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vegasandhishedgehog · 11 months

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Seeing a lot of upset posts about how the show ended with Boston and feeling like something really went over a few heads. Do I also believe Boston deserved better? Yes. But let's be realistic in the way Jojo and Ninew approached this.

Boston and his promiscuity have been the target of harsh judgements from episode one. And the writers have stated that he has a moral code, it's just very different from others. I was never expecting him to state it outright, that it would just be a thing worth paragraphs of speculative meta, but he does!

Boston stated his definition of boyfriend. If he wants to be exclusive, that's for all the emotional bonding that he desires with someone special, but does not deny him the ability to fulfill his physical desires with whomever he wishes. That's not just polyamory, it's a very specific kind!!! And it's entirely different from the traditional sort of relationship society has accepted. The thing is, he wouldn't have discovered that possibility without knowing Nick.

Boston did genuinely fall for Nick. But how could he have handled that properly when he has no experience being loved and has never learned how to love someone back? Moreover, how could he come to the conclusion that he likes being exclusive in one way but not another without absolutely fumbling the bag with someone who's on a different page? It's not exactly Nick's fault that he prefers physical affection to be exclusive as well, that's just how he is. There couldn't have been any discussion about this, it was a discovery in the making.

The truth is Boston would still have a hard time finding happiness in Thailand due to the political climate, especially with his father being a politician. He's gay and that alone makes achieving his dreams more difficult, but being as promiscuous as he is means even a majority of the queer community will shut him out. He's better off moving to the states where at least he has rights and better acceptance for who he is. And that's what happened.

Because having a sexual or romantic appetite outside of monogamy is still looked down on. I still see it in the BL fandom. I see it just in general. 3 Will Be Free is so often cited as a must-watch, but how many people stick to their comfort branded pairings?* How many people have made or heard jokes about the "Seattle polycule"? How many romantic aces and allosexual aros get othered and excluded and judged for their identity?

Jojo said there was no intended message, but that doesn't mean there isn't one to be found. Boston's arc is a prime example of how slutty queers get treated even by their own peers, even by people who care about them most. It's a cry from the cold and lonely dark that if we think these people deserve better, we need to change existing paradigms and find how we can give them that!

Nick wasn't prepared to do that because he is still hurting, and that's also okay. Not everyone has to change themselves to make the puzzle pieces fit. Boston and Nick's story centers around that so much. Nick being jealous and trying to copy Top, Boston trying to be what he thinks a boyfriend is - they only hurt each other because the parts that don't fit are digging in.

I hope we get a second season, but if not friends, remember Boston. He represents such a particular demographic that gets hated on and ignored constantly, and they deserve a chance. They're not easy, but that doesn't mean they're not worth it. Remember Nick too. We all have a Nick in some manner - someone that made us want to try, but no matter how much we cared for each other it just wasn't going to work. Family, friends, partners, whoever.

Instead of being outraged with the show, be outraged with society. Do something about it. Be kinder. Community is important, now more than ever. I cannot possibly overstate how much we need community, especially among minorities.

*this isn't meant to be judgmental toward fans who prefer branded pairings or aren't interested in that particular show. I know watching anything requires time and energy and scratching a certain itch at the right moment. It is, however, a concern that so many fans complained about numerous aspects of OF to the point where the creators went to the effort of explaining themselves on a weekly basis and editing certain parts to avoid backlash. I mentioned 3 Will Be Free because it's another example of Jojo's work. Many BL fans have heard of it, but only a small portion seem to have watched, and that can be an indicator of certain biases. This is not to imply anyone who hasn't seen it has said biases and is only intended to encourage reflection if needed.

#boston only friends #nick only friends #bostonnick #boston x nick #only friends the series #only friends #ofts #jojo tichakorn #neo trai #mark pakin #neomark

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sombredancer · 5 months

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Recent visually beautiful and generally watchable Russian fantasy movies

(because I start forgetting they exist at all) Ironically, all of them are adaptations of books/comics.

I Am Dragon / Он — дракон (2015) This movie is a very free adaptation of the novel "The Rite" / "Ритуал" by Maryna and Serhiy Dyachenko (Марина и Сергей Дяченко). It's a reinterpreting of an ancient tale about a maiden, a hero and a dragon. I don`t like the novel because it's very postmodern, wracks the typical fairytale plot and hurts my escapist feelings by ugly reality, but the movie is pretty fairytale-ish and nice. Firstly, it is visually beautiful and represent Slavic pseudo-medieval lore the way it should have always been in Slavic fantasy.

Secondly, as a love story between a monster and a maiden, it has got A PLENTY of tropes I'm usually looking for in Chinese dramas, so I understand very well why it was pretty popular in Asia.

Thirdly, when I said it's visually beautiful I wasn't joking. The main hero is played not by an actor, but by a male model, who is shirtless all the time (and sometimes pantless) and has a very fit and good-looking body. It's something unbelievable that someone in Russia made a movie to please women's eyes! Really, it's insane!

The folk-rock band Мельница wrote an insanely beautiful song "Обряд" (The Rite) for this movie (more matched to the book plot, though), but it was never used as OST, which is a shame. The song is about a black sheep girl, who is denied by society and asks a dragon to come for her and to take her away, because the dragon is denied by this world just like her. You can listen to it here. The band also has a song "Змей" (The Wyrm) (based on Lev Gumilev's poem), which is more accurate to the plot of the movie: the wyrm kidnaps maidens to make them its wives, but they are all dying during the flight; at the end of the song a hero-knight is ready to shoot it in order to stop it. Listen to it here.

It ends with HE, which is better than the book's obscure ending, so it is pleasure for me to rewatch it till these days.

Major Grom: Plague Doctor / Майор Гром: Чумной Доктор (2021)

It is an adaptation of Russian comic series "Major Grom" by Bubble comics. I am traditionally not very happy with the source material, but it is very good reworked to be the screen play of this movie.

It's very beautifully made in terms of director's, cameraman's and screenwriter's work, which is a rare thing for Russian movies. Also, the actors are young and handsome, especially the villain, which is a rare thing not only for Russian movies, but for the current Western movies, too. It has got a lot of allusions to Russian reality and a lot of beautiful views of Saint Petersburg, the second capital of Russia and one of the most beautiful Russian cities. And it has got some unusual visual solutions that turn it into a comic it should be.

The plot revolves around a mysterious serial killer (kinda bad Batman), a black sheep police officer and Russian Mark Zuckerberg (kind of). Mark Zuckerberg is the best guy of this movie and I like him a lot! Серёёёёжа! 🧡🧡🧡

This movie wasn't popular in Russia because of political situation in the country by the moment of its release (the both sides found out in there something insulting for them and banned it), but even if it has something like that, I honestly didn't pay attention to it. It's just a nice blockbuster with a tragic and handsome villain. The villain also has got his own BL-drama (in the comics they are really lovers, it`s as obvious as it could be shown in a Russian comic).

By the way, the villain is hot, insane, ruthless, sensitive and suffering. How does he contain all of this character treats in one personality? you may ask. He doesn`t. He has dissociative identity disorder, I would answer.

I don`t know if it works by now, but some time ago you could watch this lovely movie on Netflix.

The Master and Margarita / Мастер и Маргарита (2024) This is a loose adaptation of Russian classical novel "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov. I genuinely hate this book, but the adaptation reinterprets it, divides it into very interesting layers and makes it understandable and beautiful.

It`s layered, so it will probably be hard to understand what layer are we currently on if you are not familiar with the original story. The first layer is an ugly Soviet reality, the second layer is a plot of the novel that the main hero is writing, a story within a story. The third layer is the insane intertwining of the first two layers. On the reality layer the Master loses his job and freedom because of friend's denunciation and becomes star-crossed lovers with a married woman. On the novel level he meets devil, who visits Moscow by chance, and the devil gives him and his woman opportunity to live their lives being free from everything that usually tortures people IRL. Somewhere among those layers is a little plot about Jesus and Pontius Pilate.

