#the western concept of marriage. as in i HATE IT hate it

[solisaureus]

Everything I Hate About Rick Riordan's Interpretation of the Hunters of Artemis

I believe that Rick Riordan has good intentions and that he has done a lot to promote inclusivity in YA fantasy, both at a fictional representation level and at a level of authorial diversity. However, he has fumbled the ball numerous times in his writing, and my biggest complaint against him is his handling of the Hunters of Artemis. So I wrote an essay on everything I hate about it.

Part I: Mythological context

Artemis is the ancient Greek goddess of the hunt, nature, unwed maidens, animals, archery, childbirth, and other domains. She is known for keeping a company of nymphs and inhabiting the wilderness with them, giving rise to Riordan’s concept of the Hunters of Artemis.

Artemis is also famous for being a virgin goddess, vowing never to marry. The concepts of virginity and marriage in ancient times and the understanding we have of them today are quite different. Here is an excerpt describing Artemis (and Athena’s) status as virgin goddesses from Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity by Sarah Pomeroy:

“The Artemis of classical Greece probably evolved from the concept of a primitive mother goddess, and both she and her sister Athena were considered virgins because they had never submitted to a monogamous marriage. Rather, as befits mother goddesses, they had enjoyed many consorts. Their failure to marry, however, was misinterpreted as virginity by succeeding generations of men who connected loss of virginity only with conventional marriage. Either way, as mother goddess or as virgin, Artemis retains control over herself; her lack of permanent connection to a male figure in a monogamous relationship is the keystone of her independence.”

Note how this differs from modern Western concepts of marriage and virginity. Marriage, for a woman of antiquity, means a monogamous, submissive union with a man. A virgin, in the context of Artemis and her Hunters, is an unmarried, independent woman, not a woman who does not desire sex or romantic love. It is likely that Riordan, as a classics scholar, knows this.

Artemis was known to keep companions in the myths, both men and women. Orion is the most famous male companion of Artemis, and in some iterations of the myth he is a lover of Artemis. Another notable figure is the nymph Callisto, who was exiled from the Hunters after Zeus raped and impregnated her in Hesiod’s Astronomia. (According to Hyginus’s recounting of this story, Zeus seduced Callisto by disguising himself as Artemis, insinuating that Callisto and Artemis had been lovers). I assume this is where Riordan got the idea that becoming “smitten with boys” (The Titan’s Curse, p. 38) gets you kicked out of the Hunters.

Another known devotee to Artemis was Hippolytus. In the play Hippolytus by Euripides, the eponymous character (the son of Theseus with the Amazon Hippolyta), was enamored with the hunt and had no desire for marriage, worshipping Artemis as his patron. His disinterest in romance offended Aphrodite, and she cursed Theseus’s wife Phaedra to fall in love with Hippolytus. The rest of the play does not end well for either of them, but the important thing is that ancient Greek plays did acknowledge unmarried male devotees of Artemis. This, combined with the myth of Orion, confounds Riordan’s choice to interpret the Hunters as exclusively female.

Part II: Feminist separatism

So, given the existence of Orion and Hippolytus, where does the anti-men thing come from? One possible explanation is the story of Actaeon, who spied on Artemis while she was bathing, and was harshly punished for his indecency when Artemis transformed him into a deer and set his hunting dogs on him. But mythologically, the Hunters were not exclusive to women, and in a modern context, I think Riordan’s interpretation of them as such is inappropriate and irresponsible.

In the 1970s, there was a movement to form communities of exclusively lesbians who seek to escape patriarchal society by forming insular colonies, known as lesbian separatism. On a surface level, it might seem empowering — many lesbians and other women seek to escape the male gaze and heteronormative expectations, and making their own exclusive all-female social communities may seem like a utopian escape. But this movement was notoriously transphobic, with these lesbian separatist communities explicitly rejecting transgender women and relying on gender bioessentialism to determine who was “really” a woman or a lesbian. It was gatekeeping in its most radical form (Separatism by Andrew Matzner).

So for Riordan’s Hunters to model feminist separatism (except with celibate women instead of lesbians) is a similar TERF trap. It is never clarified in canon whether the female requirement for membership includes either closeted or out transgender women, or if the Hunters expel transgender men who come out after joining the Hunters. Given that the Hunters — a community of people who seek to reject conventional patriarchal society — would likely appeal to queer people of all ages, genders, and sexual identities, why is it exclusive to adolescent celibate girls?

Part III: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

In The Dark Prophecy, Riordan supplements the lore of his Hunters with a bombshell: female Hunters who fall in love with each other are expelled for breaking their oath of virginity. Emmie, who is Hemithea of ancient myth and had been a part of the Hunters for millennia, was excommunicated with her lover Jo, and they form a new life together in Indianapolis. This is described as a voluntary, heartwarming departure and a show of the two women’s commitment to each other.

The positive spin that Riordan puts on this story is shocking, considering the fact of the matter is that these characters were forced to choose between their family and their queer love. Losing one’s family, especially one that had been Emmie’s whole life for literal ages, as a result of coming out is a homophobic tragedy any way you look at it. How are we supposed to think positively of Artemis or the Hunters after seeing them cast out their own because of their lesbian relationship? Especially when LGBTQ homelessness as a result of this exact trauma is such a prominent problem?

