#as an academic... yeah

[visit-ba-sing-se]

[flowersandfashion]

hot twink is tied up and penetrated

A Collection of Homoerotic Paintings of Saint Sebastian

Carlo Saraceni, c. 1610 /// Nicolas Régnier, c. 1620 /// Guido Reni, c. 1625 /// Nicolas Régnier, c. 1625 /// Louis Finson, c. 1613 /// François-Guillaume Ménageot, c. 1760 /// Guido Reni, c. 1615 /// Nicolas Régnier, c. 1620

[danijaci]

Go crazy go stupid

[gaysie]

some interesting passages from conversations with anne rice about why she writes about gay men

[randomwriteronline]

btw still not over @crystaltoa 's whole post on narrative and destiny and bionicle characters being aware they're characters but not in a common fourth wall breaking way. Random thinks too hard two electric boogaloo

Like. The Matoran Universe is a fictional universe within the already fictional universe of Bionicle. Like the more realized version of a book in a book. It's a completely artificial manufactured cosmos where essentially nothing is real - most elements are replaced by protodermis, animals and plants are produced, the inhabitants are engineered and built via assembly lines, their sapience was installed post-completion - and the awareness of this is None. Like Crystal mentions in the original post, the characters know they're following Destiny like it's the rough draft of a play and they're actors of the Commedia dell'Arte, taking on certain archetypical roles and adhering more or less closely to their traits and clichés, but that's where the self-awareness ends because to them this is a performance of life, not a pantomime. The nature of the Matoran Universe naturally prevents any knowledge of or contact with the wider "real" universe, so they remain ignorant to how fictitious their existence is and continue to perceive their own reality as the only possible one (ITS THE FUCKING CAVE AGAIN).

Keep this in mind for later.

Now back to Destiny. MU beings seem to have a tendency to conflate or heavily associate it with Mata Nui ("the will of Mata Nui" being used as a synonym for it, the Order of Mata Nui working to ensure it), to the point where it would be fair to assume that the two are one and the same, or that at least Mata Nui has some agency on Destiny; however, while it's true that Mata Nui is heavily tied to Destiny to the point of seeming its incarnation, he just as submitted to it as the rest of the MU beings are, if not possibly more.

In the narrative of Destiny, Mata Nui is at once playing both the Objective and the Ultimate Hero - not in the sense that he's the platonic ideal of the role, but that at the end of the day he is the proper main character, if not the ONLY proper character for it. The concept of Destiny with a capital D is after all a creation of the Great Beings, whose principal concern and endgame is eventually* healing Spherus Magna: since Mata Nui is made for this specific purpose, Destiny exists to ensure he actually follows through with it; since Mata Nui needs to be functional in order to succeed, the narrative of Destiny converges around him and works to compel the MU beings towards keeping him alive. Thus, as mentioned, he is both hero and objective, protagonist and macguffin.

*dont fuckin talk to me abt the great beings and how they provoked the entire plot of bionicle through their tendency towards inaction and apathy. perhaps ill elaborate one day but the jist of it is that i need to bite them in the ass

This duality intrinsic to his character is made explicit by the constant if sometimes faint separation between his soul/spirit/essence ("him" proper) and his body (a "thing" he only inhabits) - causing him to oscillate between being a person and being an object, with the latter often winning over the former especially while he was commanding the Great Spirit Robot. His exile from this incarnation of fiction into the "real" world doesn't unshackle him from the narrative, which is too far above him from him to be escaped just like that, but it does allow him to take a detour outside of it and come into his own self in a way he's been unable to experience until now - because he hasn't exactly been a character at all, let alone an active player. He is first and foremost a tool, a means to an end; he's less reciting/living a part and more doing the job he's been built to do, and this singleminded and utilitarian approach to his identity seems to have been at least part of the problem in how effectively he could perform his task as it prevented him from noticing the problems which then led into the main conflict of Bionicle. By being forcefully exiled from fiction and having to become "real" he finally surpasses this obstacle and gains the mindset and skillset of a proper protagonist, finally realizing his heroic potential to a point where he can put it in practice.

