✨ comms open ✨

my blog is slowly starting to get cluttered and since i only use the app to do stuff, i thought i'd make a navigation post which can take people (and myself) to my older posts and such. also to keep track of things, because the app kinda sucks lol.

navigation below the cut ↓

as it is, everyone hates tawan lmao, but if i unleash my thoughts then I will be hunted down with “you're trying to excuse an abuser's actions” or something along those lines, because aran is doing things that might have a reason yes, but they are also otherwise.... 👀

anyway, i'll probably just include them in the fic.

because tbh I get why aran did what i assume he did, and those are pretty realistic reactions to finding out the guy you might be in love with has an anger management problem and is irrationally jealous and possessive, but if i do start talking about all that i'd be sent to the gallows 🤣

- spooky love tale, ft. markohm : basically the cutest horror bl romance you could find. i initially did think santa has too sharp of a set of facial features to play gongchan, and similarly for perth who plays min. so I am absolutely thrilled to see it being passed to markohm who IMO suit the faces of the characters more as they have more softer facial features. moreover yes, I was super bummed about the ensemble cast show they had got, especially because it was kinda meh to me and I knew they'd get lost among the other ships. so hurray for me!

- heartbound, ft. perthsanta : god I am so so so thrilled. absolutely insane casting choice for this one and the trailer is fire! it really feels so well done. I'm so happy we are finally getting the much asked for mafia AU, perthsanta were born for this. the premise of the show is so good too, especially the mafia heir already in love with his object of affections, and that little sprinkling of the love rival and everything. ahh I can already smell the potential angst and pining from here! so excited!!!

- the invisible dragon, ft. firstkhao : perhaps my most anticipated show of this year simply because I'm a firstkhao girlie and this plot knocked the ball out of the park. I'm a sucker for stories that explore cultural differences between characters and this one is right up my alley because it deals with so many things all at once.

last but not the least, i wish aouboom got a similarly engaging plot. I know a lot of people love billionaire biker and that's fine, it's just not my kind of thing so I might not tune in even though I love aouboom to death. but i'll wait next year to get all 4 ships in equally interesting (for me, personally, don't get your knickers in a twist) shows.

until then,

FUCK YEAH MARKOHM PERTHSANTA LESSGOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

I truly cannot be more excited, markohm finally got a solo ship series for once !!!! yassssssssssss!!!!! lessgoooooo!!!!!

hellow nonnie.

i believe this is the post you're referring to.

note, this is gonna be long, so you can either read it or not. your choice.

anyway,

if i wasn't clear enough already, i guess i'll say it again. tawanaran is abusive and toxic and still poorly written, but I stand by the fact that if people FEEL that fictional media needs to EDUCATE people and show only MORALLY UPRIGHT portrayals of something, then yes they really shouldn't be consuming fictional media.

my post specifically said “if you need fictional media to educate people” and that if someone's sole concern for tawanaran being “pushed” down our throats is because it's toxic, then yes, they shouldn't consume fictional media. fiction is not for you. the specific portrayal may not be your cup of tea and that's alright, but implying anyone else enjoying that cup of tea is wrong or questionable is where the problem starts.

you can say you don't like something and it's not for you, and that will be perfectly fine. you can criticize the writing of tawanaran and that is perfectly fine too. but when you say stuff like “i dunno why they are pushing for this ship so much” and immediately acknowledge that it's toxic and should not be normalised and how can anybody ship it, then yes it's a problem. and all that especially if you do it under the ship tag.

i've been in fandom spaces for long enough to see where this kind of thought process goes and it's usually “you ship so and so, something must be wrong with you”. instead of all that one can simply say “this ship is so and so and gives me the ick, therefore it's not for me” or “it's badly written and i cannot stomach bad writing.” but for most people, the bad writing is basically tawanaran ending up together and not the myriad of other issues themselves.

as far as tawanaran's writing goes, it's choppy and a lot of people are not hating on it for the choppy writing itself. they are hating on it because it's a ship that portrays toxicity and abuse and they still get together at the end. i pointed it out in my other post already, but vegaspete is the same if not more toxic, and it is still better written, but till this day there are people who don't care about the writing. they simply hate it because “they got together”. let's just say that some people enjoy fucked up things and be done with it.

i wouldn't even have made that post if people simply had said the writing was bad and not worth their time or the trope itself is not for them. no, there were variations of :

- they should not have cast PS, otherwise tawanaran wouldn't have to get together

- tawanaran's ideal ending should have been them parting ways (mind you, this doesn't even technically qualify as bad writing, but most people are seeing it that way)

