah. and then during the remainder of the song, he keeps on turning to jensen even though he faces the audience. and jensen loved it all. it’s so sweet. idk why but it just is. jensen just wanted his babe to thrive and get the love he deserves. 

aaaand in comes the dom shake [20m37s]. we love to see it. jensen just keeps on looking at mish. almost gets lost in it. touches his inner thigh (one of his habits, which he does a lot around misha or when talking about misha). 

i think it’s very interesting that jensen’s reaction [22m11s] to the question if he thinks dean will ever find a way to have a romantic relationship and to find himself in between normal and supernatural, is to immediately looks at misha. like? what was the reason? did he expect misha to answer a question that wasn’t about cas but about dean? did he think he should maybe answer it in a destiel-like manner? was he worried that the fan was hoping for a destiel-like answer and was he looking at misha to gauge what he thought was a smart way to respond? so many questions. 

i think it’s pretty interesting that jensen was very aware of the fact that people did not wanna see dean end up with a huntress lmao. he absolutely was aware of so many fandom things.

when jensen said that misha just crossed the line [23m40s], it’s another example of how jensen is ultra aware of what misha says and how it could get him into trouble and by the sounds of it, misha knows that as well but he just can’t always stop himself in time. from what we can see, he often realises just after he has already said something (when it is already too late).

listen. the fact that misha says ‘when harry met sally’ BEFORE the question was even finished, and jensen LAUGHS, like??? that panel was 5 years ago at that point. it clearly made a lot of impact on the both of them (jeez i wonder why, could it be because misha faked an orgasm and jensen got excited? hmm. who knows.) 

i think the dance portion is so fucking hilarious i’m wheeeezing. literally. they are just moving randomly AND YET THEY STILL SORT OF ARE IN SYNC? amazing.

you wanna know what i find really cute? the fact that jensen has such a soft spot for the resume off. part of me thinks it’s because they had a resume off in both 2012 and 2013. 

and jib 2012 took place during the famously rumored break up period. i wouldn’t be surprised if jib 2013 was that much more special to him because they finally got to make it right again. don’t look at me i’m getting emotional (on that note…… i might wanna write something about the break up period at some point. but idk. i mean. it’s a lot to delve into especially since i wasn’t in the fandom back then but. it compels me. we’ll see i guess.)

okay i know i keep saying this but they are SO in sync, as soon as they talk about photo ops and jensen goes ‘and to dab a little salt in the wound’ misha knows what he is gonna say, and they stand up together to demonstrate what happened. AND they both go ‘that’s not the punchline’ they are husbands. 

misha and jensen have both “twirled away laughing” in the EXACT same manner during this panel: misha when jensen starts to read the script, and jensen right here when misha says ‘what’s it like to be in a successful long running show’. they are mirrors. listen. listen. i know my mind is in the gutter a LOT of the time but like. uhm. there is this moment where they recall a woman saying in the photo op to ‘eat it’ (the string candy she gave to them) and misha says ‘and so we did’ and jensen looks at misha and it is SUCH an incriminating look i mean i don’t wanna be that person but 5 bucks he was thinking about eating misha out i am JUST SAYING. LITERALLY LOOK AT HIS FACE. [28m55s]

misha teases [7m02s] jensen by saying ‘what did you do? did you actually do it on purpose orrrr’ and i think it was to make jensen elaborate on it. which i think is a fucking good way to pull that off when it comes to jensen. cause jensen doesn’t like to brag, which misha knows, so by making that joke he is essentially trying to get jackles to tell the audience more about what he did, without him feeling like he is boasting about himself. and misha looks so pleased when jensen starts talking.

fuck i literally had to pause just now because. jensen says: ‘one of the characteristics of dean that i love to play is that he can bottle those fears up, stash them away, and just go. and uhm… sometimes i wish i could do that.’

this is actually making me a bit emotional because. he took his time saying this. it was a very deliberate move. he wasn’t sorry he said anything or regretted it. he wanted to get that out there. and i just. it makes so much sense if what we all think is actually true. he wishes he could just ignore all his fears and go for it. and it’s not hard to imagine what ‘it’ could be: coming out. whether that be just about his relationship with misha or being attracted to more than women in general, just in any way shape or form. it’s poignant. and misha turns away, but you can see him sigh a little bit. 

the whole bit about “apple juice” is just very cute and i enjoy it a lot. one thing i will say though is that i can kind of spot two tells of jensen: the way his face scrunches up when he is telling a lie that he thinks is clever, and the way he always leaves his chair to pour a drink when a question becomes difficult/hard/too funny to face head on. he has done both of those things time and time again, during panels with misha. just an observation. 

there is this little moment [10m13s] where misha tells the story about how he used to make apple cider with worms and dirt in it and in the end he goes ‘anyways. new england apple cider everyone. highly recommend.’ and jensen echoes that, ‘highly recommend. yeah.’ and of course that could just be a way to joke around and play along with misha but i’d like to think that he has visited misha and they had some apple cider together. just because i like the thought and i can, so. 

how CUTE is it that jensen remembers ‘i’ll just wait here then’, a line cas spoke 7 years prior to that panel, in a scene jensen wasn’t even in. i love it.

jensen slowly shaking his head when misha says ‘fuck’ and apologizing for it has SUCH major ‘excuse my husband’ energy. i love it.

‘i’ve got an idea’ [14m13s] ‘what? let’s do it’ misha imMEDIATELY regretted that lmaooo they are always so aware of double meanings and yet they cannot seem to help themselves. we love to see it. 

can you BELIEVE jensen ‘dance monkey dance’ ackles OFFERED to shamelessly promote a movie they have nothing to do with??? jensen, who hates the fact that they have to play some sort of show on stage, actually wanted to do that with misha??? i’m just- something something if you want jensen to do anything ask misha, but apparently also: if you want jensen to do something get misha involved and he’ll love it. 

and then he has the audacity to say ‘over to the wheel of love.’ i mean. i can’t.

