#transcript of episode one coming soon!
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THIS SEASON SHOULD PROVE INTERESTING WITH NEW TWISTS AND CHALLENGES.
We bring you an interesting selection of candidates:
Follow them as they venture through this death game and watch as one claims to be the winner!!!
However, as some of you may be familiar with, our broadcast capability to transmit this show across the galaxy means we can only provide transcripts and images.
The End realms have a habit of digesting data.
DON'T worry, we'll tell what's going on like a story, to assure your entertainment!
First episode is coming soon! Keep an eye out!
#stareater au#trafficblr#mcyt#this is a fan series about based off life seires btw#YIIIPPPEEEE#grian#gtwscar#jimmy solidarity#tangotek#zombiecleo#scott smajor#joel smallishbeans#etho
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Start reading Episode 1
Dialogue transcripts:
Panel 1
Godfrey: And do not tell Irene, but I am certainly going to commission you for a portrait of her.
Basil: I’d be glad to! As soon as I have completed Sir Murgatroyd’s, I am at your service.
Panel 2
Godfrey: Please, take your time. No matter when, it is a thrill to show your gift to the one you love!
Basil: Indeed, it is…
Panel 3
Irene: …Well, Mr. Gray, we shall keep that in mind. We do owe Mr. Hallward, as well as yourself, credit for giving us the first clue. Above all, we trust Lord Godalming having referred you.
Panel 4
Dorian: Ah, indeed, good old Basil…Anyway. I am glad Lord Godalming has put my little joke behind him. He’s a bit of a humorless sort, sometimes.
Panel 5
Mina: Oh, rest assured, Arthur is quite mirthful.
Panel 6
Mina: He does, however, have his limits when it comes to love.
Mina (white text): We, however, shall suffer no mockery of Love.
Panel 7
Background text (left side): “How long will you like me? Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose.” “I love her, and I must make her love me.” “I have had the arms of Rosalind around me, and kissed Juliet on the mouth.”
Background text (right side): “I would give my soul for that!” “To-night she is Imogen, and to-morrow night she will be Juliet.” “When is she Sibyl Vane?” “Never.” “You have spoiled the romance of my life. How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art! Without your art, you are nothing.”
Background text (white): Mockery of Love (x3)
Panel 8
Mina: …Is everything quite alright, Mr. Gray?
Panel 9
Dorian: Oh! Yes—I was just saying—We would be delighted to keep in touch with such…ahem…intriguing company. But for now I am afraid we must bid you adieu, erm, if you’ll excuse me…
Panel 10
Basil: Dorian! Are we leaving already?
#lxgf#lxgf interlude 1#story updates#lxgf godfrey norton#lxgf basil hallward#lxgf dorian gray#lxgf irene norton#lxgf mina harker#lxgf gabriel utterson#lxgf phileas fogg#lxgf aouda
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"#love every time we made dave a question and he went all fanficcy #this one and the post-survival one"
hello i have a BURNING need to know..... which post-survival question did he answer?
Hi! Sorry for the month-long delay in answering this! I don’t usually get asks on this account so I kept forgetting and say I’d answer as soon as I got to check Dave’s Q&As again, which I kept not being able to check. Anywho, the question I was referring to here was made by Liv on the Q&A session that took place on the 25th of June. You can find the complete recording and transcripts here (along with other fantastic fan-curated resources if you’re new to the fandom.)
Q: If the expedition had been rescued around, say, episode 8/9, and made it home, how do you think the various relationships that developed on screen would have fared back in ““civilization””? Would the intimacies some of these men formed between them persist? I’m also curious to know if you think any of them would resign from the Navy, be it for whatever reason: ethical, practical, physical, to explore other parts of themselves, etc.
I’m gonna try to be as brief as possible because Dave gave a very long response (find the non-abridged version in the link provided above), but this was the meat of it:
Crozier and Blanky would talk endlessly about quitting the Navy but only Crozier would. This doesn’t mean that Blanky would do this comfortably, as he’d already have survived two naval expeditions that turned out badly, so maybe he’d join a whaling ship, even if that would also have gotten under his skin.
He doesn’t think any of the surviving Lieutenants would have come back anywhere close to the poles, but he does think that most of them would have succumbed to the calling of fame and glory, i.e. wanting to return to the sea now that they had been named Commanders or Captains of their own vessels.
He’s not sure if Fitzjames would have been brave enough to stay aside of the Navy, even if during those three months he learnt a lot more about himself that what keeping the same persona for thirty years had brought him. He thinks Fitzjames would have written a “hell of a memoir” as well as a “hell of a military career, and that he would have stayed friends with Crozier, even if some of the things that happened in the Arctic would never have been mentioned again.
Goodsir would return to visit Silna “as often as possible.” Not for romantic reasons, but because there’d have been “a friendship there”. (also, taking into account he is making up all these scenarios after 8 or 9 the tuunbaq would have lived.)
“I think Bridgens and Peglar [smiles] would have worked like dogs to be able to afford some goddamn privacy where they could be together for the rest of their lives. [laughs]”
Pilkington and Des Voeux would have stayed friends.
“Little and Hodgson would be in one another’s lives.” They’d help each other patch themselves up after what happened because they’d both be in denial about everything that went down, helping create “a more palatable story about themselves”.
Sophia would feel like she’d have to choose between Lady Jane and Crozier and would chose the former, especially after the loss of her uncle.
Jopson would have stayed close to Crozier, they’d stay best friends for the rest of their lives.
Golding would commit suicide at some point, he was not equipped to deal with everything that happened and much less to go on living carrying it with him.
David Young’s ring would have been delivered to his sister. (with one of the crystal diamonds having fallen off during the journey.)
Mr Diggle would have been fine and stayed friend with some of the AB’s and midshipmen, but not with anyone else further up the hierarchy.
Collins would have lived a very quiet life, as most of what troubled him was PTSD.
Hartnell would have had a family and lived a quiet life. He’d have stayed close to Manson and from time to time he might have met with Crozier.
Hickey would have ended up in prison if he managed not to ger executed. If Tozer and him had ended up in the same prison they would have avoided each other for years, until they realized they were the one’s more suited for each other’s rest and protection. It’s tricky for Dave to say if they’d have become lovers because he is unsure about Tozer, but it’s prison so HE’LL LET US DECIDE. [ten seconds later he changed his mind] Tozer would have turned to Hickey for that kind of comfort and ended up murdering him, while Hickey convinced himself that he was the one letting himself be murdered. (This is already a very long ask, if you want more details on Hickey’s Vermont sex-cult, ping me and I’ll expand on it, because it was an answer from a different day and I don’t currently have it at hand.)
Gibson wouldn’t have wanted nothing to do with anyone. He might have found some new expedition or a house where he could work in as a domestic servant, but he wouldn’t have told anyone.
Hope this helped!
#midrants#anon#the terror#francis crozier#james fitzjames#fitzier#thomas blanky#george hodgson#edward little#HodgeLittle#Henry Peglar#John Bridgens#Bridglar#Charles Des Voeux#william pilkington#cornelius hickey#solomon tozer#hickeytozer#billy gibson#henry collins#harry goodsir#silna#Thomas Hartnell#Magnus Manson#Thomas Jopson#if I'm missing anyone I'M SORRY this was already long enough to write and format
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The Pillars: The Return of OffGun and TayNew
And we're back!
NiNi and Ben bring Shan back to the recording booth to discuss how BL is not just a young man's game. We break down why we enjoyed Cooking Crush and Cherry Magic Thailand so much, and what makes OffGun and TayNew so special.
Come and join us for a healthy mixture of simping, genre appreciation, examinations of conflict writing, and love for queerness in BL.
Timestamps
The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.
00:00:00 - Welcome
00:01:15 - Intro
00:03:58 - Cooking Crush: A Surprisingly-Good Romcom
00:08:02 - CC: Comedy Ain't Easy
00:16:59 - CC: Dynamite’s Queer Writing and Ten as a Rare Romantic Lead
00:32:08 - CC: Final Comments and Ratings
00:41:14 - Cherry Magic: Beating Expectations and Simping for Tay Tawan
00:54:13 - CM: Relationship Development and the Powers
01:02:15 - CM: Other Characters
01:13:51 - CM: Ratings
01:19:34 - The Pillars: Overall Thoughts
The Conversation Transcripts!
Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.
We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.
Please send our volunteers your thanks!
00:00:00 - Welcome
NiNi
Welcome to The Conversation About BL, aka The Brown Liquor Podcast.
Ben
And there it is. I’m Ben.
NiNi
I’m NiNi.
Ben
And we’re you’re drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie here sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs.
NiNi
Four times a year we pop in to talk about what’s going on in the BL world.
Ben
We shoot the shit about stories and all the drama going into them. I review from a queer media lens.
NiNi
And I review from a romance and drama lens.
Ben
So if you like cracked-out takes and really intense emotional analysis…
NiNi
If you like talking about artistry, industry, and the discourse…
Ben
And if you generally just love simping…
NiNi
There is a lot of simping on this podcast…
Ben
We are the show for you!
00:01:15 - Intro
Ben
And we're back. Welcome to the second spring outing with The Conversation. Shan is here with us today. Say hi, Shan.
Shan
Hiii.
Ben
And we're going to review the GMMTV pillars.
NiNi
So, Ben, what are the pillars? Let's do a little GMMTV history.
Ben
So when we refer to the pillars, we're talking about the original BL ships at GMMTV. The two we're going to talk about today are Off Jumpol and Gun Atthaphan, and we're gonna be talking about Tay Tawan and New Thitipoom, who've been together four times now — soon to be five.
Shan
I think what's important in the BL context about these two pairs, OffGun and TayNew, is that they have been at this for years at this point, like nine years, I think this year?
Ben
Nine years? Yep.
Shan
They have been at GMMTV, leading BLs, for almost a decade. And they have aged with the genre. They are now in their 30s. It's great, in my opinion, to see them continue to make shows and come back.
There was this idea that Thai BL was only for very young actors, that actors, once they exited their 20s, would also exit the genre, to move on to, quote-unquote, “mainstream” work that was heterosexual. And I think that these pairs sticking around and coming back to make new shows in their 30s is really important because it just shuts that whole line of thinking down: that BL is only about and for young people, that it is a phase of a career that actors need to quote, “move on from.” And also it gives us the opportunity to actually see adult stories in GMMTV BL, which is not something that we've gotten much of yet. To see stories about adult characters actually played by adults who are the right age for those characters is really refreshing.
So it's been really interesting to see these pairs come back into the public consciousness and to see that the fans are actually happy for them to stick around. I think that's been pretty cool.
Ben
I think what I enjoy the most about these two pairs coming back together is, both of the shows they're attempting have a more grown-up feel than their previous work. And in both cases, I think the fact that these actors are experienced and know each other really well genuinely benefits the work that they're doing.
00:03:58 - Cooking Crush: A Surprisingly-Good Romcom
NiNi
So let's dive into the first of the pillars. We're going to talk OffGun, and we're going to talk Cooking Crush. So, Ben, what is Cooking Crush about?
Ben
Cooking Crush is about how the most effective way to introduce a new actor at GMMTV is to slide them in around a bunch of other veterans.
Shan
[laughs] That's what it's about for you, for sure.
[all laugh]
Ben
Cooking Crush is a college-set BL about a team of culinary students who are trying to win a cooking competition, and the complications in their romantic lives around them. This show is actually really simple. Like, our protagonist, played by Gun, is named Prem. He lives with his grandmother and his sister. His grandmother runs a formerly very popular restaurant, and he has a goal of helping his grandmother's restaurant become more successful, and he wants to open a chef's table type of restaurant in the future.
He and his two friends, Samsee and Dynamite, are kind of the oddballs in their culinary school? They're considered the lowest ranked students. They get kind of picked on a bit. Prem is considered kind of clumsy; Dynamite is just really young, because he's kind of a prodigy; and Samsee is just picked on because he's old, because he's pursued three different degrees without completing them.
They're having some difficulties with school and Prem ends up having an interaction with Ten, played by Off, who is a med student who was a little bit overworked at the time and has accidentally starved himself to be pissy with his dad. The two of them have a very cute moment and a little relationship starts to build between them, originally off of Ten wanting Prem to teach him how to cook more, and Prem basically scamming that man because his little sister lost her tuition money.
NiNi
I think that's a good explanation of this setup. Shan, I want to come to you first. What's your headline on Cooking Crush?
Shan
Ohh, Cooking Crush is a warm hug of a show. And I love it. And it's not perfect. But it left me with such a good feeling and I intend to rewatch it, many times.
NiNi
OK. Well, Ben, I think we got your headline: Cooking Crush is about Aungpao.
Ben
That's about him.
[all laugh]
NiNi
Cooking Crush for me… what is my headline on Cooking Crush? That everybody in this is really good at comedy! Except maybe Gun, who's a little less good than everybody else, but everybody that they put in this is a very funny person, including Gun’s real-life sister, who I laughed my ass off at several times.
Shan
It's surprisingly good comedy. This one has been kind of a weird one in terms of the way it's been received by fandom. It didn't really fit the mood of the moment, I think. I think right now Thai BL fandom is very much paying attention to like, these more high-concept shows that are doing really fancy shit. Crazy visuals, supernatural, and mystical stuff. Cooking Crush is just a sweet romcom that wants to be really good at being a sweet romcom [laughs] and that's kind of it. It has kind of modest goals, but I think that people underestimate how hard it actually is to make a romcom that is actually sweet, and actually funny, and actually makes you want to support the couples in it—and this show succeeds at those things.
00:08:02 - CC: Comedy Ain't Easy
Ben
I think that's probably the biggest thing I would want to highlight about this show. Comedy is not easy. [laughs] At all. Comedy and comedic timing is really difficult to do, and Gun’s admitted that it's not his strongest skill as an actor—that he needs a lot of help from the crew and his cast mates to do comedy well.
Shan
Whereas for Off this is where he thrives, and he hasn't gotten to do it before in a BL.
NiNi
I think that they had the right idea in making Gun’s character Prem sort of the straight man of the ensemble, so to speak.
Ben
A great joke unto itself.
NiNi
[laughs] And surrounding it with a bunch of really good comedic actors who could sort of take up the zip and the zing of it all. Like I think that was the right idea. And I did enjoy, like, all that sort of zany, madcap stuff that was supposed to be happening around him from a writing standpoint, and the shape of what I saw it was supposed to be. I absolutely enjoyed that. My little niggle about it was that the direction doesn't zing enough for me, in terms of how I feel like this was meant to go.
It's really surprising for me because this was directed by Golf Sakon, who did my nemesis Fish Upon The Sky, but [laughs] Fish Upon The Sky, for all that we could say about it—and trust me, I have said plenty—it was visually interesting, it was zippy, it was well directed from that standpoint. And I feel like Golf’s direction in this was a little bit flat. It didn't have the zing. That sort of is my main complaint about the show, but the show itself is really, really good. I just wanted it to zip a little bit more.
Shan
Yeah, I agree with that critique, NiNi. I think the directing and the editing—[laughs] cannot forget the editing—is definitely the biggest ding on this show. There was some weird stuff going on in the production. The most notable of course being right in the middle of the show when we suddenly had an episode that was mostly reshoots, which was extremely obvious because Off got a haircut after they finished wrapping this show, a very obvious haircut, and then they had to come back and do reshoots. There was some really hinky editing throughout the show, like some dropped beats, some confusing scenes, some flashback sequences that didn't make sense as flashbacks… They were trying to do some stuff in the editing booth that I just think didn't work, and sometimes really undermined the good work that the writing and the acting was doing.
In terms of overall production, this show was not quite at the level it should have been. In the end, that didn't get in the way of what was a really strong story and really good performances from the cast, and so it still came together well enough, but it's a definite ding.
Ben
I want to talk about the writing portion. Shan, you're usually really good at detailing conflict writing. How about you go through the various major beats of this show and how this show executed them?
Shan
Obviously, we had the main romance, which was between Ten and Prem, and that was a pretty straightforward, simple romance, that actually worked amazingly, because what this show did extremely consistently was it set up all of these really annoying like classic drama tropes for the romance, and then every single time it just knocked them down by having the characters communicate with each other. An obstacle came up for the couple that would normally cause a one- or two-episode conflict. Instead, Ten would insist on talking to Prem about it, coming to some kind of alignment and understanding each other, and they would sail through it. That was kind of the consistent throughline with their relationship, and it was really strong and really lovely to see.
We also had a side couple romance that was between Fire and Dynamite. That one was a little bit more contentious. It was tied to a couple different things that were going on with Fire, with internalized homophobia, with some struggles that he was having in being his authentic self in his family with his mother. Dynamite was someone who kind of pushed him, and kind of made him aware of the things within himself that he was stifling. And so they had a very adversarial dynamic when the show started: Fire was very committed to kind of trying to be the son that his mom wanted him to be, including dating a woman, and so really fighting against what he was feeling for Dynamite. Dynamite is a great character, who I'm gonna let you talk about more, Ben, but I think their dynamic really pushed both of them along a good character growth arc through their relationship.
Alongside that, we had a couple big threads about the friendship between particularly Prem and Samsee and Dynamite. They were working together on this cooking school dream, they were trying to get through their classes, they entered this cooking competition and there was a lot of story about them as like a group of people who are kind of considered losers within their cohort, trying to get to a place where they were a good and efficient cooking team who could actually play at the level of some of these other folks that they were competing against.
We also had another big thread for Ten’s family situation. His mother had passed away some time ago. He had a lot of anger and resentment with his father about the circumstances around that, and a lot of trauma around his mother's death, and he was kind of working through that as he was falling in love with Prem.
