#twins the series meta

[sunshinechay]

His dad didn’t check in with Sprite a single time this entire episode. Didn’t ask how he was holding up. Didn’t ask if this was becoming too much. Didn’t ask if he thought he could keep going. All he kept asking about was Zee. How is Zee doing? How bad are his injuries? How are you doing with HIS volleyball practices?

Sprite may have volunteered to do it, but that doesn’t mean his own parents can go without checking in on him. Yet they don’t, and Sprite doesn’t even think about asking for it anymore. He doesn’t complain about the toll it’s taking on his body. Having to do both sports. He only complains that he isn’t good at volleyball like Zee is so he caused the team to loss. It’s ironic that Salmon is the only one to ask about this because she isn’t even Sprite’s friend, she’s Zee’s girlfriend. Sprite probably thinks she’s only doing it because she is concerned about Zee’s place on the team, not about Sprite and how soon his body is going to give out from under him.

To watch the hope and light die just a little bit more in Sprite’s eyes each passing day is hard. All anyone cares about is Zee. Zee is the one in the hospital. Zee is the one their mother pours all of her effort into. (I honestly have so much to say about their mother and none of it good). Zee is the golden child that their parents immediately go too when he’s sick or injured.

Zee is the one both of them finally listen to when he tells them to leave his hospital room. Neither can even show the maturity necessarily to hold back arguing about Zee as if he isn’t even there. And if Zee isn’t even there, where exactly is Sprite?

Both of their parents seem to only think about their children in terms of what they can do for them. Zee’s talent in volleyball out weigh Sprite’s talent in jiujitsu to them. Zee is the quiet one who did as they said without comment. Zee is the good child who suffers in silence and does not make trouble, whereas Sprite causes nothing but trouble.

It’s honestly no wonder Zee finally can’t take it anymore. His anger at Sprite might be misplaced, but I get where it is coming from. He can’t suffer in silence anymore. He can’t take the weigh of his mother’s disproportionate expectations and his father’s distance. He can’t take that his brother seems to have a carefree life, void of the constraints of the world. It’s no wonder he wants what Sprite has.

It’s also no wonder why Sprite does what he does. He mouths off to his teammates, not knowing or realizing that they are capable of such extremes (who on earth would want to believe that) and causes Zee’s hospitalization. He wants to do everything he can to get his mother to pay attention to him because for all that he might have come to terms with it, he is still a little boy desperate for his mother’s love and affection, even if it comes with strings as thick as rope for him to dangle himself over the precipitous. Even if in the end, she still won’t give it to him. He still want to make things better for the brother who hates him for something that isn’t even his fault.

Sprite has only been shown time and time again that his parents may take care of him, but they do it because they have too. They do it because he was the plus one to Zee’s birth. They might love him because he is their son, but they do not care about him.

So Sprite tries with the team. Tries to get on their good side and make friends and build something with them because he wants them to like his brother (always his brother, never him). Only to be forced back into the corner and belittled and ignored because he isn’t his brother. He doesn’t have the skills necessary to play like his brother does because it’s impossible to build those skills in only a few short weeks when Zee’s been doing it for years. And he can’t even tell them why he can’t play as well as Zee can because if he does that and one of them tells the coach then the whole team is screwed.

Sprite is walking a dangerously tight rope and he is going to fall one day. He is going to fall and he needs to learn about to catch himself because he knows in his heart he has no safety net. He has no one save a single friend who only knows half the story, who only knows what Sprite tells him. He doesn’t believe he has his family to fall back on. He knows he doesn’t have the team to fall back on. He only has himself because it’s been proven to him time and time again. So he tries his damnest to make sure nothing effects him. He tries so hard to get better at volleyball, to make his parents proud, to make sure he does his best for his teammate, to make sure that his brother has a life and a sport to come back too. He tries so hard NOT to think about the fact that his father doesn’t check in with him when he finally comes clean.

#twins the series #twins the series meta #sprite tts #i am in my feelings right now #poor sprite #and honestly poor zee too #neither of these boys asked for this #but their parents lack of maturity is showing #the fucking look on his mother’s face when zee says he needs to talk to sprite privately #she looks absolutely affronted and for a second i thought she was going to throw some kind of hissy fit #cap watches twins the series #cap speaks

[chaos0pikachu]

Is BL Being Overly Influenced by Modern Western Romance Tropes?

Short answer: No. anyways, in the following essay I will explain that James Cameron is a weeb...

(okay fine~~ lets actually do this)

TLDR: discussing what media globalization is, how fandom can distill it down to only American/European cinema, showcasing how a lot of current BL is influenced by countries within it's own proximity and NOT "the west" but each other, also James Cameron is still a weeb

I had seen a post that basically proposited that BL was being influenced by modern western romance tropes and had used things like omegaverse and mafia settings as an example. I found this, in a word, fucking annoying (oh, two words I guess) because it's micro-xenophobic to me.

It positions western - and really what we mean by this is American/European countries, we're not talking about South American countries are we? - cinema as the central breadbasket of all cinema in and of itself. Inherently, all following cinema must be in some way, shape, or form, influenced by American/European standards, and as such America/European countries are directly responsible for cinema everywhere else, and these places - namely non-white countries - do not influence each other, nor have their own histories in regards to storytelling or cinema and do not, in turn, also influence American/European film making either.

Now like, do I think all of that~~ is intentionally malicious thinking on behalf of folks in fandom? No, so chill out.

I do, however, think a lot of it is birthed from simple ignorance and growing up in an environment where ~The West~ is propagated to be central, individual, and exceptional as opposed to the monolith of "Asia" - by which we mean China, Korea, Japan don't we? How often in discussions of Asian countries is Iran, India, or Saudi Arabia brought up even tho they are all Asian countries? - or the monolith that is South America - in which some folks might believe regions like the Caribbean and/or Central America belong to, but nope there both North America.

Anyway, what we're talking about here is the concept of "media globalization":

"The production, distribution, and consumption of media products on a global scale, facilitating the exchange and diffusion of ideas cross-culturally." (source)

"The media industry is, in many ways, perfect for globalization, or the spread of global trade without regard for traditional political borders. [...] the low marginal costs of media mean that reaching a wider market creates much larger profit margins for media companies. [...] Media is largely a cultural product, and the transfer of such a product is likely to have an influence on the recipient’s culture." (source)

Typically when I see fandom discussing what falls under MG the topic is usually focused on how "the west" is influencing Thai/Korean/Chinese/Japanese media.

Enter, Pit Babe.

Surely Pit Babe was influenced by Supernatural right? Omegaverse is huge in the west - love it, hate it, meh it - it originated in the west - specifically via Supernatural after all.

Nah.

Omegaverse has been popular in Japan and China for almost a decade, if not longer. The earliest omegaverse manga I can think of is Pendulum: Juujin Omegaverse by Hana Hasumi which was released in 2015, almost a decade ago.

(what if you added furries into omegaverse? WHAT IF?? - Japan)

There's countless popular omegaverse manga too, and the dynamics only moderately resemble the ones we're familiar with in the west. Juujin is part omegaverse and part furry/beastmen - the alphas are all beastmen the omegas are humans - while something like Ookami-kun Is Not Scary only slightly resembles omegaverse dynamics as a hybrid series - beastmen are really popular in Japan in part b/c of historical mythology (you see the combination of romantic Beastmen and Japanese culture & folklore in Mamoru Hosoda's work The Boy and the Beast and Wolf Children).

Megumi & Tsugumi (2018) is so popular they're an official English edition published by VIZ's imprint SuBlime and that's a straight up omegaverse story.