Teridax, on the other hand.

Crystal has said it before because it is true and correct and right, so it's worth saying again: Teridax loves being the Villain. He's enamored with the role to such a disgusting degree that he essentially hoarded it for himself the moment he found out it was an option and nearly everybody else had to be declassed to Lackey or Antagonist in comparison. It's more than a role or a calling - it's a lifestyle. He makes it his whole personality and reason of being, completely abandoning his original purpose as a Makuta (in direct contrast with Mata Nui, who instead focused exclusively on his purpose at the cost of neglecting his role). He revels in the clichés, the monologues, the manipulation, the cruelty, the ominous laughs, the stark shadows, the drama and theatricality of it all. He likes it so much that it literally makes him stupid.

Teridax runs The Plan in tandem with Destiny in order to usurp it, replacing it with his own design in the same way he aims to replace Mata Nui with himself in the role of Great Spirit. In his mind, these are equivalent pairs: Mata Nui coincides with Destiny just like Teridax coincides with The Plan, so by replacing one you replace both, and he gains power not just over the universe but over the story itself.

Of course, as explained above, this is completely wrong: while he can and does run The Plan as parallel to Destiny in a way that makes them effectively overlap, and he does succeed in gaining Mata Nui's power, he remains a character subjugated by a narrative which is completely out of reach for him and continues to influence how the consequences of his actions will ultimately play out. This is immediately obvious to the reader the second he decides to get rid of all his problems by shooting them into space, completely unaware of the fact that the narrative has already made it so that Mata Nui will have the means to reach his objective, get another physical form, and eventually find a replacement for the body he needed for his quest, rendering the Great Spirit Robot mostly obsolete (which will be part of the reason why, again in tandem with Teridax's need for gratuitous cruelty, it will eventually be bested by the technically much worse Prototype Robot), all while Teridax is too busy learning the commands and terrifying his blood cells to realize his genius idea is going to get back at him and curbstomp him into the surface of a moon in roughly a couple of weeks.

But there's more!

Because the Great Spirit Robot is in and of itself a sort of physical manifestation of fiction as the container of the fictional Matoran Universe, it's effectively the most gargantuan vessel of Destiny available in the Bionicle Universe. As such, it is intrisically tied to the rule that dominates both of the stories centered around it: in Destiny's case, that Mata Nui will always succeed; in Bionicle (a story for kids)'s case, that the Villain will always fall to the Hero.

Teridax proudly, confidently and without doubt turns himself into the embodiment of his inevitable defeat.

[ihopeinevergetsoberr]

feeling rusty rn, i haven’t written in a while

but im working on the tumblr requests!!!!

[kissboybyler]

my parents have no idea i’m being gay on the internet

[egginfroggin]

*Drops these* whoops more redraws

Stan is having a day, okay.

Ford is being unsettling in (reluctant) true Gothel fashion.

Someday I will figure out how to arrange words inside speech bubbles.

Transcription: First page First panel: Mabel: "I have magic hair that glows when I sing." Third panel: Stan: "ya WHAT"

Second page: Ford: "If it finds even the slightest bit of sunshine..." "it" "destroys" "it"

(program: krita; time: about 3.5 hours)

[lautakwah]

Ask, and ye shall receive. Posting the Nie Huaisang Essay for his birthday, I hope the three Nie Huaisang Enjoyers will like this♡

Nie Huaisang, GNC Icon?

An analysis of the construction of Chinese masculinity and manhood as it relates to perceived gender-nonconformity in Chinese male characters in period dramas by western fans.

「你小心点！这个呢可是我最喜欢的一副扇子。你看 画工精巧构图別致。怎么样 是不是当世极品哪？」

“Be careful! This is my favorite folding fan. Look, it’s exquisitely painted and uniquely constructed. How is it? It’s of the highest grade, isn’t it?”