(i don’t necessarily understand what is happening btw but that’s okay, because it leads to champagne. which is fun.)

okay so again apologies for my mind being in the gutter but jensen’s face [16m33s] when he says he is going to explain what [the champagne] tastes like……. hm. help. 

 honestly i just love the whole champagne bit because i love it whenever they get so playful on stage, and them “presenting” the bottle and going all ‘we know what we’re talking about’ ‘we’re kind of connaisseurs’ and the whole english accent bit. say it with me…. in sync. 

jensen popping a champagne bottle is something that can be so personal…. (i’m touch starved and going crazy, leave me alone)

i absolutely love the fact that jensen notices that misha is miming taking off his pants and misha immediately runs to him to explain and jensen just goes full on protective husband mode (YET AGAIN) ‘i turn my back for 2 minutes’ lmao it’s just such old married couple behavior. an old married couple that is horny and deranged, but still. 

i’ve seen the gifset of this moment [24m52s] many a times but i still think it’s so intimate. the way misha looks at jensen and walks backwards with him, for no fucking reason at all. sigh. misha’s hand clenches a little, and honestly i think he would have wanted to reach out to jensen in that moment. pat his arm or his back. and something happens a little while later that only proves my point even more…

that caress [60m5s] is probably one of the most intimate gestures i’ve seen between them. it’s so familiar. so natural. it says a lot.

and that’s the end of the panel. all in all i have to say that i enjoyed rewatching this panel with the analysis goggles on, because it’s really a very different experience and i picked up on a lot more than i did when i watched it just for fun. i think this is one of my favorite panels of theirs (at least until my next analysis lmao) because of the fact that they are so in sync with each other, which goes to show that their relationship was in such a good place (mind you i am only using past tense because i am describing a past panel, not because i think they’re not in a good place right now). this was a lot of fun folks, if you actually read all of this, god bles, you’re the best. see you next time!

#cockles #jib 7 #this is very very long but in my defense this panel is an hour long #comments and thoughts are always appreciated!!

[retphienix]

Alright, this is gonna be tough because I desperately want to say so much for the game's sake and my own, but it's just so much.

At least the playthrough as a whole exists to show a lot of those things, and there's no shame in some of the impacts the game had for myself going unsaid :)

LONG POST INCOMING, NO 'READ MORE' BECAUSE IT'S RELEVANT TO THE POST AND NOT AN AFTER-THOUGHT

CLICK 'J' ON YOUR KEYBOARD TO SKIP. (Sorry mobile users)

8:48 - Do you have any idea how good a step forward it felt to smash the repressing bulb?

9:50 - So I'll get ahead of myself because this fight shows a lot of the visuals that play into this: Something being the manifestation of guilt for Mari is so incredibly visualized.

Between the base 'Something' being extremely close to the shadow she cast and including the one visible eye that bore down on Sunny and Basil after the hanging, to the stairs incorporating into the design.

The seaweed and spider are more general anxieties though they do circle back to Mari since she saved Sunny, but those two forms don't feel as directly related as the stairs (heights) and base 'Something' forms and what they represent for his repressed guilt.

Could be wrong ;) Tell me what you saw in the forms of 'Something' if you'd like to expand on them :)

12:39 - Just to prove the point before you get to fully see the truth- Something morphs into the figure of Mari hanging. It doesn't fully demonstrate the "eye" aspect yet, but still I just wanted to say kudos on the way 'Something' is shown visually. Formless for a reason, and that form becomes more defined as you understand what it is, exceptional damn thing.

15:43 - Basil's part in all of this makes me so damn sad. Plenty to say later (obviously), but he harbors so much guilt, wants forgiveness so much, and is so (not shown yet) desperate to believe in Sunny's innocence while knowing but not comprehending the truth. The fact he harbors his own 'Something' due to the guilt of all this is heartbreaking, these kids endured a hell no one should. Losing someone so important to you and harboring the guilt and fault of it when nothing of the sort was intended. A childish fight with raised emotions got out of hand and all this came of it.

Hell.

16:30 - I absolutely adore how the photo album is used for this reveal.

Absolutely incredible execution that's specific to this story and its characters and makes piecing (literally) this together tense and grim.

22:27 - I NEVER SPOKE TO OR INTERACTED WITH THE THING IN THE CENTER OF THIS ROOM AND I'M A NORMAL AMOUNT OF UPSET ABOUT THAT >:( lol

29:41 - Okay.

So this reveal as a whole is so unbelievably well paced and incredibly hard hitting.

All game long there's a weight of having lost Mari. Repeatedly it's told that she killed herself and no one can understand why and everyone (MYSELF THE PLAYER INCLUDED) is looking for meaning in little moments, seeking out hints that maybe she was suffering or depressed or this or that.

And while that has gone on FOR THE ENTIRE GAME there has also been this uneasy weight surrounding Sunny/Omori. Visions of Mari twisted and deformed into phantoms of horror.

For the most part I assumed it was just him coping with having lost his sister and maybe a dialogue on how when she was alive he was in her shadow (in his mind) and now that she's gone he remains there?

That was the best I could figure, more or less. But it continued to seem more and more malicious in design and MUCH more 'heavy' in how it's presented as a shadow behind Omori/Sunny throughout his adventure and life.

The weight and 'overshadowed' looks of the scenes felt more and more foreboding and less like a simpler "I'm living in her shadow" story, but I couldn't figure out what it was.

Then these pictures come out and piece things together.

The final result:

Sunny and Mari fighting. (Context appears to be his growing disdain towards playing. It's stated he loved playing, but it's also shown that he begins to dislike how much Mari is dragged away for classes and the like up to and including playing. So my read was that Sunny was upset that their fleeting time together was dedicated to the recital and broke his violin in an emotional blur and the fight occurred.

Alternatively it was accidentally broken and both of their emotions were running high as it happened)

Mari falling to her death.

Sunny and Basil carrying her upstairs and tending to her.

Sunny breaking down as it sinks in.

The visions having Basil say "It's going to be okay" by the bedside. (I perceive that as a memory of what Basil was saying as he tried to manage his emotions during the event)

Sunny and Basil carrying her back downstairs and to the backyard.

The makeshift noose.

And finally the sight that burned itself into Sunny's eyes of her hanging after it was all said and done.

Just holy shit to it all in how it's revealed and handled.

Stories have twists all the time, and I ain't gonna make some bold claim like "Most unpredictable!" "Best twist!" "What a twist!" or whatever, though that'd be funny.

I just want to say this twist worked BEFORE the reveal as a foreboding sense of unease and curiosity- it lent itself to intentionally vague and easily misconstrued explanations, basically- instead of it outright misleading you beyond the characters that believe the lie repeating the lie, it allowed you to mislead yourself.

It did the twist the right way! And well! YOU trick YOURSELF! The people repeating the lie are being lied to or have motivation to repeat the lie! The GAME isn't lying (as so many twists handle it) the game is giving the world reason to mislead and allowing you to be mislead!

Now am I yelling affirmations for the way things SHOULD ALWAYS BE! YES! BUT THAT'S BECAUSE IT'S NOT AS NORMAL AS IT SHOULD BE! lol

31:40 - All the "You will really miss them"s hurt :(

33:25 - Right out the gate, a spoiler for what isn't here:

I looked up the alternate endings of the neutral route and my heart hurts to know Sunny doesn't stick around and Basil dies :(

34:00 - BASIL BEING OVERWHELMED WITH DENIAL AND GUILT AS HE ATTEMPTS TO MENTALLY PROTECT HIS VIEW OF WHO HIS FRIEND IS BY INVENTING A SECOND PARTY THAT DID THIS IS SO FUCKING REAL AND AMAZINGLY DONE.