Hell, in The Sun and the Star, Nico di Angelo expresses that his worst fear in coming out as gay was to be abandoned by his friends or ostracized by his community (p. 216, 219). Yet this is exactly what happened to Emmie and Jo when they came out in the Hunters. The fact that this outcome is acknowledged as terrifying and traumatic in The Sun and the Star makes it baffling that it’s framed as congenial and unavoidable in another Riordan book.

The fact that the Hunters are a militant force makes the expulsion of lesbians reminiscent of another notable LGBTQ rights issue: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT). This American legislation, which was in effect from 1994 to 2011, prohibited openly gay, bisexual, or lesbian individuals from serving in the armed forces. It was acceptable to be closeted while serving, but disclosing one’s identity as lesbian, gay, or bisexual resulted in being discharged. The repeal of DADT in 2011 was seen as a major victory for LGBTQ rights in America…which makes it concerning that Riordan would implement the same policy for his fictional militia in a book that was published in 2017. And then portray it as positive and empowering.

Riordan doubling down on the “no romance allowed” aspect of his iteration of the Hunters by excluding lesbians from membership is a bizarre commitment to his misconstrued translation of the ancient Greek concept of virginity. Remember that Artemis’s vow of virginity was a commitment to independence and a rejection of marital submission to a man in a patriarchal society, not a condemnation of romance and sexuality. By this definition, virgins include lesbians, and it is ridiculous to construe two women’s romantic commitment to each other as violating the oath of virginity. Riordan’s choice to vilify lesbians in the Hunters was his choice, not an appropriate application of mythology. Considering that Artemis has been used as a relatable cultural icon for modern lesbians, this seems especially insidious.

Part IV: Asexual misrepresentation

Asexuality is a spectrum of queer identities which describe those that experience little to no sexual attraction to other people of any gender. Aromanticism is a related spectrum of queer identities entailing little to no romantic attraction or interest in other people of any gender. There is a very broad range of asexual and aromantic experiences, including those that overlap with other queer experiences, including lesbianism. Asexuality is not the same thing celibacy and aromanticism is not the same thing as being single. Rick Riordan does not seem to grasp this, construing his anti-romance portrayal of the Hunters as a haven for aromantic and/or asexual girls such as Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano.

While a community like the Hunters, with its emphasis on rejecting patriarchal, heteronormative standards, would certainly appeal to many aromantic and/or asexual individuals (as well as most other queer people), there are several issues with conflating the lifestyle of Riordan’s Hunters with asexuality/aromanticism.

First, the Hunters in this setting are exclusively young girls, with the oldest being Thalia Grace, who is 15. Feeding into the stereotype that asexual/aromantic people are immature and childish is hardly positive representation. Second, requisite celibacy is not the same thing as natural asexuality. In fact, I find the whole enforced celibacy, anti-romance thing weirdly Catholic and repressive for a group of people devoted to a Pagan goddess of nature and unconventional independence.

I will iterate it again, this is a reductive, ill-fitting application of the ancient concept of virginity that is associated with Artemis. It is valid for modern asexuals and aromantics to admire and relate to the mythology of Artemis, but Riordan’s misapplication of this association does a disservice to asexuals, aromantics, and queer community as a whole. Riordan’s Hunters feed the harmful, incorrect stereotype that asexuals and aromantics look down on all forms of romantic/sexual love (including queer love) and see themselves as superior to the culture of love and sex. This is not positive aromantic/asexual representation.

Part V: Alternative interpretations

With all of this said, the Hunters serve an important narrative role in Riordan’s stories and a lot of potential as an alternative life path for demigods. Abolishing the Hunters would do the story and its setting a disservice; but I believe they should’ve been written very differently.

The Hunters should maintain their core purpose of an uprooted existence, rejecting conventional society to connect with nature. They should provide community for those who are not served by the heteronormative, cisnormative patriarchy. This would include people of all ages, genders, and romantic/sexual identities. There should be an emphasis on solidarity among marginalized sexual and gender identities instead of overt hostility and gatekeeping.

Members of the Hunters should be discharged only when they decide to rejoin mainstream society or settle down with a lifestyle that is incompatible with the aforementioned purpose of the Hunters. I believe this structure would be far more empowering and liberating than what Riordan has envisioned.

[yokohamapound]

Since tis Spooky Season, how about some wedding headcanons for our goth boys Bram and Akutagawa? :3

It might no longer be spooky season but goth bois are timeless. <3

Characters: Bram Stoker, Akutagawa Ryuunosuke

Contents: gn!reader, nsfw mention

Bram Stoker

Bram is certainly the marrying type. Once he’s found someone he feels he can spend the long years of eternity with, he’ll want to lock you down quickly and make it official. Dating is a foreign concept to him, but he will spend some time courting you. He’s very likely the one who proposed marriage, and like, you have eyes, so of course you were going to accept. Who doesn’t want to marry a handsome vampire lord?

It’s not enough to call Bram ‘old-fashioned’. The man is at least several hundred years old, (depending on whether his age is based on the actual Bram Stoker or Vlad Tepes, basis of the legend for Dracula). He’s between approx 170-600 years old. He’s seen trends become traditions and vanish entirely. The wedding would probably be some flavour of traditional, whether that’s a Western white wedding, or a wedding steeped in his spouse’s culture. If you really wanted to, you could have a historical-themed wedding to make Bram feel at home—just expect him to be finicky on the minor details.