― Nie Huaisang, episode 35 of 陈情令 The Untamed (2020)

It was late 2019 when I first heard about Chen Qing Ling, in countries outside of China and other majority-Chinese speaking areas better known as The Untamed.[1] I had, at the time, not watched a proper C-drama in years. Intrigued by CQL’s sudden popularity, however, I decided to check it out; after all, it was not every day that a C-drama gains popularity in the west. Even with the recent uptick in East-Asian media gaining traction[2], it was still a surprise to see a xianxia series getting the same level of adoration in online circles I had previously only seen dedicated to Disney intellectual property.

Based on the web-novel Mo Dao Zu Shi (Founder of Demonic Cultivation) by MXTX, CQL tells the story of Wei Ying, courtesy name Wuxian, and details the events in the cultivation world surrounding his teenage years until his untimely death several years later, and the mystery surrounding his resurrection yet 13 years afterwards. A series spanning roughly 20 years in 50 episodes, CQL is an epic that at the same time leaves out a lot of the original novel. After all, it is an adaptation of a danmei-genre novel: focusing on male-male romance generally created by and for women and sexual minorities (Lavin et al 2017). Considering the strict media regulations in China, most of the homoeroticism either had to be censored or subtextual (Xu 2014; Shaw and Zhang 2018).

With this popularity, however, also came the very western-centric, colonialist, and orientalist interpretations of the text. Focusing in particular on the way that Asian men have been and are seen as more feminine (Han 2016; Han 2006; Song 2004) and how western fans continue to perpetuate this rhetoric when consuming C-dramas, I will take as a case study the way that Nie Huaisang, one of the main supporting characters in CQL, has been hailed as a gender-nonconforming, nonbinary, and/or trans icon by western fans. Starting with expounding on the danmei genre as a whole, and what that means for Nie Huaisang as a character, I shall then discuss the ways that Chinese masculinities are constructed and how Nie Huaisang exemplifies the wen ideal of masculinity, being a scholar and an artist. Finally, I will talk about western fans’ attitudes being culturally insensitive on top of reiterating and reinforcing western-centric, colonialist, and orientalist tropes and ideals surrounding masculinity and manhood.

Danmei, derived from the Japanese term tanbi and the Chinese equivalent to BL (Boys’ Love), although by now it has transformed into its own subculture instead of wholly resembling its Japanese counterpart, literally means “addicted to beauty” (Feng 2009; Lavin et al 2017; Kam 2012). It depicts an idealized love between (young) male characters, who also embody ideal, generally androgynous, beauty standards, and whose beauty is at the forefront of the text. These beauty standards extend even to the side characters, and in drama adaptations the casts tend to boast idols and young, conventionally attractive actors in all roles ― as is the case with CQL.

What this means for Nie Huaisang, who is neither a love interest nor a main character, is that he would still have to fall into the trope of being a beautiful man, and have it be natural within the narrative. Chinese beauty standards here differ from the eurocentric and oftentimes colonialist norm that western fans are used to. Furthermore, culturally and historically the androgynous looks that are romanticized and exalted are constructed within the framework of masculinity; in other words, while for westerners androgyny might mean gender-nonconformity, nothing could be farther from the truth when looking at how Chinese masculinity and manhood are constructed (Kam 2012).

