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queerly-done · 1 day

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So my opinions on all the Dead Boy Detective/DBDA Characters

All of these are opinions as someone who has watched the show a few times now and also the Doom Patrol episode and I’ll give my opinions on the Doom Patrol versions at the end.

Spoilers for Dead Boy Detectives Show. And Doom Patrol season 3 ep. 3 and that episode alone

Charles Rowland

- Charles is such a sweetheart I love him. He’s always looking out for his friends and literally went to hell for Edwin, and kicked the Night Nurse for him. I just love him so much.

- I felt so bad for him in episode one when he says his dad, “wasn’t the nicest guy,” and in episode three when we see him break being forced to see a father k!ll his family over. I was actually crying with him saying he doesn’t “want to be a bad guy”! It broke me so badly, the abuse he went through and the fear he’ll become like his abusers is a very real thing and to see a character go through that makes the story feel more real, and makes me more sad. He could use some therapy.

- Him being the “brawn” of the team is pretty funny to me but thats most because if you watch the cast interactions you’ll see what I mean.

- All in all, I love him. He is loving, protective, loyal and has golden retriever with attachment issues energy mixed with scary dog privilege but the dog isn’t scary unless provoked.

Edwin Paine/Payne

- Adorable, get him some therapy please! He needs it! Man was so repressed for the first part of this show I thought I’d die before he confessed. But I don’t blame him honestly, his death was traumatic and being called a “Mary Ann” whilst being sacrificed likely would put a bad taste in your mouth about the idea of you being queer in any way shape or form. I am so proud of him good job!

- Honestly he just makes me so happy, and I love how he interacts with everyone and grows!

Crystal Palace

- I love her she is so bad ass and I hope wish the best for her

- She needs better taste in men, my suggestion date women

- I want to see a little more of her Nepo baby side of her past cause clearly that was a thing

Niko Sasaki

- Sweetie! I miss her! She was the only other person other than Charles to get Edwin out of his shell and it hurts me so much to see her be gone. Her death will forever haunt me.

Cat King

- I love him so much, he is my favourite kind of not evil but not good guy the kind that plays a game with people by flirting! Ahhh I love him! I don’t love that he falls for Edwin(I’ll make a separate post on this issue)

- Anywho I still love him he gives off chaotic gender neutral vibes and the song Sex With a Ghost was made for him, I just love him!

Monty the Crow

- Monty I love you but don’t kiss people without consent!

- Honestly he was very important, and sweet he didn’t deserve all the pain he’s been through, may better things come his way.

Jenny the Butcher

- Badass. I love everything about her. Her style, the way she gives advice, yes I just love her so much. I want to see more of her.

- Her episode made me so sad for her ;-;

Esther Finch

- Honestly I love her as a villain she was so evil, and a genuine threat. She is also so hot and scary I just love her.

David the Demon

- A creep I didn’t like him, I don’t know what else you want?

Doom Patrol versions!

Charles Rowland

- He was so funny in this, I loved him. I love how the show conveyed a mutual interest from him to Edwin they are both just too dense to say anything about it. I also love that it seems the only thing he knows about America is that they like baseball.

- They did have to go off and hurt me with the fear of water scene, but he was so sweet protecting Edwin from the Night Nurse(who in this is just 10 times scarier)

Edwin Paine

- Him not getting anything about modern times and brushing off his feelings for Edwin was so well done! I love how he tells Larry he “isn’t like him” saying he isn’t queer and that if he were that would be bad, he says this all in a very rude and brash tone and then proceeds to comfort Charles in the nicest to he is capable of.

- Beautiful 10/10

Crystal Palace

- Boss ass Bitch, girl boss. 8/10 I love her but no real opinions yet that is I may go back one day and edit this for her

I hope you liked this dumb post :3

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ilikeshitposting · 5 months

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just curious.

what do you guys think of wwx's and lwj's relationship in the untamed (cql) ?

(i'd love to see your explanations in the replies/ tags!)

#i haven't watched the cql completely tbf #i just watched like 10 eps and the ending #but I've seen some people say that they're kinda platonic best friends and I wanna #yeah #the untamed #chen qing ling #wangxian #mxtx

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jesusonafrickinboat · 2 years

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Can we talk about how the afterlife gets more and more colorful as Klaus becomes more and more in control of his powers? Cause that’s BRILLIANT filmmaking right there

#tua s3 #tua s3 spoilers #tua #The Umbrella Academy #klaus hargreeves #I've been trying to figure out why the afterlife was black & white except for his shirt since I first watched s1 #in s1 only his shirt had color #then when he got shot by Stan in s3 it starts out with only his shirt AND the flowers in god's bike's basket had color #his memories[?] had color but that's irrelevant #then when he meets his birth mom his pants are colorful too and the entire scene has some color [though very desaturated]#like the ocean and their skin and a tree in the bg #and the menudo at the very end of that afterlife scene is fully saturated #AND THEN after doing all of the ''training'' with Reggie when he dies and is in the afterlife [now officially called The Void?]#with Luther in ep 10 everything is FULLY saturated color #just super cool