And it explains the name behind the 'Something'.

'Something' behind you did it. There's 'Something' behind you, isn't there.

'Something' all around us, that potentially being the truth comin' in.

When 'Something' ruined my photos, Basil repressing protecting Sunny by destroying the proof.

Just expertly done.

'Something' being repression of the memory and impending guilt. Dannnng.

36:26 - It's 24 hours after I beat the game as I type all this so here's a gag.

Here's the part where Basil beats some sense into his friend, because after this Sunny gets knocked out and wakes up 200% improved and ready to save Basil from his own guilt by releasing them both from the secret.

So basically Kel dragged us out of bed, then a couple days later Basil beats us up, and that's how Sunny gets better :^) Game Over.

38:46 - This fight made me feel utterly terrible, a highlight being the energy bar saying "Everything is going to be okay".

or at 40:17 - when Basil pokes out Sunny's eye and the screen does this? That's an underutilized but always awesome visual.

41:12 - I THOUGHT I WAS DEAD AT THIS POINT :)

Because just before entering Basil's home on this night you see his Grandma's ghost here. So seeing Sunny here told me "WELL. YOU FUCKED UP!"

42:25 - Like I said, beat some sense into Sunny.

Here's the mental side of things where Basil's beatin' told Sunny to go remember the good times and confront his inner self and I'm being partially facetious because there's plenty to say about what's coming up.

43:15 - Goosebumps every time due to the sincerity and hope of this.

43:40 - Hug for anyone needing that.

51:11 - I could cry again and I just might before this post is done being put together.

This accident was never meant to be.

55:09 - Timestamp is arbitrary, I won't go over every flashback but I do want to say what a beautiful way to use these photos. To relive the memories? To find the strength to overcome and all that? After all these years of suppressing memories? DANNNG I love this game.

1:04:09 - I stepped in poop.

1:04:15 - Barefooted.

1:04:22 - I embraced my failure.

1:12:00 - The violin.

1:13:00 - "The anxious feeling-" "They believed in you" "No matter what you didn't want to disappoint them" I'm filled with love and gonna cry about it.

1:14:00 - So an important theme in the game, as if it has just one, is Sunny suppressing emotions and demonizing himself.

Obviously the ending shows him breaking free from both but I think it's important as hell to look at how he builds up to being able to.

After all the dark moments show him as a bloodied monster, demonstrate a perceived lack of remorse for what he's done (as in he sees himself so poorly that he says "I must not have felt bad about it, I'm a monster", not that he actually doesn't feel bad about it, that he thinks he shouldn't because he's bad), have him stab dream Basil to protect his repression of the memory, the build up to breaking free from that is him remembering the good in him through the lens of his friends.

Both in the real world and in revisiting the memories within the photos.

He hears about the good in himself that he has pretended isn't there and finds the power to overcome this deadened shell he's made.

He learns how to forgive himself by finally remembering he's worthy of forgiveness and is more than his mistake, that even the person he grievously harmed would want him to forgive himself and would understand the mistake didn't define him.

1:15:15 - Just because you did something bad doesn't make you bad, to put it more eloquently than my rambles. He had to learn that.

1:19:20 - I've done this fight 4 times.

You may be wondering why 4 times, it ain't like I replayed the game a ton or anything.

The short of it is:

1) For the good ending :)

2) To see what happens if you go "up" in the hospital- it's a dead end- I assumed it'd be a bad ending. So I got the good ending again :)

3) For the bad ending.

4) FOR THE GOOD ENDING TO WIPE THE HORRIBLE FEELING IN THE PIT OF MY STOMACH AWAY FROM THE BAD ENDING :)

In doing so I did get one layer deeper on the BG of Omori in the fight, here it is:

And I learned on the fourth run that the fight is simpler than I gave it credit lol, Cherish refills your juice, so there is no reason to use Encore. You can get to the end (and deeper more easily) by just using the triple attack and Cherish and Calm down when necessary.

1:29:00 - A summary of the fight is that it's extremely impactful emotionally, but very obviously isn't a "Fun fight". It's great mechanically and story wise for what it's trying to do :)

I'll just say it here: I'm surprised there wasn't an end-game "Omori" fight, you know, in dream world? Because combat is SO good in this. I am lead to believe that the Omori route where you never go outside in the real world has more bosses and zones and would fill what I just implied I wanted- but you're also railroaded into the Neutral endings which are both sad :(

And honestly? That makes sense and I applaud the decision :) Embracing the fantasy world for more 'fights' isn't exactly the path to recovery. Also and I know someone will be bothered I say this because *I'm* bothered I'm saying this- it makes sense since a big predecessor did the same thing lol.

Undertale Genocide has new bosses and a harder end game challenge (Sans) while being the worse ending, while the good ending has a flashy and story/emotionally impactful final fight that isn't as challenging because challenge isn't the point of the morals being explored.

I just bring it up because it's interesting, has a parallel, and after fighting Omori 4 times I really REALLY wanted to do an end-game fight in Dream World.

1:30:00 - forgive me as I cry again. goosebumps and more.

OH NO~!

DRAT!

So I use a cheap video editor and I use the free format of it which limits to 720p and I didn't think twice of it.

I recorded at max, but downgraded after editing.

At 720p you can't see the detail that made me break down crying!

At 1:31:55 Sunny's eyes go wider as he sees Mari as they finally get to experience the duet in this dream state (White Egret Orchid, this is real and happening, I'm taking this to my grave :'( ) he sees her smile and that smile made me break down, but in the 720 it's blurry :(

That's on me, I could have posted the scene raw in HQ but I didn't know it'd compress just enough to be invisible :(

still. that duet scene can make me cry on command. just because of that alone, but also the entire thing.

1:33:42 - Sunny breaks from his shell and feels his emotions again.

1:37:07 - I wish every game would end with a mirror to see yourself.

The 'Despite everything, it's still you' vibe just cements all the growth and experiences that have happened as so much more real when that happens. Bonus points because mirrors in Omori are a time bomb where you can be reminded of the guilt following you- and this one is safe. This one is pure and clean. You did it.

1:37:50 - As I said earlier, going up does nothing. Dead end.

1:39:00 - I have to tell you something.

Simple ending. And yet slams me like two trucks. I'm so proud.

1:41:00 - Post credits scene.

This is so heartwarming and their smiles are the purest thing in the entire world.

1:42:50 - BAD ENDING RECORDING.

All I'll say on that is the bad ending made me feel terrible inside. Give up, live in your bubble, and subconsciously end it all so you never have to confront reality again.