So we had all of these different things flowing into the same story, and one of the things that was so impressive about this show is that they actually did all flow together. The writing was very consistent. The characters were figured out from the beginning of the story. It's one of those things where, once you have all the context of who these people are, you can look back at all their previous behavior and it totally makes sense, and everything tracks. And all of these plot threads came together in the final three episodes through an actually pretty well executed conflict arc, which is something that doesn't happen very often in Thai BL—usually that's where Thai BLs completely fall apart. But here all of the conflicts were well laid throughout the show and built to kind of come to a head at the same point, and then we had them converge in the final arc.
Not everything about the way they played out was extremely perfect or satisfying, but most of it was, and the characterization stayed true the whole way through. So it was some pretty strong writing for a show like this.
NiNi
I have to concur that the writing was really strong on this show. It's logically laid out. It makes sense, the characters behave like recognizable human beings, which I can't always say [laughs] is the reality of a lot of these dramas that we're watching. For example, Dynamite, who is a complicated character—with the mix of the writing and the acting, I could see underneath where his pushing of Fire was coming from, and why it was something that he felt like he needed to do?
We find out through a flashback later, which—was a weird way to get this information—Fire was the one who made Dynamite who he is. He made Dynamite feel like he had to stand up for himself and be out there, and all he's doing is trying to do the same for Fire. It just plays out in this way that I think made some people uncomfortable, but I could see it once the context information was there. This is where [their] editing got hinky, because clearly the character was written this way. The hinky editing needed so that it took almost 2/3 of the show for the motivation to meet up with the character. That's not a writing problem, that's an editing problem.
I found the writing on the show was incredibly strong, everything logically follows on from everything else. There was a lot of surprisingly deep writing around Ten’s whole issue with his dad about his mom, and his feelings about his mom. Around Samsee's feelings of potentially getting left behind because he's older, and they're getting into these relationships and he's starting to feel like, ‘what is there for me? It took me so long to find my people, and I feel like they're leaving me.’ And that was a particularly strong thread that I really enjoyed. I enjoyed Metha, who is Fire and Ten’s friend—hilarious, played by Tum, super good actor. I love him, very, very funny. I really enjoyed the writing on this thing, and I can't always say that for, particularly Thai BL… it was delightful.
00:16:59 - CC: Dynamite’s Queer Writing and Ten as a Rare Romantic Lead
Shan
All the characters in this show are great, but there's a couple that really, really stood out, and I think we should talk about them. And Ben, you should definitely lead us with some Dynamite talk. Tell us why that character matters so much to you.
Ben
Dynamite has the great honor of getting The Conversation’s first blorbo of the season award.
Shan
[laughs] So early in the season, too.
Ben
I know. He is the winter ‘24 blorbo for me! I love this boy. Here's the thing. With Dynamite: he is canonically young, he's like 17-18 in like his third year in school. And his only friends are played by Gun Atthaphan and Dome Jaruwat, who… create this very visibly queer friend group dynamic? This communicates a ton to me almost instantly, very early in the show, particularly with Dynamite living in some sort of like tenement housing, and then having really no one else to rely upon when someone died in the apartment above his, and contaminated the apartment he lived in, so he ends up moving in with Samsee.
It’s a very obvious story to me as a queer person, that he had to finish school early because he could not stay home. And he has no one else to rely upon except his closest friends when he's in trouble. Samsee is communicated as a person who is like ‘I don't want nobody in my house,’ but immediately opened up his house to Dynamite when Dynamite was in trouble, because where else was that kid gonna go?
And so, with Dynamite, we eventually learn that he was kind of getting picked on when he first got into the school with the rest of them, because… obviously he's a kid, and boys suck. And Fire saves him from this bullying instance, which almost read as a bashing? And this clearly rearranged his view about who he is in his life, where he recognized that he was gonna get clocked regardless. And so he was just going to be who he is. Fire gave off this whole fuck-you aura that he was clearly drawn to, and so he didn't go at Fire timid, because that's not what he saw in Fire.
Dynamite spends the early part of the season determinedly pursuing Fire, who feigns annoyance about this, but is eventually revealed to… not want Dynamite to stop pursuing him. When he gets drunk and calls Dynamite out to come hang out with him, he tells him very directly: ‘even if I say no, don't stop.’ Which, very familiar to me dealing with my own closet issues and a bunch of other closeted folks growing up.
Fire and Dynamite work really well for me, because familial acceptance is something that they're both struggling with. When Dynamite reveals his story to Fire, he tells Fire that he's okay with Fire not being ready to come out. Even if it's something he would prefer they do, he has lived through the worst things you can experience when you come out, which is losing your family support network. I really like that Dynamite’s understanding and belief in him is clearly what allows Fire to rebuild his sense of himself when he finally tells his mom that he cannot live up to this ideal that she has of him. That's built out from him recognizing who he is, because Dynamite has helped him figure that out.
Dynamite hits a really specific queer note for me, because they create a character who I think is genuinely funny to watch, but you can feel a lot of his queer angst running underneath him the whole time, and they don't overextend it and make it be [laughs] way too melodramatic. Like his character’s just not gonna behave that way. I really like the way Dynamite has accepted the reality of his world, and has decided to build his own space in it, and it started with his friends.
Most of these shows often get queer characters wrong in that they don't have like a reliable queer support network around them before they go rushing into some fuckin’ romance with some guy that's supposed to be the romance of their lives. Very glad that in this particular case, Dynamite has rock solid besties as he's pursuing Fire.
NiNI
In terms of other characters that I really responded to—and Shan's gonna like pick up the torch and run with it here—I loved Off as Ten.
Shan
Yeah!
NiNI
I am a recent Off convert. I really started getting into Off around Not Me, because the roles that I was seeing him play, from Not Me and continuing, I could see the growth that he's had over the years, and I really liked the energy that he was starting to bring to his roles, the maturity and the gravitas that he was starting to bring, whether it was something serious, like playing Sean in Not Me, or Mote in Midnight Motel, which I really enjoyed—or even, especially actually, playing Ten in a comedy like this. I mean, I just bought it 100%. They put Off on screen in those glasses, and the first thing we saw him do was argue with his dad, and I was like, yes absolutely, I am here, let's do this.
I love the character of Ten. He's such a combination of tightly wound ball of stress and also incredibly fun and relaxed human being. I don't know how those two things work in one character, but they do, and Off plays both sides of him, I think brilliantly. I really enjoy getting into why he wanted to be a doctor, and the little mini arc that we had towards the middle of the series where he gets to recommit to being a doctor because he had sort of slid off course slightly. And he gets to recommit to, ‘no this is really what I want to do, I want to save people.’ Really loved that. The angst that he had around his mom dying, the angst that he had around his dad moving his girlfriend in, apparently it seems not too long after that… there's just a lot happening with Ten, but through it all he's just so delightful as a character. He saw Prem, he decided: ‘Yep, that's the one for me.’ He pursued him openly, he was just very forthright and honest at every step of the way, communicating all the way through… just love it. Love the character, loved Off in the role. I know. Shan's gonna, like, take that and run with it. [laughs]
Shan
I just want y'all to know—
NiNI
Shan is a babii, Shan loves Off.
Shan
I am living. I am getting my whole life right now. I just want you all to know, all of you listeners, that I was pretty much the lone babii around here until very recently. [laughs] I have always been an Off girlie, I have loved him since way back in the Puppy Honey days, I've always found him so charming.
He started out as a pretty untested untrained actor and we've seen him grow across his roles, and so a lot of people have only kind of recently, in his last couple of shows, like fully come on board. But I have always been an Off girlie. I know that this show has turned Ben into a full blown babii, finally, [laughs] and that NiNi has come around on Off, and it's been very amazing to see.
For my money, Ten is Off’s best character. They found the perfect character at the perfect time for him to play to all of his strengths. What's great about Ten — everything that NiNi just said is true, he's a very well written, very well-rounded character, and I love him specifically as a romantic lead. He has some really important qualities that you typically don't see in romantic leads, and that's why so many romcoms and romances are frustrating. Ten is a very honest person. He's a straightforward person. He is loyal. He kind of insists on building trust and on talking things through.
One of my favorite things that happened in the final stretch of episodes was, Ten found in Prem’s room this sticky note that Pang had written, that said something like ‘the money from scamming Doc’ or something like that, basically making a joke about Prem scamming Doc for money. Ten found this sticky note and… he got his feelings hurt about it. He was like, ‘wow like, this kind of seems like you all were mocking me, this hurts my feelings.’ And in a typical drama you would see that turn into a big conflict. You would see the person who found the sticky note not saying anything about it, maybe be passive-aggressive, probably leave and go sit in their hurt feelings by themselves and then later it would blow up into a big fight. That's not what happened here, because Ten wouldn't let it happen. He takes the sticky note directly to Prem and he says ‘I found this, it kind of hurt my feelings, can you explain what this is about?’ And then he actually listens to Prem. And Prem apologizes because it was kind of mean-spirited, and he admits that. And then Ten says ‘OK, thank you for telling me. I forgive you, I'm gonna let it go.’
And I just love that! You don't see that kind of mature communication very often in romance at all, let alone in BL that's typically centered on younger characters. That was what Ten was like through that entire arc. He was just so honest. He wouldn't let silly misunderstandings get in the way. He always made sure to be very clear with Prem about what he wanted and what he was feeling. And he was respectful when Prem wanted space, but he always made sure that Prem knew that he was waiting there for when he was ready for more. Such a good model for a romantic lead, and because of those qualities in him, he and Prem ended up becoming a great couple that just—were a team. They faced things together. Our friend Twig called them a battle couple. They faced challenges together and didn't let things come between them.
We haven't really mentioned Chef Chang Ma, who sucks and we hate him.
Ben
Sorry, Victor, your character sucks.
Shan
Your character sucks! He's a mentor to Prem, but he's also trying to hit on him the whole time. He's super inappropriate, he's always crossing boundaries, he's kind of a piece of shit, if I'm being real honest. But that guy was not able to get between Ten and Prem at any point, because every single time he tried, they communicated with each other, and figured out how to get back on the same page, and worked around him or shut him down.
This couple's gonna stick with me in that they were able to work through so much together, and that they really sincerely made each other happy and made each other more confident and better at the things that they wanted to be better at. It was just lovely. I really loved this romance.
Ben
I'm going to continue behind Shan and continue praising Off Jumpol on this one, because I have not been kind to that man for the last decade. [laughs] He has not always been necessarily my favorite ambassador for BL. He's come a long way. This is definitely his best BL role.
I'm making a Venn diagram after we're done with this recording, and it's just going to be Patts from La Pluie and Ten from Cooking Crush, because these characters have a lot of great crossover traits I really like. They're really kind with their partner and their friends, but… they have a temper, and it comes out with people they don't like. Off is funny, but also he's really good at playing… kind of pissy characters, and I'm really glad that they were like, ‘we gotta have Off be pissy with somebody. Let's make the correct choice for once, and not make it Gun that he's gonna be pissy with.’
Shan
[laughs] The crucial change!
Ben
Let's make him be pissy with his dad!
Shan
Mhm.
Ben
An excellent choice. And why is he pissy with his dad? Because his dad's a doctor. He didn't save his mom. That's a fairly valid reason to be pissy with someone about. And I think it works in terms of the family dynamics they go into. The dad's not going to tell his son that he's hurting because he feels like he failed to save his wife, the only woman he says he'll ever marry. He clearly cares about his son, because despite the way his son’s always talking out his fucking ass at him, he's not really punished him in any way. Despite the fact that Ten is clearly upset about the mom, and the dad in relation to that.
Shan
Yeah! Ten’s scenes with his dad were intense, and he was not being respectful and backing down in those scenes, ever. In this finale, he, like, took a power pose across the table from his dad, sat down at the other end of the table, planted himself firmly, and was like, ‘this is my boyfriend, and you are gonna fucking deal with it.’ I love that shit!
Ben
This is what I mean with the implied writing, because the way the stepmom is playing, she is way too familiar. It's very clear she's meant to be read as younger…
Shan
Mm-hmm.
Ben
And is trying to figure out what line she's supposed to take between being the partner of an older man, but also being closer in age to the kids. And like they mirror the positioning, she's sitting next to the dad, at the same position that Prem is sitting next to Ten. And there's this whole, ‘you brought this woman here. I wasn't consulted. This is my boyfriend. You're not getting consulted.’ And so I think the conflict between Ten and his dad is really great. Off needs to have, like, hostile conflict with other characters, because that's what we want to get out of him as an actor [laughs], directed in useful ways at his dad and at Chang Ma, and not at Gun's character, which is usually the problem I have with them in their shows.
00:32:08 - CC: Final Comments and Ratings
Ben
I was really glad to get a solid romcom out of OffGun. They also gave us some really ridiculous hilarity moments, like, they got that shot with their hands in the oven glove, twice? [Shan laughs] Unhinged. Holy shit.!
Shan
The interior oven glove shot? Amaaaazing.
NiNi
Off getting hit in the face with Chinese kale? Not something I ever knew that I needed, but oh my god, I needed it.
Shan
Ten—he’s a big-ass goofball, which we saw with his fantasy sequences! Every time they were having cooking lessons, he was having fantasies in his head about Prem and various food items. [laughs] And they were the wackiest shit. Listen, I wish GMMTV would stop playing these games, but there was a YouTube version that had a lot of scenes cut from it and a WeTV version that had the full scenes. A lot of these food fantasies got cut from the YouTube version, but these sequences just really let you into Ten’s head, how wild and weird he was getting in there, and I just loved seeing that aspect of his character.
NiNi
It was a lot of fun. I have some dings, I have some critiques. The final episode went a little bit flat. They did round out and complete every single arc, except maybe one. But it did feel a little pat at the end? And out of left field, Pang and Samsee getting together in the end of the final episode.
[all laugh]
Shan
That was quite a choice—I was shipping Metha and Samsee for the whole show.
Ben
I was—
Shan
I was kind of disappointed.
Ben
I was disappointed.
Shan
I didn’t expect to actually get Metha and Samsee, but I kind of hoped that they would have left the door open for it. Firmly closing that door with having him get together with Pang at the last episode? I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either.
NiNi
It was a choice. But. It did kiiind of work, and the only reason that it kind of worked is because of my first nominee of the year for the Mark Pakin 6th Man award, and that is Dome Jaruwat.
Shan
Mmm! Dome was great.
NiNi
Dome is a great supporting actor.
Ben
You wanna know how good Dome is? I've been half joking about rewatching Until We Meet Again since we started doing this show. I haven't actually started until recently, because watching Dome every week reminded me that he sang on the Until We Meet Again soundtrack. And I had to go back and start watching the show.
NiNi
Yeah, cause Dome is primarily a musician, you do forget, but he is actually a very good supporting actor. When he shows up, I am always delighted anew by how good he is.
Shan
I've seen other shows that had him in it, but this is the first one where I really sat up and paid attention to him. He was fantastic as Samsee. And he got some real shit to do. One of the big conflicts in the final run of the show was about the way that these new romances were affecting the friendships. Dynamite and Prem were paying attention to their boyfriends, they were blowing Samsee off, they were missing cooking practice, and he was feeling some kind of way about it. He was kind of feeling a little bit abandoned. And it was just awesome that the show actually took that seriously, not just in letting Samsee express his feelings and get mad and have the other characters take that seriously and care? But they actually very deliberately, in the narrative, prioritized the friendship reunion and makeup scene over Ten and Prem getting together and making their relationship official. They had Ten approach with the intention of asking Prem to be his boyfriend, and stop and see that they were repairing their friendship in that moment, and back off and walk away.
Ben
It felt really important for BL, because BL friends are so ridiculous. BL friends are basically shippers half the time. Like, if they see, like, one of the boys is possibly getting with another boy that becomes the only thing that that character cares about.
Shan
Everyone's a fujoshi.
Ben
I like that that wasn't the case here! I like that Samsee had genuine beef with his friends deprioritizing him, when they were in the midst of something really important to them as a group that they've been working towards for a long time. Like, are you all fucking up our big project for dick? Come on!
Shan
This show really let its side characters shine. It was a really good showcase for a couple of actors: I think Dome and Aungpao, in particular…. Tum also got great stuff, Neo got to do great stuff… We haven't even mentioned Prem's grandma, who was also awesome.
Ben
She was great.
NiNi
Amazing. She was so good.
Shan
Fantastic, no nonsense, cut the bullshit, but at the same time, very loving and supportive. She was awesome. I loved her.
Ben
There's a little bit of a dropped bit that happens in episode 11, that I kind of wish the show hadn't cut out as much. Fire and Dynamite go back to Fire’s place and the mom comes out of Fire’s room in this very weird jumpscare, and Fire has the closet panic and ends up kicking Dynamite away from him. And he kicks Dynamite hard enough that he goes flying across the room and gets hurt a bit. And I kind of wish they had followed up on that scene. Because… I feel like Fire, recognizing that he actually hurt Dynamite is probably one of those things that tilts him on to the other end of ‘I'm going to come out now.’ And I kind of wish the show had followed up on that properly and let us see Fire make the decision.
Shan
Yeah, I do wish that the pacing of the Fire and Dynamite plot had been a little different in the final episodes? I think that it ended up feeling a little bit rushed at the end, and I think that was just about the timing of the beats. If a couple things had shifted back a little bit, I think it would have worked. As it was, it kind of all got shoved into the finale, and so it felt a little too quick, a little too easy. I like where it landed… like NiNi said earlier, the way that all of these story arcs ended felt correct and felt right. They rounded everything out. It's just that some of the beats in the final stretch got kind of weirdly compressed.
Ben
It was a little bit frustrating for me because Dynamite and Ten are both very forward and overt pursuers of their romantic interests, and I kind of wish that the two couples’ romantic pacing had been better aligned across the show.
NiNi
And again, that goes to the editing. It's a good show, it's incredibly well written and incredibly well acted, but I think that the direction and the editing let it down a little bit, and that's why for me, it got an 8.5.
