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thepringlesofblood · 10 months

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The Ravening War Heroforges

so I’ve made over 100 guys in Heroforge, and dimension 20 uses Heroforge as a tool when making their minis. this means that I’ll be going along watching and see our boy Raphaniel and go “oh shit that’s my favorite Tunica Skirt from the ancient Roman update!”

i decided to put this weird talent to (good??) use for any folks out there looking to make their own minis/fanart/whatever, and made Heroforge builds of our PCs, using all the pieces I recognized, or their closest equivalent. where I couldn’t find footage of certain angles, I went off the character art.

disclaimer: dimension 20 uses a LOT of resources other than Heroforge to make their spectacular minis (e.g. paint!). this isn’t a ‘aha i’m bootlegging the minis 1:1’ situation - there’s a lot of cool stuff on these gorgeous lil guys that isn’t in Heroforge, which I’ll try to note next to each one. these are approximations of potential base models, not exact copies - all kudos and respect to Shane Brockaway and the other amazing miniature artists on dimension 20 for their exceptional work on the minis this season!

let’s rock n roll!

a few things that are different on every build

color (obvs) - I still colored in each guy, mostly based on character art, but obviously the minis are painted (beautifully!)

food stuff - generally, any sort of food-y features (Deli’s toasty Leia buns, Raphaniel’s big ol radish head) are going to not be in Heroforge, for obvious reasons - I still tried to approximate the vibe, but our radish man is simply not going to be as wrinkly as we want him to be

poses - I put each guy in what I think the base pose was, but advanced posing is not an exact science. also, it takes a really really long time. mad props to the crew for some of these excellent poses!

faces - it’s really really hard to tell what face base they might’ve used on the minis. I chose primarily based on vibes and my best guesses. this means sometimes the face changes b/w different versions of the same character. it is what it is baby! also obvs the minis don’t have specific eye color so I went off the art.

Let’s start with the first battle!

Bishop Raphaniel Charlock (link)

Main differences

his big wrinkly radish head. he’s rocking the zuko season 1 haircut for now, and I tried to give him some subtle decal wrinkles. I tried just making his head bigger, but it made the face bigger too - think bobblehead, not megamind - so not the look we’re going for.

his crozier (the only hoe on Heroforge is me *badum tssssh*)

whatever is going around his neck on his chest - it’s all round and pretty and I do not recognize it. used a cowl instead.

the end of his beard - it looks all like roots and is very cool. I put what I think the starting beard was, but I can’t recreate those spindly lil roots w/out some serious clipping

Skald Colin Provolone (link)

Main difference

I’m not 100% certain those are his gloves. the ones on the mini are so much thicker! hmmmmm

I’m sorry about the beard situation. the mini itself has painted-on scruff so I just did a decal, but I’m aware it is. not necessarily as good a look up close.

Thane Delissandro Katzon (link)

Main differences

those gorgeous slices of rye. the crown thing on top of em isn’t in HF either. I used some swirly horns to approximate, though i was considering earmuffs. they looked too silly for me tho lol.

the toothpick - Detriter, as we now know it is called. I used a javelin and put a lil blue decal at the end to represent the frillies.

the shield - couldn’t find one with those random spikes of bone (nice one d20 crew!), so I used a scutum, a Roman shield of about the same size and shape, bc hey, he’s also Ceresian, which is based on Rome.

Lady Amangeaux Epiceé du Peche (link)

Main differences

the d20 crew has hair magic that I do not. also some sort of cute flower behind her ear, which I approximated with a broken off horn posed weird to look like a rose.

Karna Solara (link)

Main differences

the chili pepper hood w stem. I finagled a horn up there but it just aint the same.

the hair. idk what the d20 crew does to make HF show hair after a hood has been equipped but they crushed it.

2nd battle!

Archdeacon Raphaniel Charlock (link)

(i have this pic on my computer named “poor little meow meow raphaniel”)

this pose is a work of art unto itself. I can only hope to get in the vague aura of it.

same as before mostly - the hoe, the beard, and the big ol radish head. you can’t really see the mystery chestpiece anymore.

his head got so much bigger and saggier I felt like I had to give him something, so I upped the head size a few notches and gave him a little flesh beret with a couple of limp “leaves” coming out of it

you don’t really see it from the front, but there’s a shot where you can see the back of the mini and he has a lil book on his shoulders. iconic.

Sir Colin Provolone (link)

Main differences

I probably could’ve made him grimier, but I prioritized face scars. I figure since becoming a knight maybe he’s cleaned up a bit

it is surprisingly hard to get a heroforge person to frown or look sad

shhhhh dont look at the shoulder pauldrons too closely they’re fine its fine

fun fact: the undershirt that looked most mini-accurate was the pajama shirt. colin out here wearing PJs under his armor, who is doing it like him?

update: relistening to ep 1, I forgot we actually get a description of the Fontina banner (”a dotted mountain atop an island”)! so for funsies I gave him a lil banner on his back and attempted to recreate it, using the Dairy Islands banner as a background. go thru the link to check it out, I don’t want to attach yet another image to this monster of a post.

Warlord Delissandro Katzon (link)

Main differences

still those toasty slices o rye.

that glove. folks, that glove dealt me psychic damage, because it was on the very edge of my memory but I couldn’t quite grasp it, until I realized they probably added the spikes afterwards. also, I used the ol’ robot hand trick to make it look like he has like a metal gauntlet attached to it. (you replace one hand with an artificial robot hand in the prosthetics/amputation menu)

the decals I used to give him rye bread arms continue onto his chest more that they should (which you couldn’t see when he was wearing a breastplate) c’est la vie.

I couldn’t embed spiky things on the frilly part of Detriter like Lou said in the episode :/ they weren’t on the mini anyway at least

this pose is wild. I think I found the original pose they based it on, but I could very well be wrong. applause to the d20 crew for the sick look!

Amangeaux (link)

Main differences

she still has the flower in her mini, but now it’s on top of her bun - a good look! Alas, no hat options matched, and my mediocre posing-a-horn-weird-until-it-clips-through-the-head skills were not up to the task, so for the moment this HF build remains flowerless.

In her opening shot of the battle (which I included) you can see a big ol’ crossbow on her back, but it is removed in other shots (presumably, it is a separate piece they moved out of the way when she wasn’t using it). so, I did not include it.

fun fact: the rapier the mini is using is much thicker that how the rapier looks on HF. why? Bc most of the older HF sword designs are thicker, so I think they spliced the basket handle of the new rapier with the blade of an older sword, to make it more sturdy for play. or maybe I’m just misjudging blade-to-handle ratio - I’ve never actually 3d-printed any of my HF guys ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Skald Karna Solara (link)

Main differences

the scar - in the character art it’s one straight streak, but on the mini it looks like there might be more (it’s hard to get zoomed in enough to tell). I compromised with one main dark one, and then a lighter, more subtle one going the other way.

the way her burning hand is blackened as the fire rages around it...poetic cinema. transcendent. I used a splatter decal to approximate but seriously it looks so dope on the mini - look!

that’s all for now, lmk if any of the links dont work or anything. can’t wait for the finale this week!

#d20 #d20 spoilers #dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #trw #trw spoilers #the ravening war spoilers #the ravening war #heroforge #art #fanart #original post

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cliverosfieldslefttiddy · 6 months

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Hey you!

Are you like me and have a completely normal* relationship with video game OSTs and composers’ use of leitmotifs within them?

*not normal at all

GREAT NEWS!

I’ve gone through and catalogued almost the entire Final Fantasy XVI soundtrack by character/region/general interlude based on motif use alone!

(Basically in general if a motif shows up only once it’s not gonna be on this list. Also, some recurring motifs didn’t have a designated name or common title scheme so I classified them myself, such as Early Overworld, Disaster Strikes, Impending Doom, Interludes, and Mythos. If anyone is curious as to which songs those categories include, let me know!)

Without further ado, here’s the breakdown. Any numbers after a + indicate tracks from disc 8 of the Ultimate Edition, which are unused tracks or single-cutscene tracks. Spoilers abound under the cut as well.

Final Fantasy: 7

Crystal: 17-20, approximately

Joshua/Phoenix: 15 + 1

Clive/Ifrit: 13 + 3 (bro the unused Ifrit vs Ifrit is so funny to me, it’s basically Lo-Fi Beats To Face Your Inner Demons To)

Jill/Shiva: 9 + 2 (update: I still cry when My Star plays)

Cid/Ramuh: 7 + 1

Benedikta/Garuda: 7

Hugo/Titan: 6

Dion/Bahamut: 7

Barnabas/Odin: 5 + 2

Ultima: 19 + 1 (truly incredible how many times he shows up and how EARLY in the game, too. He was always watching!!)

Anabella: 2

Rosaria: 12 + 1

Sanbreque: 5

Republic of Dhalmekia: 8 + 1 (the unused theme and the actual theme are almost identical, the main motif is just ever so slightly different, which I find fascinating!)

Crystalline Dominion: 2

Ironholm: 5

Waloed: 5 + 2

Early Overworld: 4

Battle Theme: 5 + 1

Disaster Strikes: 3

Impending Doom: 1 (think I made this a category before I realized it only showed up once)

Eikonic: 3

Interludes: 2

Mythos: 5

This was honestly so much fun to do! If anyone’s curious about anything don’t hesitate to ask! Happy to elaborate for anyone curious or wondering about anything

#noelle posts #final fantasy xvi #final fantasy 16 #final fantasy 16 spoilers #ff16 #music #lists #leitmotifs #I’ve seriously always been fascinated by stuff like this and would love to share my thoughts if anyone’s interested!!#also one of the unused boss themes is so freakin funny to me #comparing it to the version that ended up getting used is a trip

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jelly59392 · 1 year

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rizzing up your cute in-flight neighbour - oikawa x reader (fluff)

PAIRING. post-timeskip!oikawa x gn!reader

LENGTH. 1.7k words

CONTENT. fluff, fluff and more fluff

SYNOPSIS. your cute in-flight neighbour has airplane ear so you help him out. in return of your noble help, he offers you a shoulder to sleep on.

Good afternoon passengers. This is the pre-boarding announcement for flight 88X to Tokyo. We are now inviting those passengers with small children, and any passengers requiring special assistance, to begin boarding at this time. Please have your boarding pass and identification ready. Regular boarding will begin in approximately ten minutes time. Thank you.

You present your passport and boarding pass to the flight attendant with a quick smile, and start looking for your seat down the narrow corridor. 31A. There it is. You hike up your luggage and settle down in what will be your seat for the next hours. You take out the magazine neatly strapped on the back of the front seat. Perfumes, watches and luxury are tidily presented in hopes to be bought aboard. As you’re looking through the magazine with much fascination, someone starts settling down next to you. You look up and can’t help but hold the stare. A tall guy, in his early 20s, maybe mid 20s? Arms stretching up with grace, he rises his luggage up next to yours. As he closes the compartment door, your eyes meet. A pair of glasses sits neatly on top of his sharp nose. His eyebrows rise up as if he saw something pleasant. You exchange polite nods, and quietly keep yourself busy whilst the plane fills up with passengers. The plane slowly drifts towards the departure runway, and is soon enough at high altitude after a smooth take-off. But when you glance at your neighbour, you realise he might disagree with that last part. Gaping and closing his mouth, it becomes pretty evident that he is not doing a dying fish impression, but is in fact hopelessly trying to unblock his ears. A stifled laugh escapes your mouth and his cheeks turn pink in embarrassment.

‘I always get terrible airplane ear no matter how many times I’ve flied…’ His voice is unexpectedly soft. It is quite charming.

‘Oh no, it’s too bad I don’t have gum.’ You pause. ‘How about you try pinching your nose and exhale instead?’ You act out the gesture. ‘It usually does the trick for me.’ Your neighbour pinches his nose.

‘Like this?’

‘Yes’ you chuckle at his nasally voice. ‘Don’t exhale too hard though, you could faint.’

‘What?’ he says dramatic and alarmed, nose still pinched.

‘Exhale in one go, just not too hard.’