The movie is visually beautiful. Although it feels pretty anti-Soviet, Soviet visuals of the movie are gorgeous. There were used the Stalin-times concepts of Moscow of the Future, the CGI buildings in frame came from the real architecture projects of those times. The Stalin Empire architecture style and views are typical for Moscow (but as I know, ironically, this all was shot in Saint Petersburg). It seems to me that this movie is heavily stuffed with visual allusions to the Western works: devil's escort looks like bunch of Pennywises, Margarita is Enchantress from Suicide Squad I, the scene of blood dripping is from Blade I etc. Usually, when I see it in Russian movies, it feels like plagiarism because I can recognize the reference but there is nothing except for these references . But here we have got the plot, so the allusions work as allusions and don`t irritate me.

The movie is dark, disturbing, uncomfortable. It really makes you feel as if you watch devil and his escort marching around you; they ravage, kill and destroy everything and you can only breathlessly, helplessly and in fear watch them. The German actor playing devil is insanely good. He stole the movie and I understand why it should have been named Woland (the devil's name) instead of the current movie's name. You may want to watch it, because it's very unusual in terms of plot and visuals experience, especially when you are not familiar with the book.

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compromised-emotionally · 15 days

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Racebending Interview with the Vampire: Power, Companionship and the Search for Freedom

I wrote a paper for a queer studies class that I'm kinda proud of. It's not particularly mindblowing as it was just a 200 level course, and it's kind of dry cause I was trying to stay formal. It's mostly just referencing other writings on race and queer studies and relating them to the show. It's about how the choice to racebend Louis deepens and transforms the thematic explorations of queerness in the original text. I wanted to share it below because I worked hard on it, even if no one reads this lol:

Racebending Interview with the Vampire: Power, Companionship and the Search for Freedom

Interview with the Vampire was originally a novel by Anne Rice, published in 1976. The novel told the story of a Louisiana plantation owner turned vampire named Louis de Pont du Lac, the French vampire named Lestat who was Louis’ maker, and the life they shared together. A film adaption was released in 1994 starring Brad Pitt as Louis and Tom Cruise as Lestat, that, like the book, displayed their relationship as deep but never explicitly sexual. It was not until the 2022 AMC television series that Louis and Lestat’s story was allowed to be explicitly romantic and sexual. The series was made further transformatively progressive with the casting of Black-British actor Jacob Anderson as Louis. In Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics, Munoz stated “A soft multicultural inclusion of race and ethnicity does not, on its own, lead to a progressive identity discourse” (pg10). Rather than just using “color-blind” casting for empty representation, Louis’ character was changed from slave owner to a black Creole man in the early 20th century. The addition of racial elements deepened thematic explorations of the nonnormative. By racebending Louis, AMC’s Interview with a Vampire expands on the original works’ examination of the vampire as a societal “other” and metaphor for homosexuality as well as Louis’ struggle to assimilate to vampire life. It relates the power dynamics between Lestat and Louis as creator/created to racial dynamics and interlocking systems of oppression.

Episode 3 “Is My Very Nature That of the Devil” opens with Lestat and Louis sitting in a park, as Lestat pontificates about the history of that park and reads a column about its design in the newspaper. Louis replies asking if the story mentioned how they used to put the severed heads of runaway slaves on the gates, then ponders if there’s a “greater purpose” for vampires on Earth. Lestat does not take Louis seriously, telling Louis that only that he (Lestat) is his creator and he put him on this Earth for pleasure. This interaction is emblematic of their relationship throughout the show. Lestat repeatedly minimizes the importance and legitimacy of Louis’ struggles, both the external oppressions he faces and his internal struggle to adjust to vampiric life. Vampirism acts as a direct parallel to living a queer life in the original text, though that symmetry is more complicated in the series since there is also explicit queerness in the show. If humanity is the dominant, normative group in this universe, then Lestat’s approach to vampirism can be read as counteridentificatory. Lestat considers himself and Louis to be completely separate from human society, and has none of Louis’ impulses to assimilate with the human community or hold on to any ties to it. Louis, conversely, still values the things that were important to him before turning: his club, “appearances”, his relationship with his family. He decides in this episode that he no longer wants to kill people, that he will feed off of animals alone. Lestat interprets this as a Louis denying his “true” identity as both a vampire and a queer man, an attempt to assimilate and identify with humans while rejecting Lestat and their shared identity. In some ways this is understandable, as the drinking of blood within this text is explicitly linked to their sex drive. But Lestat is also continuously upset throughout this episode when Louis refers to the black community of New Orleans as “his people”. Despite the fact that Louis’ resilience and strength as a black man succeeding in a white world was one of the things that first attracted Lestat to Louis, he cannot comprehend why he still feels such kinship with the race he has always been a part of.

Lestat treated turning Louis into a vampire as if that would supersede or eliminate the other aspects of his identity. The only difference that mattered to Lestat was vampire vs human, paralleling Cohen’s critique of white queer activism that envisions the world in a hetero/queer divide (Cohen, pg 447). When Lestat turned Louis at the end of the first episode, part of his pitch and promise to him was that as a vampire, racial oppressions would no longer hold him back. Lestat’s proposal was that becoming a vampire would give him (Louis) the power to counteridentify from the racist system, as well as freedom from loneliness and companionship in the form of a life with Lestat. Throughout this episode, Louis is grappling with the lie of that promise. Though he has a physical strength and power of a vampire, he must still move through world as black man in the early 20th century and deal with all the indignities that come along with that. He is also lonelier than anticipated, with a partner who will not acknowledge their differences. Audra Lorde said this of difference “…community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist” (pg 112). E. Patrick Johnson expounds further on this in his article on quare studies, explaining that such communities and theories are not progressive ones, and that LGBTQ of color cannot afford to adopt such theories for themselves.

Louis begins working to integrate the different aspects of himself and his new immortal life into a theory of self that feels true to his experience and acceptable, feeling “the tug and pull of having to choose between which parts […] to claim and wear and which parts have served to cloak us from the knowledge of ourselves” (Moraga and Anzaldua, pg 23). Louis reunites with an old lover, a black soldier passing through on his way to deployment. They have sex out in the Bayou and Louis feels some true companionship, but this is followed by a series of emotionally fraught failures that isolate and disempower him further. He is rejected by and frightens his family. He gets news that his nightclub/brothel is being shut down due to segregationist laws. Lestat throughout this is throwing a temper tantrum over Louis’ dalliance with the solder, despite being the one to open the relationship and begin an affair with the singer at Louis’ club (a white woman). Lestat’s reaction here, paired with the way he shows his disdain for Louis’ choices throughout this episode, display how unsettled Lestat is when he is not in control of Louis, when Louis acts as an independent equal rather than adoring student. Louis pushes aside Lestat’s attention grabbing antics in favor of meeting with a group of white businessmen and politicians in an attempt to save his club. He had interacted with this group before regularly, in a manner that could be viewed as dis-identificatory. He had regular poker games with them, laughing at their jokes, sometimes letting them win, while simultaneously influencing their opinions and nudging them towards social policies that would help him “working on, with, and against a cultural form” (Munoz, pg 12). Johnson’s piece on Quare theory points out that disidentification has always been “the process through which people of color could survive a white supremacist society” (pg12). He gave them a performance of “Mr. Du Lac”, a version of himself that made them comfortable enough to for him to influence their opinions and actions toward him and his businesses. But his previous tactics are no longer working; he can hear the thoughts of the white men insulting and demeaning him while they outwardly suggest that Lestat acts as “the face” of his business. It is also an interesting visual note that Lestat is framed throughout this scene alongside the other white men in the room, despite theoretically coming to support Louis. The degrading tone of their thoughts as they offer outward sympathies suggests that Louis’ tactics with them were always more assimilating and conforming than he wished them to be. If his persona and his performance with them never actually gained him any respect, than perhaps this was little more than a minstrel show.

The beginning of the Munoz essay states:

[…] disidentification is not always an adequate strategy of resistance or survival for all minority subjects. At times, resistance needs to be pronounced and direct; on other occasions queers of color and minority subjects need to follow a conformist path if they hope to survive a hostile public sphere. pg 5.