Shan
I gave it a 9. The show was such a positive experience. I was so excited every Sunday morning to watch it, it was such a great way to start my rest day, to like, have a good vibe to take me through my Sunday. The writing was so strong, and that's the thing that I tend to care most about in shows. If the writing is strong, if the characters feel right to me? That is what I prize most in a show. The editing, the directing, definitely had some flaws. There are some things that I would change, but the most important parts of the show held up really well for me and I definitely will be returning to it often.
Ben
I think I'm going with a 9 because they got the gay portions of the show right, and I really liked the character drama of this. All the big moments for the characters in this show land correctly for me. This show held together the whole way through. And that's kind of what's good about the writing. Like when you're noticing editing issues in a show, it's because you're following the writing, and you see the editing stumbling to try and not let it down. I think the character writing is really strong and holds together for the whole show. I think the conflict writing that comes out of who these characters are is really good, and I just really like the way these characters work together. When I see these folks together in the ‘It's been years later! Let's go to Prem’s restaurant!’ it doesn't feel like a ridiculous impossibility.
Shan
I loved that flash forward. I love a time skip when it's used to tell us that everything is still good in the future, after all the conflicts have been solved in the present. I hate a time skip when it skips over conflict, but once all the conflicts are solved, yes! Take me to the happy epilogue. I love that shit.
NiNi
So that's a 9 for Cooking Crush from The Conversation.
Ben
It's a good show, it's an easy recommend.
Shan
Thank you for coming back, Off and Gun, and thank you for sticking around for The Trainee in 2024. We look forward to seeing you again.
00:41:14 - Cherry Magic: Beating Expectations and Simping for Tay Tawan
NiNi
OK, so moving on, and it's time for us to talk about Cherry Magic Thailand! Now, I am not so big an original Cherry Magic girlie as a lot of other people. I enjoyed it, I had a great time with it, but I'm not a stan of the original Cherry Magic live action from Japan, in the way that some other people are.
Ben
I was!
NiNi
[laughs] Let's see. So, go ahead and lead us in. What is Cherry Magic Thailand about? And maybe you could talk a little bit about the original Cherry Magic as well.
Ben
Cherry Magic is about a young man, in this case named Achi, who is a low-ranking member at some sort of large corporation, who at the age of 30, because he's a virgin, gains telepathic powers. When he touches someone and makes any sort of physical contact with them, he can sort of hear their current internal monologue and what might be going on with him. He learns fairly soon after getting his powers that the hotshot salesperson in his company has been nursing a long-time crush on him, and complications ensue. There's also a very great supporting cast, which also in one portion features the same power.
NiNi
So this is an adaptation of an adaptation, or an adaptation of an original that was also adapted in another way… like [laughs] it's a little confusing. So this is originally a manga. The manga was adapted to Japanese live action. The manga has now also been adapted to a Thai live action, and then there's a third adaptation currently ongoing, which is a Japanese anime version. So there are three adaptations of this manga. We're going to talk about the Thai version in the most detail here, but I think we're going to come maybe to a couple of things to be said about the Japanese live action and the anime version.
Shan, what were your overall initial thoughts when you heard Thailand's gonna adapt Cherry Magic and it's going to be done by GMMTV?
Shan
I was so skeptical. I am a TayNew girlie, I love them. I loved Dark Blue Kiss back in the day, so I was really excited to see Tay and New doing BL together again — I was not at all excited to see them doing Cherry Magic [laughs] when I first heard about it. I did have an affinity for the original Japanese live action. I don't think it's a perfect show, I have my own notes on it, but I did enjoy it a lot, I thought it was really well done. And I was just unsure of why GMMTV and Thailand needed to do their own version.
That said, I was also hoping that if Thailand was going to do this, that the main purpose would be to address the biggest shortcoming of the Japanese live action, which is that in this narrative about a virgin who acquires magical powers, and then falls in love and then loses those magical powers via having sex with the person he's in love with, there was no sex! There wasn't even a kiss on screen! That was a huge flaw of that version that I hoped to see Thailand correct. And honestly, what I thought was going to be the main thing they could bring to the table in tackling this adaptation, was kind of finishing that narrative in a more sex-positive way that Thailand is kind of known for that Japan doesn't always do, particularly when they're doing their lighter BLs.
NiNi
Ben, what about you? When you heard about this adaptation, what were your thoughts?
Ben
Opposition. I was deeply opposed to this. [everyone laughs] I was not keen on a Thai attempt at this. I was kind of curious about what Thai humor would look like for this, and I was interested in the adaptation because I don't know what corporate culture in Thailand was like. So I thought that there was a real opportunity there. I was interested in a TayNew comeback, particularly because Tay hadn't really lost a step—even when he was doing other work—and I thought Newwie had gotten a lot better. And so I was excited about the two of them getting back together, and I thought that they were the best choice at GMMTV if GMMTV was going to do this. But I was not looking forward to it.
How about you, NiNi? Did you have any initial feelings or concerns about it?
NiNi
I had no intention of watching this. [laughs] I was gonna give it a pass. I love Tay Tawan—I'm just gonna spend a few seconds here being a simp. That man is gorgeous.
Shan
He's so beautiful.
NiNi
He is so beautiful. And he is such a good actor. The first thing I ever saw Tay Tawan in was 3 Will Be Free, and I literally remember thinking, who is that? I think I might have said it out loud. Since then I have been a devotee. He can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned. Tay Tawan is everything to me.
I have not been a big fan of Newwie. When I watched the parts of the Kiss series that I watched, loved Tay, was into Tay, Newwie I wasn't really feeling. I came around on Newwie a little bit last year after watching him in The Warp Effect—I thought he did really well there. And so I was not as down on him as before, but I still didn't feel like Cherry Magic was a story that I was interested in seeing Thailand adapt necessarily?
A, it felt like an incredibly Japanese type of story and B, the director, X Nuttapong, is not one of my favourites. I do not tend to like his work. X did Vice Versa, Theory of Love, neither of those are my favorites. So I was saying, ‘OK, I'm only now kind of starting to feel like Newwie could maybe do something. I don't really like X’s work. I think I'm going to give this a pass.’ And I did give it a pass initially [laughs]. And then all of you started watching it and getting incredibly excited about it. Somewhere near maybe episode 10, I was like, ‘ahh! Fine!’ and started watching it. And I'm glad that I did!
Ben
So Shan, since you are the TayNew girlie—I don't remember their fans are called—of The Conversation—
NiNi
Polcas, they're polcas! How do I know that? I don't know.
Shan
Yeah, I don't know what polca means, but that's what they're called. I do not identify as a polca, ‘cause I hate the name. But I do love TayNew.
Ben
Why don't you break down why this was such an excellent viewing experience for us?
Shan
I mean, you heard all that skepticism that we were all bringing to the table, right? And this show, just, like, blew us all out of the water. It was such a good adaptation, it was so impressive. There's a lot of reasons for that, and we'll get into all the things that this production did well, but right at the core of it, the most important thing, is that Tay and New just killed it in these roles. They were just absolutely perfect as Karan and Achi.
If you're familiar with the story of Cherry Magic, you know that Karan, or Kurosawa in the Japanese version, is meant to be this kind of otherworldly perfect man, like he's excellent at his job. He's kind to everybody. He's beautiful. His very presence is just intimidating, because he seems too perfect to be real. And of course, he's not actually perfect, he's a human being. But that's kind of the image that he has. And so Tay Tawan [laughs] honestly, is a perfect casting choice for that role.
NiNi
No notes, no notes whatsoever.
Shan
Right? That man is beautiful. Every single time he is on screen in this show, I just got to get a hold of myself, and it's difficult every single time. Seeing that man and his beauty properly appreciated by the camera, wardrobe working, hair working, everything working for him… it was just such a good role for him. Not only on the looks either, but on his performance!
He really nailed the inherent kindness of Karan, but also the inherent loser goofiness of him, which is the part of him that you don't see on the surface, and that's the secret. He seems like this cool, suave guy, but he's actually a total simp. He's super in love with Achi, and real fuckin nerdy about it. I think Tay Tawan was really able to… balance those aspects of him so well, so that they came together believably as one person.
And then New as Achi, I think brought a really interesting dimension, because in some versions I think that character can feel a little bit self-contained, to the exclusion of being able to empathize with others. And Achi didn't feel like that. He felt like someone who had self esteem issues, he felt like someone who was intimidated by others and wasn't always sure what he could bring to the table, but who was interested in other people, and kind, and really wanted to learn how to communicate better with others.
I thought they both did such a great job, both as their individual characters, and then together. We already knew they had awesome chemistry, but they really brought their A game to this show in terms of developing a believable chemistry between these two characters. We got to really see, over the course of the show, Achi's awareness of his attraction to Karan build, and his feelings genuinely grow, from kind of liking him in kind of a generic way, to actually getting to know him as a real person, taking him off that idol pedestal he'd had him on in his mind, and falling in love with him genuinely, and learning how to return his affection and develop a mutual relationship together.
This Thai version really hit all of those really important landmarks in a romantic relationship, including the physical intimacy, with perfect pacing, such genuine emotion… they just really, really sold it. They did such a good job with this show, and I'm just so happy to eat my words and to have all my skepticism proven wrong. They did awesome.
Ben
I think you're right about Tay Tawan being a good choice, ‘cause Kurosawa slash Karan is… eminently charming in a really accessible way. The big part that works for him as a character is the fact that he's such a fuckin dork! And Tay Tawan is a dork. [laughs] That is a… important piece of his public persona, that he's really charming in a way that's not always intentional on his part? It's funny when it is intentional, and it's hilarious when he trips over himself because he's like, wait, did I just do that? It's great. It works really well here. Tay Tawan.
Shan
What a man.
Ben
I say like, these boys are beautiful, like every week, but he really is gorgeous. He's just absolutely stunning to look at all the time and he is just so delightful as Karan. This is probably my favorite role for Tay. I don't think, like, it's Tay’s best work, but I think it's my favorite role for him.
NiNi
I understand exactly what you mean, because I think that his best role is Shin from 3 Will Be Free, but in terms of like a great just nailed-on role for him? It's exactly like you said: he's gorgeous and the camera loves him. And so every time the camera turns on him and shows you Achi looking at Karan, and the camera is Achi in that moment—he takes your breath away!
When Karan goes to see Achi during Songkran and he has to basically wash himself, there's a slow-motion thing when he starts throwing the water on his face, and I just kind of literally was watching that with my chin in my palm, and just like, wowwww, full zone-out moment. The camera loves that man. And it spent so much time on letting us see how gorgeous Karan is, but especially how gorgeous he is to Achi. I thought there was some really clever camera work and it was a good use of Tay’s good looks.
00:54:13 - CM: Relationship Development and the Powers
Ben
Speaking of Tay Tawan being a dork and being perfectly selected for this: at the end of episode 3, when they are returning from the company trip, and [laughs] Achi falls asleep and ends up leaning on Karan and wakes up because Karan starts screaming in his head—
NiNi
[laughs] Screaming internally, that's so funny.
Shan
That was so perfect. There has never been a more perfect moment on television. I don't care.
NiNi
It was amazing. It was incredible. It was delightful. It was fantastic. I can't even describe it well. Like you just have to see it.
Shan
It's the way that he keeps his face so controlled…
Ben
But like you can see like his mouth opens slightly, his eyes widen a little bit.
Shan
His eyes are screaming, while his face—
Ben
Ahhh!
Shan
And then you see the “AAAAHHH” Like on the subtitle, which is perrrrfect perfect perfect. They did so well. They had so much fun with the mind reading jokes, and there were so many of them.
Ben
There were, they got a lot of traction out of it, it was great. Like, even after that moment ends and he wakes up Achi, Achi leans against him again, and he's like, ‘I wish I could fight all of Achi’s nightmares.’
[laughs]
Shan
Every time we heard his simp thought it was so perfect, it was always something so cheesy, or he's having a fantasy about like wiping Achi's nose or something, or like dreaming of their future together. Or he's singing a love song off-key in his own head. It's just so good! [laughs]
NiNi
I actually really like the way that the Thai show used the mind reading power. I like the jokes that they made out of it better than the Japanese version.
Ben
I think that's one of the things that they had extra time for, and I think they calibrated the humor for the Thai approach really well.
NiNi
Just simple things like, after Achi tells Karan about the mind reading power and Karan decides to use it to A) get Achi to move in with him, and B) once Achi has moved in with him to quote-unquote “test” the mind reading power at every potential opportunity by saying, ‘can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?’ And just like touching him randomly… [laughs] He touched his ankle and I was just like, oh my god, ok, this is ridiculous.
Shan
My favorite—he stuck out his elbow. He stuck out his elbow like a huge dork, leaning on his shoulder. And he was like, ‘can you hear me? Can you hear me?’ It's like, it was just so charming!
Ben
My favorite thing about Karan is he was never embarrassed about how deeply attracted to Achi he was. There was a toothpaste moment, where he started having a fantasy and Achi was like ‘oh my god, bro, please step back,’ and he's like, ‘wait, you see those things, too? So you saw… oh! ok.’ And then he walked away giggling to himself.
Shan
He just thinks it's funny. Actually that is an under-discussed, really cool thing that this adaptation did. Once Achi confesses to Karan that he's been able to hear him the whole time, Karan doesn't get upset. He actually thinks it's awesome. Because to him it's so meaningful to know that this whole time, Achi has known how he feels, and Achi has decided to be around him, he's OK with it. Karan, he’s someone who seems very confident on the surface, but he's very insecure about his feelings for Achi, because he doesn't think that they're returned, and he's always very worried about whether or not he's being a burden to Achi with his feelings, whether or not he's pushing something on him that he doesn't want, he's very conscious of that and respectful of boundaries.
Ben
It's an excellent gay choice.
Shan
Right? And so for him to learn that Achi has known the whole time how he feels and has been comfortable being around him anyway actually really made him happy. He was delighted to know that he didn't have to hide himself in that way.
Ben
Achi called that out, too. He's like, ‘why is the real beneficiary of my powers Karan and not me?’ That's actually a source material joke that they brought over really well. Kurosawa learns about the powers and starts actively flirting with Achi at work. And he's like, ‘why is he better at using my powers than me?’
NiNi
As much as we love the use of the powers, I actually want to talk about the moments that he chooses not to use his powers and instead to, for example, use his words. Because part of this story is about Achi coming more into himself and learning to be bolder and to be more open with himself and his feelings. And I really enjoyed that story happening alongside the powers. One of the things I found in the Japanese version was that Adachi really, I felt, leaned on his powers perhaps a little too much, in his relationship with Kurosawa? Achi, in this version uses his powers more sparingly, and also more accidentally? Whereas in the Japanese version he uses them more deliberately.
Shan
I thought they were so intentional about it. Achi confesses earlier about having the powers in the story. He expresses clearly to Karan his fears, about how their relationship will stay intact when he doesn't have that crutch to lean on. They talk about it directly. They do their really silly practice long-distance thing because Achi's feeling so nervous about whether they'll be able to maintain their communication while they're apart and he can't touch Karan to hear what he's thinking.
Like you said NiNi, in some really crucial moments in the later stages of their relationship development, he's not using his powers, and he doesn't even think to, because he has grown to be so comfortable with communicating with Karan, using his words and listening to Karan and trusting what he's saying. We saw that evolve over time, so that in the end, when they finally decided to have sex, it really wasn't about the powers at all. That had already been resolved and they were already on really solid footing, Achi wasn't even using them anymore in that way. I like that they did it that way, that they separated those things a little bit. They had sex when they were ready to have sex and it wasn't related to wanting to get rid of the powers; the powers were not a barrier for them.
NiNi
I really liked how they went about the whole progression of their physical intimacy.
Shan
I think it felt…really right. I felt like I could trust this show to address it in a way that not only tied off the plot of the story and the narrative, which was rooted in sex or lack thereof, but also to make sure that it felt emotionally authentic to where the characters were, that any moment of intimacy between them was building their relationship development arc. And they pulled that off so beautifully.
Ben
They have their first kiss in a way I think is really satisfying, because Achi initiates it. Which I think is an excellent choice for Achi compared to Adachi.
Shan
And it felt very earned because their relationship was already so deep at that point, and you felt like Achi was ready for it. And of course, the build to them deciding to have sex for the first time. I like the way that that played around their temporary separation. Achi went away, and they hadn't gotten there yet in their relationship—not because of any big reason, it's just the natural progression, hasn't happened yet. And I like that when Karan went to visit him, things just felt right, and they progressed. I like that the story never felt like it was artificially holding that up to get to a certain beat. It really felt cathartic to finally see these characters get there in a way that felt so, so correct.
Ben
I thought every moment of intimacy between these characters was really well calibrated for the moment, and that the two actors involved understood what they were trying to accomplish in the scene. It was really nice to see two actors with experience, who trust each other, really deliver good emotional and intimate scene work, and that is supported by even all of the non-kissing they do between their characters. Just overall, I really, truly enjoyed watching Tay and New work together with these characters.
01:02:15 - CM: Other Characters
NiNi
Let's talk a little bit about the characters outside of Karan and Achi. I really enjoyed the way that these particular versions of the side characters were done. I particularly enjoyed Pai and Dujdao from the office. Dujdao is me, I am Dujdao. She is my fave. She is the one, I love her. Pai in this version is Fujisaki in the Japanese version, and then you've got Rock who is Rokkaku, you've got Min who is Minato, and you've got Jinta who is Tsuge.
I really liked the way that this adaptation played with those characters, and I like how they intersected with the Karan and Achi story. I always like to see the wider world of these characters and the friends and family that they have, and how their relationship fits into their relationships with their friends and their family. Watching, particularly the little office family that formed with Dujdao and Pai and Rock, and then the friendship between Achi and Jinta, which I felt a lot more strongly about in this version than I did about the friendship between Tsuge and Adachi—it's a different kind of relationship. And I personally enjoyed Achi and Jinta’s relationship a little more than I did Tsuge and Adachi’s.