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marymekpop · 7 months

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⟢ highlight of the hour: my dearest [17/20] ⟣

all of you

#my dearest #korean drama #nam goongmin #ahn eun jin #mmkfav #mygif #mdhoth #i srsly aged 10 years watching this drama #the drama can be so unserious sometimes #but then it'll give us the most amazing scenes of gc and jh ever like we saw with the ending to this ep #and i just get so confused and frustrated cus like #look at what the drama is depriving us of #we could and should be getting more emotional scenes like we saw with this ep's ending scene #but nah the drama wants to be annoying and show us other things instead like-#sir im really only here for gc and jh #pLS focus and wake up!#how many more times do i have to ask for more jh and gc #im exhausted at this point #we get so little of them but when we finally do see them together its the most amazing stuff ever

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feelingtheaster99 · 2 months

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I finally finished the end of the last season of Teen Wolf this week, and I almost wish I didn’t because I think the Season 6A plot would’ve been a better ending

#teen wolf #stiles stilinski #scott mccall #like stiles and Scott’s friendship is so CORE to the show #and they barely even talk in the final episode #stiles is back which is so exciting but he doesn’t serve a PURPOSE in thr ep #he like gets jealous of Jackson and cries pathetically in a flashback #stiles deserved better #he deserved waaaay better for a final arc conclusion #also like the ONLY relationship that was active and didn’t get air time was stiles and Lydia #alsk the ONLY one that is still existing that was present in episode one #it’s just rude and an INJUSTICE to their character relationships in all regards #also like I did not get the idea of fear affecting the town and making people turn on the pack #and tamora Monroe’s backstory made NO SENSE #ugh the whole thing was AGGRAVATING and episode 10 would have been a MUCH better ending #lydia martin #stydia #Tamora Monroe #teen wolf salt #teen wolf season 6 #teen wolf series finale #riders on the storm #the wolves of war #also ALSO! bringing Gerard back again was annoying #and you know who I wanted to see again #ISSAC!#I cared WAY more about Issac getting an ending than Jackson and Ethan wtf #sorry I’m just feeling my feelings I do like the show in general but I had put off watching season 6B for so long and it was disappointing #dylan o'brien

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aroanthy · 4 months

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me and the worstie watching the cycle continue as direct result of our actions we have complicated feelings about together <3 on a more serious note, no one ever talks about how touga is present In The Arena for nanami’s duels and i think we should fix that. it’s sort of an unhinged detail that reveals so much about the kiryuu sibling dynamic and also i do just think it’s funny (agonising) that anthy and touga have to stand in the arena together like 😐

[ID: a shot from episode 32 of the anime ‘revolutionary girl utena’. in it, anthy and touga stand side by side, watching nanami’s second duel with utena (off-screen) with unreadable expressions. /end ID]

#also the way that touga leaves the arena before the end of nanami’s second duel. like. HELLO!!!!!!!!!!!!#the die kill maim vibes. the Wow Im Having The Worst Time Of My Life Actually energy #like i cannot emphasise enough. how effective it is to just have them standing and watching this duel like this #head in my hands head in my hands head in my hands #please understand that when i say im a her tragedy enjoyer im Always including romance of the dancing girls #her tragedy is the better ep objectively imho but 32 is like. still top 10 of the show #and together. well. my favourite :) best thing ever actually :)#dais.txt #her tragedy her triumph

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blubble-lake · 7 months

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it's been over 2 weeks and this thing (unfortunately) still has a grip on me

#rant in the tags coming so please do scroll away if you enjoyed the finale 🙏#you know how with some things you'll be like 'I had some negativity towards this thing but--#now that it's been some time I feel better towards it'?#my thoughts on the finale have only gotten worse since it released 🥲#being given more time to think on it made me notice more things I had wrong with it #like I really wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt but it is so difficult #when I tried ranking the episodes from best to least favorite #I'd come to realize that I couldn't put either finale episode above the other for the bottom two #they both gave me the same feeling of being doused in ooze 😭#I've written a good handful more thoughts on why I disliked it since the last rundown I had posted #though I'm afraid if talking about this is considered cringe or old news now that it's been a minute since the eps came out lol #I've watched the finale in full two times just to take everything in but I don't think I can do it again anytime soon #I think there's about 8-10 mins of the finale that I genuinely enjoyed #the rest making me want to cry in disappointment or was just 'okay' to me #just gotta 'it is what it is' my way through knowing the show ended like That. we stay silly!#however- writing about it does give me a little bit of relief lol #adventure time #at #fionna and cake #petrigrof #simon petrikov #betty grof #my post #my art

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littlespoonevan · 9 months

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ok i know it's probably my fault for blacklisting it almost immediately when it first became popular on tumblr but like. nobody told me ted lasso was so wholesome?????????????