(look at the omega symbol on the cover loud and proud baby)

So if Pit Babe was influenced by anything, it certainly wasn't "the west" it was Japan, Korea and China. Because those countries have a thriving omegaverse sub-genre going and have had such for 10 plus years now. Supernatural is popular in Japan, yes, and that may be where Japan and Japanese fans originally found omegaverse as a fictional sub-genre.

HOWEVER

Japanese fans took the sub-genre, bent it, played with it, and evolved it into their own thing. As such, other countries in their proximity, like Thailand, China, and Korea who read BL and GL manga, found it and were like "hey, we wanna play too!"

(is that an omegaverse yuri novel I spy?? yes, yes it is)

When I watched the Red Peafowl trailer, it had more in common with Kinnporsche, History: Trapped, along with films and shows like: Jet Li's The Enforcer, and Fist of Legend, Donnie Yen's Flash Point, Raging Fire, and Kung Fu Jungle, Han Dong-wook's The Worst of Evil, Kim Jin-Min's My Name, Lee Chung-hyeon's The Ballerina, Baik's Believer & Believer 2, Yoshie Kaoruhara's KeixYaku, popular Don Lee films The Gangster, the Cop and the Devil and Unstoppable alongside BL manga like Honto Yajuu and Bi No Isu (probably one of the most well known yazuka manga to date).

Like, we're seeing a rise in mafia based BLs and people think that's because of "western influence" and not the absolute insane success of kinnporsche??? Especially in countries like China, Korea, Taiwan, Philippines and other Asian countries???

Mafia films and gang shows aren't even that popular here in America/Europe; don't get me wrong, they still get made and exist, but the last full length film was The Irishman which did not make it's budget back, and while Power is still on-going it's not a smash hit either. The heyday of Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, The Wire, Goodfellas, and Scarface are long gone. And if you've watched any those shows or films they have very little in common with Kei x Yaku, Kinnporsche, or Red Peafowl in tone, or style.

(who knew martin just wanted to make his al pacino/robert de niro fanfic come to life all these years?)

Another example, The Sign, which is clearly taking inspiration from Chinese costume dramas: Ashes of Love, Fairy and Devil, White Snake (and it's many adaptions), Guardian, & Ying Yang Master Dream of Eternity. Alongside Hong Kong and Korean cop and romance shows like Tale of the Nine-Tailed, Hotel Del Luna, Director Who Buys Me Dinner, First Love, Again, and previously mentioned cop dramas.

Like, I know y'all don't think Twins is influenced by, what, American sports classic Angels in the Outfield?? Gridiron Gang?? Rocky?? Nah that shit is inspired by the popularity of sports manga like Haikyuu!!, Slam Dunk, Prince of Tennis (which even has a Chinese drama adaption), and the like. And also probably History 2, & Not Me but I'm like 87% sure Twins is just Haikyuu fanfic.

So like, does this mean that there's NO history in which American and European cinema influenced these countries? What, no, obviously that's not true, American/European totally have had media influence on countries like Korea, Japan, etc.

Astro Boy by Osamu Tezuka considered "the father of manga" was inspired by Walt Disney's work on Bambi. Another more recent and prominent example is director Yeon Sang-ho and his film Train to Busan.

"And it was Snyder’s movie [Dawn of the Dead, 2004], not the 1978 original, that filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho recalled as his first encounter with the undead. “That was when I started my interest in zombies,” Yeon said, in an email interview through a translator from South Korea. Even today, he added, “it’s the most memorable and intense zombie movie I’ve ever seen.”" (source)

HOWEVER, the global influence doesn't stop there. It's not a one-way street. Yeon Sang-Ho was inspired by Zack Synder's Dawn of the Dead, a remake of George Romero's own work, but Yeon Sang-Ho's work has inspired countless Korean film makers to make their own zombie media; following Train to Busan there's been: Kingdom (2019 - current), All of Us Are Dead (2022), Zombie Detective (2020), Zombieverse (2023), Alive (2020), Rampant (2018).

And hey, wouldn't you know it now we're starting to see more zombie media coming out of places like Japan (Zom 100 the manga, movie, and anime) and High School of the Dead.

Do you know what Domundi's series Zombivor (2023, pilot trailer only) reminds me of? It's NOT The Walking Dead (which is the only relevant zombie media America has created in the last decade) it's Korea's All of Us Are Dead (2022). Comparing the trailers, the settings, the tone, it's clear where Zombivor is pulling inspiration from: Korean zombie cinema. NOT American zombie cinema.

In fact a lot of Domundi's shows - Cutie Pie, Middleman's Love, Naughty Babe, Bed Friend - are all very clearly inspired by Korean filmmaking, specifically that of romantic kdramas from the 2016 - 2020 era. Not always in story, but rather in technique.

This is media globalization. It's not simply ~The West~ influencing non-American/European countries but countries who are often more close in terms of: proximity, culture, and trade are going to have more influence on each other.

It is far more likely that Aoftion (Naughty Babe, Cutie Pie, Zombivor) was influenced by watching Train to Busan, All of Us Are Dead, and other Korean zombie shows and films than a single episode of Walking Dead.

My point isn't that this goes one way only, but rather it is very literally a global thing. This includes American and European film makers being influenced by non-American and European cinema.

Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Darren Aronofsky, Christopher Nolan, the Wachowski sisters, George Lucas and James Cameron have all been influenced by Japanese film making, especially the works of Akira Kurosawa, Satoshi Kon, and Mamoru Oshii.

John Wick's entire gun-fu sub-genre is heavily influenced by classic Hong Kong action films, specifically John Woo films. Legend of Korra, The Boondocks, Voltron, Young Justice, My Adventures with Superman are all obviously inspired by Japanese anime but animated by a Korean animation studio (Studio Mir). Beyond that, the rise in adult animated dramas like Castlevania, Critical Role Vox Machina, and Invincible to name a few are very clearly taking inspiration from anime in terms of style. The weebs that were watching Adult Swim's Inuyasha, Bleach, and Dragon Ball Z have grown up and are now working in Hollywood.

Okay so like, what's the point of all this? What's the issue? Since American/European cinema does influence et all cinema does any of this really matter?

YES.

I take contention with this line of thinking because it centers "the west" and our supposed individual importance way to much. Declaring definitively that "BL is being influenced by western tropes" and then including tropes, narratives, and film making styles that aren't inherently western and actually have major roots in the cinema of various Asian countries, removes the existence of individual history these countries have which are rich, varied, and nuanced. It removes the "global" part of globalization by declaring "the globe" is really just America and Europe.

It distills these countries down to static places that only exist when American/European audiences discover them.

BL doesn't exist in a vacuum you can trace the development of Korean BL to the development of Korean het dramas almost to a T. You can also trace their development to the queer history of each country and how Thailand interacts culturally with China, Japan, Korea, etc and vice versa. It also ignores the history of these countries influencing American cinema as well. Don't mistake "the globe" for only your sphere of experience.

Anyway James Cameron is a damn weeb y'all have a good night.

Check out other posts in the series:

Film Making? In My BL? - The Sign ep01 Edition | Aspect Ratio in Love for Love's Sake | Cinematography in My BL - Our Skyy2 vs kinnporsche, 2gether vs semantic error, 1000 Stars vs The Sign | How The Sign Uses CGI | Is BL Being Overly Influenced by Modern Western Romance Tropes?

[like these posts? drop me a couple pennies on ko-fi]

#kinnporsche #pit babe the series #the sign the series #twins the series #red peafowl the series #domundi #gmmtv #chaos pikachu speaks #fucking a this was an entire essay #i should drop a ko-fi link cause good god damn #chaos pikachu metas #Youtube #pikachu's bl film series

[daydreamsinthemoonlight]

ngl i'm kind of obsessed with babs and the role he plays in the narrative. he's the worst. he's a poor little meow meow. the only point of his existence was to be used and consumed by the tridentarii. no one has ever loved him in his entire life and no one mourned his death. he's haunting the narrative but nobody cares enough to notice.