Shan
I really, really loved Min and Jinta in this story. I thought those actors did a great job with these characters, I felt like they fit in really well into the narrative. Jinta and Min in their own romance, as well as Jinta's friendship with Achi—both of those threads that they were carrying complemented the main story so well: supported the themes, helped move the plot along, they were just really well integrated into this story.
Jinta is a great character: he’s awkward and kind of introverted and weird, because he spends a lot of time alone, but he's also a kind person, and he has a generous spirit, and I think that all of that came through really well. I loved that he and Achi kind of came into their powers in parallel and then worked together to figure out how to use them and what they meant. They got a lot of good additional mind reading jokes and humor out of Jinta, both in his scenes with Achi, where they would slyly touch each other and then have mind conversations, which eventually Karan caught on to, and that was also hilarious [laughs].
With Min and Jinta, I liked how much in this version that was about Min figuring out what he wanted to do with his life, whether or not he should continue to pursue his passion of dancing, and through his relationship with Jinta, getting encouragement, finding new confidence, and figuring out how to do that in a way that he felt like he could make a living from. And I thought that nicely supported the themes that were going on with Achi and Karan, also learning to communicate with each other and care for each other and support each other through new opportunities.
This show also did something really interesting with Pai and Rock. One of the big reservations when this adaptation was announced was that in the Japanese live action, Fujisaki was an aro-ace woman. She explicitly identified that way, it was plotline of the show. And I just knew that in Thailand, they were gonna put the same character in a romantic relationship, cause Thailand loves side couples and they just can't let anybody end the show single, even people who are supposed to be single [laughs] according to their identities. And so I was dreading that, honestly, I was like, ‘they're gonna have Pai get into a romance with Rock, I'm gonna hate it.’
But you know what? I didn’t hate it. The way that they got them together in the end was really sensitive, I think, to the fandom that they were clearly aware was out there hoping to see this character retain some of that aro-ace rep that was so meaningful to people in the Japanese live action. So I thought they were really respectful of it, I thought they did a great job with it. I think even though they got together in the end, there's still a very clear aro-ace read on Pai, and I like them together. Their scenes were fun, they have a good easy chemistry and charm, even if it doesn't feel particularly sexually charged.
And I thought that Rock and Pai were both as well, great supporting characters in the narrative. Their connection supported the story when it needed to. All of these side characters came together really well in a way that never distracted from, and always bolstered the main narrative, which is the most important thing to me for side characters.
NiNi
When Sing Harit picks up Tay Tawan and runs off with him while he wais at the client —
Shan
[laughs] It was perfect!
NiNi
[laughs] He literally just picked him up off the ground and just runs away!
Shan
He was so good in this role, he was perfect.
Ben
I'm glad we get to keep Sing. I've been watching that man for nine years.
Shan
He always brings something great to every show he's in.
Ben
So, I am a fan of original Cherry Magic adaptation Tsuge and Minato. I like how extra Tsuge is. Asaka Kodai: I like the way he played Tsuge. I like how he focused on how weird Tsuge is, and how passionate he is about things. I like Jinta as a take on that character…I appreciate why people like him more. I don't think I like him more? But I like them both specifically.
I like the Tsuge character, and I like how in the three versions of him I've seen adapted now, each adaptation has approached him. I genuinely enjoyed the version of Tsuge and Minato we got in Jinta and Min. I really liked the way they played together. I don't necessarily think Mark succeeded at all of Min, but I really like the way he and Junior work together.
I like Rock in this version because Rokkaku is an aggravating character, intentionally, in the Cherry Magic story. He is far less annoying in this version than he is in Japanese versions of this character.
I liked Pai in this one, I like the corrective fujoshi behavior that they were doing with her. I was worried at first when they leaned into the fact that Fujisaki is a shipper who has been shipping Adachi and Kurosawa for a very long time [laughs]. I like the way the Thai show ends up using that. I like the presentation of her as, ‘you can help your ship when they need to overcome an obstacle, but their moments don't belong to you.’ I loved her, genuinely. And I liked — what was her name? The manager's character?
NiNi
How could you forget my girl Dujdao?
Ben
I really liked the way they made the office manager kind of like a…auntie figure to a lot of them.
NiNi
I love how Achi accidentally brushes against her, and hears her positive thoughts about him. Because that's not a moment that they had to put in there. But I thought that it was really nice and important that Achi got to hear how much she truly cares about him.
Shan
We didn't mention the other coworkers who came at the very end of the story, when Achi traveled, but there was a whole new crew of colleagues that he got to meet on his one-month assignment at another branch. They started that episode with a little bit of anxiety around, you know, are they gonna be mean to Achi? Are they gonna pick on him? Do they think he's a snooty city person? Are they going to be homophobic?
I love that they just turned out to be like, a good group of dudes who were pretty good at their job, needed a little help getting set up, and once Achi proved that he was there to help them and he was competent, they completely accepted him and they were lovely to him. The show is just like—everybody was trying their best all the way through and I really like that. With one exception.
NiNi
Let's talk about that exception now, let's talk about the dreaded episode 8.
Shan
Dreaded is the right phrase.
Ben
My thing is, if you're going to add to Cherry Magic, why would you add workplace sexual assault? Why would you make the boss worse? The boss is really good prior to episode 8 and he's really good after episode 8. I don't understand why in episode 8 they would have him put some sort of bullshit ‘employees can't date each other’ rule into play, and be like, ‘Alright gays: if you can prove that you are economically viable to me by hitting an unrealistic sales target and whoring yourselves out to shitty clients, maybe then I will consider letting you two homos date each other.’
I hated that. I hated that Karan felt like he had to go face her again, I hated that the boss knew it, and sat with Achi to be like, ‘how do you feel about that, bro?’ And then there's like, this whole sequence where she further tries to embarrass him, but then the boss decides to be like, ‘No, I have morals.’ Where were they 40 minutes ago? I just did not like the inclusion of any of that.
It sucked too, because it was a holding pattern episode for Achi and Karan and the crew around them. Nobody really grew as a result of the events that happened there, and it just made me really resent the boss as a character. After that episode, he has a completely reasonable professional response to Achi clearly being frustrated with his role at the company. Achi, who—Karan has shown him through the course of the season—is actually a really good and really valuable employee whose efforts have gone maybe unnoticed, but that's because he's shy. And so when he recognizes that Achi is struggling professionally and wants to maybe do more, he gives him a very reasonable opportunity. Has very reasonable expectations about it, does not withhold how difficult the position may be, and has a reasonable expectation for Achi to make a decision about it.
It was really frustrating for me to try and reconcile that version of a fairly sensible boss, who is trying to give an employee an opportunity to succeed professionally, with the guy who we got in episode 8.
Shan
It felt wrong, it didn't feel like it was of a piece with the rest of the story. We found out pretty quickly that it was not from the source material, and it was an original episode that they've decided to write because they think they needed to fill a little bit of time. It's the one blemish on the show which was otherwise so wonderful, and so it just kind of sucks that they made this choice and tarnished things a little bit by doing such an ugly extra subplot, that just wasn't needed and didn't do anything for the story.
NiNi
In the end, I'm glad it was just a subplot. And it is, to my mind, pretty easily excisable.
Ben
We just deleted the episode. Boop!
Shan
Just pretended it didn't happen and carried on, and that worked great for me personally. [Shan and Ben laugh]
01:13:51 - CM: Ratings
Ben
I will say at this point, before we get to rating that this is now my default Cherry Magic version.
Shan
Same.
Ben
I think the Thai show feels complete in a way that the Japanese experience didn't. And that's…honestly, for me, reinforced by the anime that's running simultaneously right now. What I am enjoying with the two active adaptations right now is the very different approaches to the characters.
Karan is really sensitive to Achi and Achi is really sensitive to him in a way that I find really useful in the story, but there's a chippiness to the Japanese anime version of these characters. They are not as emotionally intelligent, they have a temper about them, there's a little bit of selfishness. Like, I think Adachi’s kind of a dick in this one, he complains about people being irritating normies a lot in a way that I find very amusing. And Kurosawa’s far more possessive—internally, he doesn't express it externally that often—in a way that I find lands more correctly for him, in comparison to maybe the way Keita Machida played Kurosawa and the way they presented him.
I really like the Thai localization of the Cherry Magic story here, and I think it exists very peacefully alongside the current Japanese anime version and the source material, and I think it sits favorably against the original Japanese version.
The intent of the powers to enable greater empathy and better communication between people lands far more consistently in the Thai version. I am really, truly glad that they actually did this and did a good job with it. We did not have high hopes for this motherfucker when they told us about it, and this ended up being one of the most pleasant experiences we've had in genre in a really long time.
NiNi
So, ratings. Shan, you go first: what's your rating for Cherry Magic Thailand?
Shan
I gave this show a 9.5. Could have been a 10 if not for that episode 8, but episode 8 exists, unfortunately, so it's a 9.5 for me. I found it to be such a good time, such a well-executed story. I think it was a masterful adaptation. It did such a good job taking this Japanese story and translating it into something that felt of a piece with Thai culture. The performances were excellent. The whole production was great. I loved how thoughtful everything was. It was such a good show for me. I wish I could go back to before I watched it, and watch it again and be delighted anew.
NiNi
Ben, how about you?
Ben
Similarly, I gave it a 9.5; I think this was an excellent experience. I think it was really enjoyable week to week, and this is what I want out of my BL TV viewing experience. I got to look forward to it every week, and I walked away from it satisfied. One of my favorite TV experiences is when a show is really good, without me instantly yearning for more. I had a really great anticipation of it when a Saturday morning rolled around, and I felt really good for the rest of the Saturday after watching it, and I didn't feel like I was missing something all week because it wasn't on. It was something that I really looked forward to on Saturdays. That is the ideal TV show experience, for me. And I don’t get to have that very often. I really, truly appreciate it that this show was one of the better or best week-to-week viewing experiences I've had for years.
9.5 for episode 8.
NiNi
I scored the show a 9.75.
Ben
Oh my god.
Shan
[laughs] Wait, are we allowed to do .25?
Ben
We're not. She can do it, though. [laughs]
Shan
She’s cheating!
NiNi
I am calling producer privilege to give it a 9.75! No, but the subplot in episode 8 really is a ding, but also I really loved this show. The ding had to be dinged, but I will find it very easy to excise that subplot from my memory of the show and move on. Also, I didn't have to sit in it for a week like you guys did because I was binging it, so it's easier for me, I think, to just kind of be like, pfft! Over that.
Ben
Let me tell you, that was a difficult week for us.
Shan
It was a bad week. We were scared.
Ben
We have been in this position with Thai BL where things are going great, and then episode 8 rolls around and like, oh, here we go. That was not a great week with this show’s experience. We were not really anticipating—we were hoping it wouldn't be shit, picking up with the cliffhanger of Achi revealing his powers to Karan. That was a good choice, that allowed us to focus on the future, not the past.
NiNi
And then you were immediately rewarded in episode 9 with the kiss!
Shan
Sure were!
Ben
And then they reminded me of the boss's bullshit in the finale. He's like, I'm throwing away my stupid policy. I'm like, ‘why would you bring that back up?’
Shan
Don’t bring it up! We’re trying to pretend it didn't happen!
Ben
I had just forgiven you, you motherfucker. Shut the fuck up. [all laugh]
NiNi
All right. All right. [laughs] OK, so 9.5, 9.5, 9.75 fine, it gets a 9.5 from The Conversation.
Ben
We highly recommend it! It is a good viewing experience.
Shan
Everyone should watch it.
NiNi
Fantastic show.
01:19:34 - The Pillars: Overall Thoughts
NiNi
OK, so we've just spent the last — I don't know how much time this is going to be edited—
Ben
It's going to be a long edit for you, that's for damn sure. [laughs]
NiNi
We have just spent the last maybe two-ish hours talking about our OGs, and the stuff that they've been in this year. OG to new G, so to speak. Let's talk a little bit about the pillars, about the experience of watching these people do what they know how to do really well at this point. Shan, what's your experience been like?
Shan
It was so lovely for me. I am an OffGun and a TayNew girlie. I have been a fan, I love those pairs. I am not a big fan of the branded pair system, to say the least—I think that it can be really damaging sometimes in the Thai media landscape, but I think that these two pairs have worked together for a really long time and they've figured out what works well for them. And they have also gone off and done other things, they don't only work together making BLs. All of these four actors have very full careers. And so I'm very happy that they were able to bring them back and pair them with such great projects.
Candidly, these are my two favorite Thai shows of this entire season. They knew what they were about, they executed them really well, and they used the pairs at the center of them to all the best of their abilities and their strength. I'm glad to see that they're planning to continue to work together. Both TayNew and OffGun have announced their next projects already for 2024, and I'm excited to see more adult BL from these guys.
Ben
To be clear, we are not certain that Peaceful Property or whatever it's going to be called is actually going to be a BL.
Shan
I don't need them to make out to enjoy their presence together, so I'll be happy either way.
NiNi
I don't care if it's a BL—I would prefer it to be BL, but Peaceful Property just looks like a good-ass time, so I'm going to enjoy that. I wasn't planning to watch The Trainee, but after Cooking Crush I'm gonna watch The Trainee. I've dialed in to the OffGun of it in this particular direction. I just like Off doing comedy.
Ben
He is good at comedy.
Shan
So good at it
NiNi
I really enjoy it. Not only watch him doing comedy, but watch him doing comedy now. Because he has improved, he has grown, he's really dialed into what he's good at, and he can portray it in a way that I don't think he used to be able to. So, I am looking forward to watching The Trainee definitely.
News news, apparently the third of our pillars coming back is a possibility? So there are three OG pillars for GMMTV. Like we said, OffGun, TayNew, and the third OG pillar was Krist and Singto. We got word recently that Singto’s coming back to GMMTV? So that's an interesting thing. I don't know necessarily that there's going to be new KristSingto stuff, but…
Shan
Krist has already teased it on social media.
Ben
Krist has teased it, but he said that they won't tell him information because he usually leaks it.
Shan
Right. But he said he wants to do another project with Singto. They've put it out there, maybe as a little bit of a test balloon to see if people are interested in it. So I wouldn't be surprised if we find out next year that they're going to be doing another BL together.
NiNi
I wouldn't be surprised if we find that out in April, when the Part 2 of the GMMTV thing comes out.
Ben
[sigh] OK, I'll talk about this. We need to own that has not been a good run for Singto, for about three to four years now. He hasn't really had a solid win in a while. And I don't know that I want him and Krist back together. This is such a weird choice to make, coming off of Be My Favorite where I was like, ‘OK, Krist, you've grown as a performer. I thought you were used well here, I thought your reputation, whether it be right or wrong was used well here. And I'm willing to put all this aside and move forward.’
And now I'm feeling triggered [laughs] by the news that he and Singto will be back together. I'm not necessarily thrilled about it. Like, yeah, we had a lot of skepticism about Cherry Magic, blah, blah, blah, coming into this. And that ended up being fine. But like… [sigh]
Shan
None of my reservations were about the pairs, though. It's all about the material. Here, Krist and Singto don't have good chemistry.
Ben
I don't think they do at all.
Shan
We know that. They did two, three shows together over several years of working together. Did not manage to produce believable chemistry as a pair.
Ben
I'm not keen on it.
NiNi
OK, so here's what I'm gonna say.
Ben
Go ahead, bestie.
NiNi
I have been wrong about all of their recent projects. I haven't watched any really old things or stuff since he left GMMTV, but in terms of Be My Favorite, in terms of Cooking Crush, in terms of Cherry Magic Thailand, I have been wrong. And so I am willing to give any new KristSingto project a shot.
Shan
Oh I'm going to watch it. If they make it, I'm going to watch it. I need to know.
Ben
It's not about whether or not we're going to watch it.
Shan
Yeah.
NiNi
[laughs] They're all like, ‘oh, no, we're watching it! Nobody said we weren't gonna watch it.’ [laughs]
Shan
We will be watching it and we will be having takes! That is what we will be doing. I continue to be skeptical about the two of them being able to generate believable chemistry together. Maybe they could do a show that's not a BL. Maybe they could try that.
Ben
I won't watch that, that's for sure! [Shan laughs]
NiNi
We're talking about OG to new G. Maybe we could do some mix-match merry-go-round with Perth and Chimon.
Shan
I'd be OK with that!
Ben
Oh my god.
NiNi
Get some new pairings out of it.
Ben
There are no more—I—why are we giving Perth and Chimon another ch—Why would you bring them up in this conversation?
NiNi
Mix match merry go round! Mix up the pairs! Maybe they'll work better with other people.
Shan
I think Krist and Singto both need to be paired with strong screen partners who can bring that chemistry piece, because neither of them is particularly good at it on their own, and together it just doesn't happen. I don't know how much of this we should even allow to air. We're going to get shot by their fans.
Ben
I do not care about them. You can be mad.
NiNi
I don’t care [laughs].
Shan
What is their fandom called?
NiNi
It's Peraya.
Shan
Peraya that's right.
NiNi
Peraya ask me how I know. I don't know how. I know. I just pick up these things by osmosis.
Shan
I am not a Peraya. I want this to be very clear.
Ben
I am not either.
NiNi
But like, OK, so we've established that Perth needs a good lead and Chimon needs a good follow, and Krist is, I think, a better follow than a lead, and Singto is a better lead than I think a follow. So maybe they mix them up, maybe they get something good out of it.
Ben
Mm, anyway. So. [laughs]
NiNi
Y'all are mean to my baby Perth and I'm not having it.