Louis’ initial response to this realization was a type of malicious compliance: hanging a “coloreds only” sign on his establishment, thereby technically following segregationist wishes. This of course only brings further retaliation from the establishment. Louis’ final response to this situation is his first and most direct counter action He declares himself a vampire for the first time aloud, scaring the alderman and letting him feel powerless for the first time. He kills the man, and hangs his body on a fence with a whites only sign (likely the same fence where the heads of runaway slaves were once posted). But Louis does not get to revel in this at all, as it brings immediate retaliation via the burning of the black neighborhood and businesses of New Orleans. Lestat instead is the ecstatic one; he believes this act of violence is a sign that Louis has finally embraced only vampirism, still misunderstanding the reasons and meaning behind Louis’ rage that drove him to murder the alderman. It pushes Louis away from Lestat again, roaming the burning streets of the place he once belonged, lost and unsure of what the correct approach is to finding community, home, and freedom. Louis wavers, unclear and undecided on how to find this meaning (the writing asks the same; his attempts to play friendly brought only mockery and his show of rebellion brought destruction). It is not until he suddenly hears the voice of Claudia, a 14-year-old Creole girl crying out in his mind for help, that he seems to find an answer. He finds her dying in a burning boarding house and brings her to Lestat to be turned into a vampire. The become a family – “Daddy Lou” “Uncle Les” and Claudia.

There’s so much to examine in this series even when just considering Louis’ relationship with Lestat and the world around him. But it would be an oversight to not spend some time on Claudia, who would become the guiding motivation and emotional core for Louis. Because Lestat is the one who turned both Louis and Claudia, he is unable to read either of their minds. This further eats at Lestat, this companionship which he cannot share, this difference that he cannot stamp out. After accidentally killing a boy she loved, Claudia grows resentful of the immortal life they’ve subjected her to (Episode 104). Her mind grows but she stays perpetually trapped in the mind of a teenager, and she begrudges being made permanently infantilized. She leaves them to travel on her own and try to learn more about vampires than the little information that Lestat offered. But when she finally meets another vampire and is excited to find kinship, he rapes her. After this, she decides to return home, but only to retrieve Louis, who has been depressed without her. She recognizes the truth that Audra Lorde stated in Sister Outsider:

Without community there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression. Pg112

She is unwilling to trust Lestat, who has continuously demonstrated an unwillingness to grow, to empathize, to “recognize those differences and deal effectively with the distortions…” (Lorde, pg 122). Lestat reacts to the threat of abandonment with a great act of domestic violence, beating Louis and dropping him from the sky, which almost kills him (Episode 105). Louis eventually forgives Lestat for this in the next episode, but Claudia does not. Though all three characters share the nonnormative vampire identity, Lestat chooses to wield his status as their maker as an oppressive tool against them. All three become more feared and hated as the series goes on. Their home is vandalized on multiple occasions, and it’s made clear by the end of the series that they will need to leave town. But despite this shared struggle, Lestat cannot or will not stand in solidarity with Louis and Claudia. “…our future survival is predicated on our ability to relate within equality” (Lorde 122). Louis’ condition for forgiving Lestat was that he was honest and treated both Louis and Claudia as equals. But Lestat values his control over their lives over having them as true companions, even after promising change; he lies and manipulates them both and threatens Claudia with sexual violence (via letting her know he can invite the vampire who raped her to their home).

Change means growth, and growth can be painful. But we sharpen self-definition by exposing the self in work and struggle together with those whom we define as different from ourselves, although sharing the same goal. Lorde, pg. 123

Claudia changes and grows the most over the course of the series, beginning as a child but gaining maturity and intelligence as she experiences the pain and joy the world has to offer. She desires freedom for the first time in her human or immortal life, and feels that both her and Louis can achieve it if they work to free themselves at last from Lestat as a master. By the end of Episode 106, she has finally convinced Louis of the same.

Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire was already an intriguing piece of queer media that was progressive for its time and how it used vampirism as a vehicle to explore homosexuality, struggle, and longing. In the behind-the-scenes interview piece, producer Adam O’Byrne expressed the production’s desire to reckon with the media in a new way, as they were a new generation interpreting this art. Johnson stated: “quare studies offers a more utilitarian theory of identity politics, focusing not just on performers and effects, but also on contexts and historical situatedness” (pg13). With this new reckoning and interpretation of this media, the artistic team took a piece of queer media and transformed it into “Quare”. With all the inherent complexities of racial relations examined in this interpretation, the audience is able to explore the dynamics of power, freedom, longing and companionship in a deeper and more complicated way than was offered in the original text.

Bibliography

Ep 103 “Is My Very Nature That of a Devil” Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, teleplay by Rolin Jones & Hannah Moscovitch, directed by Keith Powell, AMC Studios, 2022.

Ep 104 “…the ruthless pursuit of blood with all a child’s demanding” Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, teleplay by Eleanor Burgess, directed by Keith Powell, AMC Studios, 2022.

Ep 105 “A vile hunger for your hammering heart” Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, teleplay by Colin Albert, directed by Levan Akin, AMC Studios, 2022.

Ep 106 “Like Angels Put in Hell by God” Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, teleplay by Hannah Moscovitch, directed by Levan Akin, AMC Studios, 2022.

Ep 8.1 “Interview with the Vampire: Behind the Scenes” Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, AMC Studios, 2022.

Lorde, Audra. Sister Outsider, The Crossing Press, Year, pgs. 110-123.

Munoz, Jose Esteban. Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics, Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1999.

E. Patrick Johnson (2001) "Quare" studies, or (almost) everything I know about

queer studies I learned from my grandmother, Text and Performance Quarterly, 21:1, 1-25, DOI: 10.1080/10462930128119

Cathy J. Cohen; Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics?. GLQ 1 May 1997; 3 (4): 437–465. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-3-4-437

Moraga and Anzaldua, Entering the Lives of Others Theory in the Flesh, 23

#amc iwtv #louis de pointe du lac #iwtv s1 #academic writing #queer studies #race and ethnicity #claudia iwtv #warning this isn't exactly lestat friendly #i love him but hes the villain of s1 #also this was written before seeing s2 #which kind of some of these themes or at least they are less in focus #probably because the s2 villain is brown (again love armand but hes the villain at this point)#interview with the vampire

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absolutebl · 1 year

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This Week in BL - Multiple Thrupples are Forming

June 2023 Wk 2

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs. Organized by which ones (in each category) I’m enjoying most.

Ongoing Series - Thai

Step By Step (Tues WeTV & Gaga) ep 8 of 10 - Emotional blackmail from the ex notwithstanding, I guess it’s Pat’s turn to break hearts. I have to say Up was really well cast in this part - extremely believable. Well done all around. Jeng is so smitten, so awkward, so cautious, yet so sharp when it comes to a seme confrontations. I LOVE how sensitive Jeng is to the fact that he has a one-sided crush but also deluded by how much he wants the fantasy of the relationship. The agonizing roller coaster we watch him go through in this ep did a lot of work to elevate and expand his character. (Oh hi Green!) Poor Pat: thinks he’s teasing his straight boss, is actually slow dancing with future husband. Happens to the best of us.

La Pluie (Sat iQIYI) ep 8 of 10 - Don’t kiss someone else. Just argh. Dumb plot divice. I expected better of you LP. Everyone is so overdramatic and overreacting. I wonder if (in addition to all of the other tropes this narrative is scrutinizing) it’s examining bisexual identity through Pat + his ex? Like, this episode is actually about trusting the bisexual to choose his gay lover when he has the so called “option of being normal.” That soulmate is an allegory for gayness & identity & choice (and whether we even have a choice in who we love and are attracted to) and the interplay all of this has with one's own perception of self and other's perception of you… Or am I giving it too much credit? Meanwhile... l flipping adore the love triangle twist, and really wonder if they’re gonna have the guts to take this aspect to its inevitable triangular conclusion. Such a good show.

Be My Favorite (Fri YouTube) ep 4 of 10? - Screw all y’all, I’m eloping with Pair & Max. We forming a thrupple and pretending Jittirain doesn’t exist. Trash watch here.