#i just finished the s2 christmas ep and i legit nearly cried askdjfh #this is giving me like schitt's creek levels of fulfilment i didn't expect this!!!!!!#listen i ignored it bc it was a show about football and that's on me i apologise #if you haven't picked up on it i'm finally watching all the shows everyone's been hyping up for months/years #i think i've 10 on my list overall and this is number 8 so i feel like i should do a review at the end lmao #mine

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silvercrane14 · 6 months

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followed you for paralive today and got jumpscared by 86???? there are other people??? who like 86????? hello????

I rewatched some of the first season not three days ago and had the ending theme on loop working on my last cozmez piece we are on the same wavelength

Hello!!! Ty for following me ^^ sorry for jumpscaring you for 86 but unfortunately it will happen again I am so 86 brained in fact I am THEE Haruto Keats guy. Also which ending?

#i love the ost its sooo good #i like hands up to the sky from the 3 endings best i think but that might just be bc ep 10 fido flashback scene #crane answers #also yes!!! there are other ppl who like 86!!! several in fact!!! <guy who convinxed all his mutuals to watch it

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jq37 · 1 year

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The fact Gerard's vision of a better world is 'none of that 5am bullshit, we wake up at 8 to workout', just the best. I wonder if Ylfa's still got dawg in her, or if that's not a thing in her new reality. Anyway, another great finale for the books, wrapped more satisfyingly than I expected. There were so many threads, I didn't think they would have the time. I was expecting the Top Hat Fairy to do something to help like Turquina, but *shrug*. I suppose Ylfa having that hat for the rest battle was enough help and was definitely not a waste of precious resources. *sighs* So many 20's, so many stressful Box of Doom's, on the edge of my seat the whole time, satisfying conclusions to everyone's story arcs. You can't ask for better than that.

OK this has been sitting in my inbox for a bit for two reasons. The first is I've just been majorly busy with IRL stuff. The second is that I have...let's say mixed feelings about Neverafter as a whole having seen the finale.

Like, as a vehicle for comedy (which Dimension 20 largely is--makes sense considering the cast is all comedians who are friends. A recipe for shenanigans if I've ever heard one) the season absolutely succeeded. There were very few moments of this season where I wasn't entertained. Thinking about Ylfa saying the phrase, "honking big" will break me every time. Watching the cast lose their mind during adventuring party every week as they descended further into madness was fantastic. And Ylfa going in for the kiss w/ Pinnochio at the end had me dying.

But as a story? And specifically, as a story ABOUT stories?

Ehhhhhhhhhhh.

[To be clear, I am talking about MY opinions here. To everyone who really loved how this season wrapped up, that's fantastic! I'm just talking about me and my thoughts. Even when I'm making broad statements, I'm still just talking about me. Cool? Cool.]

Just to start with the broadest thing, it is *insane* to have a finale that is nigh incomprehensible without having watched some bonus content, and honestly, only slightly more comprehensible if you have watched that bonus content. Like, was it FUNNY to see the full cast practically melting as they went feral for the Orange Fairy? Yes, obviously. But it also undercut any sense of like real stakes or weight to the entire affair.

I'm not the biggest fan of final fights in general because it often feels like just drawn-out math, but I feel like, even factoring that in, the fight didn't feel as engaging as it could because by the second part of the fight, we were fighting characters we hadn't spent a lot of time with. Like, sure, I have thoughts about how the princesses were handled but we did spend time with them. Enough time to at least have some sort of opinion when they were taken down. And enough time for characters to have relationships with them that paid off during their fights--Red taking down La Bete for instance, or Pinnochio reaching out to Mira. With the fairies, we only really met three of them (Turq, The Evil One, and the Godmother), and we really only got a half-decent read on Turq. So it really wasn't that emotionally satisfying (outside of whatever emotion they were CLEARLY getting from their Orange Fairy Acid Trip).

And then the Authors we know the least about! There were all these meta elements that were introduced in this season that weren't really explored much at all. So that element felt really obligatory to me. It was like, the fighting of a vague concept. Which isn't to say that can't work. They fully fight the American Dream in Unsleeping City 1. But that worked for me because (1) they had the concrete villain of Robert Moses to fight as well and (2) there was a very clear thematic reason they were fighting the American Dream. Put a pin in that, I'm coming back to it.

The last two big elements in the fight are the Gander who didn't really do anything but by all accounts, SHOULD have been a bigger player and the Stepmother who ABSOLUTELY should have felt more satisfying to defeat because I actually think she has one of the more interesting stories in the story. Unlike the princesses (who struck me as shortsighted and selfish at worst and majorly misguided at best) and the PCs (who felt very rebel without a cause and a bit aimless for large parts of the season), I fully understand why a character who is always written to be evil would want to be like OK, screw it. Burn it all down. But then, at the last second, we get this, "No, wait, I actually wanted to free us all from the authors" thing and it just feels like it comes out of nowhere. Like, maybe giving her her name back gave her back her humanity or something, Fine. But it gave me so much whiplash. We did not spend enough time with her story threads for that to work imo.