“This is the incorrect type of date for this pastry.”

It might take some doing to find a priest willing to marry you to a vampire, or you can forge the documents and have a civil ceremony. It depends on whether or not Bram can actually set foot in a church. He’s probably relieved to discover civil ceremonies are a thing. 

Bram looks beautiful in a suit. Just imagine it. A suit tailored to his ridiculous, 6’5” height, possibly a tailcoat, with a cravat, his long hair tied back. 

You’ll have to bring him up to speed and explain that, apart from certain cultural traditions, dowries aren’t that common anymore, and that he doesn’t have to offer your father 50 goats for your hand in marriage. 

Bram’s a pretty romantic guy, but he always does it with style. He pulls out your chair, his hand is going to rest on the small of your back, and he takes the lead in the first dance waltz, no matter your gender.

The speeches will be short—he’s had to put up with too many of Fukuchi’s soliloquies to want to hear any more monologuing. The wedding dinner—feast, he insists on calling it—is sumptuous, although Bram doesn’t partake. (You’re his wedding feast and he’d rather enjoy that in private.)

Godspeed on your wedding night. Bram’s spent years without a lower half of his body and now he has it back, and a spouse to enjoy. He is…pent up, shall we say~

Akutagawa Ryuunosuke

Poor Akutagawa is still reeling over the fact that he’s getting married. I would say that either you proposed, or Dazai planted the idea in Akutagawa’s head that it was time for him to put a ring on it. If Akutagawa proposed, your ring is some beautiful antique with a large stone and a creepy story attached to it. Don’t forget that Akutagawa makes bank in the Port Mafia. 

Please, please, please plan a goth wedding.

Please remember that this is the same young man who said this when asked what he would give as a wedding present: “I'd gift them the enemy's freshly severed head decorated with bloody barren flowers.” Suffice it to say, Akutagawa should not be left in charge of either your gift registry or the flower arrangements. You will end up with a load of obscure antiques, knives, and bunches of rotting flowers “to show the briefness of our lifespans.” 

Maybe compromise with dried flower garlands or even black roses if you want to go full 2007 My Chemical Romance-core. (Look me in the eye and tell me Akutagawa wouldn’t look up if you played him a G-note on the piano.)

He hates being the centre of attention in the actual wedding, so he’s more than happy to deflect it all toward you instead. The moments he seems happiest are when he gets to see Gin wearing a bridesmaid dress, when Dazai stands up to make a speech (during which Akutagawa sits up like he’s in a school assembly while the headmaster is speaking), and during the vows, when he’s focusing on you and only you. 

He looks wonderful in his suit - let him have full tails and black tie and he'll be content.

Your wedding photographs look like one of those austere Victorian family portraits, save for Tachihara throwing up the bunny ears behind Gin’s head. 

Akutagawa has a secret sweet tooth he won’t admit to, which is why he tries to pretend that he hasn’t had three slices of chocolate cake. 

Either get Dazai drunk or put him in a corner with a plate of crab cakes to keep him occupied, because you really don’t need him making sly comments when it’s time for you and Akutagawa to climb into the car and head off for your honeymoon. His wedding gift for Akutagawa is an inhaler and a note saying, “You’ll need this! xoxo Dazai.”

[angel-maybe-alive]

My problem with Hades and Persephone retelling

(aka this will not end well for me)

So sometime ago I made a post about things I hate in "modern literature" basically me ranting about booktok shit, and I mentioned my pure hatred for the "hades/Persephone retellings" genre and I tried to explain it in the reblogs but I didn't phrased myself very well there so I want to do it again?

So here I go swinging another baseball bat to the wasps nest.

The Homeric hymn of demeter is this very known tale of why we have the seasons, the plot basically goes as: Hades god of the underworld kidnaps Persephone goddess of flowers, demeter her mother goddess of crops gets desperate don't do her job while trying to find her the world suffers yada yada something something in the end Persephone has to spent half of the year with her mother (spring and summer) and the other half with her husband in the underworld (autumn/winter)

Right

Now let's go to the " doesn't matter my opinion people will be mad at me "part

The full myth as is presented in the Homeric hymn of demeter has Persephone pretty clearly being kidnapped and held against her will

The myth was very clear about Persephone's not willingness to the marriage as she 1- screamed for help 2- was described as miserable when visited by Hermes 3- asked for her mother 4-lightened up once hearing about her 5- is described as being tricked by hades to eat the pomegranates who kept her tied to the underworld

In the context of when the myth was created the reasoning was pretty clear to be about the horrifying yet inevitability of wedding, and the separation between mother and daughter.

Arranged or forced marriages are a fictional thing to a lot of people nowadays, it's a thing of time pieces or something from religions that you don't understand and find oppressive but it was (and still is in some places ) a reality

The arranged marriage has its perks in some context as it takes away the burden of having to choose your partner and if your culture is build on this you would not see this as a oppressive practice just how things are the sky is blue and someday your father will choose your husband.But there's also the fear, your future husband could be half decent person there was a chance or an horrible monster very possible sometimes you truly couldn't know.