#the locked tomb #tlt #IMAGINE DYING IN A SERIES ABOUT GRIEF WITH NO ONE TO GRIEVE YOU #A SERIES ABOUT LOVE WITH NO ONE TO LOVE YOU #chewing on him like i'm one of the twins #to be clear i still hate him but i am also fascinated and a little bit pitying #tlt meta #naberius tern

[nutcasewithaknife]

Can't help but think about how much of Jiang Cheng’s 'I am nothing without my core' outburst when he wakes up after losing it is not because he needs to be the best but because he just lost the only thing he could do for his mother after she died. If it would've mattered less to him once he'd gotten the time to mourn her loss. If he stays up at night thinking about how all his accomplishments so far were possible because of Wei Wuxian's core, and how that would've disappointed her even more. If he thinks that she would've let Wei Wuxian give him his core had she been around back then, and feels an old but horribly familiar anger burn through him. If he still curses her for her last words to Wei Wuxian and curses himself for parroting them. If he curses Wei Wuxian for believing them.

Can't help but wonder if his dedication to the sect was to protect its people and those who depended on it just as much as it was about continuing a legacy, upholding his duty. If he really did all that to make his dead mother proud and earn his dead father's respect, if these considerations ever took first place in the light of day where he had a sect and a nephew to look after, or got relegated to the late hours when he lay awake, haunted by the past. Can't help but wonder if he ever saw Jin Ling cry, realised that his own mother would've scolded him for showing weakness, and decided that what she thought mattered less than he'd realised.

Can't help but wonder how much his mother still haunts his life.

#this went all over the place. which is actually an accurate representation of my thoughts on them #jiang cheng #jc #yu ziyuan #yzy #wei wuxian #wwx #twin prides of yunmeng #yunmeng brothers #jiang wanyin #the untamed #cql #chen qing ling #mdzs #jiang cheng being haunted #yes this is going to be a series of posts focusing on one relationship each #because jiang cheng is so very hauntable. beloved wet paper man #meta

[syrena-del-mar]

Volleying Hearts: Navigating Love and Insecurities in Twins the Series, Ep. 10

We're heading into the last leg of Twins The Series and I am still loving every second of it. This show has been giving me everything I wanted since the first time I watched the

I might be in the very small portion of viewers that aren't completely frustrated by this show, at least from what I can tell with all the reviews that came out with the latest episode, but that's because I can't wait for shit to hit the fan. I'm actually okay with the fact that they're waiting until episode 11 for the truth to come out, because I predict—I'm really hoping—that the fallout is going to be painful for everyone.

Man, Sprite has been so love-starved since his childhood that I completely understand why he still hasn't come clean to First about who he really is. Yes, it's terrible that he still hasn't confessed and yes, he has had several opportunities presented to do so. But how do you build up that confidence to lose maybe the only one who loves you for being you? The only one that sees you more than just a nuisance? Sprite doesn't have that confidence, he doesn't even have enough self-worth to believe that First would still love him even if he wasn't Zee.

Not only that, growing up Sprite was the more passive twin, he was the people-pleaser out of both of them. He was the one that let kids mock him and his brother. He's the one that tries to smooth over the fallen puzzle, when all he is met with resounding disapproval. Sure, Sprite was able to leave volleyball behind, but it's not exactly like his father had chosen him either, so of course he felt like he was the black sheep. Hell, he'd been doing double practices for two collegiate level sports and his father doesn't even stop to ask him if he's alright. Not even Salmon truly asked if Sprite was okay. Almost everyone in his life has reinforced that it would be better if he was just like Zee.

So Sprite's selfish. He's been starved of love so he hoards the affection like it's precious commodity. He takes what he can get as Zee, because he believes that First will only love him as Zee. Zee is the one that First has history with. Zee is the one that he saw everyday in their club. Sprite is not Zee, his parents have made that abundantly clear with how they lookover Sprite for Zee. If the people who should love him unconditionally prefer Zee, why would First be any different?

And he clings to as much love as he can get from First while being Zee. It’s the way Sprite holds tightly onto First’s neck, as if he’s afraid that if let’s him go, he’ll will disappear. Sprite asks First to not overthink his changing personalities, but First (reasonably) responds that he's not able to do that. Sprite accepts its, but the way his face shifts and his nose twitches tells a different story. Those nose flares are so incredibly subtle, but it really shows where Sprite is at mentally with the conversation, almost as if he’s trying to keep his own insecurities at bay. It's not that he just understands First's words at face value, but also he's self-aware of how losing First is a very real possibility if he were to find out that he's been lying to him this whole time. So he curls himself in more into First, closer to his heart, because for now he does have him.

There's the irony, First loves Sprite because he's Sprite, not because he's Zee. First might be the only one that truly understands even a fraction of what it's like to be cast aside by a parent because of Zee. He's been subjected to Zee's apparent disdain for years, he's been with him competing for his father's attention, only to fall short. He's not their coach's, his father's, favorite, no that's Zee.

And now that "same" Zee that hated him, now showers him with so much love and attention. It's like a dream for First, only that each time that the actual Zee returns without him knowing, that same dream turns into a nightmare. Every insecurity that he had in competing against Zee comes back and he can't help but think that Zee is only fucking with him, metaphorically and literally, to kill the competition. In his eyes, there's no complete security in their relationship, not when Zee goes from hot to cold at a moment's notice and especially not when he sees Zee a little too close to Salmon.

First loves Sprite so much, that he's being tortured by his love because he is being left in the dark. Even when they're together, cuddling after having sex, their minds are so far apart that they can't even truly bask in their love. Each one worrying about two different possibilities and what it means to them and their relationship.

So yeah, Sprite could have and should have come clean about not being Zee. I'm sure later he will later realize that it would have been easier to explain how he was actually Zee's twin, Sprite, than whatever pain they're going to endure when the truth actually comes out. But when you feel undeserving of love, and those around you seem to agree, opting for switching lives may seem like a gentler path.

#twins the series #twins thai bl #thai bl #ryan panya #ryan panya mcshane #frame ritchanon #spritefirst #firstsprite #frameryan #twins ep 10 #thai series #thai actors #twins meta #Y’all I know many of you find this show to be a mess but I love it sooooooo much

[boysareouttonight]

dennis in the gang broke dee makes me go absolutely insane bc he was the only one who didn't know about the plan so his concern for her was 100% genuine. he spent the entire ep extremely angry and upset bc he saw things for how they really were. dees jokes weren't funny and ppl weren't laughing with her they were laughing at her, she was making a fool out of herself and this bothered dennis for no other reason than caring for her, to not make her go any lower than she already was (which is totally the opposite of what charlie mac and frank were doing).

then he gets obsessed with wanting to find a man for her only to realize that the man dee needed was just the support of her twin brother. when he tries to go with her on that flight his words were of course a bunch of lies except for the i love you, he still doesn't think she's gonna succeed bc nothing has changed. but he falsely admits he was wrong, letting go of all that pride bc he knows he can't stop her but what he can do is be by her side when she falls and pick up the pieces for her. also he didn't wanna be left alone, he needs her more than he knows. and why didn't they tell him about the plan? they said its bc they wanted to make it as real as possible and that's true, they know exactly how dennis was gonna react bc they know he cares about her. but i also think its bc they couldn't risk him not having the guts to complete the plan. god he loves his sister. so much for a psychopath right?