Going back to the Authors thing now. I'm going to skip over a bunch of my logistical questions about them (Is that one ink hand speaking for all Authors? For only some? What even is an Author in the context of this world? Is the world that exists above the Never After even really our world? Fairy Tales don't even have set authors most of the time. They're oral tradition. What does killing an ink hand do mechanically in the actual world? Did they kill the entire concept of storytelling or just give one person bad writer's block? ) and go to my thematic question which is, what is the tone that was meant to be struck here? Or I guess rather, why was this the tone struck? The idea of Authors as a malevolent force and that never really being challenged is so bizarre to me. Because storytelling as a concept exists in their world. So why would they assume malevolence rather than people who just don't understand they're playing with the lives of sentient beings? Like, I get the concept of seeing something just beyond your meagre comprehension and cracking. I really do. But that really only happened when Tim saw the ink. Everyone seemed to just jump on the "Authors Evil" bandwagon and didn't examine that further. And I guess you're not obligated to look further into the people who are controlling your life against your will (though, I really don't understand to what degree the Authors were actually doing that--add that question to the pile) but that makes for a very unsatisfying story beat.

But even outside of that, it's a weird take on storytelling from a storyteller in a medium where you're seeing the storyteller on screen at all times along with the other six storytellers who are telling the story. It's like, an insane level of dissonance, watching someone narrate about how Authors are so cruel and uncaring while watching seven people who are so passionate about what they do, clearly having a great time in the world they created. It made that thread ring hollow to me. And I'm not trying to do some kind of pedantic gotcha like, "Oh ho. You said storytelling is bad and yet you are a storyteller. Interesting." That's not what I'm saying. If you want to tell a story about control and lack of control and agency and all that, then I can see having your players play characters who are being controlled by authors. But it wasn't explored in a way that made any kind of point other than, "Free will is good." Which...yeah. And I initially thought it was very cool that they were telling a story about character feeling like they didn't have agency in a medium where we literally have to watch the "extraplanar beings" controlling the characters' agency because I thought they were going to do something interesting with it but they never really did. Frustrating.

There were hella loose ends that were never tied (What actually caused the Neverafter to merge? What does the Auroratory actually do? What caused the times of shadow*? What was going on in the other worlds?) but lastly, I just want to touch on the loose ends that actually *were* tied. Specifically in the epilogue.

So the idea here is everyone gets to write their own stories. That sounds good in theory. But, in reality, people are gonna have wishes that contradict. And people are gonna have wishes that are bad. And people are gonna have wishes that control other people. Like, in this new reality Tom Thumb wakes up at 8. But that's what Ger wants. Is that what Tom wants? In this new reality Elody and Ger are divorced. Did they both want that? What if one of them didn't want that? What if multiple people want to be married to the same person? What if multiple people want to be royalty of the same place? What if multiple people want to be despotic dictators or the same place?

I'm not going to go through every epilogue, but Roz's in particular gave me pause. Not because she decided to not give herself a true love and in fact specify a cruddy dating life for herself--wouldn't have been my move but do you girl. No, it made me go "huh?" because Siobhan said that in this rewritten version, instead of avoiding spindles, she gets really good at handling spindles, and then when the witch shows up with a spindle, she knows how to handle herself. But that's just like...not how Sleeping Beauty works? Like, it's not that Auora's curse takes hold because she was bad at spindles. It happens because she was cursed to die (softened to sleep) when pricked by a spindle on that day and time! Michael Jordan could have been cursed to die via basketball on his 25th birthday and no amount of talent would have saved him because it's not about life experience. It's about magic. And like, I get that she wanted to have more agency in her story but that's just like...not Sleeping Beauty at that point. If she had been like, "So I spend my whole childhood preparing to face the evil fairy and defeat her in a battle of wits/magic/sword fighting/Uno/etc before my curse takes hold instead of letting people solve the problem for me" then that would have tracked for me. But as is? That was just bizarre.

And then also the fact that the Stepmother AND the Gander were just like, good in this world? The stepmother, I can maybe kinda sorta buy. Like, I have questions 100%. Was this what Cinderella wanted? For her abusive stepmother to just get a clean slate to be in her life again? We're not given any indication that the Stepmother is really a nice person who is being forced to play into the villain kayfabe by her puppet masters and really in her heart just wants to be good. But that COULD happen (and I wish it had) so sure. Fine. But the Gander? The Gander, this primal force, just wants to be good and wander? First off, not the main thing here, but if I was Tim and this dude made my son turn to bones I'd be like??? No??? But also, I thought the Gander was like, a force of the universe! The opposite of the Goose! Yin and Yang type stuff! He can just be good with no cosmological consequences???

(Also, as I said, it's really kind of jarring to watch these characters like struggle for control of their stories and then just, in real time, while 6 actors put words in their mouths about what their best life is. I know that's the nature of the game but it doesn't make it not weird to watch.)

In conclusion, I found this season exceptionally funny but also not very narratively cohesive. I really wish it had come together a bit better because I really love fairy tales. My thesis project right now (which I'll probably share on here when I'm done with it) is a fairy tale retelling and the last major writing project I worked on had a lot of fairy tale inspiration as well. I think there were a lot of potentially interesting ideas in this season! Pinocchio asking why other kids get to mess up but he can't is a great beat. Pib as an incarnation of an archetypical trickster spirit is inspired. The effects of a True Love's Kiss spell wearing off as your marriage crumbles has interesting implications. But it didn't coalesce in what I felt was a satisfying way. I admire the effort that went into this season and would love to see Brennan's notes because I'm sure there's a lot we never got to (some of which might answer some of my questions) but as is, it felt a bit overstuffed and underbaked.