Shan
NiNi I appreciate the spirit of this brainstorm. I think it's worth a try [laughs]
Ben
I don't. [laughs]
NiNi
Perth, if you ever listen to this, don't listen to the mean people. It's OK. I love you.
Ben
Look, I love Perth. But it's not been a good year for him. I'm sorry, baby boy.
Shan
I think it's been very cool, though, sincerely, to see the OGs come back around. I like that we're no longer saying [laughs] that BL is a young man's game, you gotta get out when you turn 30. I like that we're letting some of GMMTV's older talent headline these shows and that we're getting some shows about adults. That's all super welcome, and I think it's really nice too, to see pairs like Tay and New and Off and Gun, who are real veterans with handling all of this stuff around making BLs together—handling the BGP, handling all of the fan attention, they do it with a lot of grace and very professionally, in a way that I think is helpful to see a model for for some of the younger pairs.
I think it's helpful for fans also to be reminded of how they should engage with actors who are doing their job when they're making these shows. GMMTV is going to continue to dominate Thai BL for the foreseeable future, so I think it's good that they're bringing these veterans back and doing good work with them.
Ben
I agree. I think OffGun and TayNew have been on the forefront of the development of Thai BGP for a long time, and it's really good to see them seem confident and comfortable about it at this point. Both of these pairs have had some negative experiences with fan behavior, so. I'm very glad that those two pairs were able to continue working together, continue to make projects together, and in this particular case, deliver two of the most satisfying viewing experiences we've had in the last three to four months. I'm pleased.
Shan
They killed it. Amazing work.
NiNi
I, too, am pleased. I wasn't in the OG thing. I wasn't shooting with y'all in the gym then, but I'm here now and what I saw this time around I truly enjoyed. I'm never going to be a babii. I'm not going to be a a polca. I'm never going to be a peraya. I'm just not a fan like that. I fan, I don't stan, I always say, except for, [laughs] you know, the large ones.
Shan
For a couple exceptions.
NiNi
Except for the bigguns. The pillars thing has always been like the super weird thing for me, and this is the first experience that I've had with it that it wasn't weird and slightly creepy for me, which I truly enjoyed. So yeah, good job, boys. Excellent work, 10 out of 10, no notes.
So, that is going to wrap us up on our pillars episode: we out! Say bye to the people, Shan.
Shan
Goodbye people.
NiNi
Ben, say bye to the people.
Ben
Peace!
#cooking crush#cherry magic thailand#cherry magic th#podcast#lgbtq#ben and nini's conversations#the conversation#on art#thai bl#bl series#spring series#spring 2024#cherry magic#cooking crush the series#offgun#taynew
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𝐍𝐎. 𝟕 ❛ 𝐝𝐨𝐥𝐥 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 ❜ | THE DEN, MID MARCH 1991
❧ 𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 / 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 / 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 / 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭.
❛ Once the door shut, the bar's soundscape—its patrons talking and laughing, live music blaring, the slamming of doors and glasses, feet thudding along stairs—hushed. The small backroom may well have been underwater. That was where Leonor’s mind went as she heard the muffled noise, although the red overhead lighting suggested a place more alien than the blue tunnels of Nakawe’s public aquarium. Soon enough, her host’s voice drowned out the murky sounds. They spoke in a conversational tone as she lingered by the door, not needing to raise their voices or lean in close to be heard. Any anxiety she brought from home that evening was long gone. Now two hours in, immersing herself in a room of undimmed vitality had an effect. So too had the sweet beers that found their way into her hands. She had entered the room at Renzo's request and was now, more than anything else, curious.
❧ yay, finally some fun stuff ! i wanted to write more (and write better) for this scene, but i ended up being sick :/ anyway, a few paragraphs is progress, and hopefully there'll be more going forward ! i miss the writing i was doing in episode one, smh. also: in uspanian parlance, a "flower girl" as used here is a sex worker dfdsfk
𝐬𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐞𝐝 & 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭 ↓
Leonor knew she was being studied as they sat shoulder-to-shoulder, breezing through the small talk of introductions. That was normal. Indeed, it hadn't been a surprise to her that he wanted to meet her. In most settings, it was de rigueur that an establishment's owner sought the honor and responsibility of welcoming whatever royal decided to visit. Leonor took the opportunity to study him, too. Despite being a stranger, his mannerisms gave her something to work with. He was unlike her. Informal and familiar, he struck her as strange in the way those few regular people she encountered always did. In this case, she liked it. The ease with which he spoke gripped her attention. It was disarming. More than that, it encouraged her to play along. They sank further into the couch together, cozying up as if this was a nightly occurrence instead of a first time meeting.
An illusion of intimacy descended over them, and Leonor spoke thoughtlessly as he held her gaze. She could tell he had more to say—that, sensing she was willing to be forthcoming, he wanted to meet her there. The acrid smell of cigarettes blanketed the tiny space, but Leonor also noticed a different sort of heady scent clung to his skin. Whatever he wore was earthy, heavy cedar or tobacco cut with something fruit-like, sweet, pungent. It wasn't that she had a nose for such things. The proximity distracted her. If she wanted, she could close the mere inches of space between them and inhale directly from the source. She knew he had arrived only recently and imagined him, perhaps an hour earlier, in a bathroom somewhere holding a sleek fragrance bottle. On impulse, she opted to cut the conversation short. She leaned in with, not a care, but the nascent awareness that there would be many more conversations to come.
TRANSCRIPT:
LEONOR | I think I overdressed …
KORE | Renzo isn’t here yet, so—
LEONOR | Do I have to meet someone new tonight?
KORE | He asked. It’ll be fine.
KORE | Stop stalling! Just open the door and go chat.
LEONOR | I feel like a flower girl.
SYBIL | Hey, that’s good money, you could be—
LEONOR | [Groans]
RENZO | They didn’t come in?
LEONOR | [Sighs]
RENZO | Come on, sit down. No pressure.
LEONOR | Nice to meet you. I’m Leonor—
RENZO | [Laughs] Oh, yeah, I know.
LEONOR | Kore had to tell me who you were. I’m sorry, but I really don’t watch much television.
RENZO | Doesn’t offend me. Small screen actors and princesses? Different leagues.
RENZO | So, what should I call you, then? “My princess?”
LEONOR | People call me Nora. Friends.
RENZO | I can?
LEONOR | If you want to.
RENZO | Yeah, I do. I’m glad you came, Nora.
RENZO | … You seem out of place.
LEONOR | I feel that way. Or, less now. It’s not somewhere I would have thought to go, but it feels welcoming. Friendly.
RENZO | A rule of Renzo’s Refuge—unspoken, exclusive, of course. Some of us have images to maintain.
LEONOR | Kore said it was supposed to be a “haven.”
RENZO | [Snickers] A stretch to you, huh?
RENZO | I just wanted a private place to drop the act and be myself. There aren’t a lot of people who get it but, those who do, it’s what they want, too. This life sucks sometimes. A lot. The rest of it is just—you know, my interests. Hobbies. I came here a ton before I bought it.
LEONOR | What can I say? It’s intriguing when you put it like that.
RENZO | How did it sound before?
LEONOR | Pretentious.
RENZO | Oh, you’d know about that, huh.
[Both laugh]
RENZO | Well, no worries, I’ll take a convert. Maybe you’ll be a true believer after a few nights.
LEONOR | I’m surprised I’m here tonight. I’ve been sad and hiding.
RENZO | Death does that. Are you a sad person?
LEONOR | I don’t know what kind of person I am.
RENZO | Well, you know—
LEONOR | No offense but, if I hear the “destruction, rebirth” platitude again, I’m going to scream.
RENZO | [Chuckles] I was going to say that’s free license to try as many kinds as you like—go wild with it, you know, cut loose? Can princesses do that?—but I guess that’d be the very Uspanian thing to say.
LEONOR | [Hums] That’s setting in. It doesn’t matter anymore.
RENZO | What doesn’t?
LEONOR | What I do. Who I am. It’s overwhelming.
RENZO | Word of advice: that’s just what total freedom feels like—
LEONOR | Uh huh. I’ll take your word for it—
KORE | [Squealing] Yes!
SYBIL | [offscreen] Hurry up! Tell them to zip it up—it’s showtime!
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WIFEY. | EPISODE EIGHT (8.4)
start / previous / next
Lily Feng was on a knife’s edge. Hosting the Diamond Gala wasn’t just a high honour, it was the final step in securing her husband’s political future. Whoever held the gala, tended to be a shoe-in to win the upcoming mayoral election. For years, Victor had come close, only to be pipped to the post by white mediocrity. This year was different. They had greased the right palms, said the right buzzwords and struck precisely enough fear into the hearts of their enemies. It had been a twisting, bloody road to get here and it would all be worth it. It just needed some final tweaks.
(transcript below)
(LILY): Good evening Royston. Tell me what you know.
(ROY): Things remain quiet with the boy. His sister’s still looking, but from what I can tell it’s yielded little to no result.
(LILY): Hm. And the other one? What do you know about Maxine Kyle?
(ROY): Ah, well I might have something for you on that…
***
(CLEO, VIA PHONE): I really think you should tell Max about your family Rosie. Especially if you’re considering staying in the city for them.
(ROSE): I will! I just. Sometimes it seems like we’re on the same page and we’re both really enjoying each other but other times it feels like I’m just… passing time for them. I don’t want to add potential family drama to the mix if we’re not getting serious.
(CLEO): Babe…Max is just like that. And you know they’re coming out of a hard time…When I introduced the two of you, I thought it’d be cute, but maybe it was too soon? I don’t know.
[Rose hums thoughtfully]
(CLEO): I do know that you shouldn’t be ashamed of your relatives though. You didn’t choose them and you’re your own person.
(ROSE): [Sighing] You’re right. I’ll talk to them after the charity thing. Get it all out in the open.
#em: stories#em: wifey#*wifey#*part 1#*ep 8#ts4 storytelling#ts4 stories#sims story#sims 4 story#ts4 maxis mix#sims of color#lgbtq simblr#black simblr#sims community#*lily feng#*roy samson-chu#*rose butler#*cleo asante
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Maximilian - Episode Four: The Duke
𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠| 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬| 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭 |
Transcript under the cut + thank you to @pixelddump for the lovely cathedral
[Leopold]: We shall move the wedding up. Luna is nineteen now, old enough to marry.
[????]: Our arrangement was for when she turned twenty-one. There is no rush.
[Leopold]: I shall like to proceed. I am sure you sister, Queen Elizabeth will have no objections to a sooner wedding.
[Luna]: You called for me, father?
[Leopold]: Ah! There she is!
[Leopold]: Luna, you remember the Duke of Valencia? Your Fiancé.
[Luna]: Prince Alexander.
[Alexander]: Please, just Alexander.
[Alexander]: We are to be married soon after all.
-
[Alexander]: Do you have any hobbies? Anything you enjoy doing?
[Luna]: I like horseback riding.
[Alexander]: That’s good. We have a horse stables on the estate.
[Luna]:...
[Alexander]: I imagine you aren’t anymore thrilled about this marriage than I am.
[Luna]: Perhaps, if we have more time to get to know one another...
[Alexander]: I wish, truly but your father and my sister the Queen want this marriage to happen sooner rather than later. It is out of my hands.
[Luna]:...
[Alexander]: I hope you know that I will be...kind to you, Luna
[Alexander]: And in time I hope to gain your friendship.
-
[Louis]: What are you doing, Luna?
[Luna]: Louie...I’m leaving.
[Louis]: You mean running away?
[Luna]: I’m not our parents. I can’t marry someone I don’t know for the sake of the crown.
[Louis]: You can’t leave, Lu.
[Luna]: Please, Louis. I can’t do this, I just want to be with Max. I love him.
[Louis]: You don’t know what love is.
[Luna]: I do! I love Maximilian! I’m in love with him! I will never ever love that man down there, never!
[Luna]: I am asking you, my big brother to help me.
[Luna]: Please, you have to help me.
-
[Maximilian]: Hey, you! Are you at the airport yet?
[Luna]: I'm not coming, Max. I’m going to marry the Duke of Valencia.
[Maximilian]: You can't be serious, Luna. What about us? What about the promises we made to one another?
[Luna]: One day, you’re going to see this is for the best. You’ll marry someone else and we'll forget about one another.
[Maximilian]: I don't want to marry someone else! Luna, don't do this. Just get on the plane and come here. I love you! Please...get on the plane.
[Luna]: I'm sorry, Max but I don’t love you.
[Maximilian]: You don’t mean that.
[Luna]: I do mean it. Goodbye.
[Leopold]: This needed to be done, Luna.
[Leopold]: Your future is very important to me. You’re going to be happy in Melide, you’ll see.
#ts4 story#ts4 screenshots#ts4 bts#ts4 legacy#ts4 storytelling#the sims 4 story#the sims 4 screenshots#the sims 4 bts#the sims 4 legacy#the sims 4 storytelling#ts4 roleplay#ts4 edit#ts4 simblr#ts4#sims 4#the sims 4#ts4 screenies#sims 4 screenies#ts4 family#maxmilian
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Black Farmers
the 1619 podcast has a great episode about Black Farmers
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/podcasts/1619-slavery-sugar-farm-land.html?
In the fall of 1864 at the height of the Civil War, one of the most famous Union generals, William Tecumseh Sherman, begins his march out of the city of Atlanta to the sea.
And as Sherman and his men make their way through Georgia, black Southerners are seeing an opportunity.
And so by the thousands, they start to leave the plantations where they’ve been enslaved and are falling behind Sherman’s troops as they make their way to the coast.
But these newly liberated people were not exactly welcomed. Sherman didn’t actually oppose slavery, and so he’s really not that sympathetic to those who are fleeing these plantations, and he also sees them as a drain on his resources. They are families. They are people of all ages, young and old, who need food and care, and they are slowing the troops down.
By December of that year, some of Sherman’s troops are about to approach Savannah, and they come upon a creek that is both too wide and too deep to cross without a bridge. So the troops start building one, and they instruct the black people who are following them to just wait, that the troops need to cross first, but then they’ll be able to come after. But the Confederate Army is on their heels, and once the Union troops cross, they break up the bridge, leaving all those people who had just escaped slavery behind to face either the icy waters or the rebel army that was in pursuit.
It is a massacre. Some of them drown trying to swim across. Others are trampled or shot to death, and those who remain are captured and re-enslaved. When word gets back to Lincoln’s secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, he is outraged. He has Sherman pull together a meeting with 20 black church leaders. There’s a transcript of this meeting, and it shows that these two men, Stanton and Sherman, actually turned to this group of black leaders and asked them, what do you want for your own people?
Speaking for the group, one of the men tells them, “The way we can best take care of ourselves is to have land, and turn it and till it by our own labor — that is, by the labor of the women and children and old men, and we can soon maintain ourselves and have something to spare.”
And what’s remarkable is that Sherman turns that request of those men for land to work for themselves into a government order, Special Order No. 15. It said that the government would take 400,000 acres that it had seized from the Confederacy and split it up among those thousands of newly emancipated people. This becomes what is perhaps the most famous provision of the Reconstruction period, which we all know as 40 acres and a mule. President Lincoln approves the order, but soon after, he’s assassinated. And Andrew Johnson, a Southerner who had once enslaved people himself, takes over the presidency and quickly overturns it. And within a few short months, the small amount of land that had been distributed to black people was returned to white Southerners.
#tiktok#farmers#black farmers#podcast#farming#history#USDA#civil rights#reagan was a terrible president#us history
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Alright people, just got my early access of the Magnus Protocol Premiere. Been thinking about whether I should do a live blog like I did for Magnus Archives. Still not sure but we're just gonna start it and see where it's going. Tbh I've been so out of the loop with the podcast I didn't even know the premiere episode was coming and I have no idea when further episodes are getting released. I thought it would start next year! Anyway, I'm gonna put all my reactions down below under the read more so I'm not accidentally spoiling anyone.
That intro music is amazing. Love it.
So glad they included a transcript, I would've already been lost with all these voices. That's what I loved about tma, never got confused there because the introduction to the characters was so nice and slow
Oh, here we are then! Jumpscared by Alex already. Did not expect him to turn up so soon. I'm certain there's nothing sinister going on here. Not me already theorizing that it's Martin who got stuck in the system or something after Mag200. But that means Jonny is one of the other voices who occasionally reads out the statements, right? Gotta be. So Chester or Augustus, who do you think he is? Putting my money on Augustus I think. Why? Because why not.
First look at the Fears?? Is it the Stranger? That's got to be the Stranger, right?
The transcript has these little stage directions and I gotta say I'm in love with "Lena's office is pristine, sterile and has nothing that might indicate its occupant would be brash enough to have a personality"
Btw don't know the in universe reason for the recording yet but friends, your microphones are shit. Jon's recordings were never as bad! Your voices do that thing where it gets frizzy. Might I suggest using a tape recorder?
Is that more static in the background I'm hearing when Gwen says "I'm not most people." Oh, I kinda missed overanalysing sound cues.
We have great vegetarian sausages in Germany too, Colin. I already like that poor IT guy
Sam I really don't think this is the job if you're "just trying to get back on your feet" There must be more going on there
Damn, had a 50/50 chance and didn't get it. So you're Chester then, Jonny? Really can't decide if I would love it more if these voices had some connection to tma or if there's just no reason at all.
I actually read a fanfic like that before. Immediatly though about it when I heard Alex's voice. Jon was sorta trapped in the tape recorder. All Martin and co had were his recorded statements on tape and at some point Jon got like powerful enough to be able to communicate through the tape recorder I think. Was a really great read. Would be funny if this turns out to be similar
Oh, Magnus Archives ruins!! What are you gonna find there RedCanary?? This is exciting
Of course you've been having trouble uploading the pictures, RedCanary! And I don't think that's you're normal getting paranoid either. Oh, I love this. It's like my old friend, spooky Magnus Institute is back
An Archive, you say?? And it's empty. Interesting.