#the fact that dennis said he loves his sister more than once #and this was onscreen i imagine the times pre series or even offscreen #so tired of ppl perceiving him the wrong way #iasip #dennis reynolds #trash twins #iasip meta

[hypermascbishounen]

I KNEW IT

I CALLED IT 8 MONTHS AGO

#I CAN SENSE THIS ARCHETYPE A MILE AWAY #SATANIC BROCON OLDER TWIN WHO KILLED HIS MOM #I KNEW IT I KNEW IT I KNEW IT #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #AFO #shigaraki yoichi #trigun #Sorry for my deranged meta posting i just feel so vindicated in my insanity rn #Pointing at a series from another series and making a noise like an airhorn

[emotionallychargedtowel]

A Conversation with My Twin About Not Me and Twinship

My twin sister @porridgefeast and I had a discussion over chat about our thoughts on Not Me and how it handled issues of twinship. This is a transcript of our conversation. It's been tidied up a bit and we left out some personal tangents and stuff, but it's still a chat transcript, so there's crosstalk and stuff. I've added some explanatory notes using asterisks here and there. Our tumblr handles have been shortened and color-coded for ease of reading.

This is long! If you don't have the setting enabled where long posts get shortened in your feed, you might be scrolling for a while.

Porridge and I have both done a lot of thinking and had a lot of discussions about twinship over the years, including the portrayal of twins in media. I'm also a mother of twins, which gives me another perspective on this stuff. We're both avid BL watchers but Porridge is more knowledgeable about Thai BL than I am.

emotionallychargedtowel (“towel”) I think I have a pretty good starting question. To what extent is Not Me a singleton* fantasy about twinship vs. an actual portrayal of twinship? What are the most authentic-seeming bits?

*a singleton is a person who was born from a single pregnancy, i.e., someone who isn't a twin, triplet, etc.

porridgefeast (“porridge”) There are definitely aspects that are the bedrock of the story that are singleton fantasy, no question.

towel Personally I think a lot of it is more along the lines of a singleton fantasy but I was surprised by some moments that touched on twin stuff that seldom gets talked about in media.

porridge Much of the time I don't care to scratch below the surface too much on this sort of thing, because I liked that I enjoyed the experience of watching the show. But if I were actively interrogating the show I would have one major question.

towel You know, I was thinking about the whole thing where twinship intersects with romantic and/or sexual relationships in this show, and I realized that when I was thinking about that before it was all about Sean but I was forgetting about Black's girlfriend

porridge And that would be: in Not Me universe, do all twins have psychic connections? Or just some? Or just White & Black?

towel That's a good question. At the very least it doesn't seem like something non-twins are aware of. I guess if it was universal, maybe they would.

porridge Also, I'm guessing they don't have the connection *because of* the earlier near-drowning. Because their parents say something after that along the lines of “We can't let this keep happening.” IIRC

towel I'd have to circle back but I think there was supposed to be some precedent for it before the near-drowning incident. Right!

porridge Is it because they're extra close? Because their parents suck? It just seems like it could be an interesting area to explore. Like, for the show to have explored.

towel That's a good question. My guess is that the show would say that's just their magical connection, but who knows?

One thing that I think appeals to singletons about the psychic twins trope

porridge I think the incredibly vague implication is "because special."

towel If on some level they're thinking of twins as two halves of one person, then it makes intuitive sense that they would be able to communicate their thoughts and feelings. It's sort of like two people with one brain. Like, the fantasy of two people who are separate but also not works better if they communicate their feelings/thoughts.

porridge Yeah, I think twins seem interesting to singletons because they're paradoxical to them—two people who are kind of one person and kind of not.

towel But also it's a fantasy, though not always a pleasant one. A fantasy of oneness but also a fantasy of the horror of...I guess you could say losing one's individuality.

porridge Yeah, it can feel like singletons think twins are exotic but also kind of gross.

towel Oh, definitely. It's funny because it's related to a real struggle that twins have but singletons don't get it at all.

porridge Occasionally it feels like they feel superior. And it's like uh what? Because you're an individual? Guess what, me too.

towel Yeah, I think that's true.

porridge You're just as much a slave to your genetics as I am, bub.

towel Right!

porridge Like, singletons don't have anything I don't have except for a lack of, like, people acting confused at them.

towel I always think about that girl who told me how much she'd always wanted a twin in high school. “Someone just like me, who I'd have everything in common with. We'd never fight.”

porridge Hopefully that person eventually grew up and became less of a goober.

towel Ridiculous but I appreciate that she was so lacking in the filter department that she voiced what I think plenty of singletons think on some level/at some times.

porridge That's one thing about singletons' thoughts about twinship. I get that they haven't examined a lot of their assumptions and of course I can relate to that when it comes to other things in my own life. But you just want to go “Stop. Think about it for literally ten seconds.”

towel So often they clearly haven't. Like that person who asked when my birthday was and then asked when yours was. And was then like, “Wow, what a coincidence!” when I said they were the same. (They figured it out but it took, like, a minute or two)

porridge I think when some singletons put themselves in twins' shoes, they don't put *themselves* in our shoes. They put some imaginary magical twin version of themselves in our shoes.

towel Definitely.

Well, it tends to be really polarized. Either being a twin is this lovely sense of communion with another human being or it's a terrifying thing where someone is going to steal your life

And then there are the times they don't put themselves in our shoes and just find us scary.

porridge I often prefer media depictions of the latter simply because I want so badly to correct for the former. Oh for sure. This is part of why I like that movie Adaptation so much.

towel Though that brings up something that happens in Not Me as well, one singleton actor playing twin characters.

That's something at least. There's a part of me that wants to say, “No more singletons playing twins. Get some danged twins. Or make them fraternal.”

porridge To go back to your question a little. I think the elevator pitch and general concept is a singleton fantasy, but at least some elements of the actual events are more like reality. It felt like somebody actually bothered to think through what that would be like.

towel Yeah, same here.

porridge Like, as I said when I wrote about it, the part where White is like Black won't come back, he's let me have my place in this group and we both know we can't both be part of it.

towel Yeah, there's that quote, “Nobody wants to live in another person's shadow” or something to that effect. I find it both sort of insightful and ridiculous at the same time. Like “everybody knows two twins can't both be in the same activist cell.” Uh, no.

But yeah, sometimes it seems like you can't be in the same space or group in certain ways

porridge Yeah that's not true. It's just that White now has closer relationships with each of those people.

towel And it may be true, though it's almost never entirely clear.

porridge It's not impossible for twins to be part of the same close group, but it's not always easy either. And that's partly because of the people around them.

towel And it depends so much on circumstances. Yes! And the other people involved.

[conversation ensues about people from school trying to get Porridge to make Towel talk less in class]

towel I was thinking about how polarized White and Black are. To me that's a bit of a red flag, when twins are even sort of opposites. And it's not true that White is perfect or that Black is evil but White is mostly right about things, mostly nice, occasionally cranky but that's about it, and Black is very hostile, clearly not in a great mental health place, etc.

They're closer to being all good and all bad than I'd like

porridge Yeah, I may have let that go partly because it wasn't quite as bad as I might have feared. But it's not ideal either.

towel It definitely could be worse. But it reminded me of the "which one are you" thing, which you certainly remember but I'm going to lay it out here for posterity.

"Are you the smart one or the [ableist word for unintelligent] one?" "Are you the nice one or the mean one?" and so forth. I used to blame the Sweet Valley High books and they certainly didn't help, but the twins-as-opposites thing is everywhere.

porridge Being at summer camp and me being "the brave one." I'm not sure what that made you exactly? If the description were correct it would have been "the homesick one," but there wasn't enough subtlety for that. Really it was the one who cries and the one who doesn't cry even when kicked by a horse. But that second part was just because in the fight/flight/freeze department, I'm a freezer.

towel Same, usually. I've tried to figure out why that is so appealing to singletons. My best guess is that maybe they like the idea of splitting a person into good and bad and then running the bad half out of town, so to speak.

