an emotionally charged towel

middle-aged erstwhile hipster, psych researcher, IPV survivor, bisexual ADHD-haver; she/her/hers; currently into BL, tokusatsu, & 19th c. novels; proud parent of a trans kid. “It was such a relief when I saw it crying. It may look different, but it's still true to itself. It's still an emotionally charged towel.”

[emotionallychargedtowel]

BL & tokusatsu meta master post

(featuring more Utsukare posts than you can shake a stick at)

Posts covering multiple shows

Fungibility in Zettai BL and Zenkaiger - Applying Martha Nussbaum's typology of objectification, specifically the "fungiblity" type, to Zettai BL 3 and Zenkaiger

The pursuer-distancer dyad & how it applies to the world of BL - a primer on this psychological concept and how it applies to BL generally, touching on how it applies to Utsukushii Kare, Semantic Error, and To My Star 2

BL ask game: Long-term pining and grumpy/sunshine

My top 5 rewatched BL scenes, responding to an ask by @wen-kexing-apologist (shockingly, it's mostly Utsukare)

Kamen Rider Gavv

Reblogging @nctzenkane via @fadedsaturated to note the parallels between Shouma Stomach and Stacey from Zenkaiger

Kikai Sentai Zenkaiger

Kaito x Stacey: Being seen authentically & the value of consent - A look at some of the factors that make the Kaito/Stacey ship on Zenkaiger so compelling

He-who-gets-thrown-out-like-garbage - About a possible etymology of Stacey's name

Zettai BL (season 3)

What's different about Hatano, part 1 - In short, Hatano isn't fucking around.

Part 2 - Hatano's awareness of Mob's fourth wall-breaking and other ways he sometimes senses Mob's reality in a way no one else has

Part 3 - Hatano's perseverance, his oddly effective running-away strategy, and exploiting the age gap

Part 4 (the final installment) - Hatano seeing Mob authentically (not objectifying him) and the way the BL-within-a-BL storyline changes the way the audience relates to him

25 ji Akasaka de

Prying off the shell - Mihara's observation about how Shirasaki lacks a "shell" (a kind of social self) while Hayama has an impenetrable series of shells within shells, what this really means psychologically, and the implications for how they relate to each other.

Nominating a runner for 25 ji - After the penultimate episode, @my-rose-tinted-glasses and @lurkingshan posted about who should have to do the traditional JBL run (or the equivalent thereof) and I responded.

Hayama's mask finally slips - Looking closely at Hayama's affect in the opening scene of episode 9 and processing the level of blorbo distress this entails .

Over-analyzing the finale trailer in a vain attempt to try to manage my pre-finale angst. Comparing the first season with the manga (no spoilers if you've already seen season 1).

The Eighth Sense

The Eighth Sense e5 & e6: Portraying trauma with nuance

On The Eighth Sense episodes 7 & 8

The Eighth Sense episodes 9 and 10: All we can do is try

Bokura no Shokutaku/Our Dining Table

Thoughts on the "spinoff" (bonus episode) as a logical extension of the leads' character arcs.

Old Fashion Cupcake

I had a realization about Nozue's constant, somewhat inappropriate complimenting of Togawa while looking at a gifset and reblogged it with my thoughts.

To My Star

Revisiting To My Star: A pursuer meets a distancer (season 1, episodes 1 & 2)

Revisiting To My Star: It's really hard to meet someone who's fun to be around (season 1, episodes 3 & 4)

Revisiting To My Star: This is considered flirting (season 1, episodes 5 & 6)

Revisiting To My Star: If it's hard for you (season 1, episodes 7, 8, & 9)

Notes on a gifset by @jimmysea - Nerding out big time on that one season 2 kiss

Only Friends

Sand, compulsive caregiver - On Sand's documented history of parentification and how it relates to his relationship with Ray

Only Friends characters' fragrance preferences - Assigning each of the lead characters a favorite fragrance based on their personalities, with some made-up backstory

Minato's Laundromat

About that Minato's Laundromat season 2 storyline... - Commenting on a certain character's traumatic brain injury and its effects from a psychology perspective

Kiseki: Dear to Me

Chu chu chu; or, intimate scene tips from the Kiseki cast

Brief commentary on a reblog of some behind-the-scenes footage

HIStory 3: Trapped

A reblog of the "chu chu chu" post about Kiseki that adds similar information about how intimacy was handled on the set of HIStory 3: Trapped - featuring a helpful linguistic note from @nibupei

and, last but not least...