Mustering his courage, he exhales sharply. A second passes. You’re inquisitive. He whips his head towards you, and flashes you the purest, most beaming smile. ‘It worked!’

In exchange of your noble help, he grants you his name. Oikawa Tôru. You tell him yours, and his big brown eyes glitter even more, like he is engraving it somewhere in his mind for good. He is visiting his family. You’re surprised to learn that he’s Japanese, but has the Argentinian citizenship with work. You want to inquire what his job is, but he halts you.

‘How about you guess instead? I don’t want to share too much right off the bat. It kills the mystery, you know?’ He is obviously getting comfortable as you talk, but you don’t mind. Rather, you quite enjoy his playfulness. Like a mischievous kitten.

He doesn’t want to share too much about himself, but he does inquire a lot about yourself. You explain to him you’re on a trip to meet a business partner, how it’s your first time going to Sendai, and you conclude that in addition to his outrageous good-looks, he’s also an awfully good listener.

‘Isn’t it difficult for you to travel such long distances for work?’ he asks.

‘Hmm. Not really, I like it. Taking the plane or the train. I can fully enjoy my music, my own company, or a book I’ve been wanting to read but didn’t have time for. And be cut off from the world for a few hours, you know?’

‘Oh I totally understand, I’m the same,’ he smiles apologetically, ‘I hope I’m not impeding on your alone time.’ You could’ve not dismissed the assumption any faster. You tell him you don’t mind the conversation. Not the slightest.

You chat about all sorts of things, from your favourite travel spots to the best type of pastries (you’ve noted that his is definitely milk bread). He mentions his bratty nephew, and how excited he is to see all his family again. Through the happy chatters, the sun has set and the sky is turning a deep shade of blue. The sea of clouds is so beautiful, you urge on Oikawa to take a peak through your window as well. He’s not sure about leaning so much over your seat, but you encourage him so cheerily that he complies. Your hand shields the window so that he can see better and he slowly bends closer. Before you realise, his neck is stretched long and graceful before your face. You feel the heat of his skin radiating on you, and something gently stirs in you. Letting go of the breath you’ve been unnoticedly holding in, you catch a whiff of a sweet, sweet scent. His cologne? Deodorant? Perhaps laundry detergent. You can’t tell, it’s so faint. You’d like to smell it more attentively, but he breaks the silence and affirm ‘It is very pretty, indeed!’ He looks a bit silly admiring the view in his uncomfortable position. He’s trying his best not to accidentally touch you, afraid of making you uneasy. He promptly shifts back into his seat before you can even say anything else. Both suddenly shy from the earlier proximity, the upbeat march of your conversation falls apart, and you eventually go quiet.

You’ve opened one of the books you’ve brought aboard whilst your seatmate has picked a movie to watch. Looks like a romcom. Cute. You read away with your little lamp. Your book this time is a historical fiction based on Greek mythology. The story takes you across sunny islands and green cypress and olive trees. But you catch yourself feeling increasingly drowsy. The fatigue that’s been building up the entire day is finally catching up on you. Your eyelids are heavy, like weighted velvet curtains. Book still clutched in one hand, you drift into a peaceful slumber, having dreams you know you won’t recall. Oikawa notices too that you fell asleep, when you softly meet the plush of his arm. Your head has been gently wobbling around until it found something it could finally lean on. In contrast to your graceful sleep, Oikawa’s in absolute panic. Red in the cheek, a solid minute has passed and he does not know a thing that has happened in his movie. Your hair is tickling him but he can’t do anything about it, too afraid of waking you up and scaring you away, like a cat that leaves your lap as soon as you move. So he just sits very still.

Being sat for so long, and listening to your deep breaths makes him, in his turn, uncontrollably sleepy. It is almost 2AM. He yawns wide, eyes tearing up. He guesses getting some shut-eye would be nice, and soon after taking his glasses off, you’re both sleeping like little babies, head on top of each other. Somehow, you know what’s happening despite being asleep. You can feel the softness of his strands falling on your forehead, his breathing that has synched up with yours, the slow rise and fall of his warm chest. You don’t move away the slightest, and let him rest heavy against you.

6 hours later and you wake up completely disoriented. You have never slept for so long on a plane. As soon as you unglue yourself from your human pillow, said human pillow also wakes up in a startle. You look back at him. You’re both in close to the most ungraceful state one could be in around someone they fancy. Your clothes are wrinkled and full of static, your hair dishevelled, eyes painful to open. And you both stare at each other with the frown of freshly awoke people.

And you laugh.

Oikawa looks down and also lets out an adorable smile. He just might have found his forever nap partner. He’s not one to fall asleep easily, lest next to a cute stranger. And yet here he is, fully recharged and glowing after a good night sleep. The rest of the passengers are still deep in slumber so you just chat through smiling whispers till the plane slowly wakes up.

The plane lands at the crack of dawn. You two are bound by the hip, and if one didn’t know better, they’d think you were traveling together from the get-go. As soon as you step out the plane, you stretch your limbs and enjoy the sweet silent bustle of a morning airport. Oikawa leaves his small luggage next to you and goes on a quick trip to the bathroom. Whilst you’re waiting for him, a flight attendant walks up to you and gently taps on your shoulder. She’s about your age so there’s an unspoken comradery between you. She says all smiles:

'Sorry to bother you, I was on your flight earlier and thought you might like seeing this". She shows you her phone with a picture of Oikawa and you, sleeping together tucked under the blankets. 'I really apologise for taking your photo without your consent but my crew and I thought you guys were so cute and couldn’t help but snap a pic… I’ll delete it if you’re uncomfortable with it!'

You thank her for being so sweet and tell her you’d really like to have the picture, which she promptly shares with you. As she bids you goodbye and a pleasant stay, Oikawa comes back, curious about your interaction. You show him the pic to which he only answers a quiet 'Oh.' But you can see his ears turn pink and he coyly asks you for a copy too. You laugh,

'Only if you buy me breakfast, I missed the catering because you didn’t wake me up!'

'How is that my fault?” he asks bewildered, “I missed the flight’s meal because you didn’t wake me up!'

You two bicker like toddlers, bumping into each other whilst making way to the airport’s Café.

He bought you breakfast.

#oikawa fic #oikawa #oikawa toru #oikawa x reader #haikyuu #fluff #airplane #oikawa scenarios #gender neutral y/n #oikawa toru x you #fanfic #oikawa tooru #imagine #oneshot

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bengiyo · 1 year

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BL 2022 Review

I debated how I would go about reviewing this year, and quickly tossed out any sort of list approach. Anything like a top 10 or 20 would feel disrespectful to many of the smaller projects I watched this year that had something worthwhile to discuss. Instead, I’ve decided to talk about BL with major topics that stick with me as I review the 80+ shows I watched this year.

Reviewing the totals, as of the writing of this post I have completed, attempted, or am watching three shows from the Philippines, 49 from Thailand, five from Taiwan, 20 from South Korea, one from mainland China, 14 from Japan, and five from the West, for a total of 79 completed or watching plus 13 attempted. This included other QL projects as well. I’m reviewing a list of all BL projects from this year and the number was approximately 131. We’ve never had more choice than this, and I absolutely cannot watch this much again next year.

In this long essay, I plan to talk about what I enjoyed out of the actor chemistry this year, the ways BL has become more political, how specific and powerful coming of age narratives continue to be in genre, the ways BL used the supernatural to talk about grief and loss, the intergenerational relationships appearing in genre, the expansion of the genre into adulthood, the ongoing competition amongst college narratives, our first forays into GL, and the continued divide with the West. That’s a lot, so I’m just going to put all of that behind a cut.

First, Some Thanks

Before we get started, I want to give shoutouts to the clowns I got to know this year and who have been so much fun to engage with this year since we met on Bad Buddy. In no particular order: @shortpplfedup, @kyr-kun-chan, @liyazaki, @elnotwoods, @flukenatouch, @gilly-bean, and so many more whose handles I always forget outside of our other chats. Also a shout out to the 180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us fandom. We were tiny, but I loved interacting with all of you.

The Boys Who Were Ready to Risk It All

I don’t always require the boys to have high levels of heat in my romances, but I do like believing that the characters genuinely desire each other. With Japan reentering the genre with their specific brand of reticence, and with Korea clearing the lane for their own form of clean romance*, I was not surprised to see Thailand turning up the heat in their shows to compete. All-in-all, this was an absolutely stellar year for chemistry across the board.

Starting with the Philippines, I noticed that I watched far fewer shows from them this year, but two in particular made me BELIEVE. In Gameboys 2 Elijah Canlas and Kokoy de Santos continued to display the absolutely electric and believable desire between Cairo and Gavreel. You could feel how suddenly their attraction came on, and the desperation of their quarantine bubble’s time ticking away as they tried to make being a couple work. I especially enjoyed how they explored their differing levels in sexual experience and readiness before delivering one of the better bed scenes of the year.

Meanwhile, in Sleep With Me Janine and Lovi made the first time between Harry and Luna look genuinely fun for their characters. The morning after sharing between them was one of the most comfortably intimate things I’ve seen all year.

Thailand offered up a wide array this year, from the extremely light or chaste La Cuisine and 21 Days Theory; to the passionate in Dear Doctor, I’m Coming for Soul and Triage, to the shows-with-something-to-prove in KinnPorsche, Love in the Air, and Love Mechanics. However, I’d like to highlight how much I genuinely believed in the sexual desire from Mile and Apo in KinnPorsche, Boy and Tod in Ghost Host, Ghost House; Zee and NuNew in Cutie Pie; both Boss and Noeul, and Peat and Forth, in Love in the Air; and Mos and ISBANKY in Big Dragon. No disrespect to Yin and War, but we already knew they could bring it.

With Apo and Mile, we saw expressions of sexual acts and desire from guys in this genre that it almost feels taboo for the genre to use with its preference for top/bottom acts. “A blowjob in a helicopter” became a “jumping the shark” joke for this year for a lot of valid reasons, but Kinn and Porsche engaging in mutual masturbation and oral sex was the most refreshing part of the sexual chemistry of that show.

Tod and Boy gave such a believable show of wanting each other that it gave me flashbacks to ITSAY Episode 3. Pluem’s clear love for Kevin’s legs, and their frank conversation about sex and readiness, along with their language play about making each other equal with English pronouns, made them one of my standouts for the year. Beyond that, the way they quickly fell into casual intimacy in the latter half the show elevates it above much this year.

We knew Zee could deliver on heat from Why R U (2020) with Saint, but I was surprised by how effectively he arrived at that same level with newcomer New Chawarin. I still think about the kitchen scene where Lian lifts Nu-Kuea onto the counter to stare up at him with open love and desire as he reassures him that he is everything to him. Thai fans jokingly review bombed the kettle model used in that scene for interrupting it, that’s how intense that scene was.

As usual with MAME, Me Mind Y casts for high heat and chemistry well, and clearly has an effective process for building up physical comfort between their casts, because everyone brought so much enthusiasm to their scenes that they literally let Boss and Noeul take charge of their own bed scenes. During my watch, I praised the way they used angles to allow for some actor modesty, and it’s clear everyone had fun working with their partner. Truly something special. There is a lot to unpack with Love in the Air, and I don’t think it’s for everyone, but in terms of heat, the cast delivered.

Speaking of shows that didn’t really work for me, I wasn’t a fan of Big Dragon. That being said, ISBANKY and Mos were absolutely willing to go there physically with each other, and managed varying levels of emotion and intensity in their intimate scenes across the season. I didn’t want to end the year without acknowledging that.

As expected from Japan, they were about as chaste as I expect them to be outside of their darker BLs, but we have a few things worth mentioning. The final minutes of episode 4 of Old Fashion Cupcake was the most sexually charged interaction to come out of Japan all year, and I’m glad it happened between characters in their 30s and 40s.

I was proud of Minato’s Laundromat for delivering a satisfying pair of kisses in the finale, and confirming that the characters were finally getting it in in the final shot. We also got some solid bed work from Sora Inoue and Komiya Rio in Eternal Yesterday, but the fact that Koichi was dead probably excused that for Japan’s weird relationship with onscreen intimacy. Finally, we almost hit something really interesting about first desire in Takara-kun to Amagi-kun, but the show backed off and never went back.