It's a bit like that Buffy episode, actually. The Replacement. [There's a monster/wizard dude who wants to turn Buffy into a strong half and a weak half so he can kill the weak half and get rid of her entirely, but he hits Xander with his magic beam thingy instead.] It's worth noting that that's one of the only examples I can think of where instead of having one actor play twins they had Nicholas Brendon's twin brother play his double. I mean, it's one of the only examples I can think of where they had twins play a person and their double.

porridge There's arguably a whole separate treatise to write about the doppelganger concept and why it's compelling.

towel Yep

porridge For whatever reason I don't feel able to touch on it briefly, I can only go full tangent or kind of wave in its general direction.

towel I'm OK with either. I mean, a big part of the doppelganger thing is the fear that if someone resembles you they'll be able to take your entire life away from you.

porridge It's one of those things that has some perceptions-of-twins mixed up in it, but seems more about identity from the POV of singletons than anything else.

Yep. And that's the entire crux of that Buffy episode.

towel I do think their assumptions inform the doppelganger thing and twin stuff in a similar way.

porridge Yeah, it's from the point of view of singletons, thrilling themselves with fear that a nefarious twin could appear.

towel There's also the whole question of, like, if people met your double and did know it wasn't you, what would they be perceiving? How would that work? Do people have some kind of essence to them that we can distinguish?

I mean, obviously in reality the difference would be that person's behavior. And that comes up in Not Me.

porridge Seems like a lost opportunity that AFAIK nobody's ever made a body-snatcher film where a twin is a plot point.

But like I said when I wrote about the show,* as twins we know that people would just think the person they know is being weird for a very long time before they would go to a twin as an explanation. At least if those twins look as much alike as White & Black do.

*Check out the older post Porridge is talking about here.

towel Yeah, that's true. I think if Sean had figured it out sooner that would have really bothered me, for that exact reason.

porridge I mean, I say this as somebody who took ages to realize a friend was psychotic because I was convinced he was just really mad at me for a few months.

towel That's just human nature, though. We keep using the heuristics that worked for us for a long time. And most of the time that's the right thing to do.

porridge All I needed was for somebody to say "So [friend], do you think maybe..." without finishing the question before I was like yes. Shit!

towel When Sean asked if Black had a twin brother, a part of me felt kind of impressed that he figured it out. I can't decide if it's actually realistic or not. Like, would it ever occur to me, if someone started acting really different, that they might have a secret twin?

porridge Even then it was partly because of something somebody else said.*

*Porridge thought she remembered something to this effect, but so far neither of us has been able to track down the quote she remembered, or thought she remembered. But neither of us has fully rewatched Not Me since this discussion, so maybe it's there and we just didn't find it.

towel Still, it's either that Sean was really astute there, to a potentially unrealistic degree, or he had a theory that would have been incredibly dopey except that it happened to be true. I guess it's kind of both? He was astute and the theory would be dopey most of the time.*

*Since this conversation, I (Towel) have had some more thoughts about this that I'll put in another post soon.

porridge I guess that's one area where the implausibility sort of cycles back to making the plot make sense.

towel Heh, right.

porridge It makes more sense that he figured it out because they are so different. That's kind of a fantasy too. Like, "the person who loves me would definitely know if I wasn't me."

That reminds me of something I could ask you.

Wondering if you had a similar reaction to something. When Sean finds White (out of his Black drag), I had an unexpected rush of emotion. I was glad they were going to talk (presumably) with the twin stuff out in the open but it wasn't just that. I almost didn't care about Sean, but the fact that he was seeing White-as-White made it more real that yeah, this is actually White. White is getting to be himself now. It was like gender euphoria I guess only it was individuality euphoria.

towel That's interesting. I think I might try to peek at that scene real quick if that's OK.

porridge I think it was also because prior to that we'd only seen Black for a while.

towel I think I'm almost at the right spot but in the meantime, the recap for the part I pulled up included the whole denying he's a twin thing ("Twin, my ass!") immediately followed by "Stop messing with my little brother!"

Omg, Black's bitchy face when he throws the handcuff key away.

I don't identify with Black a whole lot and he's honestly a bit incoherent as a character, like somebody's pushing faders up and down with his various traits depending on what they need to have happen plotwise. But even though I don't want him to keep White away from Sean & the others I still kinda feel for him there.

That's pretty true. Well, I think they're kind of deciding if he needs to be the opposite right now or if he needs to be someone who cares for White and/or their cause.

porridge Bit of a damn right moment.

towel Yeah, there are a few relatable things there.

Being protective of your twin is real, of course. And he doesn't like Sean and probably has seen a really bad side of him because of how contentious their relationship is. There's also an element of feeling jealous and/or threatened by your twin's romantic relationships, which I found was more of a thing when we were younger. It's something that's pretty embarrassing so it's hard to talk about and I think often gets swept under the rug, but it's real and it's understandable. I wonder if there's a homophobia and/or gender role thing going on there. Like, does Black perceive White as being in a more vulnerable or feminine position in his relationship with Sean and if so does that seem more like Sean is taking advantage of him somehow?

porridge Could be. We know from earlier events that Black is very protective of White.

I don't feel strongly that I know the motivation there.

But I could make one argument for a possible interpretation. It could be that Black wants to protect White from Sean because he doesn't like Sean, but mostly he wants to protect White from their radical activities, keep him away from lawbreaking and risks.

towel It's kind of perfect that when Sean finds White-not-dressed-up-as-Black he not only has his glasses on (which seem to symbolize White being White for a lot of the remainder of the show) but a white t-shirt, something that gets dirty easily and wouldn't hold up well in Black's style of life.

porridge And he could resent Sean that much more as a result for keeping White tied to them in another way.

towel That's true.

porridge That interpretation is sort of optimistic in the sense of giving the writers a lot of credit. But I think it's plausible.

Even if Black isn't consciously homophobic, there's a subtler kind of gender thing / homophobia-lite factor that could be in play. Where that person suddenly seems more vulnerable than if they were with a girl.

towel Yeah, I think so. And I think they may seem more vulnerable than if they were perceived as being "the man" in that relationship

porridge And he's smaller, etc. He's new to the group and to their risk-taking, etc. Bunch of things connect. But of course the gender piece isn't rational or correct. It's just the sort of residue of homophobia that gets in people's brains.

towel I'm trying to remember that meme or whatever it is. About the horror of being known versus...well, the appeal of things that require that you are known

That meme is what came to mind watching this scene where Sean meets White as himself.

porridge One more thing about that scene. I also liked how relieved Sean seems when he learns White's name. That seemed meaningful. No idea how much of that is me looking through my twin lens.

towel I guess it's "the mortifying ordeal of being known." I think White is very much having the mortifying ordeal in that scene. I just went back to the scene and that's where I was, at the point where Sean asks White his name.

It's a remarkable thing to have fallen in love with a person and not to know their real name but you can imagine how much you would want to know.

[discussion of doctoral program practica and names]

porridge Yeah. Watching back a little and a big part of Sean's epiphany is that Black doesn't catch him in a trust fall. Just looks at him like he's an idiot. A big part at that moment; it's clearly a test so he already suspects.

towel Good point. It's remarkable that after Black has already behaved this way he still does that trust fall without holding back.