Utsukushii Kare meta

The psychological paradoxes of Utsukushii Kare

This was intended to be a series of three posts (maybe one day I'll get the other two out?) discussing things about the characters that may seem contradictory at first but can be accounted for by digging deeper into some psychological concepts.

Part 1: Covert grandiosity and finding status through idealization - A look at 1) the subtle ways Hira shows that while his self-image can be highly negative in some ways, in other respects he feels superior to others and 2) how by elevating Kiyoi’s status and humbling himself in comparison, Hira attains a different kind of status.

An addendum of sorts to part 1: Hira's parents and his self-defeating tendencies - Some guesswork about how Hira's parents could have contributed to his self-defeating personality and specific self-defeating strategies he uses in his relationship with Kiyoi and elsewhere.

Utsukushii Kare through the lens of pursuer-distancer dynamics and related psychological concepts:

The pursuer-distancer dyad & how it applies to the world of BL - See above in the list of multi-BL posts. This one isn't super focused on Utsukushii Kare but is pretty de rigeur for understanding my UK posts on this topic.

Paradoxical roles; or, I think I finally figured out the pursuer-distancer dynamic in Utsukushii Kare - This post comes after some of the ones listed below but I recommend reading it first as this is really where I finally cracked the code on this aspect of the story.

Pursuer-distancer roles & attachment style in Utsukushii Kare, Part 1: Hira - In-depth discussion of Hira's role in the pursuer-distancer dyad, his attachment style, and his personality.

Pursuer-distancer roles and attachment style in Utsukushii Kare Part 2: Kiyoi - In-depth discussion of Kiyoi's role in the pursuer-distancer dyad, his attachment style, and his personality.

Re-evaluating pursuing & distancing in Utsukushii Kare season 1 - working out my thoughts about pursuing and distancing in season 1.

On the way Sakai Mai (the series' director) uses seme left, uke right framing and its significance in BL and other Japanese media:

Using an example from the s2e1 with the girl who hits on Hira at a party (via a reblog of a gifset from @nanons)

On the way Sakai flips Hira's and Kiyoi's position in the frame in two versions of the same scene and what it tells us about its significance

How the persistent/cute trope plays out in Utsukushii Kare season 2, plus related overanalyses of the big season 2 finale kiss:

The persistent and the cute - how "persistent" and "cute" are code words with specific meanings in BL/yaoi/other drama and manga genres/Japanese culture more broadly.

Analyzing the season 2 finale kiss in light of seme left/uke right framing and the persistent/cute trope in a reblog of a gif post by @nanons

Reblogging @bl-bracket to lobby for the season 2 finale kiss, with more overanalysis

Fragrance nerd discussion:

This bittersweet fragrance - on the significance of osmanthus/tea olive in Utsukushii Kare season 2, with additional information on the possible significance of the fragrance of osmanthus and perfumes that are either osmanthus soliflores or feature prominent osmanthus notes

Posts on specific season 2 episodes:

initial thoughts about S2e1

Additional (informal) thoughts on s2e1

S2e1 rundown

Hira's incongruous/misaligned affect at the end of s2e1

S2e2 rundown

on S2e2, including pursuer-distancer dynamics and seme left, uke right

Utsukushii Kare S2E4: “face me straight on” (mostly discussing relationship dynamics pointed out in topic-specific metas)

on Utsukushii Kare: Eternal:

Kiyoi and Anna: on Kiyoi’s friendship with Anna and its significance for his personal growth

