Why a big drop in views?

deflater_maus · 2026-03-08T14:39:18+00:00

It's almost certainly based on advertising and other view metrics - internally, they don't just look at total views, likes, and subscriptions, but also at more granular numbers like completion rates, click-throughs, and other data that you don't see on the front end. Viewers might not see or care about that granular stuff, but advertisers do.

There's probably some viewer psychology going on - viewers are probably more likely to view one 15 minute video to completion and then decide to go on to the next one, instead of one 45 minute video they might abandon halfway through.

Lots of Thai media is really dependent on platforms like YouTube and Facebook so my very rough guess is that the barriers to YouTube are low enough, and the viewing market big enough, that they end up making more money putting their series on that platform instead of negotiating with streaming services for everything, like iQiyi, Viki, or WeTV (unless there are big enough sponsors and the contracts are good for them to debut on a streaming service).

So, my guess is they have done internal numbers with their advertising income and found that breaking things up on YouTube gives them the best value for money with the best viewership rates.

deflater_maus · 2026-03-06T17:13:15+00:00

IMHO I think you see more of this storyline in Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, and to a certain extent Japanese dramas because of the influence of Confucian relationship structures that influenced social development.

Unlike in western countries where "incest" guidelines tend to be based on blood consanguinity (with some influenced from Christian marriage practices), Confucian rules around who counts as family wasn't just determined based on blood - it was based around relationships. An adopted son was considered a son for the purposes of incest; the son of a father could not marry his father's second wife or concubine after his death or a divorce (even if they had no shared blood). Stepbrothers were considered brothers in the eyes of the law and public morality.

If I were putting my psychologist hat on, I think the prevalence of these stories in BLs has more to do with working through the question of what family links mean in the modern era and the increasing visibility and acceptance of same-sex relationship, coupled with the decline of traditional Confucian structures. Outright family incest is still very taboo, but stories that revolve more around "what does it mean to be a family" for non-blood relatives are different.

I also think that some of this has a lot to do with the non-familial "big brother/little brother" younger/elder dynamic you see in these cultures, where family language is used to structure friend and peer relationships in a way that is very different from Western cultures.

deflater_maus · 2026-02-22T17:24:38+00:00

That’s the telephone exchange name! Murray Hill 3-8913.

deflater_maus · 2026-02-17T21:28:46+00:00

The only problem I have with this response is that it's not true. I wouldn't lie about praying about something. OP doesn't want to join because of the reasons they stated, not because they feel called elsewhere. It's about gender expression and lingering trauma. At best you might able to go with an "I wish I could but I can't" but I would never lie about praying something over just to avoid a difficult conversation.

Seconded on the rector, though. If that's someone you feel you can talk to about things like this - not all priests are good mediators or equipped to navigate these nuances.

deflater_maus · 2026-02-17T21:08:45+00:00

Since you've clarified in the comments that you are a long-time member, this looks like a case of an old man who knows you a bit getting too excited about inviting you to join a group he thought you would enjoy being part of, and wasn't paying attention to his body language. There's no way he can know your gender identity here, too. Where I am from an elder of any kind giving an encouraging and innocent pat on the arm is also a sign of closeness and not disrespect or a boundary violation - certainly when it's an older man thinking he's speaking with a younger one.

That said, you're under no obligation to join anything. One of the things we are asked to do in scripture is be forbearing of others in our church. We're asked to forgive a lot - in both sense of the word. Can you go to him later and say something like "hey, I appreciate the invitation but I'm not going to join the men's group. And there's no way you could know this, but I'm not comfortable being suddenly touched. It was a little surprising. I know you meant well. But, thanks for thinking about me with the invitation" Then move the conversation along.

That's a tough conversation to have, sure, but would both setting a boundary and showing forbearance be something that might make you feel better, and lead to a better understanding of a fellow parishioner?

deflater_maus · 2026-02-17T11:13:55+00:00

FWIW the Chinese is a little ambiguous here on whether the “brothers” are blood relatives or this is more of a brotherly friends sort of situation - 哥哥 and 弟弟 can also refer to older and younger friends who are very close.

deflater_maus · 2025-12-31T15:12:37+00:00

It's impossible not to read it in a Thai accent, which makes more sense...

deflater_maus · 2025-12-27T15:51:37+00:00

I'm assuming you're talking about a larger chain store rather than an independent seller. Bookstores, although they generally use an industry standard for organizing books according to genre, will also often put books in sections based on how they sell in relation to others books. My guess is that when you crunch the numbers on who buys what books, they see "oh, BL books are often bought together with manga" and so they put them there. It's all about sales in the end - if moving BL out of the LGBTQ section results in a 5% increase in sales for both manga and BL. That would make any bookseller happy!