I thought it was interesting when they had White think, in voiceover, that he was surprised that he could feel so close to Sean, that he thought he could only feel that close to his twin. I go back and forth on what I think about that. I'm not super fond of the comparison because it's such a different type of connection. But I guess I can relate to it in some ways. Especially when you're young, it can be surprising when anyone can be close to you in a way that's even sort of comparable to your twin. Okey doke. How about a silly question to mull over?

porridge Yeah sure

towel If we were in a world that operated under Not Me universe rules

Who would I have to sleep with to make you wake up from a coma? I tried to think of a real [porridge] nemesis and the only person who came to mind was someone who used to work in your office whose name starts with a [letter].

porridge HA

towel I wouldn't go near her with a ten-foot pole except maybe if it would bring you back to life. Works for me!

[Porridge’s answer is somebody she was very close to at one time who she then had a sort of friend breakup with. then we talk about emotionally unavailable people and those who are attracted to them.]

Lemme see here. I was trying to remember what happened with White and Eugene. I spaced out a little at that part and I wonder if it's because I was getting pretty uncomfortable with the idea of White pretending to be Black with Eugene. I think they kissed? And I was like, please get out of this situation. But I think I spaced out on the show in an avoidant way at that point because I can't remember if anything else happened between them or if he got away and if so, how.

porridge He actually drugs her which is not great...

towel Gracious

porridge He's in a position where he's trying to avoid a lot of things while trying to get some information from her about what happened to Black, and he doesn't do anything to her while she's knocked out. But it's not an okay thing to do by any means.

towel I was going to look up the Eugene scene and I went to the window where I had been watching the episode 12 part where Sean sees White as White, and there was an interesting line. Sean said he had had a feeling because Black seemed so different, and White said, "Your feeling was pretty slow!" Kind of resentful that it took him as long as it did, even though at the time he wouldn't have wanted him to figure it out.

porridge If you read between the lines / fill in some blanks yourself you could say that while we saw White being generally relieved the others didn't work out that he's not Black, he wasn't always completely happy about it and about pretending. The more involved he becomes, and certainly the more he cares about Sean and is invested in something between them.

His feelings aren't made apparent after that initial relief.

towel Do you think White kind of gets a bit softer after Black comes back? Like, that he seems to become more of a contrast to Black? Maybe it just seems a bit like that to me because of the contrast. Black coming back also just leads to some emotional scenes, so we see more of Sean doing things like crying as well.

I'm going to mention something for later because I'm scared of forgetting: there were a few times when Black and White broke some "twin rules" I have for myself and I was like, "you can't do that!" but the biggest one was White getting Black's tattoos. They show his arm getting tattooed during the opening credits and every time I'd see it I would cringe so hard. You can't get the same tattoo as your twin unless you get intentional bro tats!

Of course then I found myself thinking about how much harder it would be for me to simulate your tattoos. Not just because there are more of them but because they're much more complex. And I think one might be in the same spot as one of mine?

porridge That to me is so kinda preposterous to begin with that I didn't get to the point where I was like "that's not allowed." A new tattoo doesn't look like an older tattoo so unless Black got his a month ago it's ridiculous.

But I agree, that's against the rules.

towel Oh gosh, I couldn't stop thinking about how his tattoo and the piercings weren't going to look right because they were still healing

In a way, the next day the tattoo might look more correct than it would a week later when you get that layer of skin falling off

porridge To return to your earlier point, it's confusing because if White seems a bit gentler and softer, is that the comparison? Is it an intentional choice among the filmmakers and Gun to contrast them? Did White maybe relax in his efforts to seem like Black once he felt accepted?

Also, maybe White is occasionally grumpy and seems more Black-ish and that has factored in at some points.

It would help if Black were a more nuanced character, though he is SOMETIMES nuanced.

towel I feel like those are all possible. Some of it is just the comparison and the events of the story at the time, but I also think that the writers/director were probably playing up the differences at least to some extent. And as you point out, Gun probably was too.

I feel like Black has the most depth when it comes to Eugene, but it's fleeting and not that nuanced.

porridge Having had an ear piercing since I first saw the show, I feel more like the piercings are plausible because he doesn't change posts. In the case of those, the main thing that would be visible would be some swelling for the first week or two and the gang likely wouldn't notice that.

I'm not sure whether Black has more depth with Eugene or if she's tied with White and Todd for interactions with actual feelings.

Black's Todd-related emotions include a lot of anger and rage, but in a way IMO where you can tell Black has actually let Todd into his world and has confided in him in a way he may not have done with the gang or others in his life. Maybe because they go back so far.

towel That's true. You can see why people ship Black and Todd, write fic about them, etc. I mean, I don't think there's actually something going on there in the show but he feels more strongly about Todd than almost anyone. He shows more emotion interacting with Todd than he does interacting with White.

porridge It feels like he's guarded with White partly out of protectiveness, though it's also clear that he's not eager to open up to White hugely. He cares about White but he really just wants White to do what he says, and hearing more about White's feelings and thoughts won't help with that.

towel Anytime one twin feels responsible for their twin's safety, it's bound to have some big downsides when it comes to their abilities to be emotionally authentic with each other. That's what I associate with it, anyway

porridge And they've been apart, but Black has maintained his childhood scheme for their relationship.

towel Because the person protecting is overloaded (they aren't supposed to have to take on this responsibility) so they're bound to be reactive to the protectee being distressed.

porridge As a protective twin and kinda parentified caregiver toward my twin (at some times in some ways), I didn't want to boss you around but when I felt you were in danger it was incredibly difficult not to feel like I could do anything about it.

towel I know that must be a feeling that comes up a lot--like, the horrible powerless feeling when someone you love is in an abusive relationship.* But I'm sure there are unique aspects of it and a lot of intensity when it's your twin..

I was looking for some other parts of the show to comment on and I found when White sees Black for the first time and I thought it was interesting that he says that unlike all the times he imagined this moment, it's "surprisingly frightening" (I think that was the wording. I find it remarkable that he says it's "like seeing my doppelganger." Because Black isn't the doppelganger. White is! "I stole my brother's entire life and he wanted it back. Such a doppelganger.")

*I (Towel) was in an abusive relationship for most of my 20s. Naturally, this was really hard for Porridge.

porridge You're right, but that experience (as I imagine it, having not gone more than like 9 months without seeing my own twin) would be uncanny to anybody in a way where you would lose all perspective about like recent events.

towel That's true. I guess I feel like the narrative kind of lets White off for his actions a little too much. I mean, his replacing-Black actions. There's very little time spent on the fact that Black doesn't like that he did that and it's not like he had his consent. His motivation to protect his brother matters but it doesn't negate everything completely. And of course Todd is nudging him along the whole way because it's in his interest for the anti-Tawi stuff to continue.

porridge I get what you're saying but I don't think that’s in service of making White out to be so perfect, I think it's more about keeping the narrative clean. There's a hypothetical version of the show that uses that to interesting ends.

towel I guess it just seems kind of lazy to me, or convenient

porridge And Black does tell White that the others won't want him around once they discover he's been lying to them. And White thinks (voiceovers) the same about Sean specifically.

towel I'm probably more interested in those implications because I'm actually a twin.

It's kind of wild how readily they're okay with it, the group, I mean. Maybe people are more likely to forgive that sort of thing if your twin is a huge butthole.

porridge If I wanted to explain that I would say that on some level they already knew.

towel I was wondering what you thought about the whole separating twins as children thing. I'll explain just a bit.

You pointed out that it doesn't really make sense for White's and Black's parents to think that separating them is going to change their psychic connection and I agree. There's no justification for that. But it reminded me of other ideas about how somehow twins being "too" close is going to be bad for them. I forget if I sent you a link to that recent article* but I remember I definitely shared a passage from it. This woman is kind of musing about her relationship with her twin and some of it is kind of self-indulgent but there are some good bits, and my favorite is where she talks about separation.