Kinda like death itself there was This uncertainty, the fear yet anxiety and maybe longing of it without knowing what would come next.

So in context this tale probably resonated a lot with girls and women at the time as a reminder that after the marriage they can still see their mothers time to time, it wasn't death itself just separation, even if their wedding was bleak as a dark winter, spring will come.

And I love this tale really

Then we have the new context, like I said the fear and longing of arranged marriage is not a reality to many people in modern western secular world, But suffocating mothers are.

There is discussion on whether or not Persephone went on her own will but it is a pointless discussion the result is still the same she has half of the year up here half down there.

But the retellings do a weird thing, some of them reframe it to make demeter the villain.

Demeter goes from grieving mother to an angry wench who it's just terrified of an empty nest and suffocates Persephone she is mother goethel locking Rapunzel in a tower,She is the opressor.

And hades is the stand in badboy he is rhysand, darkling, Damon Salvatore and draco Malfoy In leather pants and all the other guys in black clothes but not in a cringe emo edgylord way in a dangerous way with a jawline to cut diamonds and abs for days, rich and powerful a dominating alpha ready to sweep the damsel ad bring her to freedom.

Do you ever heard that anarbor song 18, if not listen it's exactly the hades guy on those retellings

And the thing is I have no true problem with this concept it's not my cup of tea(I prefer the golden retriever rather than the black cat) and I do think the amount of coercion and straight up sexual assault on those are quite not good, but it might be someone's else's cup.

The problem is calling this a feminist retelling as by making Persephone a willing bride it empowers her.

It truly doesn't.

The original was already empowering a grieving mother doing anything on her power to save her lost daughter is fucking punk.

Yet the rebellious vein of the modern author the desire to be that girl the one who had the guts to actually runaway from home after fighting with your mom for not letting you paint your hair, mixed with the desire to be coddled by a dark prince charming, aman who will desire you so much he won't be able to control himself, a beautiful rich man who will worship you, have amazing sex with you, will be enough of a feminist to respect your choices yet enough of a patriarchal alpha male to spoil rotten with all things money can buy, provide for you as you are his queen, this desire takes one of the most simple yet understandable tale of true feminine power and bastardize it to another opposite Attraction tale.

And this is why I hate hades and Persephone retellings.

[madfantasy]

Been crying alot lately not knowing why, nd now I can verbalise it, I need to type it down for the sake of my sanity.. I think its lots of trauma dumping, I'm sorry

I've seen a post ask about if you're an ace would u be in romantic relationships, and I have just thought about how I'm always revolted by these concepts since I was 6 years old.

Having been always groomed to be wed to one of my cousins or a rich somebody to be my highest achievements as it solely focuses on my private parts as my worth and my ability to contribute to the family's "Good reputation" and reap back benefits to.

But I knew, all along, if I was forced to be with someone, that will end me being on this earth or them if they tried going near me. And growing up, I always tried to accept that fact, accept that u need to be pure and clean and be good for wedding and basically enslaved to it, cuz that's all our still impoverished family can aspire to. And on top of the dark thing that happened to me, making me truly believe I have no worth in this world and have prayed to be taken to heaven before I hit puberty, and have tried pitiful attempts to leave it, untill i got faint access to Internet and stole the keys to the locked books, they themselves should have been reading, around 17 years old, found an only opening and escape to reality.

I remember, my refusal was all the firmer the more anyone tries to tell me all about the glamor of being an intimate house maid and the domestic abuse they gloss over that I personally have witnessed time and time again with every couple that visited or we went to. I always respond that i am already one to my guardian's with the same abuse minus the gross intimate part.

I didn't even understand why I hated it so much while everyone is doing it, and as young as 16.

I avoided alot of marriage offers thanks to my guardians being, in one good way, over protective. And me losing my mind every time they brought it up. Literal uncharacteristic melt downs and now they fear the subject after they finally snapped me after saying no for years wasn't enough of a respond.

I'm 30 and the latest offer was from a rich cripple who was willing to pay all my guardians debts and give them a farm. My guardians dream. They turned it down without consulting me.

I've always hated the concept of pairs joined by s*x and the s*x itself. And marriage as a whole never made sense to me, considering the developing world and its problems. But I understand it as a bond if its first and foremost was not for love, it was for safety— mental, financial and otherwise.

And where I come from, independence is supported by the family, you can not survive, work, do anything if you do not have a family, and specially if you assigned a certain gender. So basically, I lived in isolation for the majority of my life, in poverty, marriage seen as the only -allowed- way out.