*OK, we actually did get an answer to this question, but it was so tautological as to be basically meaningless and I would like a more in-depth answer.

PS: Oh! I got kind of carried away and didn't answer everything in your message. Let me fix that!

-I think Ylfa is just a normal girl now. I did think Roz taking her in once she was separated from the wolf was very sweet. I have some existential questions about the splitting situation but the moment was still sweet regardless. I do like that people still draw her with the wolf ears though. Wolf ears are always fun.

-It *is* very funny that Ger had a page to write literally whatever he wanted and that made the list.

-I am fascinated by what would have happened if they'd failed that roll. I know Brennan said they'd have time looped back to the start and ended on a bummer note, but I mean like, what would the table's energy have been like. They've never lost like that before. Still haven't. And I didn't really *want* them to but also...my fatal flaw is curiosity so you know...

-Them fighting fully corrupted Tim would have been interesting too. What a cool what could have been. I'm sure there are so many of those.

-That damn Top Hat. Do you think they're actually gonna sell that with the rest of the minis or keep it?

#asks #farmer 10 #dimension 20 spoilers #I'm not trying to start discourse or anything #i wanted to wait for everyone to enjoy the end of the season before I posted about it #and I still love d20 #I plan to watch the next full cast season #this season just never came together for me #which is a shame bc i love fairy tales so much!#I'm not even pressed about the horror tone not being consistent #I personally like horror-comedy more than straight up horror in general #there was just too much stuff and not enough shaping it for me #i would have cut some of the opposing forces to keep things more streamlined #and if you introduce meta stuff you REALLY have to keep a handle on it or it can get so wonky so fast #I think this could have worked in a game with all these elements but like in a home game with unlimited time not in a 20 ep show #with actors who will spend half that time riffing (which I love them for don't get me wrong)#neverafter spoilers #neverafter

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lipstickontheglass1985 · 4 months

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honestly how is that that the best star trek episodes tend to be the one modeled after courtroom dramas. somehow whenever the writers are like "what if we had a courtroom drama where all the laws are made up and the discussed charges were physically impossible to be made in the current legal system" it ends up to be a banger almost every time

#just watched the dax ep and like. maybe it wont end up in my top 10 star trek eps ever but like i found it rly good #like the insight into the trill as a species and society was rly interesting and the central dillema of #'what makes an individual person' was presented in a compelling way #and like it did remind me a tiny bit of 'the measure of a man' and now im like. god i miss tng. i wanna rewatch that ep now #thots

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seventh-fantasy · 2 years

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Vegas Theerapanyakul, heir of the minor family.

I couldn’t stop thinking about how the minor family is presented in the image of traditional Chinese mafia / triads - a stark contrast to how the main family appears like a corporation. I couldn’t stop thinking about how that that means they would have emphasised on values of community and loyalty. Although the show doesn’t go far and deep into it in the main narrative, there are clues that this is more than just an aesthetic choice of their living compound and dressing - particularly pertaining to Vegas’ character (and because of course that’s all i care about).

Visually, we see that in their Guan Gong worship (typical deity worship by triads), the locals hanging around at the shophouse front of the manor, and also in the group feasts (I had such a good mini exchange in the tags with @bocje-ce-ustu about this that made me want to write this post). This post expounds on this nature of the minor family so much better in detail. *blows kisses to op*

Since we didn't get to see enough of Vegas papa outside of being VP's plot device, we don’t know a reliable amount about him to determine how his leadership style was like to have us seeing what we saw around the minor family house. Personally I just can’t take Kan’s character in ep 11-13 too seriously. He literally appears to bitchslap Vegas based on the most simplistic *handwaves* reasons and then he was gone - as if you didn’t need to go through the hassle to cross the river to get to the safehouse. (crossing rivers everyday just to bitchslap your son? that’s some commitment) The earlier episodes and ep 14 may be more reliable but it’s still limited.

Nevertheless, how did he raise Vegas as a heir of such a community? I want to think that as much as a piece of shit we saw Kan as for most his screentime, he still had a strong sense of their triad values in his blood, and it gets into Vegas as a person (for better or for worse). At the very least, he was shown seated with the rest of the gang at the table (in the above screenshot). How did such a community raise Vegas as a potential successor in general? What was his and Macau’s childhood like? (I have not read the novel so don’t @ me.)

It’s so interesting to think about those given what a complex guy Vegas turned out to be. (Complex as a character itself but also made even more complex with how the narrative over the episodes had nebulously shaped audience perception of him - like, you can get a different side of Vegas in each episode and have no idea where the fake or real Vegas starts and ends as we saw him. That ended up being a charm of his character.)