Luminous Solution (Sat Gaga) ep 4 of 6 - I love the high school boys so much it’s scary: flirting, biting, frankness, roughhousing + lap sitting! Also messy high school gay triangle. Gah. All of this for little-old me?! I was mad every time we jumped forward in time (to the adults) or whatever the hell is going on. Thank goodness this is only 6 eps.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Love Tractor (Korea Weds iQIYI) eps 3-4 of 8 - I LOVE IT SO MUCH. IT IS EVERYTHING. SHUT UP I AM FERRIL FOR THE BEAUTIFUL CITY BOY & HIS YOUNG FARMER. Come on. Korea. Have mercy? Plus some language play? Slayed. Right... the episode; This show reminds me so much of a Korean style Restart After Come Back Home. I’m not even slightly mad about it. It’s the BL I didn’t even know to ask for. Soap opera tumble and baby in hospital is SUCH a princess moment and I am living for it. Although the reversal is even cuter, princess turns out to be a caring tsundere Dom. And then obligatory water-hose frolicking! Oh, stop, you. (Allegory much? i being to think hose spraying is just another way of BL saying... well... hose spraying) AND “there is only one bed but they slept together on the floor together anyway”. These boys are hitting all my favorite tropes. BL please never lose your sense of childish wonder. And... the hose spraying is nice too.

Tokyo in April AKA Shigatsu no Tokyo wa (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 1 of 8 - Based on a NSFW yaoi, this is a reunion romance that takes place in an office. Look, this is a weird little 2nd chance at love that reminds me a bit of Our Dating Sim. But it’s more traditional yaoi office romance with evil boss and inter-departmental politics. The leads are cute childhood (almost) sweethearts and I adore it unreasonably already.

Vian the series (Vietnam YouTube ) ep 6 of 12 - Vertical video prod is stupid. I’m sorry young people. Stop it. BUT the cuddling is cute. Christ BV can kiss. Is there anyone he doesn’t have amazing chemistry with? Oh the sunshade trope I haven’t seen that one in forever. Also clearly his character has a type, and that type = ultra-bitch.

Stupid Genius (Vietnam Fri YouTube) ep 2 of 6 - It’s fine.

Naked Dinner AKA Zenra Meshi (Japan Fri Gaga) ep 9 of 12 - Oh dear. Baby is hurt and rejected. Faen fatal knows her competition is a boy, she also knows what jealousy looks like. But this baby has his own boy. This is all feeling rather Thai BL. There’s even an ep 11 of DOOM coming up next.

It’s Airing But ...

House of Stars (Thai Mon iQIYI) 12 eps - I bounced at ep 3. Will binge if told it is worth it at end.

Stay (Pinoy YouTube) 7 eps - It’s mostly in English and set in LA so I’m not bothering but the first one did drop.

Ever After (Pinoy ????) - I got nothing.

Takumi-kun Series 6: Nagai Nagai Monogatari no Hajimari no Asa (Japan Sun ????) 10 eps - NO ONE ASKED FOR THIS and no, I have no idea where to get it, why would I? (Say it with me everyone: Oh Japan, must you?*)

Boys Love Omegaverse (Japan ????) - honestly tho? Who tf cares? You’ll still tell me if you find it, because inquiring minds... Irony of this airing at the same time as Takumi-kun. Full circle much, Japan?

Ended This Week

Tin Tem Jai special showed up on Gaga as ep 11 & 12 under the original show. (Indebted to spies reporting in.) Also on YouTube. What was that I just watched? Did I watch something? Was there anything? I suppose the bathtub scene was cute. Subs are bonkers. Seriously. Do. Not. Bother.

Our Dining Table AKA Bokura no Shokutaku (Japan) - pay attention TTJ THIS is how you do a special. But I’m gonna do a series review, here ya go: I was always gonna love the show if they stuck to the manga (which is very dear to my heart). And they did, paralleling it almost exactly. It’s a quiet & cozy little parable of found family alleviating loneliness. Possibly too slow for some but definitely high up there for me with the best of what Japan can do (like Restart After Come Back Home), it’s only flaw (if I dare say such a thing) is that it is not really “romantic.” Lovely & sweet but the romance beats are being used to build a family relationship, not just couple intimacy, it’s OK with me, but not totally BL. 9/10

Next Week Looks Like This:

Starting this Week

6/22 About Us but Not About Us (Pinoy movie from 2022 on Prime) - A professor grieving the loss of his partner meets an ambitious literature student.

6/24 Tie The Knot AKA Under the Same Sky (Pinoy movie on Prime) Trailer - I guess Prime is coming for our Pinoy BL? From OXIN Films (Rainbow Prince), announced for 2022 based on a true story, Briggs's family runs a bridal business but he has never had a chance to fall in love until he meets Shao, a groom to be.

6/24 Why You (Khmer BL ????) - Billed as a horror romance, not sure if this is a movie or a series or where it will air.

6/25 Dinosaur Love (Thai iQIYI) Trailer 5 eps - from Ultimate Troop about a uni student, Rak, whose partner cheats on him with Rak's best friend. This gives bad boy hazer Dino an opportunity to hit on Rak at last. From The Yearbook people so I will not watch this as it airs. After Remember Me? Never again with them.

2023 forthcoming BL master post (see comments, some are inaccurate, NOT KEPT UPDATED)

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

Step by Step knocked it outta the park this week.

Stupid Genius (speaking for all BL)

No baby. Pretty much every human on the planet would react that way. (Love Tractor)

(last week)

Current Kpop earworm? IVE’s I Am

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lurkingshan · 1 year

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10 Things I Love About Khun Chai

I did it, y’all. I watched my first lakorn, and let me tell you, I had a fucking fantastic time doing it. Now that’s not a blanket endorsement of the genre, because I understand Khun Chai aka To Sir, With Love is pretty unique, particularly in that it’s a period queer love story with a happy ending. But as a different kind of Thai drama than any I’d previously seen, it was truly a great watch.

It has some flaws, sure. It’s a soap opera, so melodrama, repetitive story beats, overdramatic acting, and slow pacing are par for the course. If you go in understanding that, you’ll be fine. And the episodes are long af but don’t be shy about increasing the playback speed - I watched a lot of it at 1.5x and it was perfectly smooth. Now that I’ve finished it, I think the time investment was totally worth it (@bengiyo my final rec - worth going back to finish! It worked better for me when I broke it up in chunks of 2-3 episodes at a time).

Without further ado, the top ten reasons I loved it:

1. TIAN MY BELOVED

Look at him. Just look at his beautiful traumatized face!! I hold that it’s impossible to watch this entire show and not come out absolutely loving this man. He is so believably flawed but at his core he is good. He is generous. He is loyal. He is brave. And he looks very good in a three piece suit.

Honestly I could do a whole top ten list just about Tian but let’s move on and give some love to the rest of the show.

2. Did I mention this is a PERIOD ROMANCE??!! Something we get so precious little of in bl. I asked @absolutebl a while back if they knew of any other Thai period bls, and this was the entire list. So good thing it’s excellent!

The show is set in the 1930s and 40s in Japanese-occupied Thailand, and it centers on a powerful Thai-Chinese family (currently leading a cooperative partnership of five families) and the power struggle over who will be the heir (Succession, but make it Asian and queer). The show digs into really interesting family structure, politics, and class struggle stuff.

3. The brotherly bond is unmatched and undefeated. The plot centers on two brothers, Tian and Yang, who love each other so much, like I cannot emphasize enough how willing these brothers are to protect and die for each other. If someone was shooting at them they would both try to dive in front of the bullet. Their bond is so touching and provides an emotional through line when the plot gets wacky.

4. The classic soap opera plots are truly brilliant, all your favorite tropes are here. This show has everything - family secrets, nefarious schemes, murderous maids, mystical poisons, faen fatales, even sex pollen! As I believe @ginnymoonbeam put it at one point - everything is happening so much all the time. It’s truly a delightful romp, especially after the halfway point when the plot machinations really kick into high gear.

5. The queer love story is the main romance and emotional heart of the show. There are actually two romances in this show - each of the brothers gets a love interest. And both of them are lovely. But rather than the typical move where a het drama features a queer side pairing, here the entire story is driven by Tian’s sexual identity, the burden placed on him to keep it a secret, and how increasingly impossible that becomes once he meets Jiu. Over the course of this show, we get to watch Tian fall in love and finally live his truth and see how that changes him. It’s truly beautiful, and the romance between Tian and Jiu is so sweet (and a bit racier than I expected - the show does not shy away from the sexual aspect of this relationship). The romance between Yang and Pin is also very sweet - they are adorable tbh - but entirely secondary.