Side note, the music during this is fantastic. Like loved it from the beginning but right now? Amazing.
"What the hell is that? Are those eyes?" Never thought I'd actually be happy about eyes getting mentioned. But eyes, people!! This statement has everything: Magnus Institute, some poor bugger who's descending into paranoia and madness, weird symbols, an artefact (?), ominous texts ("Canaries should stay above ground", okay obviously a reference to the user name red canary but also do you think that has anything to do with like mining. Weren't birds used to detect gas?), eyes and were those the last few notes of the tma intro in the background music?
Oh, who is listening then? Can't mean me, Colin
The Magnus Protocol is a podcast distributed by Rusty Quill and licensed under a creative commons attribution non commercial sharer like 4.0 international license
#loved it#especially the statement parts#telling a statement through some forum entrys was honestly amazing#cant wait to see where this is going and whats up with all these little teased mysteries#okay so how do i tag the spoilers now#im sure theres a protocol here to follow#ha protocol#the magnus protocol spoilers#tmagp spoilers#tmp spoilers#tmagp#the magnus protocol#tmagp liveblog
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Bonus 2: Victorian Class and Gender
Hannah sits down with Dr. Jen Sudgen to discuss the ideals Victorian Class and Gender, and how they come across in Dracula. This interview contains spoilers for Dracula (and we're talking last-page-of-the-book spoilers!), so if that's something you care about you should save this bonus for later. This episode was hosted by Hannah Wright and edited by Tal Minear. The transcript was done by Rook Mogavero.
Transcript here.
Here are links to the various papers, articles, and media Dr. Sugden referenced:
"The Angel in the House" by Coventry Patmore
The Royal Family in 1846 by Franz Xaver Winterhalter
"Dracula and Women" by Carol Senf in the Cambridge Companion to Dracula
"The New Aspect of the Woman Question" by Sarah Grand
"What It Will Soon Come To" in Punch Magazine
"The New Woman" in Punch Magazine
"Passionate Female Literary Types" in Punch Magazine
Dr. Sugden's underrated Victorian fiction list: the works of Anthony Trollope, the works of Wilkie Collins, and Lady Audley's Secret
Here are audio dramas you should listen to:
Check out Victoriocity, a detective comedy podcast! It's set in even Greater London, 1887. In this vast metropolis, Inspector Archibald Fleet and journalist Clara Entwhistle investigate a murder, only to find themselves at the centre of a conspiracy of impossible proportions. You'll hear our beloved Jonathan Harker (Ben Galpin) in it!
Check out Fawx & Stallion, a comedy podcast about rivalry, friendship, fame, and occasionally about solving mysteries! It's set in London, 1889. When the residents of 221B Baker Street leave town for the weekend to solve one of their most famous cases, no one is left to clear a poor housekeeper’s name of a crime she didn’t commit. Well, no one except for their neighbors at 224B…
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Prev // Next
Transcript:
Aurelio: Damn, I can’t… keep up with you… these days.
Phoenix: C’mon, I’m going easy on you.
Aurelio: I gotta… I gotta stop.
Phoenix: Almost done, I promise. My building is right there.
Aurelio: What is all this stuff?
Phoenix: Kiyoshi has us all on this strict nutrition plan. Easier to have it delivered than to cook it.
Aurelio: So, you’re really doing this, huh? You’re going to climb Mt. Komorebi?
Phoenix: I don’t know. I’m just taking it one step at a time. I’m enjoying the training and people.
Aurelio: But you haven’t tried an actual rock face yet or anything?
Phoenix: Not yet, but we’ll head out there soon. You know it’s not too late to join us if you want to.
Aurelio: No thanks, man. I know my limits. Maybe you should think about yours.
Phoenix: What’s that supposed to mean?
Aurelio: Nothing, I just think you should stop and think about what you’re doing before it’s too late to back out.
Phoenix: What are you talking about? I’m not going to back out.
Aurelio: So, you are doing it? What happened to “taking it one step at a time”?
Phoenix: What is this? Why are you grilling me right now?
Aurelio: I just think… maybe you shouldn’t push yourself too far. It’s not worth the risk.
Phoenix: Why are you so worried? You aren’t the one going up there. I am.
Aurelio: You know why, Phoenix. You can’t just put your headphones on and check out when you’re hanging on the side of a mountain. You’re gonna have to be present and in it. This sport is dangerous enough, but if shit catches up to you and makes you lose focus, you could get really hurt, or worse.
Phoenix: Well, if that happens, maybe it’s meant to be.
Aurelio: Not helping, man. That shit ain’t funny.
Phoenix: I know. I’m sorry. That’s not what I want, ok? I’m good. I’m just saying…
Aurelio: What?
Phoenix: Look, I’m not climbing that mountain any time soon. Do you have any idea how long we have to train for that? But when the time comes, I’ll be ready.
Aurelio: I hope so.
Phoenix: Fuck, can you just trust me?! You think I didn’t consider all of this already?! Yes, if I have an episode, it will dramatically increase my chances of falling… like, I will definitely fall. I get that. But the first few spots we climb, I’ll be fine if I fall. That aside, when I’m climbing, all I’m thinking about is the route. Completely focused, drowning out everything else, almost better than the headphones do. So no, I’m not worried. And you shouldn’t be either. I’m not going to be reckless, but I really do want to make it to the top of that mountain. The more I think about it, the more I work for it, the more of a possibility it becomes, the more I want it. So yes, I’m doing this.
Aurelio: Okay. I hear you.
Phoenix: Good. I hope you can be supportive. Honestly, man, if anything does come up or whatever, I’m not going to just quit. But I will need you in my corner. You’re the only one I can talk to about that shit.
Aurelio: Of course. You know I’ll always be here.
Phoenix: I know. And so will I. I’m sorry for everything I put you through, but I promise I’m good now. More than good.
Aurelio: Okay. Good. I’m happy to hear that, I really am.
#ts4#sims 4#ts4 gameplay#sims 4 gameplay#ts4 challenge#sims 4 challenge#starsignchallenge#starsignlegacychallenge#gen1 aries#aries pt2#phoenix realta#aurelio robles#ts4 simblr#ts4 story#sims 4 storytelling
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Adding More Backstory to Tang Shen
I wish 2012 had told us more about Tang Shen. Not much was told except that she was born in Fukuoka, was 1/4th Chinese, and was a woman both Splinter and Shredder were in love with.
Also, there's a line Shen says at one point, which involves her saying, "I can take care of myself; I've always have." Giving the idea, she grew up in tough circumstances. We never hear anything about her parents, if she was orphaned or not. We know her grandparents were present in her life, and I looked up information about the city of Fukuoka, which is stated to be a fairly safe place. I wish that line was explored more, but it just feels like the writers put it there for some brief moment of angst.
There was also a bit of writing inconsistencies. In season one, episode 26, there are these lines of dialogue I got from the episode's transcript when Splinter and Shredder are fighting
But then, in season 3, in the Tale of the Yokai episode, there's this scene
Yeahh, I believe I found a way to explain this in my rewrite of 2012, but for now, I want to talk about my rewrite of Shen.
I was thinking of making Shen a Taiwanese woman of 100% Chinese descent. She was really close to her father, but unfortunately, he died when she was still a child.
Shen's mother raised her and Shen's younger sister as a single mother with the help of Shen's older brother, who stepped up to provide for his family after their father died.
Shen was a very studious and hardworking young lady, but also a little bit rebellious as she was very set on the choices she made for herself, whether her mother approved or not.
She got accepted to Cambridge University, where she majored in history and minored in linguistics, as she had a passion for history like her father, and wanted to become a historian.
After she graduated from her undergraduate program, she entered her PhD. program for history, where in the last few years of said program, she worked part-time on her dissertation while also working as an English teacher in Japan.
During her time in Japan, she met Shredder and Splinter. Shen met Shredder first; they became friends, and soon both developed feelings for each other. When Shen tried to make a move, Shredder rejected it, as he wanted to focus on the future of the Hamato Clan and gain the approval of his adoptive father, Hamato Yuuta; he also wanted to respect her dream of becoming a historian, and not distract her from it. Shen was embarrassed but respected his decision and agreed just to be friends.
Shen and Splinter don't get together until a little bit later. Actually, when they first met, they didn't like each other at all as their first impression of each other wasn't great. However, they, of course, do come to respect each other after Splinter helped Shen when her car broke down at the side of the road. Shen and Splinter later become friends and then develop feelings for each other, which surprised both of them, especially Shen, as Splinter was someone she did not expect.
I like to think that as they spent more time together, Shen felt more comfortable talking about her passion and also introduced Splinter about the history of the Renaissance Painters.
She does graduate from her PhD. program, but also accidentally gets pregnant because the portrait Splinter has looked like a wedding photo.
I also thought about how Shen was able to find out about how brutal the war between the Hamato and Foot Clan before Splinter does, seeing how it involved the never-ending cycle of revenge. Finding that out, Tang Shen never wanted her daughter to get involved with ninjitsu.
Look at the way Shen looks at her baby daughter; she would've done anything for her.
She wanted Karai to have a normal life, and that's staying in my rewrite, but I also want to explain why she would push Splinter to leave ninjitsu to go to New York with her to raise their daughter; the history between both clans would play a big part with that, as well as her love for Splinter, but also Shen would still be traumatized from losing her father at a young age, and didn't want her daughter growing up without her father.
But unfortunately, Shen dies. I'm keeping Shen's death the same way it happened in the show, but yeah, that was my rewrite. Let me know what you guys think.
#tmnt 2012#teenage mutant ninja turtles 2012#tang shen#karai#hamato miwa#Splinter#shredder#hamato yoshi#Oroku Saki
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Location: Lakeside Lagoon, Newcrest
(transcript under the cut)
Episode 3 | Previous | Next
Here it is! As stated before, episodes 3-5 are a bit shorter than usual, but only because I'm in the process of planning a huge slate of parties, plot-changing events, etc. for summer break. No additional parts to this episode, so I'll be back with episode 5 as soon as I can.
If you haven't seen it, I made a post yesterday about my future plans for this series. Link is here!
Copperdale Records lot created by @softerhaze: link here
Episode 4: Mark Collins
Scene 1 - Newcrest
(starts with a boy walking a dog)
Meet Mark. (And Archimedes.)
Mark’s a first-semester senior at Copperdale High, scheduled to graduate early in the winter.
These are his parents, Drs. Whitney and Landon Collins. They’re both esteemed mathematics professors at the Foxbury Institute.
And Marissa, his nearsighted little sister, who’s a sophomore and currently freaking out.
Marissa (examining an acne breakout in the mirror): How am I supposed to show my face at school today? (phone rings) Ooh, Rani’s calling!
Like her parents, Marissa is a math (and science) genius. She’s also a cello prodigy and an outstanding painter. Mark never stops hearing people praise her many talents.
Scene 2 - Copperdale High
Compared to them, Mark’s more like your typical teenage boy. He’s a science whiz, sure. But he’s not Marissa trying to collect skills like infinity stones, or his parents earning PhDs by 25.
He likes to chill with his friends after school, suck face with his sweetheart before it, and just in general enjoy life as a 17-year-old boy.
Don’t believe me? Here he is at lunchtime, grabbing a bite to eat in the cafeteria.
Let’s pretend he hasn’t decided to dine with the principal today.
Ah, he’s moved to sit with Sofia Bjergsen. Finally.
[How cute! Some freshmen are getting lunch with their teacher. They look like babies!]
(cut to Copperdale students eating lunch together)
Social cliques are loosening up as we creep towards summer break. There’s camaraderie to be found in being tired of school, it seems.
Scene 3 - Dog Park, Brindleton Bay
After classes and extracurriculars, Mark and his sister like to take Archimedes to the dog park.
Here’s Marissa feeding a stray. She’d love to have another dog in their home, but her father’s sensitive constitution can barely handle the one they already have.
Let’s listen in on their conversation.
Marissa: You okay? You’ve been quiet all afternoon.
Mark (frowning): Yeah...actually, no. I’m so tired of going to that physics prep class. I think it’s time I put my foot down and tell Mom and Dad that I want to study music in college.
Marissa: You know what they’ll say about that—
Mark (rolls eyes): I know—
Marissa: “The hard sciences are the future. No one with any real life goals wastes their precious education on the humanities.”
Mark: What about you? Don’t you want to become an artist?
Marissa: Sure, maybe as a side job. But I like math, and I like what Mom and Dad do for work. I’m okay with art being just a hobby for now.
Mark (sighs): I wish I could be like you.
Scene 4 - Copperdale Records
(cut to a record store)
Music? Where did that come from?
Oh, right.
Copperdale Records, the hottest place for music lovers and alternative teens to hang out after school.
(Mark is mixing beats in a studio)
Our boy Mark sneaks here on his way home from the dog park (under the guise of studying with a friend, of course).
Fancies himself a producer, a musical jack-of-all-trades.
To be fair, he did teach himself how to mix beats, edit tracks, and play the guitar, piano, and bass. What can I say? The kid knows what he wants.
(cut to Mark strumming an electric guitar)
And as he tests out the newest six-string in the shop, I wish him the best of luck. He’s sorely going to need it.
#the sims 4#ts4#sims#the sims#sims community#the sims community#my sims#simblr#sims 4#sims 4 gameplay#sims 4 screenshots#sims 4 legacy#sofia bjergsen#fosters#fosters s1#mark collins#marissa collins#archimedes
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okay time to actually make a proper post about this, hey u Neverafter fans, the season is over and was glorious and now. perhaps. you find yourself wanting more dungeons and dragons that delves into horror.
because come on, the death, the briars, the corruption, the chance for death at every turn, it's dope
may I then draw your attention to the Fool and Scholar podcast, d&d actual play, Dark Dice
Six travelers set out searching for a town's missing children. Their journey leads them into the ruinous domain of the Nameless God. Even if they do manage to return, they will never be the same.
like. holy shit my guys, Dark Dice is so good. Fool and Scholar has won a frankly insane number of podcast awards (including a fully Webby) for their shows, for everything from writing to music to sound design, and all of it shines in this podcast. Originally played as an ice breaker before the cast of another of their shows (The White Vault) met for a live performance, Dark Dice has taken on a life of its own and it is a masterpiece.
Travis, the DM/sound designer, edits the actual table recordings extensively to cut down on the slow moments (especially in combat) of doing math or rule clarifying for the new players, but leaves in the little bits of ridiculous table talk that can't be avoided even in a horror campaign. All npcs are fully voiced by other actors, longer bits of dialogue are sometimes rerecorded for better clarity, but the whole story is just as the game was played and it makes the show straddle the line between actual play and just a full on audio drama.
And as I said. good lord, this is a horror campaign.
There is not, I will note, nearly quite the levity that D20 brings, though imo that does make the jokes and ongoing bits all the funnier. The stakes are high -- higher than the characters have any concept of at the start -- and death is a very real threat at all times. Travis made his own critical hit chart to roll on that can have devastating consequences (because you might get an even better hit than you expected on an enemy with a roll, but they can also just as easily crit against you), there's a stress mechanic similar to Call of Chtulhu's that can steadily make the DM an unreliable narrator, have a character questioning what they're really seeing, even turning on the party, etc etc
anyway. Dark Dice is incredible. content warnings are included (and should be minded) at the end of every episode description wherever you happen to find the podcast. They have free transcripts for every episode on their Patreon. Jeff Goldblum (yes that Jeff Goldblum) plays with them in season 2 because Travis decided on a whim to write a nice email and then people just kept not telling him no.
Get your next horror dnd fix. Meet the absolute asshole that is The Silent One. Give Dark Dice a shot.
(and if you are perhaps into the idea of running this game yourself well, Domain of the Nameless God is currently under a revamp but should be available again soon, I have run it two times now -- two and a half if you include the speedrun that was absolute chaos -- and it is a deep and heartbreaking and immersive story to subject your table to)
#part of me wants to go more into some of the horror stuff but like......it's So Much going in blind#and i think it's worth it to just know it's Horror and see where Travis goes with that#neverafter#dimension 20#dark dice#(pls message me if you want me to ramble about this more in detail i love this show so much)
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In Your Lavender: The Wedding Plan Episode
AND WE'RE BACK!
We originally planned to discuss Wedding Plan alongside a few other shows but abandoned that quickly when we realized we both had a lot to say about this show. Come join us as we discuss whether MAME has shown growth, what it means that the lavender marriage term has existed for over 130 years, the importance of lesbians in this story, and the fundamental nature of the closet.
If you've been missing how heated Ben gets, now's your chance!
Timestamps
The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.
01:16 - Intro
03:00 - Wedding Plan and MAME's Previous Crimes
15:18 - Realities of the Closet and Fandom Misunderstanding of the Show
29:23 - Things We Love About Wedding Plan and Final Ratings
37:26 - And Another Thing! The Wedding Plan Special
The Conversation Transcripts!
Thanks to the continued efforts of @ginnymoonbeam as transcriber, and @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.
We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes. When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.
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01:16 - Intro
NiNi
Welcome, welcome. [sighs] Go ahead.
Ben
Oh no, it's fine, you said welcome, I'm not going to do it this time. They won't get it for the Wedding Plan episode.
NiNi
[laughs] All right. Welcome, welcome to the—
Ben
I'm just kidding! And we're back!
[both laugh]
NiNi
Welcome! to the episode that was supposed to be a secret admirers episode, but instead is now the Wedding Plan episode, because everything else was a bit crap. We wanted to talk about this because we could not believe that this came fully formed from the head of MAME, of all the creatives. We were shocked, I think, but…the fandom was also kind of shocked, and we'll delve a little bit into how that played out when we get into the segment but, when I looked at the trailer I was like, ‘mm, okay, this could be cute.’ Did not expect to be…devastated, emotionally [laughs] at certain points.