Beyond aestheticism, however, which is more of a danmei staple (Feng 2009), there are many other ways in which masculinity and manhood were conceptualized in ancient China. Nie Huaisang, being a scholar, embodies a very distinct masculine ideal (Kam 2002; Kam 2015; Song 2004). The scholar class was a male-only, and, indeed, one of the most venerated of professions held in ancient China. Nie Huaisang, being a sect heir and later sect leader, furthermore was well-off, meaning that he couldn’t be in a “feminine” scholarly position either ― marginalized/poor scholars were emasculated by being in the service of higher-ranking men, think of pinshi (poor scholars), muyou (secretary scholars), or hanshi (obscure scholars), which could never be the case for Nie Huaisang (Kam 2016). Within the framework of Chinese masculinity, and specifically the wen-wu (literary-martial) understanding and conceptualization of it, scholars were further preferred over their martial counterparts; Nie Huaisang, by virtue of being a scholar and a beauty, even lives up to the romanticized masculine ideal of the caizi jiaren[3] (“scholar-beauty”) hero (Song 2004). While being a well-rounded individual was of course appreciated more[4], as a poet, artist, and shrewd intellectual Nie Huaisang more than conforms to male gender roles as they exist within the cultural and historical context (Kam 2002; Kam 2015).

「大哥这人你也了解 一向鲁莽 又容易冲动。可你不像他。你自小理性内敛、又习得奇门道用。」

“You know eldest brother[5] well. He’s always been reckless and impulsive. But you are not like him. You have been rational and restrained since you were young, and you are good at Daoist magic.”

― Jin Guangyao to Nie Huaisang, 乱魄 Fatal Journey (2020)

In Fatal Journey, which is a spin-off movie of CQL focusing solely on the Nie sect, Jin Guangyao tells Nie Huaisang the above. Nie Mingjue is in the series and movie both depicted as a strong fighter; juxtaposing both brothers, one who is good at martial pursuits and one who follows intellectual pursuits, it becomes clear that here, too, “rationality” and therefore being an intellectual is preferred over the brute strength in cishetero-patriarchal hypermasculinity that the west favors, while simultaneously marking both brothers as still conforming to masculine standards.

The fact that western fans interpret Nie Huaisang to be “GNC-coded”, then, has to do with their own preconceptions surrounding how western (white, eurocentric) masculinity and manhood are constructed, and taken as the norm for these concepts. Because of orientalism, East Asian men as a whole are feminized, emasculated, and infantilized (Han 2016; Han 2006; Kam 2012; Kapac 1998). Western fans consuming and interacting with East Asian media will be done through such a lens, and when uncontested, only perpetuate this rhetoric. In period dramas such as CQL, where everyone wears flowing robes and has long hair[6] ― historically and culturally accurate ― western audiences will instead interpret this to mean their conceptions of Chinese people to be more feminine aren’t unfounded. While the construction of Chinese masculinities have changed since ancient times (Kam 2015; Song 2010), and the representations of Chinese masculinities in TV have become more globalized (Song 2010), it nevertheless does not mean that male characters in period dramas are ever seen as feminine or deliberately emasculated through being a scholar as opposed to a warrior ― that is a purely western interpretation.

Nie Huaisang’s mannerisms, while seemingly “feminine” by western standards ― his love for fans, his artistry, his intellect, his aversion to violence ― all have cultural, contextual, historical, and in-universe explanations that have nothing to do with his manhood nor his masculinity[7]; he was written as a frivolous “second young master” with no ambition to take on the role as sect leader[8], and his sect’s cultivation style actively poisoned the mind and body. Is it any wonder, then, that he did not take up the dao? While he doesn’t conform to the cultivation world’s standards of a cultivator and later as sect leader, a role he was forced into after his brother’s death, this does not make him gender-nonconforming. Western audiences’ preoccupation with his antipathy towards using his dao and not fighting furthermore points to their subscription to western-centric, colonialist ideals of hypermasculinity (Han 2016; Song 2004), which they assume are universal, and therefore ascribing Nie Huaisang traits that simply aren’t there. In the end, his wielding of a fan and brush instead of a dao is then interpreted as him being effeminate and not conforming to gender roles, instead of understanding that as a scholar and artist, he conforms to gender roles just fine, but does not conform to traditional cultivator roles.