My gut felt heavy to be honest.

And the fact that THAT is when Bo En Time is played is INCREDIBLE.

Having the sky shift like that gave goosebumps and cemented my dread.

Just seeing it now has me feeling very poorly.

Okay. Video done.

Now for general thoughts.

First off this White Space cycle has been going on for YEARS with Sunny only getting worse as he suppresses things more and more and the reason he found the strength to overcome is because of his friends and I'm gonna yell about it.

THE REASON SUNNY IS BREAKING FREE CAN BE DIRECTLY POINTED AT KEL THINKING "FUCK IT, I'M ABOUT TO LOSE A FRIEND, AND I DON'T WANT TO"

And I just think that is sweet as hell. The strength was inside himself, but the problem itself caused Sunny to demonize and not trust himself- he needed someone to break him free and help convince him that he's not irredeemable. And boom.

The way this game handles Denial and even gives it physical form with the 'Something's that both Sunny and Basil harbor is just awesome.

I touched on it but combat in Omori is very, very good.

I've said it here and there as I played and I feel like going at length in the finale post is pointless because this isn't a review but to put it concisely.

Types changing mid-combat, the character archetypes being so well defined, the follow up system, combat in Omori is some top notch turn based RPG stuff.

Like up there with the greats, the timeless masterpieces. This is GOOD fighting. So it was surprising the good ending didn't emphasize it- I explained why that makes sense, but even still! It'd probably be lesser for it (as explained previously) but it's interesting they practiced that restraint for the message they wanted to send.

Repeatin' that Mari's smile in the recital made me cry. Burned in my brain.

I'm still surprised I got the post credits scene because I DID water the plants a lot but when the game showed me them all dead I assumed that was the fail condition.

I genuinely do want to try the Omori route some time down the road. I hope I get around to it.

I am slightly dissuaded just because the Omori route only gets the neutral endings which are not Good To Be Blunt :(

But I want to see what dream content there is and I hear there are other bosses!

Other small bits from my notes:

Replacing denial (the black bulb) with hope (the white bulb) was good as heck.

The imagery of the 'Something' is so top notch- using the shadow of her body combined with the piercing gaze of her single eye- MY GOD.

The fragility of life being so present- between memories of near death experiences, to the way in which Mari dies, to the ease at which either Basil or Sunny can end the game. It's tense and heart-wrenching.

The way the 'Something' behind Sunny almost always shadows over him like an ever present weight.

Tearful, hopeful, pure, kids enduring a guilt metric tons heavier than their bodies could ever handle and finally, finally moving beyond it.

I said more in a personal post, and I'll reblog that.

Honestly, just timestamping through the video took it out of me and got the point across.

Omori is a wonderful game.

It's definitely a favorite for me, high up there on my list.

Between the themes, the gameplay, the humor, the ending.

This is a good one.

And now I get to end having experienced all the care and love in this title, that's such a sweet thing.

Now I know this finale post is a mess, illegible even. I have gotten sloppier as I've begun embracing just 'experiencing and rambling' and perhaps my formatting with change yet again until I find something more easily shared.

Despite that. I want to thank any who popped in on this playthrough.

This was a good one, a highlight of the blog for sure- and I'm always happy when I see some people enjoying the absolute mess I toss online when I do one of these :P

So thank you for your time, and thank you to any ridiculous enough to read my nonsense here.

Have a good one :)

And just as expected I feel I've said nothing and barely touched the surface as the post-game-head of mine does a poor job lol. Even still :P

#RetPlays #Omori #Spoilers

[zealynstan]

26/2/2016 The day Angie Miller became Zealyn

Today marks the four year anniversary of how Zealyn was made. It all started when Angie Miller releasing a countdown of photos with a Z in front of it on her social media accounts. (I may not have all of them but here's some)

Fans were excited and anticipated what this is about. New music? A song that starts with Z? A collaboration with an artist named Z? Whatever it is, they are looking forward to it. Flashforward on the end of the countdown, Angie posted this tweet alongside a video teaser

And let's say some of the fans are excited, confused or befuddled. I was in the middle at first like, “What? Why? The music sounds cool but why?" until she announced her debut single as Zealyn called Talk:Listen (which I'm also celebrating its fourth anniversary, the original to be exact). I first listen on SoundCloud and I was blown away by it.

Previously, Angie was known for singing pop-rock songs under her previous EP Weathered (which is sadly no longer available unless you can find the tracks somewhere on YouTube or SoundCloud) and now as Zealyn, it looks like she's heading a new direction towards indie electronic alternative pop. After re-listening to the song four years later, it still holds up although I prefer the remix version over the original. The 2-minute track consists of two verses, no chorus, and vocal breakdowns.

As of now, the track has 19.3k listens on Soundcloud, 196k plays on Spotify and 43k views on YouTube.

Most of the feedback of the song is positive and there are some who were "eh" about it and there are some who hated it. Ever since the name change, it causes a division of fans. Some have stayed while others have left. Those who stayed were excited when Zealyn released more music in a genre she’s comfortable with while those who left were not into it and they say they want the old Angie back to sing songs in a piano, not that blip bloop bs.

Zealyn didn’t care about losing fans, she cares for the music she wants to make and the fans who supported for many years whether she’s Zealyn or Angie Miller. To quote her from an interview on Talking Lion podcast, “If you don’t like my music, go away.”

Two EPs later and one Reimagined, she continues to rock out and kick ass. Her recent single So Damn Charming is a bop and you should stream it alongside her other songs from her two EPs.

Oh, and for the people who asked her why she changed her name, I’ve compiled links and quotes to provide answers;

We Found New Music

“Well, my sound has definitely evolved a lot. I started as a pop artist and I just- I wasn't being creative, I never pushed myself. It was just very generic pop music and I got really sick of it and I knew that I really wanted to just experiment more and create more and work with artists that had like such incredible talent and that's what I've been able to do with this.”

Wicked Local;

(North of Boston)

“To the city of Beverly, I hope that they know this is in no way me wanting to forget Angie Miller or forget their support. This is me wanting to continue that so, so much. Even though it looks different and sounds different, it’s 100 percent still me,” Miller said. “I’m still a small town Beverly girl with a great family and awesome friends. I’m still me.” 

“I started “American Idol” and didn’t know my sound at all. I was 18, I had just graduated high school,” she said. “All I knew was that I loved singing. I loved it and I loved performing and I knew I wanted to do that, but I didn’t know how.”

“I wanted to expand and stretch myself to try new stuff for the first time,” she added. “I’ve been growing up a lot and I think my music has grown up a lot.”

(Beverly)

“I wanted to build my own brand from the ground up,” Miller said about taking on a new persona. “I wanted to make sure my music was what I wanted it to be.”