While we’re talking about heat and Japan, I’m going to vent for the final time that the show was called Mr. Unlucky Has No Choice But to Kiss!” and yet they didn’t give a satisfying kiss! Something MBS kept experimenting with this year was having a dubcon or asymmetric emotional kiss very early in their shows, and then not delivering on a good couple one later. It felt a bit cheap and manipulative, and I’m quite glad we didn’t get that in Eternal Yesterday nor so far (as of episode 2) of Color Candy Paradox.

With Korea, this was as @absolutebl calls it, the year Korea learned that boys can kiss. We returned to To My Star 2 this year for a very messy BL that I loved for the chemistry between the leads. Hwang Da Seul did it twice with the pair in Blueming.

Watcha showed a willingness to go there with Semantic Error with the Parks that was a real relief after the forgettable kiss in Light on Me the previous year. Strongberry proved again why they’re one of the best with both couple dynamics in Choco Milk Shake, the Cherry Blossoms After Winter pair were willing to go there, and the branded pair from Kissable Lips did it twice this year with Roommates of Poongduck 304. Holland and Han Gi Chan did a decent job in Ocean Likes Me, which was significant for me because Holland is a Known Gay. Seriously, Korea came to play this year.

*NOTE: Because of the impacts of military occupation in the first half of the 20th century, I don’t often comment on Korea’s particular brand of kissing or heat levels. If they’re still sorting out how they want to be perceived when it comes to intimacy and romance, I’ve elected to stay out of that cultural conversation and praise what I enjoy only.

BL Got Political

Across the board, it felt like BL realized it could not longer remain politically neutral and remain relevant. Almost every Thai show went out of its way to call for marriage equality this year, with the standouts being Cutie Pie for its entire focus on marriage and Big Dragon with a memorable lament about the issue. From Japan, Cherry Magic: The Movie elegantly illustrated why marriage is so important for queer couples.

I want to highlight the shows that went a bit further and explored some queer themes beyond the ongoing struggle for marriage equality in Thailand.

In 21 Days Theory, we had a side plot where Q’s gay uncle traveled with Q’s mom to talk to their father off-screen about Man’s queerness and start rebuilding their relationship.

180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us focused on the way bullying and internalized homophobia leave wounds that shatter the people connected to that trauma, and became one of my standout shows of the year.

My Only 12% asked what the value was in queer media that leaves queer people feeling sad and broken at the end by questioning the role of Love of Siam (2007) in our history.

Papa & Daddy 2 challenged the artifice of rainbow capitalism and how only an acceptable brand of queerness is allowed to make money.

DNA Says I Love You explored a section of the alphabet mafia that we rarely touch upon (I don’t want to spoil it).

Both Not Me and The Eclipse challenged the structures of Thai society.

Outside of BL, Koisenu Futari did not mince words in its demands that aromantic asexual people should not be forced to form procreative units for the sake of others happiness.

We accelerated rather quickly on this, but it’s good to see that the makers within the genre know the score.

The Summer ‘22 High School Extravaganza

Starting this summer, we were treated to an amazing series of shows exploring first love in high school with Minato’s Laundromat and Takara-kun & Amagi-kun from Japan; About Youth from Taiwan; 21 Days Theory, My Only 12%, and The Eclipse from Thailand. We didn’t let up into the fall with Eternal Yesterday, and the currently-airing My School President.

There were so many shows this year, but statistically, the high school shows made up such a small portion of the genre overall. I appreciated how all of these shows tackled the commonalities of coming of age.

With Minato’s Laundromat, we got to see Shin struggle against the barriers that said he couldn’t care for someone older than him, while Minato struggled with the way he’d refused to let himself mature from his own internalized homophobia.

We got to experience first desire and intense infatuation in Takara-kun to Amagi-kun, and how you’ll need the help of your friends to manage that intensity.

We had an absolutely adorable pair of couples falling in love in About Youth in the gentlest of these shows. Truly, this is a show so enjoyable that I have watched it more than once on my own.

My Only 12% explored the reality of falling in love with your best friend, and having them finally fall back years later as you also come to terms with your own queerness.

The Eclipse tackled the institutional and long-term effects of internalized homophobia across nine different characters and how they were all impacted by it.

21 Days Theory gave us a somewhat messy process of falling in love, but gave us support from a queer elder that let the show end up being shorter.

My School President is shaping into the much-needed successor to Lovesick and is turning Bad Buddy into a blueprint.

Finally, Eternal Yesterday tackled the grief of losing your first loved one unexpectedly to tragedy with a grace I think only Japan could pull off.

Yes, there were a lot of high school shows this year, but I think they were among the best offerings this year.

Ghosts! The Supernatural as Allegory for Grief

With BL reaching for higher concepts to stand out in the crowd, supernatural stories opened up spaces for shows to explore impossible romances and grief within the genre. I wrote extensively about how Eternal Yesterday tackled this, and how it is beneficial for some viewers to unpack their feelings. Even though I didn’t enjoy all of the shows I will mention in this section, I want to reiterate that I don’t ever want creators to stop trying to reach a strong thematic core with these supernatural concepts.

Thailand displayed a specific notion about posthumous bureaucracy in both Dear Doctor, I’m Coming For Soul, Something in My Room, and Ghost Host, Ghost House. All three of these shows expressed a ton of rules about the afterlife for ghosts that I couldn’t always track, but has felt specifically Thai. Ghost House stood out for me amongst these offerings with the way Kevin continued to mourn his friend who died in the US, and how the ghost of his friend continued to protect Kevin without his knowledge.Something in My Room ended up feeling like a weaker version of He’s Coming to Me (2019).

Japan relied on magical forces to draw people together in Mr. Unlucky Has No Choice But To Kiss! and Cherry Magic: The Movie. The yin and yang dynamics about unluckiness and luckiness led to a truly enjoyable pairing between the leads. Adachi not losing his powers until he was truly ready to connect to Kurosawa ended up being far more enjoyable than I expected. Meanwhile, in Korea, Color Rush 2 without one of the leads ultimately left the series feeling incomplete on a somewhat disappointing note.

Korea has had three different reincarnation stories this year with First Love, Again; Choco Milk Shake, and The Director Who Buys Me Dinner. Choco Milk Shake ends up being the weirdest, what with Jungwoo’s pets reincarnating as very hot human men to try and help him manage his loneliness. In the other two shows, one partner is either immortal or has full recollection of his previous lives as he tries to reconnect with the other partner.

Kissable Lips tried out vampires, mostly unsuccessfully. Without enough time, it didn’t get to explore some complex themes about long-lived beings. Interview With the Vampire will be the queer vampire show that gets remembered this year for the toxicity of their failed marriage and the abuses therein.

We had two different time loop shows with Triage from Thailand, and Once Again from Korea. I enjoyed Triage more for the way it showed how hard it is not to love someone when you become obsessed with them, but there was something special about the painful way Once Again doled out a sliver of hope.

Vice Versa managed to tell something interesting with the body swapping across universes concept, even if I found myself frustrated with one of the leads. Self also attempted to use the supernatural with a character losing his reflection, but it ultimately felt like a plot delivery shorthand.

Whew! For all the talk about the number of high school shows we got this year, we had more supernatural ones.

Finally: Adults to Take To Brunch

We had a lot of standout adults this year that I want to highlight. Inter-generational queer relationships are extremely important to me. No matter how loving and supportive families may be, most queer people are going to be raised by straight people. We have to venture out to find our people and each other. So, being able to find that within your family or within your own community is so important. As such, these are the characters from this year I’d want to take to brunch and hang out with.

My favorite pair this year are Cheep and Dej from My Ride. The breakfast they share with Mork and Tawan in episode 8 about how maintaining a long term relationship is not so much about amorous love and romance, but more about trust, commitment, and communication. The frankness with which they discuss how they don’t always get along, and yet continue to choose each other, was so stellar. I hope someday to have a love as durable as theirs.

I also want to mention Uncle Man in 21 Days Theory. I suspect the show introduced a gay uncle to accommodate its short run time. They needed a queer presence to explain Q’s familiarity with queerness, and Uncle Man’s advice and guidance saved us a lot of navel gazing as a character came to understand himself. Regardless, at one point in the show, Q gets jealous of Man because he thinks Man is flirting with X. Man pulls his nephew aside and reads him to pieces for being so irrational, and reminds Q that he’s not interested in boys. It was such a stellar moment that has stuck with me for months.

Framboise from Kabe Koji Nekoyashiki-kun Desires to be Recognized is probably my favorite character of the year. From his first appearance, he radiates queer self love and joy. He is so excited to be amongst his people and connect with them, and them to each other. He gives solid advice in the few interactions we had with him, and he’s so determined to make sure Mamouru joins in with other creators. I have so much more to say about him, but know that he is what I aspire to be. (Gif credit to @liyazaki, used with permission)

Alex from My Tooth Your Love needs to join us so he can have a break from holding the entire restaurant together. Alex may have been stern, but it was so fun to see a character set in where he was in his life while helping take care of others. He also deserves to be teased for being so fond of a baby gay.

Mama Xu from About Youth is also invited to the brunch. Not only has she managed to keep her son in good spirits after the painful loss of his father even as her brother terrorizes them, she also does that while staying out of his business.When Ye Guang came to her for advice about Qi Zhang, she kept her advice nonspecific enough that she didn’t invade their relationship. I love her, and she deserves to be pampered.

Though he had such a small role that they only named him Uncle, Uncle from Choco Milk Shake needs to join us because of the way he’s clearly supported his nephew without judgment for years, even knowing that a deep melancholy gripped him.

While talking about My Tooth Your Love, all of the 30-somethings that got together this year are welcome at brunch, including Xun’an and Bai Lang from My Tooth Your Love; Nomoto Yuki and Totoko Kasuga from She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat; Togawa and Nozue from Old Fashion Cupcake; the entire adult cast of Papa & Daddy 2; Seo Joon and Ji Woo from To My Star 2; and the entire adult cast of Plus & Minus.

Lian and Yi from Cutie Pie are not invited because they are too wrapped up in the lives of young 20s folks and will bring the wrong energy to the brunch. Speaking of which, we’ve invited enough people that this has turned into a luncheon.

QL Got Jobs This Year

One of the real joys of being part of the genre for so long is seeing enough money enter the field that we can afford to leave the school settings. This year, we finally started seeing office romances more often.

Scrolling through my watch list reveals: 609 Bedtime Story, 180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us, Accomplishment of Fudanshi Bartender, Candy Color Paradox, Check Out, Cherry Magic: The Movie, Choco Milk Shake, Close Friend S2, Coffee Melody, Dear Doctor I’m Coming for Soul, The Director Who Buys Me Dinner, Even Sun, First Love Again, Gameboys 2, GAP, Ghost Host Ghost House, Happy Ending Romance, Kabe Koji Nekoyashiki-kun Desire to be Recognized, KinnPorsche, Koisenu Futari, Love Stage!!, Meow Ears Up, My Ride, My Tooth Your Love,The New Employee, Ocean Likes Me, Oh! Boarding House, Oh! My Assistant, Old Fashion Cupcake, On Cloud Nine, Physical Therapy, Plus & Minus, Rainbow Prince, Roommates of Poongduck 304, Senpai This Can’t be Love!, She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat, Sleep With Me, Sky in Your Heart, Tinted With You, That’s My Candy, To My Star 2, Triage, To Sir With Love, The Tuxedo, Vice Versa, War of Y, and What Zabb Man!.

That’s 47 shows; that’s more than half my watch list. We can talk about how much stuff happens in school settings, but we had some options this year!

In a real relief for me, we started to see more workplace romances or romances starting between adults. Early in the year it started with My Ride for me, and then the slate of Korean shows. I suspect it comes down to where it was pragmatic to shoot. In Seoul, there’s probably office space for rent for these sorts of productions because of kdrama, whereas Thailand seems to have a disused campus that hosts many of the shows. Still, I count at least 16 that involve people falling for people they work with.