(Vegas + Kan + Macau + minor family community)

I got the impression that it has been pretty much assumed that Macau could also be frequently physically abused by Kan like he does with Vegas, and so Vegas would have to actively protect Macau. But also consider this possibility: Kan just doesn’t hit Macau at all. It’s only Vegas he hits.

Macau simply doesn’t strike me as someone who has to live in constant mortal fear. He’s innocently mischievous and sociable; clearly not as emotionally burdened as Vegas. But he's not naive. He’s aware of Vegas’ plans and whatever politics is going on in his extended family. I just don’t believe that Vegas’ form of protection and care for Macau is to completely hide all the ugly stuff from him like what Porsche did with Chay.

At the same time, Vegas is too much of a pleaser to be opposing his dad all the time for Macau to be consistently safe and stable. Especially considering that we can safely guess that him talking back to his dad at the safehouse in ep 13 was one of the first times he had explicitly stood up to his dad in some way. (a side note: the way Kan responded may seem on-the-nose after a succession of Kan scenes just appearing out of thin air to hit Vegas and galvanise the VP narrative - but it hits a raw nerve like yeap I 100% believe that’s how an Asian parent would respond to such a statement from their kid.)

That’s because Kan’s expectations for Vegas, the eldest son and potential successor, just aren’t the same as for Macau, the younger son.

I can imagine Kan putting all his attention, energy, and pressure on Vegas - not only as his heir but a chess piece in his competition with his older brother and the main family. At a cultural-social level, as an eldest son of a family, like a crown prince, he was fed with expectations that he is the leader of his people - that he will have responsibilities to them and to conduct himself with grace. But at the same time, because of personal and familial reasons, he was also fed the belief that he and his family will forever be inferior to the main family - having anger and bloodlust be seeded and harnessed in him to be used on the main family.

On the other hand, I see more realistically of Kan as a neglectful father to Macau. As a second son, Macau isn’t anything to Kan in business sense and just too young to be useful to him. Thus, we have Kan insisting that Macau is useless (SLANDER) despite Macau having done nothing to offend him. It’s precisely that Kan doesn’t do anything but the bare minimum with Macau and lets him be, that he thinks that Macau had wound up as “useless”. It checks out.

Like what many have pointed out, Vegas surely would have taken up the responsibility of giving the care and love to Macau that they never get from their father. Essentially, Vegas had to fulfill Macau’s emotional needs (to his best) while being actively hurt by his father and strangled by his expectations.

So, imagine Macau as a much younger child having to watch his older brother get beaten or go through corporal punishment (kneeling before the ancestral altar, anyone? wow I’m so original). It’s then Macau who may have been protecting or provides relief to his older brother in some way or another. He knows - largely - what his older brother has to go through, and it is this Macau who probably gets confided and eventually got in the knows of his brother’s schemes.

On this note, it’s probably worth noting that there’s after all a community around them so Vegas may not have had to raise Macau - emotionally and socially - all alone. Of course, these are merely weak ties - given that those underlings are socially inferior to the brothers and they clearly still show deference to Vegas. So what their presence can do to fill the voids of the brothers’ family life is only so limited. The important thing, however, is that the brothers do have a community that surrounds them. A community that has already pledged loyalty to the family. A community that would care and show respect - any inkling of non-hostile social interaction - to their young masters which their own immediate family couldn’t offer. A community that Vegas as a heir would have been drilled into his head since day one that he is obligated to keeping together. This sense of community, as vague as it was, preserved Vegas emotionally somewhere deep down, grounding him to be a person that still has the capacity to care for others - to be human.

This isn’t anything nearly suggested in drama canon, but the many families and street vendors working for them doting on and showing tenderness to the brothers as children is an image I have in my head.

Vegas personally has no problem being respectful and affable with the people who are supposedly lower in status than him. Evident in ep 7 (ep 7 my beloved) from how he interacts with them - addressing them in familiar, polite terms: he even calls the street vendor khun lung - uncle, inclusive of honorifics(!) It’s also in how he entertained Porsche, Pete and Arm like they’re his guests and not his family’s bodyguards. He repeatedly makes sure they’re fed: first he offers moo ping to Pete and Arm then shortly after he asks again whether they’re hungry. These are the kind of manners that are inculcated in a traditional Chinese family, in which you show respect to anyone older than you and make sure your guests are never hungry. Even if he was overdoing this just for Porsche at this moment, it was an act he was willing to put up and in a manner of his choice.

(On this note of Vegas’ manners and politeness, I can never forget how much I love Vegas politely pre-empting Porsche and co. at the beginning of his torture session in ep 7 that they would be uncomfortable. like?? thank you evil man?? that’s so considerate of you)

(Just realised that there’s even a plate of buns?? On...a gambling table...?? Minor family is serving their guests well.)