6. Every frame of this show is absolutely gorgeous. The scenery is lush, the costumes are beautiful, the tailoring is impeccable, the hair and makeup never misses. It’s truly a feast for the eyes.

7. There are so many good female characters in this show, y’all! Tian and Yang have not one but 4 or 5 different mother figures. They are all flawed, complex, and a little nuts. They get up to so much trouble and drive a lot of the plot with their scheming, hijinks, and prolific wielding of murderous sparkle dust (don’t ask, you have to see it to understand). Pin, Tian’s would be fiancé turned sister-in-law, is a total sweetheart, but she’s also smart and fierce with a steel core and not afraid to tell her man when he’s being stupid. There’s even a lady boss at the head of one of the five families.

8. Relatedly, there is so much complex family drama in this show, and so many interesting dysfunctional parental relationships. @waitmyturtles you will have a field day when you finally get to watch this. Both brothers have fraught relationships with their various parent figures, for very different reasons. The various relationships and resentments that form between the wives and the sons in a polygamous family unit (did I mention that yet? there are three wives in the mix here and the brothers have different biological moms) are absolutely fascinating.

9. The resolution to the succession plot and ultimate defeat of the Big Bad was so satisfying. I won’t get into spoiler territory, but let me just say that the characters went through a lot together and to see the way they ultimately had to come together and let go of their baggage to survive was very cool. It felt earned.

10. IT ENDS WITH A BIG OLD HEAP OF GAY DOMESTIC BLISS!!! I will get into spoiler territory here because you deserve to know that if you put in the time to watch this show you will be rewarded with a very happy couple forming a family unit and living peacefully on their own terms. I was so pleased with this ending, I can’t even tell you. The final scenes made me cry real tears, I was so touched. And they even put a literal rainbow in the sky at the end. A literal rainbow! Come on!

Watch it, friends! It’s worth your time.

#khun chai #to sir with love #thai drama #thai bl #10 things #shan shouts into the void

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discluded · 2 years

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I'm so proud 🌈 of Apo for how brave he's always been.

In case you missed it since Apo never specifically said it in an interview, Tong spoke about having this conversation with Apo about how Apo viewed Porsche's character (I'm guessing Tong here means Porsche's gender preference... this is the official BOC subtitled version too, sigh.)

This is a companion to the Proud🌈 of Mile piece I wrote a while back. I've been wanting write one for Apo but it's very hard because it's obviously very hard for him to talk about too. Sometimes I when I get notes on the Mile one, I still feel shy about it (even though I don't think Mile is shy!) But someone needs to loudly celebrate both of their bravery! Especially Apo's!!

It takes a lot of courage to walk away from a career you love because you realize you're being not treated the way you're supposed to be. Especially when it's an art you love and you've gotten to a place that most people dream of. Let's not forget, Apo was quite famous as an actor in Thailand already before KinnPorsche. Not only is he a great actor, but he was building a reputation for himself and he chose to walk away from all of that, potentially permanently.

The kind of policing that Apo received of a young person's self-expression while working on the sets of Channel 3 has really detrimental effects on the psyche. I won't say too much about it because Apo is human and he's allowed off days and deserves the grace, but you can see glimpses of how being at an industry event full of industry people, some of whom may or may not have said shit to him in the past, inadvertently hit him at the Vogue Gala. Of course Apo had fun still and it was an amazing experience he got to share with Mile! But if that's how he felt like he had to police his own body language every day on set, I can see why he quit.

New York was so good for Apo because it allowed him to see that the problem was with the people around him, not with himself. When I was in my early 20s, I remember seeing a billboard in New York that said something along the lines of: "Here we judge you more for the shoes you wear than who you love." And ain't that the type of freedom Apo needed.

But when he got back from New York, he committed himself to making queer art.

How brave does he have to be in the first place to walk away from a career he loved because of the homophobic comments he got and knowing it wasn't right (and a reminder, he wasn't working on any BLs before KPTS), and then how much braver still to come back and say: you can't hurt me with what I own about myself. And, I want to make art that expresses it.

Make no mistake, I'm not commenting on Apo's sexuality here. He's asked us not to. But being queer, queerness isn't just about gender or sexuality. It's about identity, the struggles you go through; it's a political stance. Many queer musicians who've never been publicly linked to a same-sex partner have made art specifically to explore their queerness and grapple with violence they still are at the brunt of as a result of being part of society.

And Apo has let us know multiple times what his political stance is, the kinship he feels with expressed queerness. It's the way he came back home and owned the queer art he is a part of. It's the way he continuously expresses the humanity in the stories he's telling, and talks about in interviews how he sees that honesty in the story resonates with the audience.

Apo is a role model in not only how we should treat those around us, but a reminder that being kind to everyone includes being kind to yourself. Especially when society tries to tear you down.

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#queer #lgbtq #apo nattawin #actor apo nattawin #kinnporsche #pride #mileapo and pride #kinnporsche promo #not gay as in happy but queer as in fuck you #they tried to buy my pride #but that just ain't up for sale

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bengiyo · 7 months

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Hi Ben!

I saw Vee from You're My Sky in your most misunderstood characters list and now I'm curious, what's your opinion on this series as a whole? Gifs tell me that it has a high production value, great cinematography and Suar in it, so I'm quite tempted to give it a go. But it's rarely talked about so... is it really worth a watch?

I love You're My Sky because it was the first show to follow in the wake of I Told Sunset About You and try to bring rich color, engaging cinematography, and and structured presentation of character dynamics after ITSAY. It's also a sports BL that takes its sports portion super seriously. It's also the show you should watch if you like when the younger guy is pursuing the older guy, because that's true for all three couples.

The show has three couples in it, and I really liked how the show kept all three couples at about the same moment emotionally throughout the entire runtime. It meant that we sometimes wouldn't see one of the side couples for a while, but I much prefer that to having the couples be in really different places and throw off the emotional tone of an episode.

Our primary pairing is between Thorn and Tupfah. They are childhood friends. Thorn followed Tupfah to his college after a few years and was confused why Tupfah no longer plays basketball. Theirs is a friends-to-lovers story where Thorn has been pining for a long time.

This show let us also see them spend time as a couple and face real complications that a couple of two aspiring professional athletes would face, including availability for college practice and potentially ending up with different clubs. There's also a great deal of examination of the kinds of coaching environments athletes might suffer or thrive under.

The second couple, Saen and Aii, aren't a sports couple, but Aii is older and graduating. He's focused on leaving Thailand and pursuing a professional career in Japan. In them you get a determined, sociable younger pursuer and a standoffish older interest.

I really liked where they went with this couple because we got to see a grandmother giving a knowing smirk when she enters the bedroom after their first night together, and we see them deal with the impending stress of being in a long-distance relationship for likely years.

I wrote about Vee in the ask you mentioned, but to reiterate, Vee is assigned to work with his sister's boyfriend on the track team. Vee, being the flirty little shit he is, teases Dome and is having a good time until it gets way too serious for both of them and he's having a panic attack in the middle of a race.

Their story is compelling because it doesn't end in success on screen. The social politics of their attraction make it impossible for them to consummate this romance under the current circumstances, and the show explores how this choice impacted the sister as well.

And then there's the basketball! This show does so much cool shit with the camera and the frame around the basketball itself. It also has a robust supporting cast in the basketball team. There's a beautiful scene of the whole team giving space to Thorn and Fah to figure out something important, and there's another lovely scene where they talk about gender identity.

Truly, as a man who enjoys sports and sports dramas, they did not fuck around when it came to doing the sports portion of this. The only other BL I remember being this serious about the sports was maybe Project S: Spike. Almost all the gifs are going to be the romance stuff, but the sports stuff in this show is well done.

I'm a big fan of this project, and I think it has some of my favorite presentations of masculinity in genre. I will probably rewatch it after I finish this UWMA rewatch.

Thanks for the ask!