A special note for the Philippines: Rainbow Prince was fantastic. Yes, the production values are way lower than most people’s tastes, but that show was so funny. They absolutely committed to being the first BL musical, and the songs are a ton of fun. That show has “a heart so big it could crush this town.” It even does the classic musical thing of giving an antagonist one of the better songs on the set.

Looking at the projects being advertised next year, we might see non-school shows take the vast majority. What a time for us!

The College Shows That Didn’t Suck

Where I found that the high school shows have done a fantastic job this year, the college shows were really hit or miss for me. I’m not sure if it’s because that particular setting has run out of intriguing ideas, but I want to highlight the shows that I think didn’t suck.

First up: Thailand. You’re My Sky felt like the first true post-ITSAY pulp. They really reached for solid production values and tried to bring a higher level of cinematography. I also think they handled the three relationships really well. Many folks dropped it, but it was a quiet gem of this year for me. Cutie Pie was a bit of a slog sometimes, but I still recommend it. Mark and Vee are not my favorite pairing, but the new version of Love Mechanics was still well done. It needed a side couple though.

Next: Japan. Despite my gripes, Mr. Unlucky Has No Choice But To Kiss! was actually a really fun watch. Obviously we can’t end a year without acknowledging the continued parody fun of Absolute BL 2.

Finally: Korea. Semantic Error is going to be one of the banner shows of this year when we refer back to this year and talk about how people got into BL, what with the way it brought K-pop fans into the genre. Blueming gave us another stellar entry from Hwang Da Seul (To My Star). While I don’t really enjoy stepbrothers pairings, Cherry Blossoms After Winter was compelling. Love Class held its own, even if it wasn’t exactly to my taste.

Finally, though it isn’t exactly a school show, DNA Says I Love You is a really special show from Taiwan worth checking out.

LET’S GO LESBIANS! We Finally Had Multiple Quality GL Offerings

We finally started seeing GL productions on the field. Surprisingly, Korea has had the most offerings. I’ve watched She Makes My Heart Flutter and Our Relationship Ended Before it Began. My favorite pieces so far are Sleep With Me and GAP.

Sleep With Me worked so well because of the way they focused on disability and how it impacts romance. The queerness mattered to the storytelling, but it doesn’t spend much time in angst about that, when their material concerts are so much more present. I’ve been shouting for months for more people to watch it, so please sign up on Gaga and watch it. You can check out the first episode on YouTube.

GAP is still airing, but oh my goodness am I having fun with the costuming on this show. There is a specific lesbian gaze to this show that has been so refreshing to experience. It’s even unlocked all new tropes with us with “let me put this lipstick on you so I can taste it.”

She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat feels like the lesbian little sister to What Did You Eat Yesterday? Unlike WDYEY, the pair are not together at the beginning, but it has been a darling of a show that I really hope NHK continues next year. I do love the shows where everyone cooks.

In Koisenu Futari, we got to see two aromantic asexual people build a platonic support system together while dealing with a lot of unwanted allosexual scrutiny. This was one of the most vital things I watched this year.

While there aren’t a ton of offerings yet, it’s been an encouraging start.

Meanwhile, In the West

Though it pains me how many Western fans of queer media will not cross over into BL, there were some things from the West I enjoyed this year.

Closest to BL, I enjoyed Heartstopper and Young Royals. Both fit into the same coming of age space BL loves and were easy recommendations for people who enjoy high school romance.

Probably my favorite show was Chucky. That the Chucky character has been terrorizing victims across five decades is amazing, and I’ve enjoyed how some of the queer themes always at the core of the series are now front and center. A young romance between two boys undergirds much of the drama of the first two seasons, and it's a rare American show that became appointment television for me.

The biggest surprise of the year for me came from HBO with Our Flag Means Death. Obviously, we all know that pirates are gay culture, but I was not expecting HBO to be this explicit and play a textual romance out between Rhys Darby and Taika Waititi as Stede Bonnet and Blackbeard respectively. It also featured an explicit open relationship between two other crewmembers, and had a clearly nonbinary character aboard as well. All of this is handled with a comedic grace that felt so easy.

Also distributed by HBO is the Canadian show Sort Of, in which a trans-nonbinary nanny deals with the fallout of one of the parents falling into a coma. I first saw it at TIFF 2021, and it is really just so good. It’s hard to really sell in text like this, but it’s a fantastic show.

Finally, of what I watched, AMC gave us an adaptation of Interview With the Vampire, that shows a gay romance souring into something truly toxic over decades. I had a few qualms with specific choices the team made, but this show was absolutely compelling.

While I’m impressed with a few of the offerings we have here, I’m still not sold on Western queer storytelling funded by the major distribution systems.

So…What’s Next?

That’s the real question, isn’t it? I think, for me, I’m going to have to be more discerning next year. Watching this much stuff really isn’t sustainable for me anymore, and it means I’m going to have to pick my winners, because I find I have little time to catch up on shows. I also enjoy the week-to-week interaction about shows too much to be late to the party.

Overall, I’m genuinely encouraged by what I’ve seen teased so far for next year. GMMTV is getting more confident in its post-school storytelling, and is doubling down on using veteran talent instead of newbies to lead their shows. With their original stable starting to age up, they’re trying out more high-concept stuff. The Midnight Series begins airing this week, and I think will be our first glimpse of what’s to come.

Beyond GMMTV, Star Hunter Entertainment and Domundi seem like they’re going to hold strong for the coming year. Me Mind Y also doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. That means we’ll be covered on high heat and genre stories as well. Finally, Wayufilm is still active, so we’ll continue to see them experiment.

Unfortunately, I don’t see Korea taking a big leap forward yet. They seem satisfied with the 20 minutes max for their shows and at most 8 episodes. Still, I expect them to dominate the low-heat shows that focus exclusively on romance.

I’m not sure what to expect from Japan after this year of BL o’clock ends for MBS. My only hope is that the relationships with GagaOOlala and Viki don’t end, and what new productions do come out Japan make it onto both platforms.

I worry about the Philippines getting too walled in. I haven’t been able to watch a production from The IdeaFirst Company easily in a very long time, and I don’t know what’s going on with their international distribution anymore. I’m still watching to watch Pa Thirsty and Two and One. I have hopes for Oxin Films’ next productions, but they always seem to be working on a thin budget that delays their projects.

I’ve also fallen off of Vietnamese productions for now. The fundraising pushes are too much for me.

That’s all from me. It’s been the most enjoyable year in BL I’ve ever had, and maybe all of queer media. It’s so fun seeing different kinds of BL fans in the space now find their niches, and to see fandom wars moving off my dashboard as people find other people to engage with instead. We passed supersaturation a long time ago, so I hope the bubble doesn’t burst any time soon.

See you all next year!

#bl end of year wrap up #bl series #thai bl #taiwanese bl #japanese bl #korean bl #pinoy bl #Ben watches

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april-is · 1 year

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April 20, 2023: Wound is the Origin of Wonder, Maya C. Popa

Wound is the Origin of Wonder Maya C. Popa

A cross-breeze between this life and the imagined one.

I am stuck in an almost life, in an almost time. If I could say,

but I cannot, and so on. Sunlight dizzies through the barren trees,

the skyline, a blue fog against a yellow light, and on the highway

every Westward car blinds me. Every surface reflects

that quiet understanding: decisions have been made, irreversible decisions

to upend beauty for something approximate—the airport hotel,

its Eiffel Tower on the roof, a playground near the public storage.

Beyond, bridges like monuments to fracture, and a sign for Pain Law:

not metaphor, but litigation. Who would not, given acreage

in another’s mind, lie there for a while to watch the sky be sky?

Today in:

2022: When the Fox Comes to the City, Patricia Fargnoli 2021: aubade for the whole hood, Nate Marshall 2020: Keeping Things Whole, Mark Strand 2019: New Year’s Day, Kim Addonizio 2018: I Know You Think I’ve Forgotten, Jane Hirshfield 2017: The Writer, Richard Wilbur 2016: from Seven Skins, Adrienne Rich 2015: I Ask Percy How I Should Live My Life, Mary Oliver 2014: In the Park, Maxine Kumin 2013: To A Sad Daughter, Michael Ondaatje 2012: My Dead Friends, Marie Howe 2011: Staying After, Linda Gregg 2010: Dream Song 14, John Berryman 2009: What We Kept, Megan Alpert 2008: Please Take Back the Sparrows, Suzanne Buffam 2007: It Happens Like This, James Tate 2006: Tantalus in May, Reginald Shepherd 2005: September Song, Geoffrey Hill

#who put this brain inside of me?#maya c. popa #modern life

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the-rewatch-rewind · 3 months

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The final episode... for now, at least.

Transcript below the break

Hello and welcome to the conclusion of The Rewatch Rewind, the podcast where I counted down my top 40 most frequently rewatched movies from 2003 through 2022. To those of you listening to this on the day it’s coming out, Happy Cary Grant’s Birthday! This felt like an appropriate day to release this fun bonus episode to analyze my list a bit more, get into some statistics, talk about what I’ve learned from this project, wrap things up, etc. If that sounds boring to you, that’s totally fair, I won’t hold it against you if you want to skip this. But before you turn it off, I want to mention that my brother Quinn, my guest from the Ella Enchanted episode, put together a “Sounds of the Rewatch Rewind” Spotify playlist featuring the songs and soundtracks from the movies I’ve talked about that he could find on there, which I’m going to link in the show notes, so now that you’ve listened to me talk about these movies, you can listen to parts of the movies themselves.

Assuming the runtimes on IMDb are correct, I spent approximately 99,258 minutes watching these 40 movies from 2003 through 2022, which is 1,654 hours and 18 minutes, or 68 days, 22 hours, and 18 minutes. So almost 10 weeks. Which sounds like a lot, but it was spread out over 20 years, so I don’t feel like that’s particularly excessive. I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn I had spent more time watching these movies. And that’s one of the main things I’ve learned from actually keeping track of the movies I watch: I’m very bad at estimating how frequently I rewatch movies. Before I started writing down what I watched, I thought there were lots of movies I regularly watched dozens of times per year, and probably several that I’d seen over 100 times. But now I know that watching a movie five times in a year can feel like a ton, and there are relatively few that I feel like sitting through more than 20 times total, let alone 100. Part of that could come from maturing, or from having a much wider array of movie choices at my fingertips, but a significant part of it is that it takes fewer rewatches than I think it does for a movie that I love to stick in my brain. There are plenty more films that didn’t make it anywhere near my top 40 that I feel like I know backwards and forwards and inside out. So I just want to reiterate what I said in the introductory episode: I don’t think these are the 40 best movies ever made, and I don’t even think they’re my 40 favorite movies. But I do love them all, and I don’t regret getting to talk about any of them.

When I first started keeping track of what I watched back in 2003, I thought of myself as someone who primarily loved “old movies,” with a few newer movies managing to worm their way into my heart. I would have expected most of my top 40 movies to be in black and white, and almost all of them to be from before 1970. But as it turns out, 18 are fully live action and in color, 16 are live action in black and white, four are fully animated, and two are a mix of animation and color live action. The breakdown of which decade these films are from tells a particularly fascinating story. Five of these movies came out in the 1930s, nine in the 1940s, three in the 1950s, three in the 1960s, zero in the 1970s, four in the 1980s, four in the 1990s, nine in the 2000s, and three in the 2010s. Which means that exactly half were from before the 1970s and exactly half were from after the 1970s. Many of the views of movies from the 2000s occurred in the first few years I kept track, so clearly the pretentious “I only love old movies” persona I tried to cultivate as a young teen was never very accurate. Stories from a variety of eras resonate with me. But what, you may be wondering, do I have against movies from the 1970s?