It was so intentional of the drama to dedicate time to scenes of Vegas and co. entering the market and through to the minor family manor and office, even when it didn’t necessarily have to - apart from the purpose of illustrating Vegas' character. If the Vegas we saw in early episodes hanging around main family compound was indisputably a pretense as he was in foreign territory, then this Vegas being in his home ground was surrounded by an expectation to see him being supposedly who he really is. Partly due to Porsche being around, we still see the same Vegas - but now with an inkling of the idea that how he acted with Porsche before is also how he acts daily in his own space: He has to pretend. Socially, that is who he is. (See why he and Pete are mirror images of each other). Those moments of going after Porsche wasn’t an exception he was making for Porsche as the prey and his Grand Scheme. All the more, this makes the ending scene of ep 4, the first time we saw him truly all alone, fascinating to watch.

(Vegas + Porsche)

I guess tangentially related is...how I found the Soft™ Vegas of ep 13-14 in his interactions with Porsche so fascinating because it does instinctively feel different. Was it just the effect of Pete in the most romance drama cliche fashion or does it adhere to Vegas as a character? Sometimes you have to take the way this show portrays its characters with a pinch of salt because it does take liberties with using them as plot device when it is needed of them. But I’m going to say this side of Vegas is also him. It feels different because it’s the barest we’ve seen of him emotionally yet.

Porsche makes for an ideal litmus test of who Vegas really is because of their past mode of interaction for comparison and also Vegas’ character gets to exist outside of romantic/familial narrative filters in this case. With Porsche no longer being his prey and his newfound attachment to Pete, he had nothing to hide, and now there’s even a reason to bare himself to others.

This is me extrapolating at this point but - when he calls Porsche to warn him of the impending coup - despite not actually being friends, that just *handwaves* spelt out like an act of 义气 to me. 义气 has apparently been translated as “righteousness” but acknowledged to contain cultural connotations too complicated for the translation to be wholly representative. If I had to describe the connotations according to my understanding of it, it’s an idea of a code of honour and brotherhood - in some ways favours and debt-based. So you commonly see that term associated with triads and secret societies.

At this point, Porsche and Vegas are expressively in a collaborative relationship, they helped each other out on what each other needed the most at that point. Vegas is indebted to Porsche. So, even during a time of crisis, he made sure to help Porsche out one last time based on their short-lived allyship and Porsche’s favour to him. But it was a situation beyond his control, so he pays back what he owed, and that was it. Given his upbringing, it is then no surprise that he has such a strong principle and value in him. Vegas is a villain - yes, even after falling in love with Pete and all - but a villain with a code of honour.

(Vegas + Kan + Pete)

Vegas has 义 (yi, righteousness) and he has 忠 (zhong, loyalty) too: with his father. Vegas clinging to his father despite the toxicity and destructive nature of their relationship - even if to the point of silliness and *chef’s kiss* pathetic - can perfectly be explained as something innately human. But on top of that, the way and the degree he went for his father’s approval was likely also culturally enforced given the environment he was brought up in.

Back to the Guan Gong, aka god of loyalty, worship at the minor family house. I didn’t get to talk much about this in the post I made about it but it’s definitely worth going into it here about Guan Gong:

Just as important, at the grassroots level of society Guan Yu became a kind of patron saint or protector god for everyone from blacksmiths and opera performers to triads and police officers. (...) Guan Yu’s steadfast, sometimes bullheaded adherence to the principle of zhongyi proved key to his meteoric rise. China’s emperors, who valued loyalty in their subjects, saw Guan Yu’s obedience and respect for his superiors as a value worth propagating. To ordinary people, meanwhile, it was Guan Yu’s yi that made him a legend worth believing in. (...) Guan Yu was capable of acts of cruelty and extreme violence, but his yi manifested as a strict code of behavior and sense of honor, two necessary components of any good folk hero. If anything, the flawed side of Guan Yu’s yi actually enhanced his popularity with regular people — his imperfections only made him seem more relatable. (x)

Sounds familiar.

When you swear loyalty - in the presence of the Guan Gong idol, you swear to give everything you have to the organisation. This loyalty is unquestioning and servile. And that’s the kind of loyalty Vegas has to his father. We know that he pleases his father because he craves for his father’s love and recognition - but why this way? Why is he doing it so willingly? Even by the end of the show he barely showed anger and hatred towards his father. He lashes out at the situations of being let down by his dad, but not at his dad (at least that’s what I think) - because he then goes back home and was 100% ready to go kill some people just because his dad wanted to and he never considered once he could defy that. Perhaps this is why.

So when Pete prays to Guan Gong - in Vegas’ home, it’s as if unwittingly pledging his loyalty (and obedience) to Vegas - even before he or the audience was supposed know anything that was going to happen. That’s just a coincidence, yes? While I don’t think Pete was doing that because he was thinking about swearing loyalty to the minor family but just a general sentiment of ‘I see a deity figure and I will pay respects to it for general good blessing’, it was indeed in Pete’s nature to do that. Nothing is a coincidence. Once again, they’re mirror images of each other.

(Vegas + the main family)

The first time we saw Vegas and Korn in the same room was when Macau came running in to the meeting room after getting bashed in his head. But the first time we really saw them interacting was in ep 14 (correct me if I’m wrong though). I love that scene for so many reasons and all of them are because of Vegas and it being the culmination of the family drama in the show (!!!! bounces in excitement)

This face when Vegas realised that his uncle had killed his father and was about to draw his gun at him:

It just struck me that it was nothing like all the faces he had made before when he was about to torture or kill Kinn/Porsche earlier in the episode too. This is just the face of a boy broken for life, yes?

