Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer...

Just a brief overview of my thoughts with these Asian dramas that I've been keeping up with.

( 4 Minutes )

( Fangs of Fortune )

( The Next Prince )

( Pit Babe )

I've also been quite curious about My Golden Blood, a Thai BL vampire drama, just based on what I've seen that's come across my Tumblr dash I'm intrigued and, of course, vampirism is quite sexy.

( The Imperial Pair )

My Comments: Those familiar with Prince of Tennis, from the Japanese manga to its various adaptations, will be aware of this particular pairing known as the Imperial Pair, and the Chinese adaptation (titled Prince of Tennis: Match! Tennis Juniors) is no exception in continuing showing their captivating chemistry and dynamic with one another. Mu Siyang and Ji Jingwu (the counterparts of the manga series' Atobe Keigo and Tezuka Kunimitsu) are rival captains of their respective teams, and have quite a history. This fanvid, one of the few that I found and can properly embed to share, is a general overview of their scenes and moments throughout the drama. One of the most notable aspect of their whole relationship is that while Ji Jingwu comes from wealth and has an arrogance to him, he views Mu Siyang as his only worthy opponent and deeply respects him, and worries over him when injured to the point where he makes personal accommodations to help him heal by flying him out to Germany for surgery.

One of my favorite scenes is when Ji Jingwu is checking up on Mu Siyang and apologizes for the match that resulted in him further injuring himself, even though it had been Mu Siyang who stubbornly wanted to continue despite knowing his limitations and ignoring all the warning signs, and the promise between them for a fair match once Mu Siyang has fully recovered.

Additionally, I want to share this Mu Siyang/Ji Jingwu fic: worship by sarahyyy, it's short but sweet and it features one of my favorite elements of what I enjoy about this pairing being Ji Jingwu's concern over Mu Siyang's well-being (canonical) and his praise kink (headcanon).

++ Pit Babe S2 full trailer just dropped! So much is going on, but I'm ready.

++ We also have the official trailer for The Next Prince, a Thai BL drama. After seeing the small teaser for this a little while ago it quickly was among my list of anticipated BLs and I didn't know when it would be coming out, and now we not only have a full trailer but also a premiere date of May 3rd. And the trailer itself looks amazing. The outfits, the production value, and already I'm intrigued by the story. I do love a good body guard/royalty love story and this has that plus whatever royal politics are going to be featured.

++ In other news, it seems that the Oscars are changing some rules which includes a requirement that all Academy members must watch all of the nominated films before voting. How this wasn't an already implemented rule from the start I have no idea, but it does further confirm what I think most of us already knew. Just based on what I've seen over the years, most Academy members don't like watching films. Many have outright admitted they don't care, only watch the movies that they see are popular and ignore the rest, or don't watch a movie in its entirety before turning it off. Even worse when it's animation or anything foreign or obscure which most will claim they're not worth seeing. Again, not surprising but it's disappointing all the same since this really skews the votes and robs films that are deserving of such recognition. Of course how this new rule is going to be enforced, I don't know.

The bad news of this rule change is that now films made by AI can still be eligible for nominations and can potentially win despite controversy surrounding it. Further demonstrating how this ceremony continues to be a farce. Boo. :/

++ GRRM admits that "The Winds Of Winter" is "the curse of his life".

Now, I don't particularly care for anything related to ASOIAF anymore, but I just find it so funny (both in an amusing and in a sad way) with how things turned out with this series. What was supposed to have been just a planned book trilogy became an extended book series that he regrettably wrote himself into a corner with. I also have my suspicions that upon seeing the reactions to how the Game of Thrones show ended he became less and less motivated to finish the books. On one hand, I don't believe in pressuring writers to finish things that aren't ready, however for over a decade he has promised and posted excerpts without actually delivering, meanwhile working and releasing other projects during this time. It's really telling in that sense, to be honest. While I do think The Winds of Winter might be finished and released at some point in the (distant) future, I don't think A Dream Of Spring, the final book, is ever going to be written. I think fans of the books have long accepted that they will most likely never get a conclusion to the series.

++ One of the things I hate about warm weather is how irritable it makes me. I was just reminded of this yesterday when I basically had a little freakout over nothing, and it was a combination of other things happening but the warm air didn't help matters which escalated the way I was feeling. :/

++ The Last Of Us was renewed for a third season ahead of the season two premiere. Well, obviously. I would sure hope so. We knew months ago that the second game was going to be split into two (or possible more?) seasons, and it would be foolish to just not renew something that is basically going to be incomplete as a story itself. It reminds me of the situation with Dune with them splitting it into two movies even though the second one wasn't filmed yet after the first was released, a decision of studios and whatever else creatives have that I still don't understand. Regardless, it's just good that there's further confirmation with TLOU.

++ NaNoWriMo is officially shutting down for good. This has been a long time coming considering the numerous controversies and scandals over the years, with their whole ordeal surrounding genAI being the final nail in the coffin.

Funnily, it took until quite recently to realize that NaNoWriMo was an actual non-profit organization. I had long thought that it was simply just a self-induced prompt that writers challenged themselves and promoted it annually to write and complete a story in a month. It wasn't until some of the issues that arose not too long ago was being spread around that I finally understood, lol. I'm hoping that this doesn't discourage people from continuing challenging themselves with their writing, since I know a lot got their starts and were pushed to finish their projects because of NaNoWriMo. They can just continue on without the organization.

( I think shit is gonna get a lot worse out here. )

My Comments: Continuing on with my current interest with Yellowjackets, this is a fanvid that I came across that absolutely floored me. Not only does it feature a very haunting song by Paris Paloma, the pacing of the editing matching the music is so mesmerizing. I also liked the way the vidder structured the video by giving the events that happened in the wilderness (at least what was presented in the first two seasons, so spoilers for at least some character deaths) to tell the story of their survival. It's such a wonderfully crafted fanvid.