“If you listen to my music from when I was on ‘American Idol’ as Angie Miller, and listen to what I’m doing now, you can hear the growth,” she said. “It’s better songs and better songwriting.”

Salem News;

"When I played The Cabot four years ago, it was shortly after that that I realized how much American Idol created me," she said. "They chose my branding. They chose my look. They chose my sound. I had some sort of say, but I was young. I was easily moldable. I realized I wanted to start over. I wanted to re-brand myself and be 100 percent myself."

"I know it's probably confusing for a lot of people, but it's so true," she said. "Once I had a stage name, I felt more myself and it sparked so much creativity. I think my choices were, go with this label and have instant money and probably have instant success, but be something you don't want to be — instant gratification but not happy with it. Or go for the long run. I am very happy that I went for this long process."

"A lot of people were saying, 'We want Angie back,'" she added. "But it's still me. It's still the same voice. I love to sing and I love to show off my voice. I think the music has gotten more creative. It's not so cookie-cutter what everyone else is doing. It's a better expression of my creativity."

Unlabelled;

“So that experience releasing my first EP just felt good to learn all of that. And it felt good to release and play shows and get better at- being more comfortable and growing. But then I quickly realized still like I am not just, I don't know, it didn't feel like me. I needed to completely shed American Idol because they created my branding. They created who I was and I wanted to rebrand and start over, just go clean slate. And that's what I did in.... 2016.”

Northshore 104.9 FB Live;

“So I released an EP under Angie Miller and that's when I actually played at the Cabot last time I played all those songs. And it's still- I mean- When you're 18 and thrown on national tv and they're saying, "who are you? who are you? what's your sound?" you don't know anything. Like, I didn't know anything. So American Idol in a way created me. It chose my sound for me and my look and it chose the way I was gonna act and be perceived by America. So they did it all for me, they created Angie Miller and I just, I couldn't stand it. And I just kinda wanted to be me and it's funny that changing my name made me feel more like me. No, I didn't change it legally or anything.

It feels more genuine, it feels more- that's why- there are a few fans who are like, "Why would you not go by Angie?" but I wish people would just know and if people are listening and didn't know I went by Zealyn like, it's me. I'm Angie. It's just a stage name.“

ECHO:

“Angie is not a cool name on a poster, I knew I needed to rebrand and have something that had more mystery behind it, appealing to the eye, plus I knew my sound was going to change and I wanted to set myself apart from American Idol, so that decision was easy. Finding a name was hard and Zealyn was a name that I fell in love with right when I heard it, there’s no crazy meaning.

It’s FREE, I don’t know how else to describe it. I think if people see a live show they get it. I embody this music so much, like it is me. There’s so much joy and pain, there’s so much in my music. I feel confident and free when I make my songs. So, I hope when people listen they feel a sense of freedom.”

Encourage The Artist;

“Well, thankfully I kind of had a test run at first because I released music under my birth name. I think I was 20 or 21 when I finally released like my “first” EP under Angie Miller and it was just really really cheesy pop music and I hated it. It just- it wasn’t me. It was not me. Three months after when I played my first show. Playing all this music for the first time, I was so excited and instantly just hating it. I played a live show and I was like, “Ugh! This does not feel real, I hate this.” And I knew right then and there, I needed to change. I needed to rebrand, I needed to find what I thought was cool, what I thought was inspiring.”

And here are other links as well;

MJSBIGBLOG

Talking Lion

Matt Barker On The Radio (skip to the timestamp 1:33:48)

#long post #Zealyn #my post #my writing #Angie Miller #Four year anniversary #2020 #took me awhile to write this post #belated post #Talk:Listen

[ikesenhell]

New Heights

GLITTER & GOLD, CHAPTER 6. You can find all other IkeSen works of mine here. NOTES: Violence tw. Guns, general discomfort, implied death. 

There was no such thing as a rivalry in the post-apocalyptic landscape--just varying factions all trying to survive, same as the next. That didn't make the relationship between Waŋblí Hoȟpi and Kasugayama any better. They didn't contend for resources or fight over territory. The answer was much simpler.

It just so happened that, out of all the people in the world, Shingen Takeda, Kenshin Uesugi, and Nobunaga Oda all hated one another.

The reason was as petty as it was significant: Nobunaga was abrasive. Kenshin Uesugi didn't respond well to being abraded. Shingen Takeda didn't respond well to what he perceived as pompous behavior. Together, the trio mixed about as well as oil and water, and very little ever assuaged that. The only thing that came between their mutual dislike of each other was the collective welfare of the plains settlements.

This happened to be one of those times.

They arrived on horseback around mid-morning, their saddlebags thick with papers and plans. Only four came: the two leaders of Kasugayama and their respective experts, Yukimura and Sasuke.

“So,” Masamune asked, watching the four exchange awkward greetings with the Waŋblí Hoȟpi leaders, “Which do you think is the mechanical engineer?”

She grinned up at him. “Do we want to go stereotypical, or a serious guess? Cause my guess is on the nerdy one.”

“You’re right, Kitten, that is stereotypical.” He kicked back against Ieyasu’s porch and worked his hands over the worn wooden steps. “When do you think they’ll bring up the ship?”

“I can’t imagine it’s high on the priority list. Well--” She paused. “Unless it’s been raiding their settlement, too?”

“We didn't get that on the list.”

“Did you ask?”

They hadn't. Masamune mulled over this before pressing on. “Well, then in that case, we should bring it up even sooner. I told Mitsunari to drag me in when they start talking about it, so hopefully that’ll be sooner rather than later.”

---

It was much, much later when Mitsunari rapped on the front door. Fortunately, Masamune was waiting. He slung on a jacket and followed the man to the office. The familiar long table was stacked with polaroids of the ship, each copied in triplicate and laid out according to angle. Apparently, she’d been right. The settlement leaders were all gathered around, but the most invested was clearly Mitsunari and Sasuke.

“This ship,” Sasuke was saying, bent double over a photo, “It just emerges without warning?”

“As best we know.” Mitsuhide settled into a chair and crossed his arms. “We’ve never gotten one.”

“Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating.”

Masamune rapped his knuckles against the table by way of greeting. “It’d be a lot cooler if people weren’t vanishing or dying cause of it.”

Sasuke nodded vigorously, shoving his glasses back up his nose. “Naturally. My apologies if it sounded insensitive; it’s simply fascinating, given the network of things at play here.”

Mitsunari paused. “Has anyone vanished from Kasugayama?”

Shingen stirred in his seat. He was a tall, broad shouldered man with rugged good looks. “We’ve had a few, but we didn't connect it to this. Our disappearances seem more attached to a sudden surge of these religious types outside the boundaries.”

“Then it’s connected,” Nobunaga announced gravely. “We’ve been dealing with much the same.”