She talks about this case where an adoption agency separated a bunch of twins and adopted them out to families, never telling the families or the kids that they had twins. And there was a researcher kind of in cahoots with them who interviewed the families and the kids over the years to observe them, looking at the twinship angle but pretending it was for other purposes. It's all incredibly unethical.

But the justification was that being dependent on one another is unhealthy so twins are better off apart.

I wonder if that's part of what singletons find scary about twins. Maybe it would be better to say it’s a thing that scares them when they see it (or think they see it) in twins. And that's dependency, or more accurately, interdependence. Of course, that's kind of a culture-bound reaction. But in an individualistic culture like we have in the U.S., being sort of born into an interdependent relationship could seem horrifying.

*The article I'm referencing here is Giving Away My Twin by Jean Garnett, which came out on 7/10/23 in the New Yorker

porridge That's horrible. Would be even if they were non-twin siblings.

towel Yeah. Some of the saddest examples were from a book by Anna Freud's partner* talking about kids she observed when they ran a place for kids who were sent out of London during the Blitz.

*Anna Freud's partner's name was Dorothy Burlingham and her book was called Twins: A Study of Three Pairs of Identical Twins with 30 Charts

porridge The thing is, and I'm not saying there isn't any closeness kind of inherent to twinship. But yeah, any siblings can be closely dependent but when you add that to the appearance of twins people get wigged out.

Though I do know of kids being punished for being too close to their siblings, referred to negatively because of it, etc. Non-twin siblings.

towel I do think that being the same age increases the chances of being close or relying on one another.

porridge Yeah I don't discount that.

towel But yeah, it could happen at other ages and is totally penalized in some families.

porridge But I'm saying do the people outside that relationship perceive the additional closeness or do they just perceive closeness plus twin appearance

towel I do think that they overestimate it a lot based on twins looking similar.

But it gets kind of chicken-and-egg there, because part of what makes you closer is everyone treating you like you're a) weird, b) a unit with this other person, c) unbelievably similar to them, etc. Like, you know that closeness is expected, and you can get excluded by others because of their perceptions of your twinship.

Well, I was going to say that separating twins for no reason like that adoption agency is something I think most people would find disturbing. And separating twins the way White and Black were separated would probably seem like a bad idea to a lot of folks. But there are smaller examples of this that are really normalized. Like, I remember feeling really surprised, almost startled, when I found out that there's no empirical basis for [the idea that it’s] better for twins to be in different classes at school.

And I really think that became a convention because of that thing where twins being close--or just the prospect that they might be--freaks singletons out.

Maybe even more so when you're talking about adults who are considering a set of twin children. I know in our family of origin it was sometimes implied or even directly stated that our relationship somehow undermined the parents' authority.

And that's sad, because what you're talking about is children’s ability to provide each other comfort. Like, these are adults who basically resent that you have an ally who will make it harder to break your spirit.

porridge And you shouldn't be dependent on your children being ineffectual to parent.

towel Well, I think it's interesting how their separation is dealt with in the show. I'm tempted to go back and look at that part again, actually.

It's both treated as more and less of a big deal than I expected.

Like, it's not treated like it's nothing, which I think they could easily have done. But if they were going to acknowledge that it was painful, I wish they'd acknowledge it more.

At this point we got sidetracked and trailed off. Of course, this post is long enough as it is! That said, I do have some additional thoughts about Sean figuring out the twin thing, as I noted above. I'll be posting about that soon. And I wouldn't be surprised if Porridge and I end up having other thoughts about all of this down the road.

#not me the series #not me meta #twinship in BL #seanwhite #offgun #off jumpol #gun atthaphan #twins #twinship #twinship in media

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

Figuring out Adams' new team because it's killing me and I make charts to cope:

Confirmed: Irey West, Jai West, Maxine Baker

Strongly hinted at: Cerdian of Shayeris, Robert Long

Very likely: Lian Harper, Mar'i Grayson, Kathy Branden

Potentially one of: Maps Mizoguchi, Mara al Ghul, Maya Ducard, Tiffany Fox, Sin Lance

Potentially one of (but unlikely): Tai Pham, Keli Quintela, Milagro Reyes

Potentially (but unlikely): Otho-Ra & Osul-Ra OR Chris Kent

Unlikely: Colin Wilkes, Johnny Tyler, Helen Jordan, Rani Carter

(Reminder: the # of kids will likely be 6-8)

#additional reminder: Adams isn't allowed to use Damian or Jon #okay final thoughts #blue for meta orange for alien green for gl and red for no powers #top two are set #third row are all extremely strong contenders #i think ONE of the red line picks could be in it as well. especially if he isn't allowed to use Lian #the bottom three lines? i would be shocked #Keli or Tai i could see. but people famously didn't like Keli and using Tai when he's under the creative control of another writer is... #it might not fly. and milagro isn't actually a gl. thats fanon #so that whole line just. is extremely unlikely. #the kent twins are in the superfam book and idk that theyd share creative control tbh #and adding chris kent back into canon after Clark adopted two other kids and the superfam is doing a whole series? #can't see editorial being okay with that #colins powers aren't really team oriented. johnny would be the third speedster on the team. helen doesn't have powers or training #and Rani... well actually idk. Gold Beetle would probably be related to Rani but... nah GB is endgame for Jai #they wouldn't put Rani and GB into Jai's storyline #imo? max 8 kids. there are already five. #so you can mix and match three other kids. #(keeping in mind that you will probably need at least one red) #tbh Sin is a very strong contender if he can't use Lian because he personally likes Sin a lot. #if Mar'i can't be used then Maps or Tiffany cause the bat rep #Kathy is just a strong contender all around. powers? check. right age? check. suit? check. experience? check. blank slate writing wise? yep #plus Adams knows about her which is half the battle #Maya would go with Kathy though. they are a package deal #oof #this is my last time posting about this i swear.... for today #going a little insane over the possibilities because this is kinda everything ive ever wanted/dreamed about #and having this actually happen would be insane #dc #dc comics

[snazzyladreal]

Dee Twin origin headcanon

this has been on the brain lately so time to share

A long ass time ago, there was a village populated by a mix of many of the native creatures of Popstar, and one day two little waddle dees were born. And things were happy and sweet for several years, with the twins having happy lives in the farming and fishing village and learning the basics of village trade.

However, cause it was a certain star shaped planet, disaster struck. It’s unknown how it started, but the village caught on fire one day. And the entire place burned down, with an unknown number of survivors. These included the still pretty young waddle dees, although they were separated.

Sailor managed to escape on the water with a small group of other survivors, who then helped her get to another village before she eventually left and wandered out on her own. One day, she happened to be in a place the battleship Halberd was docking. So she snuck on.

Bandana barely escaped on their own, and traveled for awhile before coming across a small town. They were taken in by another family for awhile, doing basic chores in return for food and a roof over his head. But he didn’t stay in once place for long, often moving from town to town looking for odd jobs to do and places to stay.

Meta of course found Sailor hiding on his ship, and was both pissed and impressed. It took him like 2 weeks before he found Sailor hiding out. And somehow she convinced him to let her join the crew, probably by using puppy eyes and showing off how much she knew about machines.

Bandana eventually ended up jobless in a town near Castle Dedede, where the king himself stopped by during his first big ‘food theft’. DDD wasn’t the nicest person back then, but he wasn’t heartless. So he invited the young dee back to his castle with the promise of food, a home, and becoming apart of the strongest army in the land. And Bandee decided to go with him.