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

ONLY FRIENDS DREAM ON + Text Posts

[pamrak]

LET THEM EAT!!! 📣📣📣

[karpad]

This Black History Month, reflect for a moment on the fact that George Washington Carver, famously "the inventor of peanut butter and more than 100 industrial uses for peanuts" wasn't, like, Doc Brown fucking around in his garage because he really liked peanuts but was specifically trying to introduce larger use of a nitrogen fixing legume into crop rotations against cotton monoculture which was destroying yields, livelihoods and the biosphere, and how most agribusiness farming now just destroys that topsoil on purpose and continues to grow a cotton monoculture (or soy or corn or whichever local monoculture is profitable) using petrochemical derived fertilizer, which is one element driving climate change

Daniel Hale Williams performed the first successful heart surgery. He also founded the first nonsegregated hospital in America because he was keenly aware of disparate health outcomes by race which is still a problem today.

WEB Dubois was a part of the delegations for the birth of the UN. His proposal to include in the charter that "the colonial system of government … is undemocratic, socially dangerous and a main cause of wars" was not adapted for the final draft. We might see inaction against colonial violence to this day as part of the failure of others to heed his warnings there.

I feel like so often when we look at Black History Month so much of it is driven by factoids but when taken as history in context its about a direct line from decades and centuries to what is happening right now.

[ryan-sometimes]

I love it when conservative rock fans find out Kurt Cobain was woketron 5000

[ryan-sometimes]

Showing a bigoted 56 year old Nirvana fan these pictures to watch them disintegrate

[telomeke]

[ID–

First image above comprises two photos of Kurt Cobain in a floral shift dress, side-by-side.

The photo on the left shows Kurt standing casually, looking off to the left with his hands in the pockets of the dress. His hair is long and slicked back and he has a t-shirt on under the dress. His legs are bare from just above the knee down to his socks and shoes.

The photo on the right shows Kurt in the same outfit. He is playing a left-handed guitar and singing into a microphone on a mike stand. In this shot you can see his gray-and-white socks (rolled down to his ankles) more clearly, as well as his denim shorts cut off just above the knee under the flowy hem of the floral skirt.

‌

The second image shows Kurt kissing Nirvana bandmate Krist Novoselic on stage in 1992.

‌

The third image consists of a photo and text alongside. The image is watermarked "Pigeons & Planes". The photo is taken from above and shows Kurt Cobain looking upward. His long hair is disheveled, with a stray lock across his face, and his lips are parted as though the image was captured mid-speech. He is wearing a cord lanyard around his neck with a square of paper at the knotted end, and is dressed in a loose t-shirt with a caricature of a grumpy-faced smoking woman drawn in vintage style on the front. He appears to be in denim shorts, and has a wristband or a slim-strap watch on his right hand.

The text alongside the photo, attributed to "Kurt Cobain via Incesticide Liner Notes", is all in capitals and reads:

At this point I have a request for our fans. If any of you in any way hate homosexuals, people of different color, or women, please do this one favor for us – leave us the f*ck alone! Don't come to our shows and don't buy our records.

‌

The fourth image shows a close-up of Kurt Cobain singing closely into a microphone, his lips touching the grille of the bulb end. The text alongside, attributed to Kurt, reads as follows:

"I am definitely a FEMINIST. I'm f**king disgusted by the way women are still treated. It's 1993 and some people still think we're in the 1950's. We need to make more PROGRESS. There need to be more female musicians, more female artists, more female writers. Everything is dominated by f**king MALES, and I'm sick of it!"

The words "feminist", "progress" and "males" are in all caps for emphasis.

End ID.]

‌

[winjennster]

[syoddeye]

[amartworks]

had a fun experience on the subway the other day

[glitterary]

We often treat commenting and kudosing as transactional, but I’d like to propose a different perspective.