In a rapidly globalizing world where it is increasingly easy to gain access to media made elsewhere, western audiences’ inability to understand that their worldview is limited actively perpetuates orientalist tropes and racist misconceptions. The way that Nie Huaisang is seen as gender-nonconforming by fans points to the racialization of gender and its construction. A scholar and an intellectual, wielding a fan and being an expert strategist, Nie Huaisang is at times reminiscent of Zhuge Liang, a legendary historical scholar. Yet, while he conforms to male gender roles within his own cultural context, being emblematic of the wen ideal of masculinity, western audiences cannot conceive of him as a man because he deviates from white cisheteronormative patriarchy.

This is not to say that interpreting any character as a minority should not be done. Representation is important ― we all know this. Personally, I would even welcome it as a gender-nonconforming nonbinary person myself. The way western fans go about it, however, only shows they do so through a western-centric, colonialist, and orientalist lens. The point, then, is not that he cannot be gender-nonconforming ― it is to change how western audiences interact with and interpret non-western media.

FOOTNOTES

I will henceforth refer to the series as CQL.

Think for example of how K-pop is becoming more and more mainstream by the day, and how anime and manga are as much part of pop culture as comics and cartoons.

A type of novel depicting the story of a young, rich, beautiful scholar and his female love interest.

Take, for example, Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhuge Liang from Romance of the Three Kingdoms; while all three are undoubtedly held up as paragons of masculinity and male role models even now, Guan Yu, being a martial god (thus epitomizing wu), and Zhuge Liang, being an unparalleled intellectual (thus epitomizing wen), both defer to Liu Bei, who embodies both parts of the wen-wu dichotomy equally, being an adept swordsman and an able strategizer.

This refers to Nie Mingjue, Nie Huaisang’s eldest brother and also Jin Guangyao’s eldest sworn brother. He was at the time the sect leader of Qinghe (where the Nie clan was based).

Long hair has long been a confucian ideal, and not gendered because of it. As one’s body is granted to them by their parents, and one has to pay respect to their elders, cutting hair is akin to desecrating the body and disrespecting one’s elders.

Beyond being explicitly stated in the text multiple times, the official artbook of the drama also reinforces this, as does Nie Huaisang’s propensity to quote poetry or waxing lyrical. One memorable line at the end of the series especially brings this home: 「这山川风物四时美景 真是无论看多久 都不会 觉得厌。我呢 是一个识趣的人 该我做的我不会假手他人 如果不该我做的 我也做不来。」(“These mountains and rivers, the scenery of all seasons – I really do feel that no matter how long I look , I won’t become bored of them. As for me, I’m a sensible man. For the things I should do, I won’t shirk. But for things that aren’t my business, I won’t meddle in.”)

After all, we have already established he conforms to Chinese standards of masculinity, and as a Chinese male character from a mainland Chinese production that was made primarily for Chinese-speaking audiences, that is honestly all the context needed to understand him as a character.

Wei Wuxian asks Nie Huaisang if he would ever have the intention to become head cultivator (i.e. leader of all the sects), and by answering thus, invoking scenic imagery and speaking in a higher register, which, yes, is in-character for him, also has an added layer. Reminiscent of Chinese dynastic succession struggles, unambitious siblings tended to throw themselves into the arts, poetry, and music, while eschewing politics and power plays in the hopes that their siblings who had ambitions for the throne would not kill them. Nie Huaisang, here, is conjuring up these same sentiments, hinting to Wei Wuxian that he is not scheming to be head cultivator by talking poetically, and further implicitly pleading with his old friend not to suspect his motives and not to kill him because of them.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Feng, Jin. 2009. ““Addicted to Beauty”: Consuming and Producing Web-based Chinese “Danmei” Fiction at Jinjiang.” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 21, no. 2 (fall): 1-41. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41491008.