And it's all stims from a so called religious teachings.. Alot in common in this world, who take it as a personality trait and use it to justify injustice. Even though most of the time they know nothing about it beside what they are told by their authority figures and operat in this world as superior to all others because they were told they r the true religion. I saw on TT a so called mus-girl complaining about her children being exposed to 'rainbow ppl' in school education and having the nerve to complain about it living as a foreigner welcomed to practice her religion in a western country and claims not to be hateful. And yes, Arab ppl call the community 'rainbow' which reeks of the phobia and condescension. Like their religion teaches them to be at peace with all and treat ppl how they like to be treated, yet they fail to apply that when they don't like or lack the emotional intelligence to understand others who are merely different, just different and existing, exactly like them. And they do believe God made everything, so he did make those people, so what their excuse to that? And they exsisted since tbe dawn of humanity. And funny thing is their religion tells them that God made humans different, and urges them to read, to wonder the earth and consider facts and if they don't know to ask who are knowledgeable, and their intentions matters more and if they did unjustly by anyone, who ever they are, they r not a true mus--. It obviously translate to just ask a man who knows nothing about science, empathy or common sense or notice the accumulating facts and only repeat a select few he is told at a religious house. Thinking seems to be a burden these people happily relinquish to others. Which irkes me to no end

I was told all the shit I endured is because it from gods teachings, and it should make me happy. I never stopped questioning if this is a bless then why I was never happy? And why I can't do as I am told

They beat me up when I drew, when I was rowdy and when what now i know is stimming, shaming it as an act of another religion, and it was the running joke in the whole family. Mental health was an immense shame and hush hush, and anyone who seemed to need it was judged to be just a lesser mus-- so they deserve all the pain and suffering they get

I was glad that lady was getting chewed by ppl who was responding to her, but one person said something that just made me burst into tears and I couldn't stopp crying lately..

She said she was a teacher that goes from school to school and stuff so she experienced alot of communities and she noticed the vast differences between children who's family love and support is unconditional and those who don't, they obviously tend to later thrive.

And thats the word..

Thrive

Besides our financial situation never changing to the better, everything else was in decline, my guardians health themselves relying on me even more, and my mental anguish exasperated to a point i barely see a point in life, daily.. I can barely draw now, something I did 24/7

Everything that I am I had to do deep research for just to know that there's nothing wrong with me or im not deserving punishments for. I am ace, I am a gentle Them, I am on the spectrum, and I am Mani..

I did everything I do now in secret and complete agony. I learned English to gave privacy, continued to draw cuz it was my only alive part, and posted online when I was forbidden completely to protect my art from being lost, had to swear that I was nit interacting with others. I lied and one of the few times I was found, I was beaten while a school friend was on the other line in a voice chat. I was more humiliated that my friend witnessed it than being caught.

I still have the deep fear and distrust, I can't deal with social things, having to keep guessing which social cues they are using and not to become a living status, leaving the house the mere thought if it alone is panic inducing, I can never feel safe and cant risk something that might bring any harm to me and my sibs, every few days I struggle not to just delete my whole exsistance online. I can't look at faces even in pictures and if I did or need to I have to mentally prepare myself for so long. I literally had to convince my guardians that I can have a credit card so I can "learn" to do stock shi then used it to have PP and one day i got commissioned, and only when that happened I was able not to keep it a secret. And in its place now I feel the pressure when I can't provide or won't

The rest I still have no luck, I bearly managed to tell them recently that I suspect that I am on the spectrum, reading alot about it lately and it explains even things I couldn't. The nearest I managed to tell them that I am ace and what it is is that I started by saying I find who we are suppose to be wed to disgusting and I already living that glamorous stay at home shi nd co-raising 5 siblings they know very little about. They said fine but don't go saying that out loud cuz God says that marriage is the greatest bless but I won't force u ever.

I just feel my life force almost over, while I experienced nothing of life beyond isolation and constant need, so i cant thrive in anything.. Everything I wanted to do I begged to try was denied cuz either of my privates or cuz we were poor. I wanted to be athletic and do sports but there was no such thing as a second gender sports around. I wanted to be and still wish I could be, a wrestler. Unsurprisingly WWE was my inspiration and practiced as serious as a kid could, having what I believed a super pain tolerance cuz I never cried as I was beaten. I was cut from even watching it because it was "shameful " all of a sudden. Later I understood it was because everyone was shirtless and it was s*xulised by them. Everything became the same later, everything I drew or expressed feared to be s*xual and or homo nd I was punished over, I literally drew dying ppl and bromance alot at first. And they just projected their assumptions on me. I understood later and still can't bear the thought that ppl can project s*x into anything, and it never clicked in my mind because of what I am. And that was their biggest fear. I drew things cuz I saw them beautiful, and they only saw it as vulger, because they can't help but hyper s*xualize everything or assume it being so even with clear indications. Something that happened online too, tumblr nd tt, so it triggers me horribly

Something ace i also realised there's a word for (forgotten ittt ugh)— even though s*x and its mention is completely revolting to my person and I can have no relation to it. I can still enjoy it as a fictional concept, as entertainment, if u will, specially in a muse of two characters I enjoy. So drawing it is fun and exciting and enrichs my naughty side. Until I finish it and I never want to see it again cuz I'm not super good at it yet heh

In my mind, I can love and treasure who ever platonicly, and our bonds does not have to direct our paths in life. My romance is bromance, and meaning I will do everything to make my bestie happy, and my biggest wish is to live like tintin, in a mansion and everyone can be free to go on adventurous escapades, like getting coffee. ( i never done that, so

And this is something I wish to do with my siblings, if the stars were ever to align..

At least have Sherir with me.. puppets make me happy

[psychewritesbs]

Chapter 214: Cursed Womb Under Heaven, part 6—Sukuna Sukuna Sukuna Sukuna Sukuna Sukuna Sukuna Sukuna Sukuna Sukuna Daddy Sukuna Sukuna Sukuna

Blessed / Cursed JJK-Sunday! Pick your poison...