First of all, to be clear, there are several movies from the 1970s that I love, they just didn’t happen to make it into my top 40. But the thing about the ‘70s is… that’s when Hollywood movies became more explicitly sexy. By which I mean that after the Motion Picture Production Code was abandoned in the late 1960s, filmmakers started putting much more explicit sexual content into their movies because they were finally allowed to. Now, I’m not saying I’m in favor of censorship. I think people should be able to make movies about whatever they want, provided they’re not actively hurting people. But a lot of 1970s movies feel particularly overwhelmingly sexual to me, like Hollywood was trying to release decades’ worth of previously forbidden sex scenes as quickly as possible. And I want to be clear that I don’t necessarily think there’s anything inherently wrong with that, although I feel like it was often executed in ways that objectified women, which I do have a problem with. But I also think a not insignificant reason I’m not as into movies from that era is related to my asexuality. I’m not judging 1970s movies for having too much sex, and obviously not every movie from that decade has explicit sexual content, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the decade after the production code went away is the one that doesn’t have any representation in my top 40 most frequently rewatched movies. While movies with sexual content continue to be made long after the 1970s, it does feel a bit like once the novelty wore off, filmmakers kind of toned it down a bit, or at least incorporated it into more interesting stories. It’s kind of like when a kid learns a swear word. At first it’s like, a huge deal, and they get in trouble for using it, and then when they get older they’re like, “allowed” to swear, and they feel so cool for a while, but then it stops feeling cool and they learn how to use it more selectively and effectively. That’s how it feels like sexual content in the Hollywood film industry evolved. So as a relatively sex-indifferent asexual who doesn’t exactly mind sexual content, but doesn’t particularly like it either, it makes sense that that transition period doesn’t appeal to me as much.

And I do have to keep saying that I’m specifically talking about the Hollywood film industry because the vast majority of the movies I watch are from Hollywood. Really the only “foreign” film in my top 40 is Pride and Prejudice, and even that was co-produced by an American company. I have seen and enjoyed several films from other countries, but I could definitely watch more. There is an upsetting lack of diversity on this list: the vast majority of these films are primarily about white, straight, cis, allo, middle-to-upper-class Americans or Europeans. There are characters who don’t fit all of those, but most of them play relatively minor supporting roles in the main stories. I’m pretty sure that all of the directors on this list are white, and all of the screenwriters are at least half white, but I don’t know all of their backgrounds, so forgive me if I’m unintentionally erasing the identity of any of these filmmakers. Regardless, I definitely need to watch more movies made by people of color. As I addressed in previous episodes, only two of these movies were directed solely by a woman, one was co-directed by a man and a woman, and the other 37 were directed by men, so I also need to watch more female-directed films. The screenwriter gender breakdown is a little better, with eight written solely by women, eight written by a combination of men and women, and 24 written solely by men. I would personally love to see more movies written and directed by non-binary people, but mainstream society doesn’t seem to want to give them much of a voice, so I think I’ll have to look into more independent films to find that. The two newest movies on this list were independently produced with funds raised through Kickstarter, so I do seem to be moving in that direction, even though the vast majority of my top films were made by major Hollywood studios. I wasn’t surprised that Disney was the studio with the most films on this list, with nine – what can I say? I grew up during the Disney renaissance, I was indoctrinated. But I wasn’t necessarily expecting RKO to have the second most, with seven, considering that studio hasn’t been around since the 1950s. MGM is in third place with six, but I would have expected that to have more than RKO, considering it made a lot of classic Golden Age gems and still technically exists today (even though it’s now owned by Amazon). Over half of the movies on this list were made by one of those three studios. Again, an embarrassing lack of diversity.

I’m not sure how many LGBTQIA+ filmmakers were involved with the films on this list, since even now people don’t always feel safe or comfortable coming out publicly, and in the past it was even more dangerous to do so. However, the director with the most films on this list, George Cukor, with four, was openly gay, and as I mentioned in several episodes, sometimes movies with supposedly straight characters give off queer vibes. No character in any movie on this list is openly aromantic or asexual, but I was still able to spend a lot of this podcast talking about the ways I related to these stories as an aroace person. Since I’ve been so focused on how much I wish there was less romance and sex in movies, I thought it would be interesting to give each of my top 40 a score indicating how important romance and sex were to the story, on a scale of 0 to 3 for each, with 0 meaning there’s essentially none and 3 meaning there’s a lot. Now, I will point out that no movie on this list is rated higher than PG-13, so a 3 on the sexual content scale is still pretty mild. I also feel like reasonable people could disagree about how to rate some of these movies, so please indulge me as I go through each movie and state and briefly justify my scores.

Mary Poppins gets a zero for both, even though there is a kiss between Mr. and Mrs. Banks, but they were already married at the beginning and their relationship is far from the main focus of the story, which goes out of its way to keep Mary and Bert’s relationship platonic.

Similarly, while Emperor’s New Groove does show that Pacha and Chicha are in a loving married relationship, that’s such a tiny portion of the film that I’m also giving this one a zero for both romance and sex. So we’re off to a great start.

Legally Blonde is a bit trickier because at the beginning Elle is extremely focused on romance, but she becomes less so as the story progresses, although other characters remain focused on romance throughout. Also there are no sex scenes, but there are still some rather explicit sexual references. So I’m giving Legally Blonde a 2 for romance and a 2 for sex.

The Princess Bride has a lot going on, but the romantic love between Westley and Buttercup is consistently one of its main focuses, so I’m giving it a 2 for romance, but apart from some very slight innuendo I don’t remember any sexual content, so it gets a 0 for sex.

Frozen is another kids’ movie, so another 0 for sex, but the romance aspect is fascinating because it starts out tricking you into thinking it’s going to be very romance-focused, but ends up demonstrating that the initial romance was fake and other kinds of love are just as important, so I’m giving Frozen a 1 for romance.

Chicago is probably the most sexually explicit movie on this list, so I have to give it a 3 for sexual content, but there’s only a little bit of romance, so it gets a 1 for romantic content.

The Sound of Music has quite a bit of non-romantic stuff going on, but the relationship between Maria and Georg, and Maria’s internal conflict between wanting to be a nun and wanting to be with him, are important parts of the story, so I’m saying romance 2, sex 1.

Holiday is mostly about Johnny thinking he’s in love with Julia and learning he’s really in love with Linda. The social commentary keeps it from being a 3 on the romantic content scale in my opinion, but I can’t give it lower than a 2. I suppose sex is meant to be implied because they talk about marriage so much, but I don’t recall any specific innuendo, so I’m giving it a 0 for sexual content.

Newsies is mostly about the strike but there’s still the Jack and Sarah romance stuck in there, and the “Lovey Dovey Baby” song is pretty suggestive, so I’m saying 1 for romance, 1 for sex.

Stage Door is one of the few Production Code-era movies that actually has more sexual content than romantic content – there’s a lot more focus on potentially using sex to get ahead in show business than on romance, although there’s still a bit of romance in there too, and the sex isn’t super explicit, so I’m saying 1 for romance, 2 for sex.

Monkey Business is mostly about the formula to make people young, but that seems to manifest itself by stirring up relationship drama. The sexual aspect is mostly innuendo, so I’m going with 2 for romance, 1 for sex.

Father Goose starts out with no romance, but by the end becomes mostly focused on Walter and Catherine’s relationship, and there are some mild sexual references, so I’m again going with 2 for romance, 1 for sex.

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House is mostly about the house. There’s some minor relationship drama, but even that is more about stress caused by the house situation than actual romance, so I would argue that it only deserves a 1 for romance. I’m tempted to give it a 0 for sex, but there’s enough innuendo when Bill spends the night alone with Muriel that I think I have to give it a 1.

Adam’s Rib is another tricky one because it’s about a trial that impacts romantic relationships, but the focus is rarely on the romantic aspect of those relationships. And by today’s standards, there really isn’t that much sexual content either, although for its time it feels pretty explicit. So I’m saying 1 for romance, and 2 for sex.

Mamma Mia has enough focus on non-romantic relationships that I’m only giving it a 2 for romance, but even though there aren’t any explicit sex scenes, there’s enough talk about it and enough suggestive dancing that I think it deserves a 3 for sexual content, at least on my scale.

I know that The Lion King features one of the most romantic Disney songs of all time, but I would argue that a relatively minuscule amount of the plot is actually dedicated to the romance between Simba and Nala, so I’m giving it a 1 for romance. And despite the misinterpretation of the leaves spelling SFX as the word SEX, and the rather suggestive look that Nala gives Simba in the middle of their love song, overall I don’t think it has enough sexual content to justify a rating above 0.

Freaky Friday appears at first glance to be heavily focused on romance, since Tess is about to get married and Anna wants to pursue a romantic relationship, but it’s way more about the mother/daughter relationship, so I’m giving it a 1 for romance, and also a 1 for sex because there’s a bit of innuendo.

The romantic aspect of The Major and the Minor is weird and kind of toxic, but it’s still there and it’s pretty important, so I’m giving it a 2 for romance. Then there’s the whole Pamela assuming Phillip slept with Susan part and some sexual harassment before it was called that… it’s not super explicit but I’m still saying that’s a 2 for sexual content, at least for its time.

I argued in the Bringing Up Baby episode that I don’t really believe that the main romantic storyline is actually romantic, but the characters seem to think it is, and Susan at least is pretty focused on that, so I’m saying 2 for romantic content, and once again there’s a bit of innuendo, so 1 for sexual content.

Enchanted is very much a romantic story, so I have to give it a romantic rating of 3. And while I’d like to give all kids’ movies a sexual content rating of 0, I’m sorry, that shower part boosts it up to 1. Kids might not know they’re talking about sex, but… there’s really no other way to interpret that.

Ella Enchanted has quite a bit of romance, but the main storyline is Ella trying to get rid of her curse, so I think that keeps the romantic content rating at a 2. And again, I want to say 0 sexual content because it’s a kids’ movie, but then I remembered some of the things Char’s fangirls say and…yeah I have to give it a 1.

Notorious is ultimately a spy movie, but the spying is accomplished by Alicia seducing and pretending to fall in love with Alex, and actually falling in love with Devlin, so that sounds like a 2 for both.

It’s a Wonderful Life is about a lot of other things, but a good chunk of it is devoted to George and Mary’s relationship, and there’s enough innuendo that I’m going with 2 for romance, 1 for sex.

Again, I argued in the Beauty and the Beast episode that I’ve never seen Belle and the Beast’s relationship as a typical romance, but most characters and audience members seem to. I still maintain that there’s enough other stuff going on to keep it from being a 3, but I don’t think I’d be justified in giving it a romance score below a 2. But I’m not giving it a sexual content rating above a 0, despite what the childhood ruiners say.

A Mighty Wind is mostly about a concert, but it gets a bit into Mitch and Mickey’s romance, and there are a few sex jokes, so I’m saying 1 for both.

His Girl Friday is pretty focused on Hildy wanting to marry Bruce but still being in love with Walter, but that’s not the only thing it’s about so I’m giving it a 2 for romantic content. If you read between the lines and interpret Molly as a prostitute, I guess an argument could be made to give it a higher sexual content rating, especially because there are a few other veiled sexual references as well, but I’m sticking with 1 because it’s all innuendo.

Gaslight is an interesting one because it’s very focused on the relationship between Gregory and Paula, but it’s more about the abuse than the romance, and nobody should think of this as a romantic movie, so I’m saying 1 for romantic content, and 1 for sexual content, because while there’s nothing explicit, it is very heavily implied that Nancy is sleeping with Constable Williams.

Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party is quite focused on friendship, but the party wouldn’t be happening in the first place if Edgar wasn’t trying to woo Annabel, and there’s also the whole Lenore/HG Wells thing, so I’m saying 2 for romantic content. And while it’s not at all explicit for the 2010s, there are definitely some sexual references, so that’s a 1.

The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer is almost entirely about romance, so I can’t give it below a 3 for romantic content. And while the movie does make it very clear that the bachelor does not sleep with the bobby-soxer, again, there’s enough innuendo that I have to give it a 1 for sexual content.

North by Northwest is mostly about Roger trying to figure out what’s going on. While he does fall in love with Eve, for a good chunk of the movie we think she’s trying to kill him, so I don’t think it deserves higher than a 1 for romantic content. But it was fairly sexually explicit for its time, so I’m giving it a 2 for sexual content.