A fandom is like a community garden; the plants and trees are fanworks, the paths and benches are structures like ao3 and kinkmemes and themed weeks or months. Comments, and kudos? Those are fertiliser. You don’t necessarily see them at work, but they make the trees grow stronger and the flowers bloom brighter. When you comment on a fic or piece of fanart, you are nourishing our shared garden and helping to make the soil fertile for future works.

I want commenters to feel proud of that contribution. Whether you turn up with a wheelbarrow of the stuff to tip on your favourite flowerbed or just drop a heart emoji in the donations box, you are helping to make the soil richer, the garden more beautiful.

And you know what? Sometimes you need to just sit in the garden without feeling obliged to do anything to maintain it. That’s okay. It’s your garden too! As an author, I don’t want people coming to my stories with a sense of obligation; I want them to be able to enjoy them and be restored by them. If they don’t have the energy to comment right now, that’s okay.

But a comment isn’t the price of an entry ticket to someone else’s garden; it’s an investment in your garden, in your community. You won’t always see it bear fruit, won’t always know what part of the whole it helped grow. But you can know what you put in, and feel proud of being part of the team nourishing and maintaining this wonderful space we all share.

And whatever you do, please—don’t litter, or tell other people they’re enjoying the garden wrong.

[dropthedemiurge]

Idk if anyone already talked about this but watching Heated Rivalry Episode 6, I fixated on one small detail 🫠

When Shane's dad says "I just didn't think you'd be so friendly with Rozanov", Ilya immediately tells him his name, and David corrects himself.

I honestly don't think Ilya said his name to interrupt, ragebait or be more chaotic like his usual self. But calling him Rozanov - it's for strangers, for coaches, for hockey fans, if you call someone in Russian by their surname only (not full name) - it can be either neutral-dismissive or even slightly offensive and scary, like a teacher scolding a student. Calling by the first name is friendly. In my opinion, Ilya, by offering his name, was bridging the gap between him and Shane's father, taking the first brave step to test the waters🥺

That felt like establishing relationship (when Russians meet someone outside of established hierarchy setting, they negotiate formal/informal You and decide how to call each other - full name, first name, short/diminutive name etc). He could probably say "Just Ilya" if he meant this exact thing but I love headcanonning this is what he meant. But the dad thought he was correcting so he apologized maybe😆

AND ANOTHER detail. The dialogue goes:

– Rozanov.

– Ilya (stress on A, correct Rus pronunciation)

– Ilya (stress on A, foreign pronunciation)

That just made me smile for no reason, aaaah the amount of care they put into teaching Connor Russian! He stresses so many Russian words the correct way, and he uses correct intonation (especially sarcastic one) in situations that is so difficult for a foreigner!

The fact that they made sure to use different pronunciation in a brief exchange when Ilya says his own name and David says his name - chef's kiss.

🫠🫠🫠 When I watch Connor portray Ilya Rozanov, I feel like a starved kitten that's finally been fed for the first time by some random on the street (< Canadian tax payer & HR crew)

[chysodema]

The Russian analysis is bringing me this huge extra layer of enjoyment. Watching another show recently I was basically yelling at it every episode for their totally off portrayal of formerly-Soviet Jews. I’m familiar enough to recognize when it’s dead wrong (having lived in Russia for a while and been surrounded all my life in the US by Russian & Ukrainian Jews) though not fluent enough in language or in culture to be able to be an arbiter of when it’s spot on.

Usually listening to non-Russian actors say Russian lines is so painful for me - the pace and emphasis of speech is off and it sounds like they’re reading something off a phonetic cue card, which they probably are. It doesn’t matter if I understand the words or not, they still sound like someone with rubber lips speaking around a mouthful of marbles. I was SHOCKED when Connor-as-Ilya started speaking and it just sounded normal.

Seeing these primarily positive reports from a community I care so much about, who are stuck with such wildly off representation most of the time, fills me with even more love for this show and for Connor Storrie and whatever team was involved in getting him to this point.

OP’s tags are also key to the post I reblogged (I have no idea if this is the proper way to do this)

[dropthedemiurge]

That's an interesting addition, thank you!!