I hate (affectionate) Sukuna because... well... this whole Megumi thing is so weird. Like... what is going on with the hair?

And yet I am a massive Sukuna simp (questionable) because... well.. this whole conversation with Yuji...

Like Sir. Yes, I will dedicate my life’s work to spreading the gospel of Sukuna to all who will listen. Ura Ume can cook, I can be your Marketing person and do your social media if that’s what you’re into. 

I LOVE a character twisted by his own humanity. Yeeeessss...

More, please!

There’s more of me “yeeeeeeeeeesssss”+ing and promoting Sukunaism under the cut.

yeeeeeeeeeeeesssssss.....

The King of Curses

I am perhaps projecting, but there’s something definitively very regal about Sukuna and the way he carries himself in an embodied state. 

I also loved that there is also something very benevolent about the look in Sukuna’s face as he speaks with Yuji about the nature of suffering for weaker beings.

Almost like “oh you poor thing, you really thought you were just going to be handed your cake and get to eat it too, didn’t you?”

And I am VERY consciously choosing to use the word benevolent to describe Sukuna because... there is something inherently twisted and yet, extremely real, in the message that Sukuna embodies.

Almost like he’s doing Yuji a favor by enlightening him on the root cause of his suffering.

YES! yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes YES!

Am I like a crazy person for loving Sukuna so much?

And there’s something so fascinating here about how, despite dropping deep truths about the human condition, Sukuna is literally the epitome of all that is cursed, a sort of container for all that is inherently wrong about humanity--to the point that you can’t even think of him as human, but rather, as inhuman.

But... really... what does it mean to be a human, what does it mean to be a curse, and where do we draw the line?

Are curses truly the sole source of suffering as Spooks asks? 

After all... are curses not the result of negative human emotion?

Are we, as humans, not responsible for their existence?

You see, I became a cursed spirit apologist the moment Yuta kissed a cockroach. This forced me to start questioning what is good and what is evil.

The marriage of Heaven and Hell

Now... I am not asking for Sukuna to not be thought of as evil. 

I am asking for a wider, more profound interpretation of evil. One that is not colored by the Western, white-washed, Judeo-Christian idea of the figure of Satan as a red horned creature that is evil for the sake of evil and makes people do evil #things.

I am asking for you to leave your pre-conceptions of evil at the door...

What if perhaps we saw Satan as Lucifer, the harbinger of light who was thrown out of Heaven for challenging the status quo and daring to seek enlightenment through embodiment?

What if we saw evil as as a corruption and degeneration of all that is good and humane--a sort of rejection of one expression of the self in favor of the trappings of self-gratification and self-identification?

What if we asked how Sukuna’s degenerated and corrupted humanity is an embracing and transcendence of suffering as not just inherent to the human condition, but a precursor of psychological and psychospiritual growth and development?

What if evil was a choice made in favor of the self and that is why Satan was cast out of Heaven? 

What if evil was just trying to re-affirm the sense of self, and that is why Sukuna has chosen ego as his path of enlightenment?

After all...

“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”

When Gege introduced Jacob’s Ladder in chapter 213...

... he introduced one hell pun intended of a rabbit hole. One that I am not quite ready to talk about in great detail because I am unsure on how the symbols will be explored, or let’s be real here, whether they will get explored at all.

But with this tiny panel, Gege basically introduced the “upper” extreme of a metaphorical experience of psychospiritual growth depicted in the shape of a ladder. At the lower end of said ladder is the experience of descent into hell that is depicted in stories like Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Now. The interesting bit about Jacob’s Ladder getting mentioned, is that Gege added a neat little detail that is easy to miss unless you know what you’re looking for:

That is: Urizen’s Architect’s compass.

Now, for context, the painting above is a painting by William Blake, who perhaps not so coincidentally, also has a painting titled Jacob’s Ladder.

The painting is, indeed, inspired by the Biblical depiction of Jacob’s dream found in Genesis 28:10-17.

Again, the rabbit hole runs deep.

What I’ll say about this for now is that Gege might be using these symbols to present Sukuna as a character that personifies a sense of self that is beyond logic and reason where...

Good = logic bound by reason, and

Evil = imagination free from reason.

I still haven’t made up my mind about it because Gege is being a bit inconsistent with symbols, so we’ll have to wait to confirm.

But in a nutshell, this feels like a murky exploration of the sense of self and where it stands in relation to the question of “good and evil” or as Blake calls it “the marriage of Heaven and Hell”.

So if Gege is using William Blake’s philosophy then... I can’t help but see Sukuna as a character who has become enlightened through becoming entangled in the trappings of ego. Which is a nice dichotomy to how enlightenment is thought to be about transcending and leaving behind ego attachments.

But not Sukuna. 

Sukuna is about experiencing the highest of highs and the lowest of lows of the human experience. 

Logic be damned.

“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom”.

In other words, Sukuna strikes me as being about willingly and consciously embracing the suffering that is inherent to the human condition, and growing in strength because of it.

After all, you cannot know pleasure without first having known pain, and you cannot know pain if you have not known pleasure. In Blake’s words, "without contraries is no progression.”

Quick detour here to expand on these panels above... Explaining the sense of self is not easy.