The Sure Thing is very focused on both sex and romance, so that one gets a 3 for both.

Ishtar has a little bit of romantic content, but it’s mostly about the incompetence of the bumbling songwriters, so I’m giving it a 1 for romantic content. But there is some nudity and rather frank conversations about sex, so I feel like I have to give it a 3 for sexual content. I actually thought Ishtar was rated R until I double checked before making that episode. It’s PG-13, but just barely.

My Man Godfrey is about a lot of things, but although Godfrey the character would prefer to keep romance out of it, Irene keeps forcing it into the story, so it gets a 2 for romantic content. And, like most movies of its era, there’s no explicit sexual content, but there’s enough innuendo to earn it a 1.

The Princess Diaries is mostly about Mia learning she’s a princess, but enough of it is about her relationship with Michael and her crush on Josh that I have to give it a 2 for romantic content. But, as my sister Rosemary pointed out in that episode, the romance is very innocent, and I don’t recall even enough innuendo to bring the sexual content rating above a 0.

The Case of the Gilded Lily mirrors the innuendo but no real sexual content of production code-era films, but with significantly less romance than most of them, so I’m giving it a 1 for both.

Top Hat is extremely focused on the confusing romance between Jerry and Dale, so that’s a 3 for romantic content, but despite the fact that their dancing has been compared to making love, I’d argue that as far as sexual content there’s barely enough innuendo to earn it a 1, let alone anything higher than that.

Singin’ in the Rain is mostly about the change in the motion picture industry from silents to talkies, but Don’s love life pulls enough of the focus that it gets a 2 for romantic content. And while there’s barely any sexual content, Cyd Charisse’s dancing is suggestive enough to earn it a 1.

I’m going to be bold and say that Clue has zero romance, because even though there is some kissing, none of it is really romantic. But most of the suspects are being blackmailed for sexual reasons, so it gets a 2 for sexual content.

While I don’t watch Pride and Prejudice specifically for the romance, I can’t deny that that’s what most of the story is about, so I have to give it a 3 for romantic content. And the whole Lydia/Wickham thing brings the sexual content score up to 2 – one could even make an argument for 3, since we do briefly see them in bed together, but I think it’s a small enough proportion of the mini-series to keep it at 2.

Similarly, The Philadelphia Story has lots going on, but it is all about Tracy’s wedding, and which of the three possible grooms she’s most in love with, so I have to give it a 3 for romance. And even though she doesn’t actually sleep with Mike, there’s enough talk about it that I’m giving it a sexual content score of 2.

To sum all that up: as far as romantic content goes, 3 of these movies got a score of 0, 13 got a score of 1, 18 got a score of 2, and 6 got a score of 3. For sexual content, 8 got a score of 0, 19 got a score of 1, 9 got a score of 2, and 4 got a score of 3. And if we add the romantic and sexual ratings together, only 2 movies got a score of 0, two got a score of 1, 11 got a score of 2, 13 got a score of 3, 8 got a score of 4, 3 got a score of 5, and one got the maximum score of 6.

So why did I go through all of that? Well, aside from wanting an excuse to go back through all 40 movies again, I also wanted to emphasize that even when you’re not interested in sexual or romantic content, it’s extremely difficult to avoid. Allonormativity and amatonormativity are everywhere. I was able to find ways to relate to these movies from an aroace perspective, but every single one ultimately leans, at least to some extent, into the pervading societal assumption that every normal human fundamentally desires a long-term, monogamous, romantic and sexual partner of the opposite sex. This is so normalized that the two movies that earned a zero for both romantic and sexual content still include romantic kissing, and while I stand by my assertion that those movies don’t have enough romantic content to justify a higher rating, I also know that if those throwaway background romantic moments had been between two characters of the same sex, a bunch of people would have made a huge deal about how the LGBT+ “agenda” was being “shoved down their throats” and “forced on their children.” You know who really shoves their lifestyle down people’s throats and forces them on children? Straight cis allos! If children’s sexual and romantic orientations could be changed just by seeing them in movies, I would be incredibly straight and allo by now. But even spending all those years bombarded with the message that normal people were like that, it didn’t make me feel attraction that my brain wasn’t wired to feel, it just made me confused. What I would love to see in my next 20 years of movie watching is more normalization of other ways of being outside of amatonormativity. Right now that’s feeling very unlikely, given the enormous backlash against LGBTQIA+ rights that is currently escalating throughout much of this country. More awareness of aspec identities has led to more explicit aphobia. But it has also led more people like me to understand ourselves better, and I would love to see that continue until acceptance overwhelms the bigotry. And that could be greatly helped by more aspec artists getting to tell their stories. I know of some good aspec representation in books and TV shows, but I really haven’t heard about much in feature films, apart from the sort of vague ace coding I’ve discussed throughout this podcast. But I would love to hear recommendations if any listeners out there know of any openly asexual and/or aromantic movie characters.

Many of the movies on this list are silly comedies, which don’t tend to be recognized by the Academy Awards, but I thought it would be fun to look into the Oscar stats a bit anyway. Of these 40 movies, 23 were nominated for at least one Oscar, and 10 had at least one win. Among those, there were a total of 98 nominations and 28 wins. The most nominations for a single film was 13, achieved by both Mary Poppins and Chicago, and the most wins was 6, again by Chicago. Two movies that were nominated won 100% of the Oscars they were nominated for: Frozen with two and The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer with one. I did go through and watch all the Best Picture, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar winners, at least up to a certain year, and those projects added to the view counts of five of the movies that made it into my top 40: Mary Poppins, Chicago, The Sound of Music, Gaslight, and The Philadelphia Story. I have considered tackling other Oscar categories, and I’ll probably make a podcast about it if I do, so that could potentially be on the horizon, we’ll see. Another movie podcast idea I have is to pick either an actor or director and go through their entire filmography chronologically and talk about that. I’m not sure if or when any of those ideas will come to fruition, but I have greatly enjoyed talking about movies on this podcast and would love to continue in a similar vein.

As for The Rewatch Rewind, I like to think that for now it will just be on a rather long hiatus rather than being completely finished. I have continued to track the movies I watch, and my top 40 has already changed in the last year, so it will be interesting to see how my movie watching continues to change in the years ahead. After I’d been keeping track for 10 years, I blogged about the 35 movies I’d seen at least 10 times, and 30 of those movies were still in my top 40 after 20 years of keeping track. The 10 new movies that were added for this list obviously include the three movies that hadn’t come out yet 10 years earlier – Frozen, Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party, and The Case of the Gilded Lily – in addition to Notorious, Adam’s Rib, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, Father Goose, Holiday, The Emperor’s New Groove, and Mary Poppins. The five movies that were in my top 35 after 10 years but were not in my top 40 after 20 were Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Neptune’s Daughter, Duck Soup, and The Phantom of the Opera. For the 30 movies that were on both lists, I still had a lot of new things to say about them ten years later. I’m not sure if I’ll wait until I’ve been keeping track for 30 years to return to this podcast, or if I’ll also do something for 25 years, but I do have every intention of returning for another season of something similar eventually. I probably won’t do the exact same thing, maybe I’ll do a top 100, or I’ll talk about my top movies from each decade or year, either of keeping track or when they came out – I haven’t decided yet. So stay subscribed or following to hear more from me in a few years – assuming these podcast platforms are still around in a few years.

Regardless of what the future has in store, thank you so much for listening to my analysis of the 40 movies I rewatched the most in my first 20 years of keeping track. Since I don’t know what movie I’ll be talking about next, in honor of his 120th birthday I’ll wrap this up with a quote that at least has been attributed to Cary Grant, although I couldn’t find where or when he said it, so maybe he didn’t, but it’s a good quote anyway: “My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can.”

#the rewatch rewind #movies #aromantic #asexual

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carbondated · 4 months

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❝ Boredom can be a problem, but I’ve taken it as an opportunity rather than a drawback, and thrown myself into archaeological research. Long distance, of course, but with even with the obsolete holographic technology they have at Stormcage (so archaic it almost counts as an archaeological project in its own right) it’s honestly almost like being on site watching the work being done. ❞ ( PROSE: River of Time )

While Mels Zucker had had a deep appreciation for History ( though not for her history teacher ) it wasn´t until her third regeneration into River Song that she considered a career in Archaeology. It appealed to her for many reasons, she had a natural instinct to investigate, but in a more symbolic way she also felt that in her heart that she was lacking roots, history of her own.

Once she left the sister´s of the infinite schism ( TV: LKH ) River sought out the prestigious Luna University and despite not meeting the entry requirements she managed to impress the head of the Classics & Antiquities Department into allowing her to study. Though initially very fond of her, Professor Artrem Candy would soon come to regret taking her under his wing. Candy, who had previously worked alongside Professor Bernice Summerfield, harboured a very negative attitude towards the Doctor, something that came up frequently in his lectures. As a result he & River frequently clashed over this. She also had a very well balanced social and academic life at Luna, something that irked her fellow student Jemima Still. ( AUDIO: Time in a Bottle ) Jemima was incredibly jealous of River´s popularity amongst peers and lecturers alike and often quarrelled with her. Despite these obstacles, River excelled at her studies in all other aspects.

By the time she had completed her undergraduate she had developed an interest in a relatively new branch of study, Primordial Archaeology, the study of societies that began before time, or just after the big bang. To her annoyance, her rival, Jemima Still also chose to pursue higher studies in the same subject. Both River and Jemima got along fairly well with their Professor Kuyili Acharya, who would pass away while on an expedition approximately 8 years after they both graduated.

During this time, River had been kidnapped once more by the silence, ´murdered´ the Doctor and been incarcerated in the StormCage Containment Facility after a very quick, very private trial. She published several hundred papers during this time and a handful of books, and though Storm Cage would later deny it, attended several digs and headed expeditions during this time. In a career where some took their entire life to accomplish what she had, River was the natural choice to succeed her old Professor and had in fact given several guest lectures at Luna through the years. But Artrem Candy remained the head of the department, and his opinions of her had not swayed over. To River´s utter disappointment, her old rival Jemima Still was offered the position instead, though upon meeting up with Jemima again later, she would feign indifference to the appointment.

All was not lost, she would soon have tenure at the Sorbonne in the 31st Century instead, where she stayed for many years in many different timelines. ( AUDIO: The Sonomancer. ) Her tenure here is one marked with controversy, while her work on the ruins of Razbahan ( TV: TOA ) was largely applauded, citing the rapid expansion of Razbahan from several small chieftains to a vast city state in under 20 years and it´s subsequent brutal fall, as the work of the weeping Angels, her theories on the Liperian system and the involvement of the Discordia ( AUDIO: TDORS VOL 4 ) was met with immense scrutiny. Particularly so because both her old rival Jemima and Jemima´s husband Melak mysteriously vanished during an expedition that she was known to be part of. Whispers followed her, questioning her mysterious murder trial. Some were convinced she´d murdered the Stills as well. Despite this, she was finally offered Jemima´s old position at Luna, though she would later find out the appointment had been ´gently suggested´ by the college board as her presence generated unusually high interest for the department. Unbeknown to many, the adventure with the Discordia had left her deeply scarred, she refused to take on research assistants that weren´t robots for a very long time afterwards.

The faculty on the other hand, she took less than no time to befriend and work closely alongside. she was particularly fond of Maritime Archaeology expert Dr Michael Themba and Paleoethnobotanist Annie-Lee Belrose with whom she worked closely with on a shared expedition into the sunken remains of a primordial alien spacecraft that had crashed in Kilwa, Earth in the 9th Century.

Occasionally she was known to branch out of her own discipline, if the circumstances called for it ( the Ruby´s Curse, Anteria XVI Cordobane, ect )

After a time the rumours that had plagued her before died down. When Artrem Candy ( or his clone? there were rumours ) passed away, she was thoroughly surprised to find that she had been his choice to succeed him as the head of the department.