“Oh good.” Kenshin finally spoke up. By all definitions of the word, he was a beautiful man--blonde hair, bright eyes, sharp features. “Then Shingen will stop objecting to me having them run out of town.”

Shingen didn't rise to the bait. Instead, Sasuke cut through the noise with a matter-of-fact tap against one photo in particular. “This is all very fascinating. I’d presume the ship existed before all this. Local lore springs up to explain its presence. Religion sprouts in its wake. All this over such a simple simulation.”

The room fell silent.

Masamune lifted his hand. “A what.”

Sasuke realized--perhaps too late--that he was the bearer of news. He plunged into explanation. “It’s a simulation. You see, if you arrange these photos by timestamp--”

Mitsunari caught on next. “Then every fifteen to eighteen seconds, it indicates part of the hull is missing in particular sections. You can see it on the leftmost and rightmost sections, though it is blurry.”

Shingen and Mitsuhide quietly slid copies over to follow along. Sasuke snapped his fingers at Mitsunari as if to say ‘you got it’. “The motion blur makes it difficult to spot.”

“But how?” Mitsunari continued. “To make such a complex simulation occur without casting it over something--that would require technology we haven’t seen since the war. Besides that, it would take quite a vantage point…”

Mitsuhide snapped his fingers, tossing down the photo. “The turbine field.”

It made sense as soon as he said it. The wind turbine field was a well-known scavenging spot. Almost all of the spare parts for generators in Waŋblí Hoȟpi came from there. Masamune felt his stomach lurch. How close had they been all this time?

Ieyasu huffed. “How would we have missed it?”

“It’s in the turbine,” Masamune announced, realizing it all in one. “One of the functioning ones. It’s how it has power. It’s connected to the turbine.”

“Masamune,” Hideyoshi started, “Masamune, no--”

Too late. Masamune turned on his heel and jogged from the room. Down the steps he ran, out into the dark streets. If they were right--if they were right!--they could end this tonight--

“Woah, tiger! Where are you going?”

Masamune skidded to a halt only seconds before impact, but he didn't stop. He scooped her up into his arms and flung her over his shoulder, ignoring her squeal. “You feel like a climb, Kitten?!”

“Masa! Put me down!”

He obeyed, setting her on his motorcycle and digging for two helmets. “We’ve got a mission. It might stop the whole damn thing. Are you with me?”

She didn't even wait for an explanation before jamming the helmet on her head. “Just fill me in while we’re going, won’t you?”

---

Moonlight streamed down on the field. The ancient remains of pylons towered in the echoing plains, overgrown blades lying in discarded heaps. Long ago they’d decided not to what was left for power; they’d never been entirely certain of the integrity of the remaining turbines. Instead they’d languished. In the dark, they looked more like the ruins of a temple made for giants.

Masamune puttered to a halt on the outskirts. With the engine off, nothing but the swell of silence remained.

“Fucking creepy,” he muttered.

“Tell me about it,” she agreed, dismounting. “Which one is it?”

“Dunno. I figured we’d wait for the wind to kick in and see which ones still work out of the standing. There’s only five--”

“Five to search, if they all work,” she shot back. “That’s a lot of climbing to do. We don’t even know what we’re looking for.”

She had a point. “Any ideas?”

But she just sighed and shook her head. “Short of waiting for the ship to come around and seeing if the light projects out one? I’m not sure.”

“My plan it is.” Masamune shook out his hair. “Come on. Let’s go.”

As if on cue, the wind raced up behind them, swirling through the grass and echoing between the columns. Two turbines turned in response. It was now or never. Reaching behind him to her, he linked his hand in hers and squeezed.

“You good, Kitten?”

She squeezed back. “I’m fine.”

The dry prairie grass cracked underfoot. They picked past rubble and rusted parts, old vehicles abandoned to nature. In the moon, bright red paint glinted off one the abandoned pylons, reading: GODS COME FOR THE FAITHFUL.

In the distance, a faint light fluttered.

Masamune froze first. Her breath hitched behind him.

“Do you think--?” She whispered.

“Possibly.” He paused, groping himself for a machete that he knew he’d left at the motorcycle. Did they turn back? No--he realized there was too much wide open space between them and their exit now. There was only one alternative: hide.

Together they charged for the nearest functioning turbine. A dog bayed nearby. Laughter and conversation ghosted over the wind. Masamune tried the handle of the service entrance, but it was shut too tight to budge.

“Shit,” he mumbled, rolling up his sleeves. “This is gonna be loud.”

One, two, three--he lifted his leg and kicked in the metal door frame. The distant flashlight roved in their direction. Desperate, he yanked at the jammed handle. It screeched free. “Go, go, go!”

More barking. Someone shouted. She dove in first, Masamune sharp behind her. The inside was tiny and cramped, only enough space for two and the ladder up.

And oh--that ladder certainly went up. He couldn’t see where it ended, but no doubt it went up through the whole turbine.

“Shit,” he repeated. “Go.”

He didn't have to tell her twice. She leaped onto the ladder and scaled it to the first level, going as fast as she could manage. Masamune crouched by the door and sifted through the dust until he found a wrench. Good enough. As if on cue, the door started opening.

Well. Better to handle it on his terms.

In one fluid motion, he wrenched open the door. One very surprised looking man--the same cultist from the store!--weaved on the spot, rifle in hand and backup outside. Masamune took no chances. He snatched the rifle barrel downward and swung the wrench up into the man’s jaw. Crack! The cultist howled, and Masamune slammed the door shut in his face, taking the rifle.

“Come on!” She shouted from the next level. “Hurry!”

Masamune slung the gun over his shoulder and charged up the ladder. A flurry of blows landed against the thin metal door. It was only a matter of time before they cracked it open. Up, up, up he went, clambering onto the next level just as they breached inside. A gunshot ricocheted off the wall. Masamune checked the chamber of his rifle and counted two bullets. Only two shots. Great.

Someone fired off another shot. Behind him, he heard the rattle of metal and watched her heft a toolbox over the edge, handily knocking someone from the ladder.

“Nice one!” Masamune pushed her toward the next ladder. “Now go!”

Up, up, up they climbed, their pursuers close behind. Each progressive level just got smaller. What would they do when they reached the top? What lay in wait for them? Masamune didn't know. Instead he focused on covering her escape upward, saving those two precious bullets.

And then they were there.

There was a very small light at the top. It hung dimly over the rotor, hundreds of years of ‘on’ leaving it faint and brittle. Still it was something. She leapt onto the landing and immediately negotiated her way around the spinning engine, the dull roar echoing through his chest.

“Careful!” He shouted.

“Got it!”