What I can say right now is that the sense of self is the result of the ego-self negotiating with reality as it presents to you compared to your expectations and hopes for your reality.

In the words of Westworld’s Robert Ford:

"...the thing that led... to... awakening [is] suffering. The pain that the world is not as you want it to be.”

Similarly, Westworld’s Man in Black tells us that

“When you are suffering, that’s when you are most real.”

Which is another way of saying that there is strength and transformation to be found in suffering and that turning away from suffering is what weak minded people would do according to the gospel of Sukuna.

Or basically, when life hands you the lemons, you make margaritas with them although I highly recommend you use limes instead of lemons and might I also recommend Mezcal instead of Tequila for a nice smokey twist on everybody’s favorite Mexican cocktail.

Suffering is an inherent aspect of the human condition after all. You either develop the mental fortitude to keep moving forward, or, in Sukuna’s view, you remain weak, defeated by your fate. 

And what’s interesting here is that Yuji has a very infantile unwillingness to see suffering as an inherent aspect of human existence.

Or as Spooks reminds us all, it’s not just curses that cause suffering.

So to me, Sukuna’s philosophy is about overwhelming strength as a result of self-gratification. He is the kind of character who will put himself through hell for the sake of acquiring strength. 

This is where Jacob’s Ladder becomes relevant, because in Blake’s philosophy, the Angels who are “good”, could only see ego attachment (which is a metaphor for hell) as suffering. As such, they could not comprehend why anyone would put themselves through hell for the sake of self development.

In other words, Sukuna is an exploration on hedonism and all that can be considered sinful if only because the ego’s attachment to pleasure is at the root of suffering.

“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom”.

A different execution of this trope is another one of my blorbos, Twelve, from Watanabe’s Terror in Resonance (Zankyou no Terror). 

Twelve is the kind of character who wants to have certain experiences and will, at the expense of his better judgment and other people, force certain experiences to happen just because he wants to have them. In fact, he doesn’t stop to think about consequences, he just acts for the sake of experiencing.

Whether these experiences cause pain and suffering or joy and happiness, does not matter. The point is to have the experience because the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

For those of us who are crazy enough to be romantically inclined, it’s like the experience of falling in love while fearing rejection, but still choosing love. 

Logic be damned.

But that’s just the thing, isn’t it? If you held back from the moments when you are invited to come alive every single time that you saw suffering in the horizon, would you cower from those experiences?

Or would you embrace them for the sake of self development?

Similarly, Sukuna who exists only for his own pleasure, is an example of how the ego is shaped and transformed through experience. 

In Sukuna’s case, experience can come in the shape of fights and women and whatever will satiate the appetite of an ego hungry for embodied experience... 

Hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure and sensual self-indulgence.

But I want to think that Sukuna also understands that you cannot forsake suffering, especially if you are in the pursuit of the better things that life has to offer. 

There isn’t one without the other after all.

If you want to be happy, you have to be willing to suffer for that happiness. 

You can’t know what wealth is unless you have known poverty. 

You can’t know great love unless you have known heartbreak.

"Without Contraries is no progression.”

To reject this principle of human existence is, in Sukuna’s gospel, to be weak, to be prey to those who will consume anything and everything that is standing in the way of their hungry, insatiable ego.

God I love Jujutsu Kaisen...

Splat

Well, that was two *splat* moments in one month and I have to admit they are both just as brutal.

Anyways. This was an interesting chapter from a translator’s pov because there were subtle messages that may or may not have gotten lost in translation. 

So just a heads up I kind of stuck to the fan translation for the most part for that very same reason.

Yuji and Megumi vs. Sukuna

Ok but to wrap things up... 

I love that Sukuna is always impressed by Megumi...

THAT’S MY BOY!!!!!!!! YEEEEEEEEEEEES!!!!

And I also love that Sukuna underestimates Yuji...

Yuji is by far one of my absolute favorite mcs in Shonen. He embodies the characteristics of your typical Shonen mc and then re-defines them in a way that is very uniquely Yuji.

Anyways, sigh of relief about Megumi. I can stop holding my breath FOR THE TIME BEING!!!!

It’s not that I don’t trust that Megumi has what it takes, the one I don’t trust is the cursed cat.

Can’t wait to see these two beautiful boys fight together. 

Happy Jujutsu Kaisen Sunday and thank you for joining me again this week in this hell pun intended of a roller coaster. 

[harukirai]

Queer history of Final Fantasy

I am replaying all the old final fantasies(mostly psp psone releases), first time with english localization and not the original jp.

Now i get it.

It all make sense now.

I couldn't understand the wave of "why shove the gays in our face" backlash of 16(even though, the non homophobic felt it was lacking since they didn't want to 'push it in yall face'). Like apperantly moat of the implication or straight up fruity moments in the old game was completely removed, or changed to the point of it being a 'silly thing'.

So lets clarify -

*Cecil(iv), your homeboy- an Non-binary (language is the best indication, but yeah i think it was a decision made for both female and male players to be able to relate to them, but yeah funny outcome non the less)

*Bartz(v)- outright bisexual, they didnt even hide it- next person on this list gonna make it make sense.