Under her direction the Department of Classics & Antiquities flourished, at least up until Manhattan happened. The loss of her parents took more or a toll on her than she let and her grief began to effect her work, she became increasingly erratic, frequently didn´t turn up to her own lectures, clashed with the board and other lecturers on campus. Eventually, she realised she needed time away and left on sabbatical, roaming the universe for a time aimlessly before settling in early 20th Century Earth to write.

Unfortunately, she ended up entangled with the self proclaimed rulers of the universe ( AUDIO: TDORS VOL 1. ) She emerged, shaken further by the events of that adventure, but her published work on the Sporeships would be all anyone could talk about. Always one to bounce back from an ordeal, River quickly took advantage of her fame, she would head a large number of expeditions in the following years. Unfortunately, the last one to the Library would cost her her life.

But not everything ends. Not always.As River Allegro, she only further cemented her place as one of the greatest Archaeological minds the universe had seen, her reign as the Head of department saw the development of new surveying and dig technology using nanobots, which she introduced into the early 25th century. Her book on the interconnections between Primordial Civilisations also proved to be a hit, though controversial amongst some of older colleagues who were loathe to such a fresh take. She stayed at Luna for some time, but sadly that too started to take it´s toll, her colleagues did not have the same augmented lifespan as she and one by one they passed away around her. She would eventually give up her place and leave Luna, working as a guest lecturer in between digs instead.

#out of character.#i made a garland for her head. and bracelets too. and fragrant zone; ... headcanons #there it is. if you finish it then ilu forever #<3

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eiyanii · 1 year

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i’ve watched the maniac MV approximately 20 times! it’s debilitating! here’s an i.n ❤️ MAKNAE 🔛🔝

i actually hated this drawing til my friend hyped me up like crazy and now i am blinded by adoration for my friends shout out to her

#jeongin #i.n #eiyani art #stray kids #skz #maknae on top #maniac #oddinary

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xtruss · 5 months

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Statue of Liberty Shut Down by Protesters Calling for Gaza Cease-fire

— By Noah Hurowitz | New York Magazine | November 6, 2023

Jewish Voice for Peace protesters gather at the Statue of Liberty on Monday, November 6. Photo: Stephanie Keith

Hundreds of activists staged a sit-in at the Statue of Liberty on Monday afternoon, demanding an immediate end to the Israel-Hamas war.

Dressed uniformly in black, the protesters with Jewish Voice for Peace gathered on the pedestal shortly before 1 p.m. when they dropped massive banners with calls for a cease-fire and other slogans, such as “The Whole World Is Watching” and “Never Again for Anyone.” The group sang “Cease-fire now” and occupied the national monument for about 20 minutes before dispersing. The protest, which the group said included more than 500 people, continued on a ferry headed back to Manhattan.

“We came to the Statue of Liberty today because we are inspired by the words of our Jewish ancestor, Emma Lazarus, that are etched into the monument,” said Jay Saper, an JVP organizer. “Those words compel us to take action to support the Palestinians of Gaza yearning to be free. And we will continue to take action until we bring about a cease-fire and until Palestinians are free.”

U.S. Park Police officers speak to a Jewish Voice for Peace organizer. Photo: Noah Hurowitz

Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani said he joined the protest as a “New Yorker of conscious.”

“This is one of the greatest symbols of New York City and our supposed commitments to universal values of liberty and freedom and respite,” he said. “And yet what we’ve seen is our country allowing for a genocide to take place.”

Mamdani, a socialist representing Queens, has protested across the city over the past month and was arrested alongside a colleague during a similar demonstration outside the Brooklyn home of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

“How many children have to be killed until we can finally see a position of cease-fire from our White House and federally elected officials?”

Activists with Jewish Voice for Peace rallied in front of the Statue of Liberty on Monday to call for a cease-fire in Gaza. Credit: Dave Sanders for The New York Times

The Statue of Liberty protest is the latest high-profile action by the Jewish-led group that has long organized against Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. On October 27, they led thousands to occupy Grand Central Terminal during the Friday rush hour, bringing the transit hub to a standstill.

Monday’s action was planned in secret with the mostly young activists blending in with sightseers as they made their way patiently through security in time to board the 11 a.m. ferry from lower Manhattan to Liberty Island. They quickly scarfed down breakfast sandwiches and chatted among themselves with a happy, nervous excitement. “This is the most touristy thing I’ve ever done,” one young man said to a friend as he disembarked, clutching a green foam Lady Liberty crown in his hands. On the island, more small groups convened, taking last-minute trips to the bathroom and taking headcount.

Activists from Jewish Voice for Peace return to the ferry after occupying the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Photograph: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

With attention-grabbing acts of civil disobedience, Jewish Voice for Peace has taken center stage in protest efforts to pressure the U.S. to stop Israel’s military campaign against Hamas since the militant group massacred more than 1,400 people in Israel on October 7. Since then, more than 10,000 people have been killed in Gaza, a majority of them women and children, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry. Israel’s self-described siege of the enclave has cut off approximately 2.3 million Palestinians from supplies of water, fuel, and food. Jewish Voice for Peace describes the ongoing campaign as “unfolding genocide.”

The group said it is trying to intensify pressure on the Biden administration to curb Israel’s war. “We are outraged that over 10,000 Palestinians to date have been killed, over 4,000 children, with U.S. funding, with U.S. bombs, and with U.S. protection from international accountability,” said Elena Stein, the director of organizing strategy.

So far, the Biden administration has pressed Israel for a “pause” to allow greater humanitarian relief to enter Gaza and to buy more time for negotiations to secure the release of 240 hostages held by Hamas. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebuffed the request over the weekend as ground troops pressed deeper into Gaza.

As the death toll in Gaza has skyrocketed, New York City in particular has become a crucible for both sides of the fight with numerous protests across the five boroughs by pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli activists, as well as bitter exchanges on college campuses and in Times Square.

Protests at the Statue of Liberty are relatively rare given the high security at the site, but the monument has drawn dissenters since its unveiling in 1886, beginning with women’s suffragists. The statue continued to draw small groups of protesters, including a three-day occupation by antiwar Vietnam vets in 1971 and a sit-in at the statue’s crown in 1979 by 40 Muslim students against the shah of Iran. (A year later, Croatian nationalists set off a bomb after hours in a museum.) The most recent protest until now was on July 4, 2018, when an activist scaled the base of the monument to protest the Trump administration’s family-separation policies at the border. Eight people were arrested after a four-hour standoff and the evacuation of thousands of tourists.

When asked if the protest took them by surprise, one U.S. Park Police officer said with a chuckle, “To put it mildly, yes.”

#New York | USA 🇺🇸#Real Jews Against Zionist Cunts #Freedom Fighters Hamas | Forever Palestine 🇵🇸#Noah Hurowitz | New York Magazine

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sleepymarmot · 4 months

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Rope (1948)

[Watched on October 29th]

As with my previous Hitchcock – first, the liveblog.

Yes, yes, I’ve been watching the shortest films in my watchlist recently. Still, when I saw 1:20 in my video player, I had to pause and google for confirmation.

Oh look, James Stewart again!

I love it when a film is just a stage play on screen. They’ve got such a distinctive style of writing and delivery!

Added ten seconds later: fucking incredible amounts of “as you know” exposition in this dialogue lmfao

Me knowingly watching a gay subtext classic: I know it’s from the 40s but it really feels like they’re about to kiss

Phillip looks like a destiel lovechild btw

Approximately 1/4 of dialogue at the party so far is murder innuendos

Love the women’s chat about hot actors… some things never change

This old guy has an Ivan Karamazov vibe. I bet within the hour he’s going to regret his rhetoric!

Why is Brandon straight up confessing…

The most obvious murderers since Raskolnikov I swear to god

They’re yelling so loudly that Rupert would hear them over the phone in the next room

In the last 10-15 minutes I seriously considered that Rupert would side with them after all. I genuinely had no idea whether the movie would take the natural route (it did) or have a big plot twist. [Film name redacted for spoilers] did manage to ruin itself at the very last minute, after all!

---

Rope has been on my watchlist forever, but the other day I looked up Leopold and Loeb on Wikipedia, and the mention of the film at the end of the article finally inspired me to watch it.

Once again, I don’t really have anything special to say about a Hitchcock film. This one didn’t shoot itself in the foot, thankfully! It was pretty much what I expected.

Surprise: a Hitchcock film is suspenseful! I was genuinely nervous despite not sympathizing with the murderers. Especially during that shot of the food being cleared off of the chest…

It took me some time to catch on that the weird blackouts on characters’ backs were the means to disguise the cuts, and the takes were extremely long. Really enhances the theatrical feel! Nice darkening evening sky effect in the background, too, though the clouds looked distractingly fake. The lack of cuts and the visibly fading daylight were quite successful at creating the feeling that we’re watching the events in real time.

I like how much of the dialogue references the murder, and only half of the participants understand it. “These hands will bring you great fame”!

What I didn’t expect was the Dostoyevsky of it all. Inappropriate rants in a crowd of colorful individuals? Discussions of the right to kill and to dismiss the ethical norms? A guy on the verge of a nervous breakdown, screaming crying throwing up throughout the whole thing? Sexual transgression that the characters try not to talk about directly? I’ve seen this somewhere before!

Obligatory review section: “accidental marathon, i.e. similarities with the last movie I watched before this one” (or, in this case, the last one I watched and liked). This time it’s unconventional toxic couple having arguments in a room for an hour and a half. Oh wait a second, I didn’t even realize! The actual last movie I watched starred Cary Grant, who was mentioned in this one and was, according to the internet, offered the role of Rupert.

Rating: something between 9 and 10 out of 10.

#rope 1948 #liveblogs and reviews #blah blah blah

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olderthannetfic · 1 year

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À propos OCs: Do you or your other followers have original characters that exist outside of the context of a specific story you are working on? And if so, do you talk to other people about these characters often or at all?

I have approximately 100 OCs that exist within different universes (2 to 20 characters per universe). I occasionally doodle some if them and rarely ever write anything about them down, but I spend a lot of time watching them act out their lives and/or major plot points in my head. When I was younger I did original RPs, wrote a webcomic and some web serials, and would talk to my readers or other authors/artists/RP partners about the characters and their stories, but nowadays I pretty much never mention them. I might post art of them and caption it with “drawing [name] for once lol” and I’ve recently started tagging posts with my OCs names or their canons, but that’s it.

One time, a very nice person on here found one of those tagged posts and asked me about the OC and I was seriously stumped because I didn’t really know what to say.

I guess that’s another question: If you ever ask people about their original characters, what kind of responses are you looking for?

I eventually gave a quick rundown of his background and life and how it related to the post, but despite being asked for this information, and then some, I still felt like I was being annoying and embarrassing myself. I’m not used to people caring about my characters outside of a specific story they are reading (and I’m admittedly a lot more insecure about my creative work now than when I was a kid/teenager).

I say all this as someone who loves seeing other people’s original work and standalone OCs, so I understand that the interest can absolutely be genuine. Personally, I prefer reading public posts and meme fills, looking at OC-centric meme/aesthetic collections, and buying OC “merch” and art books to private conversations about them, so I don’t have much experience in the latter.

In a recent ask, an anon mentioned buying fanart; do you guys buy more fan art (if any) or art of original characters (if any)? If you buy OC art, is it usually just for aesthetics or are you interested in the characters themselves, even if they aren’t part of a story you are a fan of?

While writing this ask, I was mainly thinking about OCs in original works or RPGs, but my questions apply to fan characters too. …Wait, do people still differentiate between OCs and FCs? Or was that never even a common practice in the first place?

Lots of questions from me today, lol.

I tend to make characters in the context of a particular story, though if I like them, sure, I might rework them for other things. RP isn't really my thing. I do daydream, but that tends to be either very private and raw or the step before writing a story or making a specific concrete artwork with those OCs.

OC vs. FC was only in certain parts of fandom. I'm vaguely familiar with it existing, but it isn't something I've usually encountered.

For me, an interest in OCs is exactly equivalent to an interest in asking some published author about a character in their work. If someone's good enough, I may even like their OC better than the canon characters and go seek out fic in other fandoms where they used that OC. Any artwork is a chance to fall in love with new characters... But for me, yeah, it's very much about that work.