Ben
I don't really think I watched the trailer properly. I went in a little bit hostile, because MAME’s got a whole thing for boundary crossing. And I was worried going in that this show was just going to be about some rich guy punking around his wedding planner, and then like, cheating on his wife. And that's not the show we got at all.
NiNi
Let’s dive into it so you can hear what we had to say!
03:00 - Wedding Plan and MAME’s previous crimes
NiNi
We are talking all things Wedding Plan. Now Ben, you and I had agreed sometime back that no matter what happened we were never going to talk about a MAME show on the podcast. And here we are [laughs] talking about a MAME show! And there's a really good reason for that.
Let's start by talking about what Wedding Plan is about. Ben, do the honors.
Ben
Wedding Plan is a story about a wedding planner named Namnuea, who is the ace at his event planning company, and a fan of McDonald's, who very much sponsored this show. He is tasked with planning the wedding for a very attractive man and his soon-to-be wife. Complications ensue immediately, because their wedding is coming up in three months and these two have no idea what they want to do for their wedding, and only the groom is the one making the choices.
We can tell very quickly that the groom, Sailom, is flirting with Namnuea; Namnuea is not stupid and picks up on this. The attraction between them is very mutual, but the complications around him being a client and a groom frustrate Namnuea. The reveals that eventually come out make this show to be way more than just a closet case trying to hit on his wedding planner.
NiNi
Reveal the reveals, because I feel like it's impossible to talk about this show in any meaningful way without knowing what the twist is.
Ben
Right! So Sailom and Yiwa, his bride, are in a lavender wedding. So for well over one hundred and forty years, we've had a term to describe queer people choosing to present themselves as heterosexually entwined for mutual benefit and safety. In this case, Sailom and Yiwa hail from fairly wealthy families that are extremely restrictive. The two of them recognized their own queerness at a very young age, and understood that they needed to hide that information. While on a trip in Europe the two of them recognized the queerness in each other when they both had a strong emotional reaction to seeing two women publicly kiss. And then became each other's best fucking friends for life, and decided to protect each other. Yiwa ends up developing a very meaningful romance with a woman named Marine, and she convinces Sailom to marry her so that they can both get out from under their families. They have a long-term plan to divorce.
So when Sailom is flirting with Namnuea, Yiwa is 100% aware of it, and extremely supportive of it, because she doesn't want her friend, who she treats like a brother, to be lonely all the time.
NiNi
That basically sums it up in terms of the mechanics of the plot. But guys, the reason that we're here talking about a MAME show, is, this hit me right in the fucking throat, man. It was so real, in a way that I've never gotten from a MAME show. It felt like MAME almost apologizing to BL for some of the shit that she's done? It felt like MAME trying to gain some understanding and learn some shit, and show that she had learned some shit?
Ben
Just so that we get a bunch of stuff out on the table for listeners: what are some things that MAME has done that you think she should apologize for? [laughs]
NiNi
Ah, [laughs] where do I even begin? MAME work tends to lean very heavily into…traumatizing already traumatized people? I have mixed feelings about a lot of MAME’s work. There are sometimes I'm just like, oh fuck you. And then there's sometimes where they're like, I see where you're trying to go with this but you didn't have the skill. And then there are times I'm just like, ma’am, get the hell out. Something like this that I don't have any mixed feelings about, I just feel strongly positive about it…it's never happened to me before with her work, not ever. And it made me recalibrate in my head—a little bit, because it's still only one show—maybe where I should place MAME as a creative.
Ben
I have a list.
[both laugh]
NiNi
Go on ahead! Read!
Ben
Let's start with Love By Chance. There are four goddamn couples in Love By Chance. Only one couple is remotely stable! We really only talk about Ae and Pete, because we do not need to talk about the other three. MAME loves to question the line between crossing boundaries and romance. There’s Tin and Can, who were the focus of Love By Chance 2—
NiNi
Which I did not watch.
Ben
Then there's Kengkla and Techno, and Kengkla is paying Techno's brother for information on him to eventually date rape him—I mean, that happened in Love By Chance! Then there's Tum and Tar, who are brothers, and Tar was a victim of horrendous acts by a character from TharnType. Moving on to TharnType, a show that I will not watch, for multiple reasons, some of them fandom related that we are not going to get into in this podcast. But the idea that Tharn is going to teach Type that he's actually into men without his consent? Yikes. I don't care how it ends up resolving. The wall is real fucking high for me on that one.
Ben
Didn't they have a spinoff with the other guys from Don't Say No? I'm not talking about that. Then we get to Love in the Air, which I mostly enjoyed, but why do both of the ukes in that show have to get kidnapped in their final episodes? [laughs] Why? It's so unnecessary! Rain and Sky were straight up kidnapped as the final complication of their show. It's insane.
NiNi
I did not watch Love in the Air. So every time you say that I'm just like, ‘that's a thing that actually happened?’
Ben
So this is the difference with Wedding Plan. Wedding Plan is so straightforward. There is no major complication to Wedding Plan. Everything that happens in this show flows naturally from the base conceit that two people involved in a lavender wedding are dealing with some difficulties and frustrations as that approaches, and then make logical choices for their characters, in response to everything that's going on.
And it kind of surprised me how much I ended up really loving this show. It's interesting for me that Yiwa and Marine’s relationship is the reason why the wedding is occurring. I've never really cared about heterosexual weddings in a lot of these shows and stories that I watch, but I feel so much about the way Lom and Yiwa care about each other and protect each other. Lom is agreeing to this sham wedding that's going to eventually lead to a bunch of complications in his life, because he's trying to protect his friend.
Normally in a story like this, there'd be all this tension about the groom struggling with his sexual identity, and what he wants for himself, and the girl's going to get hurt along the way—‘he feels loyal to the girl, we can't just do her like that!’ In this show, Lom is withholding information about the specifics about his relationship with Yiwa from Namnuea because he's protecting her. The crux of the romantic drama of this show was about a gay man in the closet protecting a gay woman in the closet.
NiNi
Yiwa and Marine's relationship is the key to the whole story, but the relationship between Yiwa and Sailom is the core relationship. The fact that they're doing this for each other, the fact that they care about each other so deeply, the fact that they basically decided long ago that they were the people who mattered to each other…and then as people come into their lives who are maybe somebody they might be interested in building a life with, it becomes a decision for everybody as to whether this person gets let in. I would have loved to see how it went when Yiwa decided that she wanted to be with Marine. I understand that's not the point of this particular story, but I would have been fascinated to see how that played out.
By the time we join the story Marine’s on the inside. She's 100% bought in. Marine has made the decision to be in the closet with Yiwa, which is sad in one way, but it's so freeing for them in another, because of what Sailom has done for them. They can be happy. And they are happy! They're happy and they're in love, and they're part of this family of the two of them and Sailom. It made me smile just watching them be with each other as a family unit. And then Lom meeting Nuea. When you're going to bring somebody into a secret like that, you have to be 100% sure. And not just you, everybody has to be on board with it. [laughs] It's not polyamorous, but it's—polyamoresque [laughs] I guess is the best way to describe it. Everybody has to be on board with what's happening. It's not just a question of ‘do I like this person?’ It's a question of ‘is this person a safe person?’ It's a question of ‘do the other people involved in this like this person?’ It's a question of ‘is this a person who I can share this secret with?’ but it's also, as it comes down to later in the story, a question of Lom knowing that he couldn't ask. He couldn't ask Nuea to be a part of the secret. He could just tell Nuea what was happening, and he could just hope and pray—and I don't even think that he dared to hope. And I think that's what the crying was about when Nuea decided that he was going to become part of the family? Lom broke down when Nuea said to him, ‘I'm going to help you keep your secret.’ Because he knew he couldn't ask it of him. And the fact that he freely offered it just brought Lom to tears.
15:18 - Realities of the closet and fandom misunderstanding the show
NiNi
This show is amazing. The show is emotionally sound, the show is beautiful, and I got so mad [laughs] watching this show get misunderstood. And if I was mad, Ben was incandescent. [laughs]
Ben, you take the floor and tell ‘em why you mad, son.
Ben
I'm going to talk about the closet for a little bit. It felt like a lot of the people who are reacting to this show have not been in the closet. I was in the closet for 11 years. Your brain does not work in the same way on the inside, and I'm going to say frankly to anybody who thought Lom should have told Namnuea a lot sooner than he did? When you've been in the closet for 13 years, you do not tell someone you have a crush on, in two months of knowing them. Not when the stakes are as high as they are. The reason they're in the closet is because there will be severe and painful consequences for failing to maintain a heteronormative status quo.
The big thing that separates Lom from Namnuea is, Namnuea is out. The truth about who Namnuea is cannot harm him. Namnuea develops feelings for Lom, and tells his boss. And she says, ‘there's nothing wrong with you having a crush on the guy, like he's hot. You know what the professional boundaries are though, do you need me to step in and take care of this for you?’ and Namnuea said no. When Namnuea fell for Lom, before they hooked up, he called his mom and said, ‘mom I think I fucked up.’ And she's like, ‘sometimes we fuck up baby boy, come home if you need me.’ And after he hooked up with Lom that's what he did! He went home, and he told his mom flat out: ‘the thing I told you about? Yeah I think I went too far.’ And she held him, and let him be a mess about it, because she understood that he already knew that he put himself in a really untenable situation, and she didn't pile on. They protected him. Namnuea can be honest about who he is, and whenever he tells the people who matter to him about something that happened, they close ranks around him and protect him. At the point at which Lom is trying to chase after Namnuea, every woman in his life pulled out their claws and was ready to slit that man's throat. They were all ready to throw hands with this man!
But when you're in the closet, your brain doesn't work right. You are under constant surveillance to maintain the heteronormative veneer over your life. The show does not make this hypothetical. Their friends and family are snapping pictures of them in public, and questioning every relationship they have with someone other than Lom and Yiwa. Lom is sitting at the table with Marine—Yiwa stepped away for a work call, and someone’s snapping a photo like, ‘why is Lom on a date with this other girl? She's trying to steal Lom from your daughter.’ Or ‘I saw Yiwa hanging out with her best friend, are they gay? I took some pictures and now I'm telling your mom.’ When you look at the reason why these two are so vigilant about being in the closet, that's literally what they're experiencing! It's super heavy-handed in this show, but it is exactly the kind of shit that I lived through. Being in the closet because you know that there are consequences and there are dangers breeds hypervigilance.
And I'm going to say it really plainly: all of the really negative takes I saw about Lom that were really unsympathetic to what this man went through? Made me, as a 30-something year old gay man who survived being closeted, really extremely uncomfortable. And I really need you to reckon with whatever you were going through that made you turn on a closeted gay man, and view him as the evil aggressor party in this particular relationship. Because goddamn!
The reason why he chose Namnuea to be his wedding planner was because he had a crush on him! And when you're in the closet you need plausible deniability. Lom is toeing the line. He can hang out with Namnuea and flirt with him, because he's talking to his wedding planner. Nobody's going to question him being around a gay man, because he's his wedding planner! And that's what the homos do, is they plan events for the rest of us! Because they're very good at it. The reason why he's being an irritating client is because he wants Namnuea to talk to him more. If he's a good client, Namnuea’s not gonna talk to him! Because Namnuea’s professional, and busy.
And Lom admits it. He says in episode…6 I believe, because I just rewatched again, that hiring Namnuea was just, in his mind, a little bit of fun before he got married. He would flirt with the guy that he had a crush on, even if it's a little fucked up to do that, and have a little fun before his wedding. He was not expecting to fall in love with Namnuea. But he's got a competency kink! And Namnuea is so good at his job. And he likes his job! He likes seeing people happy at the things that he planned for them, and he takes care of people. Lom loves these things in Namnuea. This even played out in their sex. He was happy that Namnuea was not a virgin. Very tasteful, sir.
NiNi
It being MAME, I will confess, that up until maybe somewhere around the beginning to middle of episode 4? I wasn't sure where they were going with this.
Ben
Let me tell you, I was waiting for her to do some convoluted bullshit as of episode 7. [laughs] They're like, ‘the bride’s run off!’ and I'm like, there's really only one way this should play out. Closeted people make plans. Yiwa is also not stupid. There’s this moment in episode 6—and this is again intentional, the editing on this show is actually really crisp. We get the really poignant scene on the bridge, where Lom talks about the knowing, and Namnuea’s like, ‘we need to fuck right now.’ And then, if you have access to iQiYi, they did! And then we get the scene where Namnuea agrees to be in the relationship, and all that that means.
The very next scene is Yiwa’s mom showing up at Marine's apartment to accost her and slap her. Which is immediately followed by Yiwa running back to the condo, and the way she enters that apartment? She genuinely thought that Marine might have left her. For as happy as they seem, Yiwa never underestimates or undervalues the stress that she's putting Marine under. When she enters the room and Marine hasn't run away, but is just laying in bed, clearly spent from all of this? That's the moment that breaks Yiwa. And then we flash forward three weeks to the wedding, and she's run off with Marine and leaves a note.
Lom knows her! He was not phased by this at all, when—after he's done putting on his jilted groom act, he's laughing. He's like, ‘I know what that cheeky girl did, I can't believe she did this without telling me. Look at this stupid note! I can read between the lines.’ [laughs] And then they call her, and she's like, ‘I knew you would understand my note. That's my boy, don't fuck this up! I'll take this on for you.’ Yiwa takes on the social pariah role here, of being the lesbian who ran away the day of the wedding, leaving Lom at the altar, ‘how dare she?’
The power here is that Yiwa doesn't give a fuck anymore. That's the whole thing about heteronormative shame: it only matters where you can exert that influence over people. Yiwa and Marine said, we cannot exist the way we want to, so we are leaving and going somewhere else. That is a choice a lot of us choose to make: to leave our home communities, to go build community with other people elsewhere. And then she gives Lom the ability to spin that, to soft launch his relationship with Nuea. Because they don't come out as a couple for like six months after that. They put on the act of Lom being a drunken mess for months—he's fine. He's just spraying alcohol on himself and then going to work with his hair unkempt.
NiNi
Episode 7’s so delightful. But anyway, continue.
Ben
And he's just hanging out with Nuea, and he just tells people, ‘yeah, we bonded over the wedding stuff because we had a lot of work to do really quickly for the wedding, and you know he felt sympathy for me afterwards. And he took care of me at a really difficult time, and I feel comfortable with him. I loved Yiwa, she was the only woman I was ever willing to marry.’
Not a lie! But also not the exact truth.
NiNi
I loved the big lie at the end, because it was basically Lom, Yiwa, and everybody in the situation putting two giant middle fingers up at their society, and the people around them. Aside from the people who, as you rightly said, would have protected them anyway. So all the women in Nuea’s life, and the people who he works with at the wedding planning company—basically the people who earned the right to know the truth know the truth. And everybody else gets two giant fucking middle fingers and the big lie.
Ben
It's a little bit like the ending with Bad Buddy, about them breaking up publicly but still being together? It's the same question: who is allowed to know? Something for you to think about, if you didn't get this show and you hated Lom and all this sort of stuff—ask yourself if the queer people in your life trust you. Would you be brought in? Would you be trusted with this information? Lom's mother realizes along the way what was going on the whole time, because she's not stupid. And she says quite plainly—because Lom has not properly come out to her yet, he's been hinting at it, he's like, I feel comfortable with him—and she says, ‘I'm still doing what I need to do to process this, but just promise me you won't leave.’
What she recognized is that she was playing a zero sum game that she could lose. That her son could make the same choice as Yiwa. She recognized that he and Yiwa were likely withholding important information about themselves, from their parents, for a really long time. And that can be really unsettling. It's something I went through in my family when I started coming out, that people were very put off by how I just…hid hugely important portions of my life from them, for most of my life. And she recognized that if she pushed too hard, she would get nothing.
NiNi
It really is the Bad Buddy conundrum, because this is where their parents are at the end, where they know, but if they're not willing to fully be on board? Then they don't get to fully know. And they don't get to be fully involved. Lom's mom knows, but until and unless she's willing to wholeheartedly accept Nuea there will always be now, at this point, a barrier between her and her son. All she can ask of him is that he doesn't leave. But beyond that, she doesn't get to ask anything of him, until and unless she is ready to fully accept every part of who he is. I can't believe that came from MAME's pen.
29:23 - Things we love about Wedding Plan and final ratings
Ben
Something else I really love—I really love the community around Nuea, particularly his family. I love when he goes back to Chiang Mai, and he sees that his little cousin is also out and proud now and has a hot boyfriend. And I love that Sun, Ryu’s boyfriend, is immediately engaged in in-law solidarity with Sailom. Nuea’s family hates him, and he's like, ‘valid.’ Like, ‘If you want to stay here, you got to work.’ ‘Okay.’ And he just works. Nuea's family is protecting Nuea from someone who they think doesn't respect him. Everything mean that they're doing to Sailom is because they are protecting Nuea, and it's really not that much, what they're asking. They're basically just giving him a difficult time, until Nuea decides what to do with him. But Sun is helping him the whole time, he's like, ‘this family's very difficult, I got you bro.’ And that pairs really well with the phone call that Nuea has with Yiwa and Marine, where Yiwa is like, ‘Lom and I do love each other. That is my ride or die: it's been me and him for a long time. I'm not going to pretend that he is not the most important man in my life, but he's not who I'm building my future with.’
And I love that for Yiwa and Sailom, it is love between them. The heteros just misread it. They don't have to fake an admiration for each other. I love that Marine talks to Nuea, and talks about the sincerity of their feelings, and how she's okay, at this point. Because she's the only person that Nuea can really accept any sort of perspective from, and I'm really glad that they had that moment and that was just them.