Han, C. Winter. 2016. “From “Little Brown Brothers” to “Queer Asian Wives”: Constructing the Asian Male Body.” In Body Aesthetics, edited by Sherri Irvin, 60-80. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Han, Chong-suk. 2006. “Being an Oriental, I could Never Be Completely a Man: Gay Asian Men and the Intersection of Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Class.” Race, Gender & Class 13, no. 3/4 (2006): 82-97. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41675174.

Kam, Louie. 2016. Changing Chinese Masculinities: From Imperial Pillars of State to Global Real Men. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Kam, Louie. 2015. Chinese Masculinities in a Globalizing World. New York: Routledge.

Kam, Louie. 2012. “Popular Culture and Masculinity Ideals in East Asia, with Special Reference to China.” The Journal of Asia Studies 71, no. 4 (November): 929-943. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021911812001234.

Kam, Louie. 2002. Theorising Chinese Masculinity: Society and Gender in China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kapac, Jack. 1998. “Culture/Community/Race: Chinese Gay Men and the Politics of Identity.” Anthropologica 40, no. 2 (1998): 169-81. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25605895.

Lavin, Maud, Ling Yang, and Jing Jamie Zhao. 2017. Boys’ Love, Cosplay, and Androgynous Idols: Queer Fan Cultures in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Shaw, Garreth, and Xiaoling Zhang. 2018. “Cyberspace and gay rights in a digital China: Queer documentary filmmaking under state censorship.” China Information 32 (2), 270-92. https://doi.org/10.1177/0920203X17734134.

Song, Geng. 2010. “Chinese Masculinities Revisited: Male Images in Contemporary Television Drama Serials.” Modern China 36, no. 4 (2010): 404-34. https://doi.org/10.1177/0097700410368221.

Song, Geng. 2004. The Fragile Scholar: Power and Masculinity in Chinese Culture. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Xu, Beina. 2014. “Media Censorship in China.” Council on Foreign Relations, September 25, 2014. https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/177388/media%20censorship%20in%20china.pdf

[shurale-walks-the-woods]

and every song i wrote became an escape rope

tied around my neck to

pull me up

to Heaven

[fairuzfan]

I went to a religious school for most of my life and yeah I agree private religious schools shouldn't exist but sometimes I hear things from jewish dayschools where I'm like... this is a totally different experience from what we spent our days talking about??? Like the equivalent for a zionist leaning education in the Islamic context would be like... salafi education and from the multiple Islamic schools I'm familiar with i don't think they even know the word salafi until graduating. Like idk i have issues with Islamic schools but it was at least not like that article i read...

[chanelle-lize]

I used to have a really hard time bringing up the fact that I graduated from high school a year late without feeling the need to explain why and insisting that it wasn't my fault while simultaneously kicking myself for how much I sounded like I was just making excuses for something I should take responsibility for.

Then I watched Dimension 20's "The Seven" and suddenly I could simply say that I was a super senior.

The first time I heard the phrase "super senior" was in reference to Antiope Jones, a Black girl who had been held back a year after getting kidnapped and imprisoned by members of a fundamentalist cult, and like, girl, same.

So, since then, instead of anxiously spinning out any time I tried to tell a personal high school anecdote, I could just say I was a super senior, and then my brain would auto complete that statement with "like Antiope Jones" and I'd feel good about myself because Antiope Jones Is That Bitch.

That's what the problem had been the whole time. I wasn't worried about how other people would perceive me; I had been struggling with how I perceived myself.

Thanks, Aabria.

[mangosaurus]

will always be endeared by the idea of ben and darius growing up to be research partners. it may not be canon-compliant but there's an alternate universe out there where it's true i just know it

[sunnibits]

kinda gay for a man to be a pianist tbh. what do you need long and delicate fingers for huh?? to touch other men????? 🤨🤨

[expectiations]

I can't do without you (Saul Silva, 2022).

[reddamselette]

i’ve become increasingly aware of how unhealthy my obsession is in rereading the kandriel ec. like. i’m just rereading that shit twice a week please send help