- etc etc

anyway, you get my drift. when I say tawanaran's writing was bad, i don't mean they shouldn't have ended up together or tawan should have grovelled more or something. i mean that they are not well thought out characters and their ending could not be justified and integrated into the overall plot of MAT or PAM because there is not enough material for them to show it to the viewers why and the writers basically followed a tonne of different storylines instead of sticking to one that gave the characters a definitive objective/intention, especially in the short screen time they got. it has nothing to do with the morality of the ship or anything. gmm however does have a problem with not splitting up branded pairs and i wholeheartedly agree on that because a lot of the times it means they don't write well thought out endings to a ship and just slap them together for the sake of it.

as far as me respecting ships goes, I'm not going down the ship tags and talking shit about a ship. even so, if you'd like to point out that I write about not finding a certain CP's acting palatable or something and i still tag it with the ship name during one of my liveblogs or something, then let me add i usually write my posts carefully enough to lessen the blow and speak mostly about the writing or acting and such while carefully not shitting on the ship itself. and it's rare that I have ever pointed to a specific ship and said something along the lines of how it should not be shipped because it's not morally upright or something.

anywho, i'll stop here for now because you'll probably not even read the rest of you read this far at all, but this is more for everyone else who do see where i came from with that original post.

hellow and morning to you, nonnie~

frankly, I do agree with you on how this show did waste perthsanta's skills and time. MAT and PAM are both centred around the main characters and honestly that's not really it major fault. it is actually portraying tawan as a foil to thee and then not committing to it fully.

also getting to the second half of your problem statement : for me personally, I enjoy a cameo or two, i don't mind. till this date, the alone/kaithong cameo in ossan's love has been my favourite (i just had to say that, I'm not sorry i just love them so much). but for me cameo is just that : max 5 minutes of screen time. the author telling the viewers “this ship exists” and then allowing the viewers to speculate about their relationship.

the problem with tawanaran in my opinion is not that they were cameos, more that they were written in as supporting characters instead when they should have actually been cameos. they invested just enough time in tawanaran to show us how their relationship failed when compared to theepeach but didn't actually do enough or give us enough content to believe that tawanaran could go anywhere. it's very shallow writing IMO and it barely had the slightest bit of plot/story crumbs sprinkled there to keep the viewers going.

but but but! i do also agree with you in how I also am very much done with random cameos. especially ones that are absolutely irrelevant to the plot as a whole and makes no difference. i recall being flabbergasted at the seakeen tease in love you teacher ep#12 and i honestly get you.

tawanaran getting into therapy, individually at first.

insert tawan finding out that the way he feels for and interacts with his loved ones (a.k.a., aran) is not healthy or normal

aran finding out he trauma-bonded with tawan and that is why he still feels guilty about what happened to tawan but also is self-flagellating because by this point he should have given up on that man for good and kicked him the fuck out of his life

they realise they are both hiding things from each other now

aran is scared of tawan , a.k.a., him reliving trauma with every single interaction not knowing what will tip off tawan at what point , so he slowly starts shutting himself out altogether for the sake of them both because despite everything he still wants tawan in his life

tawan realising that he hurt aran in the past but also realising that his very existence is still continuously hurting aran in the present, so does his best to change himself, become someone pleasant, become someone aran can love without being scared, and the only person aran can love freely without fear is a person that is very distinctively NOT tawan. cue : tawan putting on a mask because he is desperate to be loved.

aran losing his shit because he feels tawan is no longer the guy he fell for.

tawan losing his shit because he realises that no matter what he changes himself into, aran will perhaps never stop being scared.

in a last ditch attempt tawan does his first selfless act of love (but this is selfish too, he knows, because he is doing this only because he doesn't want to watch aran walk away a second time) : “let's break up, aran. for real this time.”

I saw someone claim that abusers don't change overnight. and valid, very real to be honest. IRL that seldom happens and you best be wary of treading paths at getting back together with an abusive partner.

but this is also just a story. they are not real. it's not that serious. the reason tawanaran is toxic + abusive but you cannot see or vouch for their love is because the writers gave us nothing to work with. no backstory, nothing about how they met or what made them fall for each, nothing for us to root for them. they just pitched us perthsanta and knew we'd lap it up like stupid dogs and honestly we did. but it also goes to show that the capitalist company will throw you bones and sure it's a shitty company with it's fair share of flaws, but the audience are also to blame. anyhow, i'll leave that for another time.

if i had to compare tawanaran with vegaspete, I can't even say that tawanaran can hold a candle to vegaspete. simply because they are horribly written. their story is half baked (at least in the show, i dunno what the fuck is up in the novel) and mediocre at best and I don't see others talking about them so i'll speak from my own experience, at this point tawanaran is solely running on fanon theories I have cooked up. there's very little to even write meta about lmao, no significant interactions, nothing. it's understandable why one would hate them because the writers did nothing to make us love them either except give them perthsanta's faces.

it is truly nothingburger of a storyline and it's perthsanta's sheer acting skills alone that has still got sat. but is it infuriating to see nothing going on for them. at least vegaspete had like.... 2 episodes and they literally blew away everyone and their mamas with that storyline. ughhhh I'm just so pissed for so many reasons.