#answered #you're my sky #thai bl

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vegafan69 · 1 month

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i mean this in the politest way possible, it’s genuine curiosity: i’m a bit confused about you using the lesbian label but mostly talking about your attraction to men? at least i’m assuming you’re actually attracted to said men and this isn’t a bit you’re doing. is it that you’re using lesbian as a more overarching label and less strictly, like how i as a (ostensibly) bi/queer man call myself gay sometimes, as less of a strict label and more as an adjective?

further question, why would a lesbian (not you, necessarily, i’ve seen other people do this) be a huge fan of incredibly male-centric romance media? from what i understand, the point of romance media is that a person gets some kind of gratification out of it: they want to date one of the characters and they project onto the other character (i am fine with this being the case, i think it’s just how the genre works), but this model doesn’t work when i see lesbians being really into media about gay men (this isn’t necessarily about redacted, this is a more general thing). i guess i don’t understand what they would get out of it, if that makes sense. like when straight women are into gay male ships it’s the same thing as straight men fetishizing lesbians, but i don’t see the transfer with lesbians being really into men. i literally asked my sister this (she is also a lesbian) and i didn’t understand her answer.

again, all of these questions are meant politely and out of sociological curiosity! you don’t have to answer any of this if you’re not comfortable.

The whole time I’m in class i’ve been wondering how i can answer this LMAOO 😭 bro’s channelling his inner Damien frfr

uhm okay imma be real i have no idea how to answer your question so i will be honest the best i can 😓🙏

the simplest answer i can give you is: fictional men. not real. no proper attraction to them. the idea of them is attractive - but not realistically.

also just to clarify - i see lesbian as a proper label and identity, not an adjective. i’m not attracted to men in any way, or at least not anymore (still trying to figure this out) uhm idk about the lesbians liking media with gay men cause im not interested in bl or yaoi or any mlm romance but my best guess is that they’re just interested in queer media 🤷‍♀️

what did your sister say tho i’m kinda curious /lh

i personally separate fictional and real attractions completely 🤷‍♀️ i identified as bi until end of may this year, and have been listening to redacted since last year. i still like vega a whole lot tho idk what that means 😗

#UHM IM SO SORRY FOR THIS SHIT ANSWER #i wasnt gonna answer at first ngl but i felt bad #redacted vega #redacted audio #i dont even know if i was ever actually attracted to men or if it was comphet

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forkaround · 1 year

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MoD: BL or Not?

I'll throw my hat into this discourse too...

but first thank you @waitmyturtles for tagging me (true-unicorn-queen.) (forkaround is my side blog).

I'll be frank, I don't understand people's need to make any good BL into anything but a BL. They need to classify it into other genres or call it queer. Well honey, BL is queer. Boys are kissing boys and girls are kissing girls. What more queerness do you need?

I do not believe MoD can be called anything but a BL because of tropes. As a writer I know tropes are very flexible. You can put a single trope in romance, in high fantasy, in horror, in sci-fi, in crime drama. Those are not what make the identity of a show in a specific genre.

To me MoD is BL because it's gay. I knew going in that it WAS GAY.

To explain my point I want to give an example: If anyone here has seen Legends of Tomorrow or Legacies you will know that most of the cast on those shows is queer. About 7 - 10 people in each show are queer. But I still wouldn't consider them a BL. Not because of it's tropes or it's budget or it's writing but because of expectation.

When I started Legends I knew Sara Lance was bi from Arrow, but I also didn't expect her to end up with a woman or for there to be more queer characters brought on. When I started Legacies I knew Josie and Penelope had a thing from the blurb but I didn't expect the other characters to be queer as well.

But if I watch a show that's BL I know, going in, that the boys will kiss the boys and the girls will kiss the girls.

The default universe is a queer universe. They are all gay until proven otherwise and anything less will not be tolerated.

180 Degrees is a psychological, gothic, family drama but it's also a BL. Kinnporsche is a succession-style family drama set in the Mafia but it's a BL. Not Me is a political, activist drama but it's a BL. Only Friends is a realistic slice of (queer) life drama but it's a BL. Word of Honor is high fantasy Wuxia Drama but it's a BL.

Those other qualities do not change the fact they they are primarily a BL. That people tune into them for BL.

RWRB is a BL and shaking hands with The Next Prince.

BL is a tag to be used the way romance is, to signify that there will be romance between boys present. It's not a bad word and I wish people would stop using it as one.

So, yeah, Manner of Death is a BL.

#manner of death #kinnporsche #love in the air #the eclipse #kinnporsche the series #gap the series #big dragon #until we meet again #legends of tomorrow #legacies #queer #180 degree longitude passes through us #not me #only friends #word of honor

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olderthannetfic · 1 year

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A recent anon made me want to read a bit more about queerbaiting and I ended up on James Woodall’s video Dr. Who Was Queerbaiting (https://youtu.be/Olpn9YsyMeM), have you seen it?

I found it interesting, especially for his sources and the reasoning for why the definition of queerbaiting should be expanded from the original marketing technique one. My first reaction is that it’s better to make up a new words, like queercatching, than to endlessly expand the meaning of an old one, potentially into uselessness. And well, once you expand the meaning into “not good enough to satisfy expectations” or say “it’s not queerbaiting because it feels more authentic to queer communities” the questions “Whose expectations? All communities? What about conflicting needs? Should we decide by hand raising?” come to mind. Obviously the answer is always that we need more and more varied representation but it does seem like a definition that would leave space for a lot of infighting (and leave us in need of a different word to convey the original meaning). I’d like to hear a few different thoughts on this from you and other readers though!

I haven't watched it.

Broadly, the rallying cry I want to see is: Media by people like us, for people like us.

Define "us" as you see fit. What you want to get behind is going to be very personal, and it won't be the same for all of "The Queer Community".

For me, it's people who like BL—as opposed to other m/m media—and who are willing to admit that what they like is BL and welcome other fans of BL.

I have a visceral horror of being asked to identify too closely with a female body or female role despite being reasonably comfortable as a woman. I dislike being told which character to identify with, regardless of their body or identity. I lack the self insert gene, like to a claw my skin off, get it away from me level.

I dislike things that are trying to be too tightly #ownvoices. "Queer Media" in a broad sense is irrelevant to me as a fan, though I care about it for broader political reasons. I want a media that actively promotes and pursues a disconnect between viewer's body and character's body, between viewer's identity and character's identity. Drag queens are interesting even if not aimed at me. Drag kings are great. BL is great. Cringey, unrealistic f/f by dudes is sometimes great for me too. The closest I'll go to #ownvoices is bisexual media for bisexual people.

The biggest mainstream media is not by people like me or for people like me if it's from the US or UK, and that includes mainstream-ish queer media.

The closest we get is cis gay dudes making art about cis gay dudes who live in their same city and work a similar job, yadda yadda. Or slightly mainstream stuff by poisonous trolls who cry about how much they need to gatekeep and how their BL is not BL. There's a constant assumption, even for the BLy shit by AFABs, that a narrow definition of #ownvoices is the objective and a 1:1 correspondence between everything about the character on screen and the viewer is desirable and most moral and politically best. No amount of nitpicking over terminology is going to change that.

I can consume indie books or head over to Asia where commercial BL industries exist. Those are my options right now.

The entire concept of queerbaiting is stupid as fuck because it imagines that other people are paying attention to us in contexts where they just aren't.

I don't think we should expand the meaning. I think we should approach media differently.

Nothing will change until:

1. People like you/me/whomever the desired queer voice is control media.

I don't mean "are in the writer's room": I mean are the showrunner. I don't mean "are the director" of a big movie that answers to a thousand producers: I mean are the studio head.

Power is what's needed, not begging for scraps!

Or 2.

We as consumers stop going "Sempai will notice me any day now!" about big shit and start spending 100% of our leisure entertainment time on indie things. Not as an also-ran that we fit in around HP and SPN and DW or whatever: as the entirety of the media empires we care about.

And no, that won't solve the problem of horrible people who turn out to abuse their partners still being good at art or whatever. Consuming indie media doesn't make it less problematic. It does offer the opportunity for me to consume media that is aimed at me.

I really don't care whether James picks yes or no in that video. The entire question is pointless.