He draws his gun but he doesn’t shoot right away. Why? What directly got him retreating was not at all Pete telling not to shoot - Pete said that before Vegas drew his gun and was standing away from Vegas’ sight the whole time. It was only right after Korn dismisses his guards and tells Vegas that he will take care of him and Macau, that Vegas stops and leaves.

His uncle just killed his father - maybe it was an inevitable ending he was expecting. But was he expecting his uncle to react so calmly and even extend mercy to his family? I want to know so badly what their relationship was like. How did they interact all along before this? Judging from what we’ve seen of Korn, I’m sure he would have been a respectable and presentable uncle. I’m sure they had family gatherings especially when grandfather (who kidnapped Porsche mama) was still alive.

Hesitating to shoot such an uncle, for a man with a strong sense of loyalty and family? Sounds fair. I would like to think that is the reason of his struggle there since Vegas has no qualms about killing people. Killing people is fine for him but killing his uncle is different. Additionally, I like to think that he was also thinking about Macau’s well-being. If he died here as a murderer of the main family’s leader, what would happen to Macau?

Also bringing us to this one shot in this same scene of Kinn gently shaking his head at Vegas pointing his gun at Kinn’s own dad:

I’m enthralled. It wasn’t an expression of anger or disgust, it was deep disapproval hand in hand with concern. Or something like that. I don’t know if Vegas saw that but I would like to see his face if he registered that. It just felt like a conscious choice to me that Kinn was shown doing this in the midst of an intense moment between his dad and his cousin. I want to know what was going through his brain.

What I would like to extrapolate from this is that there is ultimately not really any real hostility between them, personally. Just as Korn had (even for secretly manipulative reasons) shown gentleness and mercy as a family member to his nephew who was trying to kill him at that moment, I want to think so that Kinn was raised to react similarly except without the ulterior motives Korn harbours.

Did they get along as kids somehow? How have they always been interacting with each other before Porsche came into the picture? I can’t shut up about how Vegas has always referred to Kinn in affectionate familial terms - as p’rung (idk the correct romanisation), the second brother. (Hits close to home because I also refer to my own cousins on sibling terms). Even when he had been harbouring desires to kill Kinn, they’re still family. The only reason he wanted so badly to kill Kinn is the agony that he can never get away from the fact that his family is beneath his. It’s that they are, unfortunately, family.

I lowkey resent that I don’t really have much to say about Vegas and Kinn’s relationship in relation to the topic of this post. I just love them as each other’s foils - both forced to grow up too soon as crown princes of their families and main protectors of their brothers but each raised by two quite different fathers who are brothers in rivalry + Vegas having a one-sided obsessive rivalry with Kinn which is just too funny. The drama sadly doesn’t give me as much as I would have wished for. But we make do. <3

That’s all. ✌️

#kinnporsche #vegas theerapanyakul #theerapanyakul family #vegaspete #my posts #and in this house we dont talk about ep 10 vegas except how he was seducing kinn's loved ones left right centre #i have a soft spot for chinese community portrayals in thai media bc they're inevitably teochew in some way and i'm teochew #(not that kp presents anything distinctively teochew. unlike mafia lakorns set in the 60s)#it's a more reliable source of southern chinese rep than cdramas. and also ofc immigrant/seasian chinese culture too #by ep 9 i was saying vegas being the epicentre of the kp narrative was closer to what i wished the show to be #vegas and kinn's narratives are like two shoots off the same branch for me #so ideally kinn's story would also have rocked me the same way vegas does...but you know. yeah #the way you can't tell but I KNOW half of this is like me exporting my hlht brain into vegas.pdf #when i say i started watching kp thru hlht lens i mean it LOOSELY. like i'm actively shaping it in my mind to be a much fuller #character-centric family dysfunction + political intrigue drama that i desire it to be. and i had to borrow ideas from THE exemplar #this isnt even meta it's just me running my mouth off based on the most tangential clues and making sense it thru my own brain #bc i NEED to study vegas in the context of his family #of course in NO way xdq and vegas are the same. but they are a very similar kind of desperate son-heir archetype #both morally grey but INTERESTINGLY. each are on the opposite ends of the moral greyness spectrum #oH- AND THEY BOTH TORTURED THEIR LOVE INTERESTS BEFORE KNOWING/FALLING LMAO #and i had a galaxy brain moment like. i was talking about xrj and his sons the other day. we dont know how he raised xdl #but it was as good as xdq being more like a father figure to xdl than xrj ever was #and it was probably how xdl turned out so well-adjusted unlike his three older brothers!!!! lol #xdq and xdl vs. vegas and macau parallels waaaa-#anywaysss. oh god vegas. what a guy #def the most complex and layered thing this drama has #this was supposed to be a quick post but it turned into a full-length meta that i have been working on for days...wtf

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