BANG! Another shot. Masamune hissed a curse and slung himself over the ledge, preparing himself for whatever came next. She shimmied her way into the narrow crevice at the front.

This was it.

The first man made it over the edge, and Masamune picked him up by his shirt and shoved him bodily off. His scream echoed, cut short by the BANG of his body hitting the next level below. More shots. He wondered how much ammo they possibly had.

“Here!” She called. “I found it! I found it!”

Masamune hissed a prayer and slid back beside her, narrowly dodging the sharp wheels of the engine. A very slight hole protruded in the front of the turbine. Sure enough, there it was--a small box, caked in grime and dust. Pre-war tech, no doubt about it. She cradled its plastic frame in her hands and peeled it from the ledge, dusting off its surface. A small note was taped to the top.

“ARK,” she read, tapping the line beneath it. “And some coordinates.”

A thousand questions popped to mind. There was time for none of them. Behind them, the ladder rattled again. Masamune wheeled around and lifted the rifle just in time to confront the newcomer: bang! He shot off the ledge. One bullet left. Another man came over the edge and Masamune fired, narrowly missing.

Nothing for it. He hurled the useless weapon at the assailant, catching him off guard long enough to grab him by his collar and shove him face-first into the rotating wheels of the engine. The scream echoed; Masamune punted him off the edge as well, breathing hard. Silence.

“Let’s go,” he urged her, waving her along. “Bring the projector. We have a second’s opening.”

Going down was almost harder than going up. They skipped as many spokes as they could, rushing through the interior. Down, down, down--they made it to the landing and Masamune breathed.

It was premature.

The door kicked open. There, gun at the ready, was another few cultists. They screeched to a halt, the projector poised between them.

“Hands up,” snarled the leader. “And down on your knees.”

There wasn’t a choice.

Slowly, uncertainly, Masamune obeyed the directions. Another man swept in and cuffed their hands behind their backs, wresting the projector from her arms.

“What now?” She asked. “Do you shoot us?”

“Shoot you?” The first of them repeated. “No. You’ve angered the Messenger. We’ll take you to him instead.”

#Ikesen #Ikemen Sengoku #Ikesen post-apocalyptic Au #Ikesen Masamune #G&G #Glitter & Gold #New Heights #My writing #violence tw #blood tw #death tw

[andrewdrobins]

Scientific Principles of Strength Training — Chad Wesley Smith — 285

Chad Wesley Smith is the owner/founder of Juggernaut Training Systems and one of the most accomplished strength athletes of recent years. With a background in track and field, Smith took his 2 collegiate national championships and continued his success in powerlifting and strongman.

We enjoyed recording this episode with our good friend, Kenny Kane, in Chad’s backyard.

More info: Scroll to the bottom to watch the show, listen to the show, and connect with Chad Wesley Smith.

Note: timestamps are based on YouTube version.

[1:20] Chad Wesley Smith’s book: Scientific Principles of Strength Training

[6:45] Powerlifting meets

[8:00] Chad’s knowledge prep for weightlifting

[11:40] Specificity — #1 principle for strength training

[18:20] Chad teaching Doug how to squat

[23:23] How to ensure functional training

[25:53] It’s tough coaching MMA and CrossFit athletes

[29:00] Specificity is most important, but don’t take it too far

[33:20] Chad’s 7 Scientific Principles of Strength Training

1:20

Chad Wesley Smith’s book: Scientific Principles of Strength Training

“One of the most comprehensive resources available on the topic of building strength. Scientific Principles goes far beyond just giving you sets and reps to use for a few weeks or months, rather it will empower you with knowledge to create effective training programs and make informed answers to tough training problems for a lifetime.” —jtstrength.com

6:45

Powerlifting meets

In October 2010, Chad competed in his first Powerlifting Meet, which was also the first USPA Meet with only 36 athletes competing. Chad squatted 800 lb., deadlifted 700 lb., and benched 463 lb. Even though it was his first meet, at that point Chad had already been writing his own workouts for 10 years (since 14 years old!).

Since 2010, Powerlifting took off as a sport, and now USPA Powerlifting Meets happen almost every weekend, with 60-120 people competing.

Check out this throwback video of Chad’s first Powerlifting Meet:

8:00

Chad’s knowledge prep for weightlifting

Chad started as a sports performance coach and later got into powerlifting, where he functioned as his own guinea pig. To learn in detail about powerlifting and weightlifting, Chad read two particularly dense and influential books:

Supertraining by Yuri Verkhoshansky and Dr. Mel Siff

2. Science and Practice of Strength Training by Vladimir Zatsiorsky and William Kraemer

Chad also learned by watching James Smith applying principles from these books into his training programs. James Smith is a performance coach and consultant to high level athletes, Navy SEALs, special forces and more.

11:40

Specificity — #1 principle for strength training

When he first started, Chad used to write elaborate workouts in an attempt to figure out all the moving pieces of training. Now with 17 years experience of authoring training programs under his belt, he applies more strategic use of exercise variation through a better understanding of sports specificity.

When Chad was training for shot-put in college, he started with a great natural foundation. He had a 36″ vertical jump weighing 290 lb.! He could also dunk a 4 kg medicine ball with two hands. But despite his natural athletic abilities (which indicated Chad should be able to throw a shot-put 71–72 feet), he could only get 64-65 feet.

That’s when Chad learned about specificity and developing special strength. He realized bench press and squatting help athletes improve, but the most important thing is to find movements that apply to the specific sport. For shot-put, he trained over and underweight shots plus many rotational exercises.

Pro tip: Besides training optimization, Chad recommends young athletes internalize two important life skills: understanding proper phasic structure and delayed gratification. 

18:20

Chad teaching Doug how to squat

Tune in to the video podcast to watch Quinn teach Mike corrective exercises under load. Watch the video podcast from minute 18:20.

Empower Your Mental Health: The Foundational Guide to Neurohacking | Neurohacker

Neurohacker coupon code: BARBELL for 10% OFF your entire order.

23:23

How to ensure functional training

Training for competitive Powerlifting or Weightlifting is straightforward in terms of what lifts are functional for those sports. But for sports like basketball, football, and baseball, which involve different movements, you need to find functional exercises for their specific sport.

Chad’s 3 principles for functional training

Can the athlete perform the exercise safely and effectively

Can they put some weight to create stimulus

Does it fit in the context of their bigger plan

25:53

It’s tough coaching MMA and CrossFit athletes

Outside of weightlifting, Chad coaches athletes in many sports such as football, track & field, volleyball, water polo, swimming, and jiu-jitsu. Chad usually doesn’t work with MMA or CrossFit athletes because there are so many moving parts, which require strong communication between coaches– however that is usually not the case.