I don't find character creation sheets interesting or useful, including when I develop characters for something I'm writing. Even if one isn't literally using one of those sheets, you know what I mean: some people develop characters a lot and see where the characters take them. I see a plot I want and make characters who would naturally fit in it. I create only the level of backstory I need for that work. Maybe one or two stray details don't make it in, but I don't know what my characters eat unless it's relevant. I don't know what their first pet was called. Yadda yadda. I find that knowing all that makes the characters feel flatter in the final work than if I knew only "The one in blue who likes martinis" or some other couple of characteristics they need to stick in the mind in the scene where they appear.

I don't think in that RP way where the character is a separate entity from the artwork containing them.

I buy art that I find pretty and want on my wall. Now and then, it's from something specific and I do like showing off that I'm into that thing. The aesthetic might imply things about my tastes or values. It might be more than just "this object is abstractly nice looking in a way with no cultural connotations". But art is definitely for decoration for me. If I don't have wall space or it doesn't go with my decor, I don't get it.

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primewritessmut · 6 months

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20 - FREEZE

My psychiatrist collects Precious Moments figurines.

I never would have pegged him for it. He’s short and stocky with a shiny bald scalp, and he dresses in short-sleeved white button-ups paired with drab polyester ties.

A little boy balancing on the back of another boy like a cowboy on a horse. A little girl wearing yellow polka dot rain boots, splashing in a glazed porcelain puddle with a frog at her feet. An entire shelf of soppy, big-eyed children with their palms pressed together over their hearts, standing, kneeling, praying. Watching.

An entire schoolyard worth of kids stuck forever in twee poses.

There’s a hanging wall calendar from the NRA pinned behind his desk with a black thumbtack that looks like a key ripped from a typewriter. The ampersand. The calendar is open to a photo of four artfully arranged hand guns, the barrels all pointing at each other across the circle they make like that Spider-Man meme.

It’s terribly lit and the month written underneath the picture reads September.

“Your outreach coordinator called me,” he says gruffly, leaning back in his chair in a way that never fails to make me think that the entire thing is going to flip over backward. “She’s worried that you haven’t checked in.” There’s a pause long enough to choke on. “Why haven’t you checked in?”

I stare at the hand guns and try to identify what they are.

A Luger P-08 that looks like it was made for World War II.

A Smith & Wesson Model 1 that’s a clear recreation.

A Walth—

“You know,” he sighs gently, “this works a whole lot better if you talk to me.”

I freeze in my chair like prey being hunted. Or maybe like a small porcelain child entreating a god that doesn’t exist.

“Your boss said your work is exemplary. Your landlord reports that you’ve paid your rent on time every month since the eviction notice. These are the kinds of wins you should be sharing.”

I can feel his eyes boring into me. His eyes, and hundreds of little porcelain eyes, and the black holes of the gun barrels all watching. Eyes upon eyes upon eyes. Probably even some I can't see. Don't want to see.

“Is there something else going on?”

I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood but it doesn’t keep my eyes from dropping to the source of the problem. It’s such a human fucking reaction and it makes me feel human for just a second until I actually see what I’ve looked at.

If you asked me, I’d tell you that it happened yesterday.

But my arm tells a different story.

My left hand is black from the tips of my fingers to midway down my palm and, when I flip it over, I can see wisps of shadow snaking through my veins. Thicker toward my fingers and fading as it travels up my forearm. There’s darkness swimming in my veins all the way up to my elbow.

An inch below my wrist, someone drew a line in Sharpie and wrote 4 weeks. The writing looks like it’s been gone over more than once to keep it from disappearing. It might be my handwriting but I don’t remember writing it a first time let alone several times.

I curl my fingertips toward the palm of my hand and—

“I’m here to help you.”

My psychiatrist leans forward over his desk, pressing his forearms into it and giving me an approximation of concerned empathy. His desk isn’t glass but the top is lacquered and I can see fingerprints smeared across the top. I don’t know why I think about that.

“I think you should tell me what else is going on.”

I lift my eyes to his as I shove my hand into the pocket of my hoodie.

“My hand is cold,” I manage.

And I think it's the first time I've ever talked to him.

19 - SCANDAL || 21 - FRAGMENT

#spooktober 2023 #31doh2023 #day 20 #original story #the monster under the bed #the nra wall calendar makes its first and possibly only appearance

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mariacallous · 9 months

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Miracles were in short supply in Ukraine last spring. But on the Tarutino Steppe in the country’s far southwest, two rangers witnessed something remarkable. It was early May and the pair had been tasked with monitoring a herd of kulans that had recently been reintroduced to the Tarutino Steppe. This wild Asiatic relative of the domesticated donkey, with its dusty blonde coat and a dark brown stripe tracing its spine, had disappeared from the region in the 19th century.

The rangers had just begun their count for the day, and as they peered through their binoculars they discovered that the group, which was supposed to be 20-strong, had grown by one. Stumbling out from beneath its mother’s shadow was a shaky-legged baby kulan, marking the first time the wild donkey had been born on the grassy plains for over a century.

“It was the coolest thing I’ve ever experienced,” said Sergei Muntianu, 53, one of the two responsible for keeping watch over the animals.

Although Ukraine occupies less than 6 percent of Europe’s land mass, it’s home to 35 percent of the continent’s biodiversity, according to the Convention on Biological Diversity. But decades of political and industrial upheaval, intensive farming, and unregulated hunting have led to the destruction of ecosystems and the extinction of species, including the kulan. Rewilding projects, like this one, started on the steppe four years ago by Rewilding Ukraine—an offshoot from the pan-European organization, Rewilding Europe—are an attempt to reverse decades of damage and return ecosystems to their natural states. Some of those projects have continued to thrive despite Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and their backers say they could provide a blueprint for the country’s postwar recovery.

Rewilding—a practice based on reintroducing species to a landscape in the hope of encouraging a broader rehabilitation of its ecosystem—is a relatively new phenomenon in Ukraine. Rewilding Ukraine started up in 2017, founded by a small group of veteran conservationists. Within a few years, a handful of cornerstone species, including marmots, red and fallow deer, wild hamsters, and koniks—ponies thought to be distant descendants of the now extinct European wild horse—were once again roaming the countryside. Water buffalo, once believed to be permanently wiped out across eastern Europe, were reintroduced on the Danube Delta in 2021.

Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 threatened to reverse that progress. Ukrainian environmental minister Ruslan Strilets estimated in March that about a third of the country’s forest—3 million hectares—has been damaged since February 2022, and more than 1,000 species of fauna and flora are at risk of destruction.

Satellite imagery of the Kamianska Sich National Park outside of Kherson shows that 635 hectares of the protected land—home to rare plant species such as hairy feather grass and Ukrainian feather grass—was burned by fires caused by the retreating army. Along the shores of the Black Sea, 700 dolphins have washed ashore, their deaths believed to be linked to acoustic trauma from Russian submarines and burns from firefights. Approximately 200,000 hectares of arable land in the combat zone has been contaminated with mines and unexploded ordnance, and large areas of the country’s farmland has suffered perhaps irreparable soil degradation from the heavy metals that spill out from the burning of large machines and military equipment.

The war, unsurprisingly, has made conservation a lot harder. Oleg Dyakov, a rewilding officer from Rewilding Ukraine’s head office in Odesa and one of the organization’s cofounders, recounts the hazards his teams have faced with a casual frustration. Marine mines drifting in from the Black Sea stalled the release of fallow deer, and monitoring activities of Dalmatian Pelicans were limited to binoculars and telescopes because parts of the Delta were restricted by the Ukrainian government. (In peacetime, they’d have been able to carry out more accurate counts through the assistance of drones.)

The Askania Nova reserve—Ukraine’s oldest and largest biosphere, located on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River—has been under Russian occupation since last spring. Employees at the park kept up their conservation work for almost a year. “The people doing their work there, they are heroes,” Dyakov says. “There is no doubt about this.” But in March 2023, a final message on the reserve’s website said that a new Russian directorate had been installed.

The nature reserve is home to a wide collection of rewilded and domestic breeds of ungulates, including kulans. Before the war, Rewilding Ukraine relied on the nature reserve for supplying herds to the Tarutino Steppe; two successful iterations of readapted donkeys originally came from Askania Nova.

“Now there is only one chance, to bring animals from Western Europe,” explains Dyakov. But this, he notes, is both very expensive and bureaucratically cumbersome—“especially in war conditions.” The birth of the rewilded kulans on the Tarutino Steppe, Dyakov says, is now important not only because it shows the success of their project, but also because it might be the only way the herds can grow.

Money to keep the projects going has at times dried up, and rangers have had to dip into their own pockets to keep the operations going. “We couldn’t wait. The animals can't wait,” Muntianu says.

In a war for Ukraine’s survival and identity, conservation has inevitably taken on a patriotic dimension, Dyakov says. The Russian invasion has torn apart millions of hectares of land that he and so many others have spent decades protecting. Some in the rewilding and broader conservation movements have tried to make the case that recovering the landscape can be seen as an element of its defense.

“A tank cannot go through the wetlands,” says Bohdan Prots, an ecologist and CEO of the Danube-Carpathian Programme, an NGO based in Lviv that carries out conservation activities and lobbies to support stronger environmental legislation. On Ukraine’s northwest border, waterlogged fields and swamps have kept Russian troops from launching attacks via Belarus, Prots says. “Rewilding,” he believes, “is an instrument to defend the country.”

Ukraine’s land and ecosystems have been used as weapons during the conflict. In February 2022, Ukrainian forces reflooded the Kyiv-Irpin wetlands by breaching a Soviet-era dam, making it harder for Russian troops to maneuver—a move that is at least partially credited with repelling the invading troops and saving the capital from capture. In June, the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine was destroyed—most likely by Russia—causing devastation over a wide area, and leading to calls to add environmental war crimes to an already growing list of offenses by the Kremlin.

Recovering the land will be a massive part of Ukraine’s reconstruction. There are precedents to show how possible this is. Decades before the Tarutino Steppe was a protected site, it was used as a military training ground for the Soviet army. Unexploded (but inert) weapons can still be found buried beneath the rolling plains. Now, the steppe has transformed from being a space where tanks roamed to one where near-extinct species—like the kulan—can now be seen galloping across the grasses.

And, as both Dyakov and Prots point out, there is one very visible example of how rewilding can undo truly apocalyptic levels of environmental degradation: Chernobyl.

In the nearly three decades since a reactor at the power plant caught fire and triggered the worst nuclear accident in history, the presence of people has been significantly limited. This kicked off what conservationists classified as an “accidental” rewilding project. These days, the 2,800-square-kilometer Chornobyl Exclusion Zone (“the lifesaver ring,” as Prots calls it, of forests that surround the plant) is now recognized as the third-largest nature reserve in mainland Europe. Populations of boar, elk, lynx, and wolves have become so plentiful in recent years that they’ve become a nuisance to farmers, while researchers have recorded more than 60 rare species of plants and animals in the zone.

“It’s an example of how ecosystems can not only recover but excel when you let nature lead,” Dyakov says.

Instead of focusing money and resources on demining every last corner of arable land, he thinks that Ukraine would be “wise” to follow the example of the CEZ. Limit human populations on the land, and let ecosystems do the heavy lifting of returning degraded landscapes to their natural state.

Remarkably, last May’s miracle wasn’t the last to occur on the Tarutino Steppe. The week before I visited the remote reserve, nearly a year to the day from that first birth, another kulan foal was born.

Though it had only been seven days since Muntianu witnessed the foal’s birth inside one of the rewilding enclosures, the ranger already found himself—like he did with the first foal—immediately familiar with its rhythms. It had finally managed to get its “sea legs,” he whispered, as we watched the herd safely trail behind the newborn as he galloped alongside his mother. The foal’s father watched us keenly where we stood, more than 100 meters away. This nervousness, Muntianu says, is a good sign. The animals being fearful of humans means they’re not adapting to us. They’re remaining wild.

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