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obstinaterixatrix · 2 months

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I dreamt… for some reason after reading a bl, I was hanging out with friends, and I decided to use chalk (it wasn’t chalk but I forgot what it actually was) to write down my thoughts on top of a dumpster (which I was sitting on for some reason?) and I took a picture to share later, and we were by a school and some kid yells out the window at us something indicating Bad Politics (not related to us or our identity, just politically topical) and my high school friend who’s an elementary school teacher gets a ladder and megaphone to guide him through why he’s saying what he’s saying and why it’s understandable why he might think that and also here are some considerations he should keep in mind to understand how hurtful/ignorant that is and internally I’m going like (this is important to do but I wanna leave). and then a teacher greeted us all and I didn’t know him but all of my friends were acting like he was an old teacher of ours. and then I had to go drive us somewhere and there was a ton of kids hanging around so I was trying to get in the car while they were hanging off it, then I realized it was the wrong car.

#dream diary #the bl was the one like ‘sometimes love is a grilled mackerel’ but I might be butchering the title #this is irl #it was a fun one because I like when narcissistic men fall in love for the first time and get desperate and pathetic about it

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goodbyeapathy8 · 8 months

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And one more thing...

I truly meant to let sleeping dogs lie after my post yesterday about leaving Kindergarten Mafia, the now infamous, racist Discord server because it had everything I wanted to say at the time.

BUT.

Here I am, sliding back in, with more things.

And I warn you ahead of time that this post will probably make you feel uncomfortable. That's fine.

Because I remembered the new thing I was going to do : if someone has made me feel uncomfortable, that takes away their right to comfort as well. Respect goes both ways and so does comfort.

I believe both posts are equally valuable. And I want you to sit with your discomfort if this anger seems "off" or you feel that it's petty. So I hope you stay until the end of this long rant because there's a greater point I want to make about POC anger and discomfort from witnessing that.

It's meant to be petty and I mean it with every fiber of my being.

Yesterday, I was made aware of the server owner, in their new server, specifically wrote that they're "trying to get the joy back from fandom".

And that singular phrase not only triggered disgust but various other thoughts I had held back, out of misplaced respect, in my last post. The gloves are coming off and the claws are coming out.

So this is for the people who were complicit in downplaying, gaslighting, and otherwise making it a miserable fandom experience for us (marginalized folks + POC) : go fuck yourselves. You do not deserve fandom joy when it has been sucked out, by people like you.

I'm calling out AO3 authors like Ahdriking. Ahdriking was a popular author I used to respect in the fandom. But after being inactive for most of my stay in the server, Ahdriking suddenly emerged from the shadows to take the side of the perpetrators. They came in at the 11th hour, not having interacted with or actually know any of us that were speaking out, just to defend the people who hurt us.

You do not get to quietly fade into the background of anonymity, enjoying accolades from unknowing readers, when behind closed doors, you've acted like this.

I do have to thank you, Ahdri, for making me finally understand how well-written authors can be terrible outside of their writing, like JK Rowling.

Another AO3 author like Frog_of_Fandom, who joined the new server and is gleefully poking fun at those of us who left.

To be clear, this is not for those who were nonconfrontational. This is specifically for those who were complicit - whether it was directly within server messages or staying silent and then moving to the new "safe" space. (Credit to Snake and Mouse for this distinction.)

The worst part of it is, I myself wasn't treated nearly as badly as some of my Black and indigenous counterparts.

There's a reason for that.

I frequently mentioned my identity as a Korean-American. Server members were very aware of that and my profile picture is a real life one, not a fandom reference.

I, as an Asian, got received with relative politeness while Black and brown members were booted out.

This is a familiar racist tactic.

You don't need to go any further than a TikTok comment section to see evidence of this. Black and brown creators have some of the worst comments I've seen on that app. (I posted a TikTok recently on the topic if you'd like to hear the specifics.) The SAME message can be said by a white creator vs Black, brown, indigenous etc with very different results.

Backlash against Black anger is well documented by various scholars.

As a rather pale faced Asian - the polite reception to my anger is part of my privilege. It struck me how different the server owner and problematic mods treated my messages and that of Black or brown server members.

And it makes me incredibly angry, not relieved.

Because on top of the sympathetic anger I felt for my POC counterparts, I wondered if they had fetishized me this whole time.

Note that the fandom for the server is KinnPorsche, a Thai BL, for those who don't know - a queer Thai drama.

That somehow, my anger was palatable because I, as a queer Asian, was adjacent to their beloved drama characters.

But before I write a novel-length fic again as a post, I'll stop here, despite having so much more to say.

This is truly the last I want to reference those energy vampires.

For me, I will try to leave behind the feelings of disgust I have with my first foray into a fandom and take with me the true friendships with folks that care about joy for everyone and not just a few.

Many many lessons have been learned and re-enforced from past experiences. I'm not happy that any of us had to experience this but sometimes, shit happens.

Wipe it up and flush it down the toilet, where it belongs.

#ao3 writer #decolonize fandom spaces #kinnporsche fandom #kindergarten mafia #Is it petty yes #do i have regrets no #I said what I said #Unlike some people I stand by my words #I'd say this to anyone in real life #kinnporsche ao3

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best-underrated-anime · 11 months

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Best Underrated Anime Group L Round 1: #L4 vs #L5

#L4: Comedians make comedy

Follows the conversations of five rakugo storyteller girls relating the odd things that happen to them each day. Their comedic and satirical chatting covers all kinds of topics, from pointless observations of everyday life, to politics, manga, and more. Each girl has something new to add to the discussion, and the discourse never ends in the same place it began.

Each of the rakugo girls has their own unique personality, with the energetic but immature Marii Buratei; the seemingly cute Kigurumi Haroukitei; the inherently lucky and carefree Tetora Bouhatei; the calm and violent Gankyou Kuurubiyuutei; and the pessimistic and unstable Kukuru Anrakutei. These girls—and their mysterious friend in a wrestling mask—give their observations to the audience, either backstage at the rakugo theater or in various famous locations around Tokyo.

#L5: Underground boxer loves vampire doctor (BL)

After losing his parents at a young age, Mignon lives as a mechanic by day and a cage fighter by night at an illegal arena. Living a life of exploitation and violence, the only person who gives him any attention is Oh Young-One, the resident doctor at the arena.

Despite accidentally discovering Young-One’s true identity, Mignon continues to love him, and it’s this pure kind of love that lets Young-One slowly open his heart. But when the hellish reality surrounding Mignon starts threatening the stability of Young-One’s life, can these two ever find happiness?

Titles, propagandas, trailers, and poll under the cut!

#L4: Joshiraku

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Propaganda 1:

All the girls have fun personalities, and it puts some light on a form of Japanese traditional storytelling. It’s also the origin of the April 40th meme image.

Propaganda 2:

It’s hilarious! Genuinely one of the funniest comedy anime I’ve seen. The characters are all ridiculous and the bits almost all land perfectly. Mostly. Some of the bits require too much knowledge of Japanese language or culture to make any sense translated, but that’s not too many. My favorite character is Gan. I love the joke where she’s the “glasses girl” and so everyone assumes she’s meek and nerdy, but she’s actually super-violent.

The animation is also really good and gets absolutely ridiculous at points. There’s even a recurring meta joke where one character will complain about how hard the animators are working while being ABSURDLY over-animated. The standard structure of the skits is that the characters will start by having a conversation littered with puns, and then things escalated to a jungle shoot-out or crazy slapstick or a ninja battle or the characters talking politics. You never know, and it’s great.

Trigger Warnings: None.

#L5: Mignon

Propaganda:

Mignon is an independently-made BL aeni (Korean anime). There are only 12 episodes, and each is around 5 minutes long, except for the last one. Watching everything is like watching a short film, and not just because of the length, but also because of its quality.

The story is really short, so I can’t talk much about the plot without spoiling everything. But if you’re already into yaoi manhuas, then I can say that the plot is quite basic. The execution, however, is top-notch. Mignon takes a simple premise and brings out the best in it.

Characters are few but focused. Although there isn’t much time to delve deep into them, we are given enough info to care for them. The voice acting is also lovely. I don’t really watch aeni, and I haven’t watched KDramas in years, so I thought it would take me a while to get used to animated characters speaking in Korean. But surprisingly, after the first episode, it no longer bothered me. The voice actors did a good job in portraying the personalities of each character that I was quickly immersed into the story.