29:00

Specificity is most important, but don’t take it too far

Sport specificity should set the framework for how all other decisions are made, but you could also take specificity too far. For example, if you are a powerlifter or weightlifter who keeps focusing on 1 RM, you are likely to become overtrained. You are also likely to miss out on variation, how it can help avoid adaptive resistance, and the benefits of phase potentiation and phasic structured training (which ensures you’re making the most of each training phase).

“The longer you do something, the less effective it becomes overtime.” — Chad Wesley Smith

Ironically, athletes usually attribute the most importance to individual differences, which is Chad’s 7th and final principle. Athletes like to think they’re a special snowflake, but individual differences are much smaller than people perceive.

33:20

Chad’s 7 Scientific Principles of Strength Training

1. Specificity — See above.

2. Overload — Is training stimulating enough to drive neural adaptation? Training must become harder overtime through more volume and more weight.

3. Fatigue management — Your recovery process: Besides deload days and proper nutrition and sleep, should include adaptive recovery strategies like ice baths, massages, etc.

4. SRA (Stimulus Recovery Adaptation) — Your training process: Frequency and duration of training and recovery.

5. Variation — Avoid staleness by shifting phases. Keep in mind variation should always be in context with Specificity (principle #1).

6. Phase potentiation — Make the most of each training phase.

7. Individual differences — See above.

Keep in mind: Chad’s principles are also useful for the general population. All you have to do it change principle #1 (specificity) to your own goal, which can be losing weight, building muscle, being able to stand on a paddleboard, etc.

Connect with Chad Wesley Smith

Connect on social: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter

Resources: Juggernaut Training System, The JuggLife Podcast

Chad’s books: Scientific Principles of Strength Training

Watch the show

Listen to the show

Subscribe to iTunes (iPhone) or Stitcher (android) for audio:

Also, check out our FREE 50+ page weightlifting guide!  Technique, sample programming, links to videos and more!!   Click here!

Train smart,

Mike and Doug

The post Scientific Principles of Strength Training — Chad Wesley Smith — 285 appeared first on Barbell Shrugged.

[pintopsolutions]

4 Ways To Add Clickable Time Stamps

4 Ways To Add Clickable Time Stamps

If you are using media in your marketing, coaching, consulting, or other small business, you may notice that users report issues related to videos, audios, and podcasts. This can be very frustrating for your users, as well as you and your support team.

Embedded content from top sites like YouTube, Vimeo, or Soundcloud, can also present problems for your audience, especially if the files are long or the embedded player dimensions are too small. Another major irritant is when viewers can’t find what they are looking for. This is especially frustrating if there are no show notes. Your audience has no idea of what to expect and they just have to watch or listen to see if the information will be valuable.

Unless the show notes contain time stamps to tell your audience exactly where the information is, they will still have to wait it out until the end. If your audience isn’t interested enough or gets too frustrated, they will click away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWQCnusccuk

Time stamps aren’t the solve-all answer to creating a great experience for your viewers, however. Embedded players don’t make it easy to go to a timestamp, so your audience will still be hunting around for the data they want. But there is a solution — clickable time stamps.

Clickable Time Stamps

Clickable time stamps ( 01:22 ) will take your audience exactly where they want to go. Imagine that you have a very successful podcast. Creating show notes, with time stamps, will give your audience a preview of what to expect, and help them determine whether they want to listen. When they see something that interests them, they could click on the time stamp to take a quick peek and then decide to watch or listen to the whole message.

The WordPress plugin, Link Timestamp, allows you to create time stamps automatically in your WordPress posts and pages. This will add value for your audience and impress them with how organized you are. However, you can do a lot more than just create periodic time stamps with this plugin. Here are a few other types of time stamps you can add.

Speaker Time Stamps

Speaker time stamps ( 02:20 ) will take you to each person’s contributions to the discussion. This is useful for webinars, interviews, and courses with more than one contributor. It’s also great with roundtable discussions, where everyone gets to weigh in on a particular subject. Viewers and listeners, who follow particular speakers, will get great value out of this. Set it up in the show notes, with time stamps, or manually link in the plugin via the person’s name.

Paragraph Time Stamps

Show notes or transcripts can benefit from being time stamped so people can find the exact content they wish to access. Add the time stamp links using the plugin or manually. When you add them manually, you can also link to keywords and phrases. This is good for search engine optimization.

Answer Time Stamps

As you teach or coach online, you might ask questions and time stamp the answers ( 03:16 ). Your audience can go directly to the marked spot to discover whether they got it right and to learn more. This can make your content more interactive, which means more customer engagement and satisfaction. It creates a higher perceived value and shows that you care about your students’ successes.

If you aren’t already using clickable time stamps in your show notes, use the plugin to help you add them. Make sure you track click results so you can tell what works best and what topics interest viewers the most.

As you can see, the Link Timestamp plugin offers a range of options to turn your program notes from drab to fab. To make the most of your embedded media content, you may want to install it and give it a try.

Originally posted on https://pintopsolutions.com/multimedia-content/4-ways-add-clickable-time-stamps/

#Multimedia Content

[rowingchat]

RowingChat: Data analysis for rowing with Sander Roosendaal

Streamed live on March 5th, 2017

Sander is a leader in the field of rowing analytics and has created the website Rowsandall.com to enable others to upload and review rowing data in order to improve their training outcomes.

Timestamps for topics in the podcast. 0:01 introductions and background in rowing and data analysis 0:02 What got you started in rowing data – tracking ;progress and setting realistic goals 0:04 What was your first bit of rowing electronic hardware? 0:07 What electronics do you use today?  Running watch and heart rate strap, phone as a data logger for the erg (wireless) and a speed coach GPS with an HR strap 0:13 Daily Rowing Training Diary – Rate of Perceived Exertion Scale BORG rating 0:16 Sports electronics which can be used for rowing – Garmin, Strava, track my run, Peach System, Empower Oarlock, 4Runner, Polar 0:19 Fitbit and wrist mounted watches are inconvenient for sculling 0:21 5 Data Points for Rowing – Time, Distance, Stroke Rate, Heart Rate and Pace 0:41 Demonstration and guided tour of Rowsandall online app for new users 0:45 Data exporting 0:48 Heart rate data – resting heart rate; Heart rate training zones based on max HR measure. 0:53 Data Patterns in heart rate data 0:54 When is heart rate not suitable to be tracked 0:58 Recovery for heart rate tracking

Watch RowingChat with Sander Roosendaal

Listen to RowingChat with Sander Roosendaal

The post RowingChat: Data analysis for rowing with Sander Roosendaal appeared first on Rowperfect UK.

Related posts:

Next: Your Free RowingChat with Xeno Müller, reserve your space

RowingChat podcast with Jimmy Joy: get your free recording here.

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#rowing #crew #rowperfect #Rowperfect (On-Demand)