-time skip-

around Kirby’s Adventure/Nightmare in Dreamland, whenever DDD gives Meta part of the star rod, the siblings reunited and just instantly recognized each other. Cue them hiding out in Bandee’s room and eating sweets and talking while Meta and Dedede looked everywhere for them.

then they never stayed far apart for that long ever again :)

also they’re lowkey the reason meta and dedede started talking more and eventually flirting, but that’s something for another day ;)

enjoy lmao

#snazz screams #snazz’s headcanons #snazz writes things #bandana waddle dee #bandana dee #sailor dee #sailor waddle dee #king dedede #meta knight #I’ve been thinking about this instead of sleeping lol #metadede at the very end lmao #kirby series #kirby headcanons #The Dee twins #waddle dee twins

[ljf613]

the way the backstory arc sets up the origins of rin and yukio's names very early on..... and then spends the entire arc showing how "the yuki-otoko" is so much like rin-- while "rinka" has more in common with yukio than anyone could have guessed

#ao no exorcist #blue exorcist #thoughts #blue exorcist spoilers #okumura twins #meta #rin and yukio #rin okumura #yukio okumura #i have FEELINGS about this #THE PARALLELS!!! #from the beginning of the series we've seen a lot of the positive things rin has in common with shiro #*side eyes the 'black cat' incident* #but this arc actually showed a lot of their similar FLAWS too!!! #they're both young hot headed IDIOTS and it's GREAT!!! #meanwhile yukio and 'rinka' are both calculating planners who DEVOUR knowledge #and just don't quite GET other people no matter how hard they try #but what sets rin and yukio apart is that they have EACH OTHER #they have someone they admire and constantly strive to be like who they love more than anyone else #and who feels the exact same way about them #and it makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE #yes they're rivals!!! but it comes from a place of LOVE!!! and they're stronger when they work TOGETHER!!! #which shiro and satan would NEVER have done!!! #all queued up

[sunshinechay]

Sprite continues to be the most cringefail dork ever and I love it

#twins the series #sprite tts #this boy #also there is a meta in here about his approach to friendship stemming from his feelings of always be second best #i just haven’t been able to find it yet #cap watches twins the series #cap speaks

[chaos0pikachu]

I simply wish that when people did color theory based meta for BL works they did so with the knowledge or acknowledgement that colors mean different things in different cultures instead of solely from an ethnocentric pov

#last twilight #bl meta #gmmtv bl #chaos pikachu speaks #like any meta about gmmtv bls tends to do this and like #red typically references things like luck marriage celebration and not anger in East Asian cultures?? #like the colors in the Thailand flag means life blood (red) purity (white) and the monarchy (blue) #colors mean different things in different cultures I'm begging y'all #to stop channeling bandit keith #twins the series

[mirrorofliterature]

the secret reason why I kept fred alive in ffdid is about to be revealed -

the oliver vs the twins arc was integral to the story and it wasn’t in oliver’s character to yell at a recently bereaved george.

#look #I have nothing AGAINST fred it's just generally speaking his life status for me is moreso about how it impacts the story I'm writing #and character interactions #his survival was quintessential to ffdid but his death in asocg was also quintessential to that fic #I love how it's officially a series but it only has two works #with 144 publicly available bookmarks #atm #ah #asocg #my most popular work #I'm not like a BNF or anything but I have garnered a decent amount of respect for my percy and #also coco writing tbh #and meta and whatnot #is respect the right word? acclaim? #anyway I diverged from the point #oliver wood #weasley twins #ffdid #hp

[fanfictionroxs]

Cost of Everything, Value of Nothing

Do you ever think how White must have gotten jealous of Todd? Sure he was happy that Black had someone, but still. Because Todd was there, all those years, he was there with Black, when it should have been White.

Now imagine how that hidden jealousy must have been fuelled with Todd's betrayal. After finding out that Todd hurt Black, imagine how it must have turned into full blown hatred because Todd had what White wanted all those years. A place by Black's side, to be able to stay with him, to grow up together, enjoy school together, laugh together, just.. to be together. And he threw all that away like it meant nothing, when for White it meant everything. When for White, his brother, his twin, the other half of his very soul... Black meant everything.

And he couldn't understand how someone else who saw Black for who he truly was, couldn't feel exactly the same.

#not me the series #black and white pothiyakorn #twin connection #not me black #not me white #not me todd #toddblack #my 'white hates todd' agenda is back again #thai bl #thai drama #asianlgbtqdramas #character analysis #meta #fanfictionroxs writes #these brothers are making me cry again #gah not me gave us top tier sibling content in the 2 scenes they let the twins be together 😑 #am i bitter? yes! #gun atthaphan phunsawat #sing harit #my writings

[syrena-del-mar]

BL Meta Masterlist

Hello! If you've landed on my page, it's likely that you came across one of my various BL metas that I've posted. I watch way too many for my own good and I try to write as much as I can when a show captivates me (though half of them become half-finished drafts rotting away). The actual number of meta that I have written in the last year, since La Pluie aired, has increased so much that I've have started to lose track of what I've written. So I'm compiling them all onto this list, which will be regularly updated with the new posts that I write.

Be My Favorite

Embracing the Waters of Uncertainty

Exploring Enclosures and Privacy in 'Be My Favorite'

Folklore of Flowers: Wisterias in 'Be My Favorite' Episode 6

Kawi's Journey with Self-Worth and Pisaeng's Reassurance

Dead Friend Forever

An Ode to Older Siblings: New in Dead Friend Forever, Episode 9

Celestial Pleasures: Miscellaneous Thoughts on PheeJin's NC Scenes

Dead Friend Forever is More Than Just A 90s Slasher Film Imitation

Echoes of Guilt: Exploring the Thin Line Between Tee's Redemption and Salvation in Dead Friend Forever, Episode 11

Examining the Use of Movie Posters in Dead Friend Forever, Episode 8

On Non's Medications: Lorazepam

On Non's Medications, Part 2: Quetiapine Fumarate

Selfish Desires and the Class War: Dead Friend Forever, Episode 10

The Nine Circles of Hell: Dead Friend Forever, Episode 7

KinnPorsche

Interlocking Narratives: Exploring the Chains of Kim and Chay

La Pluie

A Jungian Perspective on La Pluie

Balancing Self-Absorption and Love in La Pluie

La Pluie: A Tale of Tender Hearts

La Pluie meets Nora Roberts

The Depths of Inner Turmoil: Exploring Isolation, Connection, and Vulnerability in La Pluie Ep. 10

Third-Child Syndrome: Birth Order Theory in La Pluie

Last Twilight

Blind Spots of Motherhood: Last Twilight, Episode 10

Moonlight Chicken

Alan, the Textbook 'Nice Guy'

In Support of Uncle Jim

Only Friends

Boston, the Machiavellian Prince?

Notes of Desire: Sand's Possible Soundtrack

Threads of Boston's Intimacy: Crochet, Cotton and Connections

Very Rarely Do Men Know How to Be Altogether Wicked or Altogether Good

Step by Step

Carnation Flowers: Motherhood, Weddings and Juxtaposition of Sexualities

"Foliage, Flowers, and Feelings, Oh My!" in Step By Step Ep. 8.

The Birth Order Theory: The Only Child in Step By Step

Shorter Dive on Birth Order in Step by Step

Twins

Volleying Hearts: Navigating Love and Insecurities in Twins the Series, Ep. 10

Miscellaneous Metas

Revisiting Houses of Thai BL: Dead Friend Forever and Deep Night *NEW*

#thai bl #thai bl meta #la pluie #la pluie meta #twins the series #twins meta #step by step the series #step by step meta #only friends the series #only friends meta #moonlight chicken #moonlight chicken meta #last twilight #last twilight the series #last twilight meta #kinnporsche #kinnporsche the series #kinnporsche meta #be my favorite #be my favorite meta #be my favorite the series #bl actors #bl meta