Yes, Russian language, personality traits & culture has been wildly misrepresented in global (and especially western) media – and I get why, for all the political reasons, I really do) but it still makes me long to share the cool and fun part with the rest of the world.

Last time I've seen a foreign actor tackling talking in Russian was watching White (main character) in Not Me (Thai BL series) who's supposedly studied in Russian university. When he was talking to his Russian girl or dad who also "spoke" Russian, it was painfully obvious that carrying that experience was only a goal for first 5 minutes and a setup to the show. The pacing, like you said, the pauses and wrong emphasis and delivery gives it out more than good pronunciation.

Gun (the actor) did a good job memorizing difficult lines and his accent was typical for foreign students studying Russian that I encountered in my uni – but it made me crave for more. I was imagining how different some parts of the story or White's reactions or dialogues with his boyfriend Sean would go if the experience was actually incorporated in that story. (it's a great BL romance-socialmessage-action series otherwise, check it out guys!)

And Heated Rivalry with Ilya gave me everything I could dream of – and I'd definitely forgive them for not trying too hard with the budget and everything. But I didn't need to, because they fucking cared. I don't know who possessed Connor (he's singing old russian ballads?? With old vocabulary? Has tattooed modern rap on him??) but we adopted him now. He's one of us!

Let me ID my tags for addition cuz I mentioned details:

[Original post tags ID: #he does make mistakes and sometimes I can't tell detailed words or he sounds unnatural #but he NAILS some really hard scenes and words that really matter #like the way Russians say interjections or bite back or whisper or highlight words/syllables #his черт (damn) and я люблю тебя (i love you) and меня?? (me??) will live forever in my mind #and his verbal and facial reactions (aka ragebait) are sooo fun and sooo familiar I swear we do talk like this to our friends lmao #HOW DID HE UNLOCK THIS I don't think he had enough time to study mannerisms but freaking hell #give him an award for this]

[and-fishing-equipment]

in 2026 DO NOT ask yourself whether your art is GOOD

instead ask:

is it SINCERE

was it CATHARTIC

was it FUN TO MAKE

is it MADE BY ME

and don't forget to stay silly

[evil368]

All you need to know about me is that I'm very particular about differentiating between yaoi an slash and using terms right

Because I remember when they were used right!!

[werewolf-transgenderism]

saw this video of a production of the nutcracker that has tony hawk skateboarding in it today. btw.

likely place for tony hawk to be

[cookinguptales]

“Sometimes you just have to say yes to things way outside your comfort zone, especially when your daughter thinks it’s funny,” Hawk wrote on Instagram.

[carvente]

Remember the reason for the season

[angelwarm]

i hope that one day i will finally be ok….i’ll make a cherry pie when it is all over

[angelwarm]

today is the day

[joshpeck]

reblog the cherry pie to be ok

[pumpkinylink]

The cherry pie worked for me and here’s to hoping it’ll work for you too

[fanficaddict13125-deactivated20]

Let the cherry pie do it’s magic

[tsunflowers]

let's swap the heroes and villains from normal little kid magical girls and fucked up dark magical girls

a girl is overcome by pain as the seed implanted within her reacts to a wave of dark energy downtown and though she knows every transformation drains her life force, giving her strength but at a deadly cost, she goes to fight. and it's a three foot tall mouse in a zoot suit going "nishishi! no one in this town will ever be able to enjoy the park again now that I've turned the swingset into a monster!"

a beautiful yet terrible man with wisps of darkness emerging from his orifices says "there is nothing you can do. your pitiful human civilization will crumble before us. this perversion you've brought upon the world, this pathetic ideal of community... we'll damn it all. to put it simply, you're fucked" and it's a 13 year old girl in a puffy skirt who's like "I don't think i got all that... but I heard the last part! you shouldn't say stuff like that mister!"

[iristial]

[woobifiedvillain]

Sorry for posting tiktoks on main but this was articulated so well it made me get up and pace