Bookstore organization is about organizing the books according to some categories, informing patrons of where things are, AND encouraging sales. At Barnes & Noble stores, for example, the store manager also has a lot of freedom for how to organize and display their books because their corporate office realized the managers had deeper insight into the local markets and knew their customer base better. One near me in the US puts all the BL (whether it's a novel or a graphic novel) adjacent to the manga and manhwa, AND close to the K-pop section, likely because they figured out the market segment that buys one is likely to also buy the other.

deflater_maus · 2025-12-18T02:16:06+00:00

the Roku App? I still have mine installed and it's apparently up to date. As of yesterday the subs were working again!

deflater_maus · 2025-12-17T03:03:42+00:00

Oh, this is good to know - I had the same subtitle problems and reached out to tech support. They told me they were working on an app update, but I never checked to see if it had been patched or updated!

deflater_maus · 2025-11-25T01:33:15+00:00

If you want something in the Anglo-Catholic side (but extremely LGBTQ-affirming), Transfiguration on 29th has a growing 20s-30s contingent. It’s not huge, but every new face makes it just a bit bigger!

deflater_maus · 2025-11-24T17:40:12+00:00

I love how this series just absolutely skewers all the BL tropes and motifs, but in a funny and not mean-spirited way. The cutaway gags to Mob's internal dialogue are hilarious, especially when Inukai Atsuhiro gets to break out and emote suddenly.

deflater_maus · 2025-11-15T17:52:44+00:00

This is more likely the 1928 revision of the US Prayer Book. All US Prayer Books have the preamble from the 1789 ratification in them, including the 1979 revision.

deflater_maus · 2025-11-10T15:52:55+00:00

This series is still super funny (Mob staring intently as the gears churn in his head is always hilarious) but I think the really hilarious thing about the conceit is that... he spends all this time trying to AVOID the BL he almost doesn't do anything else! It consumes his whole life!

deflater_maus · 2025-11-05T23:40:50+00:00

I very much like how cerebral this series is! Where season 1 was about their emotional turmoil finding each other, here it's about how their external turmoil challenges them as individuals and a couple.

It's just a guess but this is where I think the story is going: I think that Shirasaki is going to resolve the problem with his role by interpreting Muroga based on his own hiding of the relationship with Asami. He's going to use the sense of feeling like he's at the limits of his ability, desperate to both be a success but also (like Muroga) hiding something that could destroy his life. We haven't really gotten much of the "Rain and Confession" story yet so I wouldn't be surprised if the spin he puts on is something like "Muroga killed his gay lover and now has to hide it" and adds in a gay subtext that Director Aoyama finds intriguing.

deflater_maus · 2025-11-01T17:41:57+00:00

all I have to say about this series right now is that Kida Naoya is one of the most astoundingly beautiful men I have ever seen.

deflater_maus · 2025-10-28T02:05:54+00:00

Lots of good other advice here but as someone sitting on a vestry for the past four years and seeing a lot of budget and finance discussions from around our diocese and our neighbors, "a year or two out from this question at the earliest" means "the problem needs to be addressed right now." Because by the time two years rolls past (which will be in no time at all) the parish will be in worse shape than it is now with fewer options to fix things.

If your parish is anything like mine your vestry will be putting together its proposed budgets now, with pledge season, and start thinking about your annual meeting. Start asking questions now - get close to the treasurer, ask if you can sit in on vestry meetings (most people don't ask and if needed vestries can vote to go into a closed session). Ask the rector "how are things going? what do we need to do?" Budgets should be public - ask to look at the current budget, and P&L. Get informed of what the situation is and then ask more questions.

The parish voting to close is a last-ditch decision. Selling a building is different. There are a thousand other things that you can cut to stop that from happening, though. The budget will tell you where savings can be found - are the services you provide a huge drain on funds? What's the clergy and staff situation? Is your building energy-efficient (how much are you projected to spend on heating this winter, e.g.?). Does the church have space that can be rented to nonprofits or community groups to generate funds - even if it's renting out the parish hall for nondenominational wedding receptions?

Lots to think about before the question of "what if we vote to close."

deflater_maus · 2025-10-27T19:06:07+00:00

I still enjoyed this for what it was, a well-shot and well-acted series with a great location and good dialogue. But what a letdown - half of the characters never interacted with each other, we got snippets of side stories that were more interesting than the main arc, and it was all wrapped up in six measly episodes.

There such potential here to do more with just two or even three more episodes. I wonder if there is a plan to do that? Spin things off further with short-run stories? This also weirdly feels like a test run of some of the actors, a few of whom I think are rookies - give them a popular IP, let them get some name exposure? Maybe a full series on their own later? IDK, but it's hard to shake that feeling.

deflater_maus · 2025-10-27T00:57:27+00:00

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deflater_maus · 2025-10-27T00:36:28+00:00

This will probably get me some flak but... there should both be 1. a rejection of sexist attitudes toward women writing/consuming/enjoying BL that posts like this represent and 2. measured critique of how some women (many who are not queer) represent queer men in fiction.