Then, there’s the use of color. The colors are purposeful and contributes to the atmosphere of each scene and also hints at us the significance of the place—loud, vibrant colors for the noisy arena, calm whites in the clinic where Mignon first found solace in Young-One, drab blues and greys in Young-One’s apartment where he’s lived alone for years, etc. And oh, don’t get me started on the scene direction/arrangement. It’s amazing how the creators can make every episode impactful despite having only around 5 minutes for each of them. Episode 10, especially, is a cinematic masterpiece.

Lastly, the music. There’s a lot of 80s synth-pop vibes, and I just love it.

Honestly, even if you don’t end up voting for Mignon, just go ahead and watch it. It only takes about an hour, and you won’t regret it.

Trigger Warnings: Mignon is abused by his coach. Lots of scenes that involve blood, but nothing too gore-y. Episode 10, however, has TOO much blood.

NSFW Warning: There’s an explicit sex scene. The parts are pixelated, but it doesn’t really leave much to the imagination. Also lots of tongue kissing.

If you’re reblogging and adding your own propaganda, please tag me @best-underrated-anime so that I’ll be sure to see it.

#flashing #<- tag added for 2nd trailer #anime #aeni #best underrated anime #polls #poll tournament #tournament #anime tournament #animation #animated show #group stage #group stage round 1 #tournament polls #korean anime #group l #joshiraku #mignon #민용

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absolutebl · 2 years

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This Week In BL - Everything is Awful or New or Both

Feb 2023 Wk 2

Being a highly subjective assessmen t of one tiny corner of the interwebs. Organized by which ones (in each category) I’m enjoying most.

Ongoing Series - Thai

My School President (Fri YT) ep 11 of 12 - It’s an ep 11 so we knew this was gonna be a downer. This was definitely a “date me date my friends” kind of situation. At this rate, GeminiFourth’s other characters in Chicken are going to kiss before TinnGun do. I love Tinn’s dad. Also, it looks like our a tiny little ship of crumbs is sailing. How cute is that!? Sunshine + sunshine! Bonza.

Bed Friend (Sat YT & iQIYI uncut) 1 of 8 - Fuck buddies get messy, AKA Between Us the second cumming only this time in an office (and on a desk). I have been waiting for James to hold down (or be held down in) a BL for years! All hail the new kings of high heat. BUCKLE UP I GOT A LOT TO SAY. I like that there’s a dark underbelly (*snicker*) of trauma to this one, it has a slightly a Japanese feel which suits mature characters and an office setting. King’s yearning worried eyes are glorious. Poor thing, he totally adores this beautiful broken fragile boy and doesn’t know how to capture his attention. I admit Net was the one I worried about with this pair. James was always gonna be great. It turns out, I didn’t have to worry. This is an awesome show and I fucking love it. It nearly scooped the top spot. Frankly this is the Office BL I have been WAITING for Thailand to give us.

NOTE: I watched both YT’s cut and iQIYI’s uncut version. (Anyone else feel odd using those terms under a high heat BL context?) I like YT’s better, mostly iQIYI’s interface is shit. Deets? There was a little extra from the “morning after regrets flashbacks” but not so much I think you’ll regret missing it. Unless you REALLY prefer high heat. The emotion of the sexual connection and Uea’s lonely submissive need was transmitted in both versions, but the iQIYI is slightly more MOAR.

Never Let Me Go (Tues YT) ep 10 of 12 - Flashbacks to the cutest boyfriends ever and then PAIN. All I can think is “thank fuck this was handed to Pond & Phuwin.” One of the world’s saddest executions of the sniff test trope. Meanwhile, Perth is SO GOOD but I wish Chopper would record his conversations with his dad. Look, we all know Chopper is gonna take his dad’s bullet for Nuengdiao, right? Oh well, if you didn’t know, I just told you.

Moonlight Chicken (Weds YT) 3-4 of 8 - The plot... erm... thickens. I told you Jim had a tragic backstory with an ex. And now it’s all gotten VERY messy. Sigh. Fourth & Gemini are cute, tho.

Hit Bite Love (Sat YouTube) ep 4-5 of 6 - I do like King & Burger. The idea of giving your perspective boyfriend your CV is ADORBS. Auditioning for the part, as it were. I would like it known that my sexual identity is chili (AKA spicy) henceforth. (My pronouns are MaxTul & sometimes Phi.) Look, this is an absurd show. Last ep it was BDSM 101, this ep we got a lesson on how to use a condom properly? AND why the closet is both necessary and damaging? I mean I applaud their educational endeavors but BL: The After School Special? Did I sign up for Degrassi Junior BL while I wasn’t looking?

Boyband (Thurs YT) 1 of 10 - BL drama about putting an idol boyband together. AKA how to make ABL suffer by combing favorite (celebrity romances, Kpop) and least favorite (bad singing) tropes. AND? I REALLY like it. It’s fun! What singing there is, is looped not live. So we in Cutie Pie territory. It’s easy to skip. The pairing is rich/poor and I like an other side of the tracks romance.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

HIStory 5: Love in the Future (Taiwan Weds Viki) ep 8 of 10 (or 15&16 of 20) - Covid strikes. Boyfriends are worried. Omg they are so cute and hot and awkward. Tension in the office politics too. It’ll be okay, babies.

Jack o’Frost (Japan) ep 1 of 6 - After getting dumped, Ritsu has an accident and gets amnesia. Ikuya, his ex, struggles to help him regain his memories while wondering about the state of their relationship. But Ritsu falls in love with Ikuya all over again. Engaging opening but I’m just not sure about the premise.

It’s Airing But ...

Chains of Heart (Sat Gaga) 1 of 10 - Not dropping for me until tomorrow so it’ll be in next week’s round up I hope. Suspense thriller about a forest ranger, smugglers, amnesia, and lost love. Stars Haii (Cirrus in TT2) and Marc (My Gear & Your Gown in YYY). Adapted from a Y-novel of the same name by TJ Tommy.

My Beautiful Man 2 (Viki & Gaga) - Because there are only 4 eps, I decided to wait and binge this one.

Cafe In Love (Thai) 10 eps on Ch3+ - Thai pulp, stars the actor who played Noh’s best friend Ohm in Love Sick 2. When his coffee shop closes, a man tries everything to save it and falls in love along the way. I had a hunt but can’t find it.

Moments Of Love (Thai) Feb 14 Foremorfilm Production movie for cinema release. Was originally a series with Golf (609 Bedtime Story & The Eclipse) to direct, and SmartJames (LeonPhob from Don't Say No) to star. BUT is now something totally different. We’re all confused.

Destiny Seeker (Tues WeTV ) 10 eps - it’s not on any WeTV I can get ahold of. Engineering student Songkram is head of dorm 3, for "strong & athletic" students. Aye is head of dorm 2, for the "good looking" students. Aye used to be Songkram's tutor and friend, but they fell apart after becoming dorm heads. Aye is actually in love with Songkram but thinks Sonkram likes someone else. Songkram actually likes Aye. So, Bad Buddy the pulp rebirth meets that weird Japanese “girls-crossdressing-as-boys for love and infiltrating secret society of hotness” tradition.

Our Winter (Thai & Korea ?) - TutorYim vehicle supposedly airing now. Search me.

The End Of The World, With You AKA Bokura no Micro na Shuumatsu (Japan Sun Gaga) - DNFing this one. It’s way too high heat for them to end it happily and full of dark stuff like cheating, suicide, depression, abuse. I actively HATE one of the main characters and mildly dislike the other. Easier to just stop watching.

Next Week Looks Like This:

2023 forthcoming BL master post. (see comments some are inaccurate, NOT UPDATED)

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

My favorite thing to happen in BL this week. Possibly EVER.

Honestly, such a weird little After School Special. (All Hit Bite Love.)

SAIL MY LITTLE CRUMBS! SAIL!!!!

You TELL her, Paw. (All My School President)

We stan the out boy. Own it, babycakes. (Moonlight Chicken.)

(last week)

Current Kpop earworm? Beautiful by BEAST, look, sometimes we gotta go back to our roots. Check out the legends for what they were, criticize my taste later. Fuck I miss those times when everyone had to sing live and the one with the hot mic had to stop dancing to catch his breath because, ya know, he still had to sing.

ALL that said, you slackers should check out HELLO GLOOM - Dancing In The Dark. I alway said IMFACT was the most woke Kpop group, now they broken up(?) nice to see ‘em solo in queer fuck-off style.

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