NiNi
I love that in that moment she doesn't try to convince him of anything. She just says, ‘I can't tell you what to do. This is a crazy situation: here's what I accepted about this, here's why I accepted it. These people are good people.’
Ben
Right! She says their love is sincere.
NiNi
‘Yeah, but whatever decision you make I completely get, because I made my choice. You're gonna have to make your own choice as well.’ She spoke to Nuea very candidly, and I truly appreciated that, and I think that Nuea definitely appreciated that too.
Ben
I love the reveal about Sailom's hands always being cold because he was nervous.
NiNi
Ehhhh [laughs] It was one of those romance things that I'm just like ‘eh!’ about, but it was adorable. It was.
Ben
I really like Pak in this role. A lot of the times when MAME writes her ukes, they tend to be a little bit on the demure side, and they usually need a stern counterbalancing presence for them? I really like that Nuea did not need that at all. I also liked how queer Namnuea felt. He very much feels like a gay boy.
NiNi
I love stories about love and family, and this is one of the ultimate love and family stories. For me, and I can't believe I'm saying this, when it comes to love and family, it's going maybe a half step behind Moonlight Chicken this year for me? I can't believe that just came out of my mouth about a MAME show. But that's really truly how I feel about it. For me, it was a 10.
Ben
I ended up giving this show a 9.5. It's one of the ones that's going to linger with me for a while, and I think a big part of it was just how much everyone else really hated the show. I think we went into this show with a lot of MAME blinders on—I knowingly went into the show hostile. I don't really like a lot of what MAME does. But, respectfully, watching a MAME show—the writer famous for writing romances about boundary crossing—and being mad that her characters are crossing boundaries? Is a little bit disingenuous of a place to write your criticism from. That's her shtick.
Nuea crosses those boundaries too! Nuea had agency, and I really resent the way a lot of the takes damsel him and make him seem powerless. He's not! He is the one with all the power here. It's why Sailom is pouring everything he can into, every time he says ‘I like you, Nuea.’ Sailom is such a sap, and y'all really hated that man. And I really need y'all to reckon with that. Like if you listened to us and you hated Sailom, please, examine your life. [laughs]
NiNi
I have a smidge of sympathy up until episode 4, for anybody who struggled a little bit with Sailom. But only up until episode 4. Because somewhere to the beginning, middle of episode 4, it was very clear what they were driving towards? And then at the end of episode 4 when Sailom and Nuea hook up for the first time, I said to myself, ‘Okay. I see where this is going.’ And then when they get to Chiang Mai, and Sailom finally tells Nuea what happens, because Marine and Yiwa have given their okay, and Nuea said, ‘Duh. Clearly that's what's going on, I already knew that.’ Nuea wasn't fooled by Sailom.
Ben
No, Nuea basically guessed 90% of it accurately. The only thing he didn't really guess, was that they were both in on it. Let me say this as well while we're here: in terms of queer solidarity, Namnuea never once outed Yiwa when he caught her out with Marine. He did not mention that once. Not at all. He ain't tell none of his hoes. He ain’t tell none of his people. He caught those two out, was like ‘oh shit, is my gaydar broken?’ And then he didn't say shit about that. He didn't even hold that up in his whole thing with Sailom. And I respect the fuck out of that man for that, because that’s not his thing to say.
NiNi
The show is amazing.
Ben
It really is.
NiNi
It's, for me, an easy cruise into some type of VIIB Award at the end of the year.
Ben
It's gonna be a difficult year for us, when we're sorting out acknowledging the incredible work that's been done, but this is one of them.
NiNi
Delightful, emotional, deeply gratifying, deeply satisfying. Ben gave this a 9.5, I gave it a 10, let's call it a 9.75.
Ben
It can get a 10 from The Conversation.
NiNi
You heard it here first, folks: Ben says it can get a 10 from The Conversation. MAME gets a 10 from us, and nobody is more surprised than us—
Ben
It’s true.
NiNi
—that that is a thing that happened [laughs] on this show.
Ben
I feel so intense about this show. I get so mad about the discourse around Sailom. He's one of those characters, like, if you don't like him? I don't like you. Fuck off.
[both laugh]
NiNi
And that’s…a word!
37:26 - And another thing! The Wedding Plan special
Ben
And we're back! I have so much more to say, I am not through. [laughs]
NiNi
So before we get into Ben's ‘and another thing!...’ Let's talk a little bit about the Wedding Plan special, because there was a special episode, that cost $8.
Ben
[laughs] I paid $7 for my rental.
NiNi
However much it costs, it costs money. Which I'm slightly salty about because MAME had McDonald's money on this, she didn't need ours.
Ben
In her defense, she has done this on literally every show. Except for Love by Chance…and Don't Say No.
NiNi
McDonald's money. That's all I'm going to say.
Ben
And she cashed in! Good for her.
NiNi
[laughs] Anyway, so let's talk a little bit about the Wedding Plan special. Ben, tell the people what it was about.
Ben
The show's fucking called Wedding Plan. It was the fucking wedding, guys, let’s—we're not going to beat around the fucking bush on this one. It was the wedding for the gays! It was really beautiful. The basic premise is, the guys have been dating properly for what feels like a year, year and a half at this point. They're taking a trip to go back to see Namnuea's family. Before they leave, they have one final check-in with Lom's mom, where she meets Nuea properly as Lom's boyfriend. She doesn't take it very well, but Sailom does not give a shit.
Meanwhile Sailom is working with Wiwa Square to organize a secret wedding for Namnuea. Hilariously, Im still does not like Sailom, and I thought that was an excellent character detail. So they go and travel back to the north, and Sailom has Nuea taking him around—I think they were in Chiang Mai?—to check out sites and locations while everyone else has moved to Namnuea's house to set up for this wedding that Namnuea doesn't know about. Lom proposes to him, they end up having the wedding the next day. It's this incredibly beautiful ceremony, it’s very traditional Thai, I believe. There's more I want to say about some of the stuff that happened at the wedding, but that's the basic premise: Lom organizes a wedding for Namnuea, and his friends plan it in secret. Which I actually think is lovely for a wedding planner, that he didn't have to plan his own wedding.
NiNi
That's the crux of it. You guys know, I am not the one the two or the three for these weddings. I believe in marriage. I believe in the importance of marriage. I am generally not a fan of the weddings. But, this one? It was beautiful, I do have to say. It was a beautiful wedding, everything around the wedding was beautiful. When I was talking about Wedding Plan in the main part of the show, I was talking about how much I love love and family. And that was what the wedding episode was about, it was love and family. Yiwa and Marine were there at the wedding, being Sailom's family, because while his mom is starting to come around to Nuea, she's still not there yet. So she doesn't get to be a part of this. So Yiwa and Marine are his family. They show up for him. They are hosting on his behalf. It's beautiful. It's just so beautiful.
Ben
I did not praise Pakpai enough in our recording; Pakpai’s reaction, as Nuea, to Yiwa appearing before him, for this wedding that he had just found out about? Is one of the most perfect expressions I’ve seen all year.
NiNi
Because he hasn't seen them since they left for England.
Ben
I am a gay boy who believes in community. And believes in gay people taking care of each other. And that means that I have worked in solidarity with lesbians. And it is such a beautiful thing for me, in this year of really good shows, to see two lesbians in a critical role in the lives of gay men. There's something so special about the unconditional, ride or die love between Yiwa and Lom, and how that extends to Marine and Nuea, and creates this very special little family unit. I cannot overstate how important it is to me that Nuea almost cried because he was overwhelmed with emotion getting to see Yiwa in front of him again, and for a wedding that he had just found out about. That was his first reaction: awe, and then he burst into tears because he loved her so much and had missed her for that long. That is so beautiful!
As for the other things in the special…The ceremony itself is really beautiful. There's a lot of really great moments in there. There's this very special moment between Namnuea and Im, where she comes to pay respects, and he takes her hand, and he says ‘I love you’ in this way that conveys a very special history between the two of them? That sent me over the edge and I burst into tears right away. [laughs] I do not know what those two have been through together, but that ‘I love you’ was one of the most effective I love yous I have ever experienced in this genre, and it was not between romantic leads at all.
NiNi
We always go up for the non-romantic I love yous in BL. lt's the Jim and Li Ming thing all over again. Namnuea’s co-workers being there for him at his wedding, the way that they put it together for him, the way that Marine and Yiwa stepped in to be Lom's family, the way Nuea’s actual family stepped in as well. There's a gorgeous scene, after the actual wedding ceremony, where they do—I suppose this is another traditional part of a Thai wedding, which is a bedding?—where Nuea's parents are with them in the room, and talking to them about love and commitment and marriage, and that's the part that put me into tears.
Ben
It was really funny, because like we had not really seen any of the dads in the show. Moms were a big deal in the show. Nuea’s dad is just this sweet man! It was overwhelming for me, how just beautifully sweet this man was, and the way he was pouring love out to Sailom, because he's like, ‘I never thought Nuea would get to have this.’ Nuea, the wedding planner, who spends so much of his time trying to make sure other people's dreams come true? I was floored by his dad just being there: ‘I just wanted my son to be happy, and I'm so thankful that you were able to do that for him.’ And I was like, ‘I don't know who you are sir, but good job!’
NiNi
It was really really gorgeous, and just so many other things…also the stuff that's happening between Sailom and Nuea. The way that Sailom proposes, and the way that Nuea knew it was coming but he still got surprised by the way that it happened? That was gorgeous. And then again, after the wedding and after the bedding, when it's just the two of them in the room, and Nuea does the thing where he pays respect to his husband? And says that that's something that he always wanted to do? The way that these two take marriage so seriously, and especially the way that Nuea feels about it. Because like I said, Nuea is a wedding planner; he sees weddings every day. He sees these rituals and ceremonies and everything every day. And I can just imagine him sitting thinking to himself, ‘one day, one day, and this is something that I want to do with my husband, and this is something that I want to do with my husband’—I can just imagine that. And then meeting Sailom and falling in love with Sailom and actually getting to marry Sailom, and being able to do that, and the way that he is so emotional about that. Mmh! Got me right in the feels.
The reason that I tend not to like weddings is because a lot of the time I find them so artificial, so stage managed and overproduced. I'm talking about this not just in terms of weddings in fiction, but weddings in real life. So, watching something so sincere, something so genuine, something so personal… t’s a production, yes, all weddings are, but it was real! Everything about it was so real, it was so emotional, it was so…[sigh] it was great. It was fantastic. I thoroughly enjoyed that. I cried more than once watching the special. It just added to the joy of discovering Wedding Plan and this whole little universe and these characters.
Ben
There was a lot of little stuff happening around that. Like, one of the things that I think MAME is actually pretty good at, is really caring about her supporting cast in a useful way? She's very good about understanding why that character is there. There's Yiwa and Marine getting to have a private moment, being a little bit sad that they didn't get to have this, a Thai wedding with the people who love them around them. And I like that they got to have, like a quiet bitter moment about that. And I like that they didn't put that on Lom and Nuea, it's not something that they need to be consoled about, it's just one of those things that hurts about being queer sometimes, and that's part of the choice they made. They did take on that hurt, to give the boys a chance to be together, but it still hurt, and I like that the show never forgot that. This show cared about its lesbians, they mattered to this story, they weren't there just to check off boxes to make sure that we covered all of our bases. They were still telling their story.
I love Sun and Ryu listening at their goddamn bedroom, and then having to be chased off. Great comedy. But also I loved it, I loved that there were younger gays excited about gays slightly older than them getting to have their moment together. It was such a special execution of that.
I genuinely like that the Wedding Plan special episode is treated as a special episode. I like where the show ends for itself. I like thinking about the wedding as a special epilogue for the story, and not necessarily as the actual finale of the story. I think it's better as epilogue content.
NiNi
I have to agree! So all in all, when it comes down to Wedding Plan, looking back at it now, I think we definitely stand by how we felt about it. I think that… I have, you know Ben has, gotten even more in love with it? And even more, I think, defensive and vocal about it, because it's good! It's just good. And I don't like people saying it's not! That's it for me.
Ben
This is the number 4 or 5 show of the year for me.
NiNi
Yeah, there you have it.
Ben
Currently it's behind—in no specific order because we're not at the VIIB Awards yet—Moonlight Chicken, My School President, La Pluie, and probably The Eighth Sense? It's that good!
I am in this genre for queer cinephile reasons. I am here to connect with people for gay reasons. I'm not in this for, like, taboo, or to see cute boys kiss each other because it's titillating in and of itself. I exist as a queer person, it informs my decisions on the regular, and it was such a relief to see characters that were not incidentally gay, so that we can imagine two idols bumpin’ uglies.
I really love Sailom and Namnuea so much. Sailom got updated to blorbo status so quickly. Every week I'll just send NiNi a gif of Sailom and be like, ‘they really hated this man!’
[both laugh]
NiNi
He's not even kidding, this literally happens.
Ben
[laughs] It’ll just, just be a great gif that somebody made of Sailom and I’ll be like, ‘they really hated this man!’
Something else I want to say quite plainly here, and I would like you, as listeners of the podcast to reckon with this—and I would really like to talk about this, so please talk to me on Tumblr about this: Part of why I think Wedding Plan did not hit for people, is that Namnuea doesn't look like a girl, and doesn't behave like a girl. He behaves like a kind of femme man, and he feels very gay, in a way that is distinctly masculine. Additionally, the show doesn't really conform to a seme-uke dynamic very well, because Namnuea does seme things—like I noticed in episode 2 that he does a kabedon on Sailom. And I know that bothered a lot of the people who are obsessed with loyalty to the tropes. Namnuea is so self-assured, and I don't necessarily think that that resonated for the people who are in this for BL reasons and for regular romance beats. And I wonder a lot if that was their big problem.
I would really like to have a secondary conversation with the folks who listen to us about this particular dynamic, because I do think it's worth us unpacking why people—as much shit that gets talked about MAME—refused to engage with the show. This is legitimately one of the top queer narratives of the year. And we snubbed this show. I have watched people talk shit about MAME and her writing for five fucking years, and when she writes a whole show that is basically the byproduct of all of our feedback, we snubbed it! When MAME returns to her roots, I don't want to hear none of y’all who snubbed Wedding Plan saying a goddamn thing about her.
NiNi
I'm so mad at you for saying when MAME returns to her roots. Like this was clearly a fluke.
Ben
She's gonna be like Jafar! She's going to be like, ‘let's see how snakelike I can be, bitches!’
NiNi
So you definitely are of the view that this is not a change for MAME, this is just a detour.
Ben
I don't know! I don't know, like I was not expecting Wedding Plan. This show has so much goddamn heart to it, and it was gay! In a real way!
NiNi
I think you need to start subscribing to my vibes-based scoring method.
Ben
What? Absolutely not!
[both laugh]
Nah, it's always about the recommends. Legitimately, it's a 10 recommend. Everyone needs to go fucking watch this show. This is essential viewing for this year. This show represents a fascinating growth point for MAME; because we've criticized her for five years and she made something that is one of the most wholesome gay things I have ever watched in the genre. And we snubbed it, and threw it away.
To the cast of Wedding Plan: you all did a fantastic job, and I hope you all had a really fun time together. I want to thank every single one of you for the work you all did, because you all collectively created one of the most compelling community support systems I've ever seen in queer TV, truly. Especially to all of the women who are on that cast. BL women get messed around a lot, and don't often get to do a lot of great stuff, and every single one of you did a fantastic job.
NiNi
That is going to wrap us up on the Wedding Plan episode. We out! Say bye to the people, Ben.
Ben
Y’all better watch this fucking show. Peace.
[both laugh]
#podcast#lgbtq#wedding plan#wedding plan the series#thai bl#bl series#MAME#ben and nini's conversations#the conversation#on art#season 3#fall#fall series
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𝐍𝐎. 𝟖 ❛ 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐝 ❜ | NAKAWE SACRARIUM, DEC. 1990
❧ 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 / 𝐧𝐞𝐱𝐭.
❛ Finally, the family emerged to conclude the day. Their work was not yet done—it wouldn’t be anytime soon—but the obligation to perform together in a spiritual sense had ended. Now, they turned inward. Mourning afforded a rare taste of full privacy; how they spent it was to be seen, but the nation granted them temporary permission to disappear. Leonor, for one, intended to follow tradition to the letter. She would go home and remain there, living like a ghost. Accompanying her as she left the sacrarium was the fear that she had somehow introduced chaos by failing to adhere to the rules. Worse, the consequences were unknowable. Some of her relatives foresaw boredom and impatience in eighty days of mourning. To Leonor, the prospect of contemplative solitude felt like a chance for reestablishing order—for atonement, perhaps.
❧ that's a wrap on episode two !!!!!! we did it !!!!!! i was gonna write something good and interesting, but ... meh, felt weird today, ran out of steam :/ i am quite proud of the writing i did for this episode, as a whole, tho. more to come !
𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐢𝐩𝐭 ↓
TRANSCRIPT:
[A] Leonor?
[A] Are you sure you want to walk alone?
[L] Is that okay with you?
[A] I think I understand how you’re feeling.
[L] I don’t need talk about it.
[L] I don’t need a hug either.
[A] Oh. I felt like it would help?
[A] With what happened today … Leaving here, leaving her …
[L] It happened. It’s over. I can handle it.
[A] Well, I don’t think I can.
[L] We’re different, uncle.
[L] I know you feel responsible or something, and maybe Mama would want that, but I don’t.
[A] I remember when you were born. It’s hard to not feel that way.
[L] Try. Right now, you’re making this day worse, not better.
[A] That wasn’t my intention.
[L] Doesn’t matter. Can I go now?
[A] Sorry, sure, of course—
[A] What are you doing, Blanca?
[B] I wanted to walk with you.
[A] And eavesdrop?
[B] And eavesdrop.
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