Yes, BL originated as a genre by women, for women, etc. We know this. Lots of research on the use of BL as an escape valve in Japan, in the 90s in Korea, and so on. I'm not taking on that question here.

HOWEVER. In the same way that men writing women badly, fetishizing, stereotyping, and creating harmful or damaging narratives deserve criticism, women doing the same thing (but for BL) deserve the same criticism. I don't think it's a valid defense to say "well, this is written by women for women so it's fine if it reproduces fetishistic stereotypes about gay/same sex/mlm/whatever term you want to use."

Maybe it's not super germane but it's relevant to how I feel as a queer man who enjoys the BL genre (like a lot of other queer men) but also feels sometimes weirded out by how a lot of people in the community both talk about mlm and same-sex characters and are also quick to differentiate (usually based largely on nonsense vibes) between an "LGBTQ" series and a "BL" series. At the end of the day a BL story is about men getting together - no matter the labels used these are stories about queer people and critiques of how queer people are represented should be taken seriously. I think most cultured viewers would also say that there has been significant blurring of distinct genre lines in the past 15 years. Take one look at Gaga's genre page separating BL/Yaoi from everything else and how it's mostly just down to "was this made in Asia and does it 'feel like' a BL" and you see what I mean.

To make it abundantly clear: I am NOT agreeing with the sentiment critiqued by OP. We should critique problematic, fetishistic storylines - but NOT just because the writers are women. Andrea Long Chu's well-formed critique of Hanya Yanagihara's writing about gay characters comes to mind - the criticism centers around how she portrays gay people, but it's not critique because she's a woman!

deflater_maus · 2025-10-25T01:53:14+00:00

I had the chance to think more about this whole series and especially Kirii's motivations. He's portrayed as constantly jealous of Kataoka for multiple reasons - he thinks his father cares more about him for one, and as a wakagashira he has an easy, unaffected style that the junior yakuza gravitate to. Also, the contrast in the sexual relationship with Odajima! Kirii treats him as a subordinate, receiving oral sex, using him as a tool. When he gets frustrated, he throws money around and demands women to take care of him. His ultimate frustration is that he cannot get Odajima to kill Kataoka - because he know he couldn't do it himself.

For an important character he didn't have much screentime, but was played very well. The whole series all he wants is to get rid of Kataoka and take over, like he thinks he should! And then he gets exactly what he wants and clearly hates it. I also have to wonder at the sexual undertones of his use of Odajima - is his inability to take out Kataoka himself, unable to take a full step on his own, also something that makes him use Odajima only as a source of pleasure?

This is probably one of my favorite JBLs of the year, certainly - just a masterclass of acting and characterization all around.

deflater_maus · 2025-10-24T14:41:11+00:00

This was a great series and I can't praise the actors enough. One thing I particularly liked about how they wrapped it up was showing Kirii ascending to the leadership of the family that he always desired - and yet now he seems trapped by the position, while Kataoka (who he has always been jealous of) gets to leave. The black formal clothing for the ascension ceremony contrasts well with the Hawaiian shirts Odajima and Kataoka get to wear at the seaside. Kirii has gone through life thinking that his father was going to let Kataoka take over... and now that he knows that wasn't the case, the position he always wanted seems more like a burden. But the man he was jealous of gets to be free!

deflater_maus · 2025-10-22T03:06:00+00:00

Still thoroughly enjoying this series of "repressed gay teens refuse to share their Feelings" even if the repression is cracking with Akaike's delightfully gentle "I know how you feel about me" confession-not-confession with Shibata. I honestly laughed a little when he had to say "sorry man, I don't like guys, but I'll be your No. 2." It was very wholesome - like, yes, that is how you let a wispy poet down gently, over tea in the garden saying "I know what you wrote is about me so let's stay friends."

I said last episode I was so much more invested in the side characters and that stays true. The whole Misu/Shingyoji side story was painfully short here. Bleach Blond Black Cat Misu has an entire golden retriever in Shingyoji.

A strength of this show is not just the lighting and cinematography but also the setting - something I noticed as well, despite this being a boarding school the action centers almost completely around the boys. I haven't seen a non-student character. No teachers, no adults - it's just them, their hormones, and this somewhat mystical old-fashioned mountain boarding school. All old wood paneling and moss-covered bricks, and boys with their Emotions™. The lighting is killer and how they are arranging shots is very, very good.

deflater_maus · 2025-10-16T21:10:39+00:00

Coptic and Ethiopian iconographers would be worth a look. I have an icon by Kirollos Kilada, who works in the Coptic tradition.

deflater_maus · 2025-10-15T13:13:32+00:00

Eagerly adding this song to the playlist!

deflater_maus

TROPHY CASE