*faris(v)- an ftm transgender( at least in the original version, i know in some new iterations they scrapped the whole concept, but left it in in others?)- mainly speak about himself with (ore/boku- which is conventionally usally by male speakers), after finding out soem of the cast either use a female pronounce on him, but bartz constantly either avoid it or use male pronounce(or the nonbinary version which is usually reffered to kidz) but yeah, bartz was crushing on faris where he thought he was a cis male and unlike the other guy didnt shy away.

Lets jump a bit to 8-

Irvine(viii)- even though considered very handsome to the point he could get with any girl hed want, was even flirted with by selphie i think i need to remember, but he usually brush it off.

If anything he is either asexual, or gay(its very subtle, but its what called queer coding, and well see that allot from now on cause japan caught up to westerns norm on media)

Quina Quen (ix)- literally, a nonbinary- but i think they kept it in eng as well cause they are not human, but like black mages they have no sex, but unlike black mages they are 'genderless' and dont care for human norms.

Kuja(ix)- either gay/intersex/both.

Look at him.

Seriously that character confused a whole generation sexuality.

Like sephiroth, but unlike sephiroth he also have effeminate mannerisms, and until it was revealed by text it wasnt so obvious.sephiroth in jp have a confusing language because he himself is possed by jenova, so evem though i love this headcanon, sephiroth isnt trans actually.

Auron(x)- ahh yes, your favourite broody guy and probably where im gonna get tons of hate.

Auron is very subtle, but once you notice it its hard to deny.

I think Auron is gay, unlike jecht or braska- he did not have kids, denied arranged marriage, and followed jecht to dream zanarken just to save jecht only son- it was pretty obvious that auron loved jecht. He also loved braska but not as much, and it shows- that for auron it was more than friendship. You can see it with his attitude towards yuna vs tidus- with yuna he is nicer, politer. Liem you act when you babysit your friends /cousins child.

But to tidus, he is a full father figure.In their journey together they grow, and i think if he wasnt the boy of the man he loved he wouldn't treat tidus as his own. With all the scoldinngs in mind.

Paine(X-2)- qlmost forgot her, but yeah she's pretty gay for riku

I dont remember much though because if the mission structure of the game.

Larsa(xii) - ohh i see you boy, i see u. He is sus as hell. He is a kid so its pretty innocent(and relatable to us queer kidz)

Its pretty obvios that he is crushing on basch, innocently though. I know some ppl who shipped him with penelo, but canonically by spinoffs at least she and vann are an item.

Also they made sure it was obvious cause japan have this thing that a young character is crushing on a teacher,mentor , older characters in general(aka cc sakura- her friend crushing on a teacher, syaoran & sakura crushing on yukito, also happens in tons of pop culture media at that time, so im not surprised, but im happy this time its one sided, THANK GOD)

But yeah if you reached the ending its pretty obvious.

Fang & vanille(xiii)- the first lesbians couple! Terra(VI) was supposed to be the first but they were afraid it will make her less marketable so they scrapped her gf. They made them clear, but at the same time they tried to make sure pple wont be fetishizing them(they tried, at least).

I want to explain their story more but i think ill mess it up since i tend to mix up 13's lacie, falcie and all that jazz.

So ill just say that basically there are 2 world in 13, pulse and cacoon. Pulse is basically earth and cacoon is the moon. There is a god for each world called a falcie.

Few of them but ine for each major ones. Our main gand from cacoon, branded by a falcie to be slaves(lacie) vanille and fang are from pulse, and slaves of pulse lacie, so basically they are with the task of creating Ragnarok which is like the end of time and but limw they dont know cause the gods in this game is like 'yeah imma give you a mission but wont tell you beside weird non undersandable feaver dream and you need to figure out and fast or youll become this universe version of zombie, and if you do complete it you become a ceystal living forever but like, sleeping beauty style. So lose lose situation.

The focus of them both is different from the gang, caus the falcie of cacoon is evil so he gove them focus destroying cocoon while if fang& vannile mannaged to ruin that falcie and bring ragnarok theyll become a crystal, and they used it to save coccon from falling and crushing killing all the people in it, basically became a pillar in eternal sleep when they hheld each other.

But they are saved in later game only to... Lightning return which we wont talk about cause i hate timers.

I love the story of xiii, big part of it is vanille & fang, i havent played in english yet, but i will say, their story is one of the more meaningful on this list, very well developed and i will do it disservice if id try to explain it in few sentences - so do yourself a favour and play or watch the playthrough.

Ignis& gladio(xv)- here is when localization ruimed it. I know cause i palyed on jp dub with eng sub and heard the differences live- first of all gladio and ignis are completely different in jp, as individuals and as a pair- they were supposed to be the first dion& terrence moment, but it got scrapped and they went the vannile& fang route, only that bec they are men, the localization team missed the mark.

Gladio got pissed at noctis in the train because of ignis.

In jp its clear their bond is beyond friends, and not mention the fact that their AI is always stuck together, and that gladio isnt a womenizer in jp at all, and there is no fiancee/girlfriend.

In jp he said suggested there is someone he wants to be with but bec of the state of the world and them both being constantly in the battlefront he couldnt ask.

(and ignis clear his throat when everyone is like oh great, very subtle but it was leading to that)

Every stop of the train or erea post blindness gladio was with ignis not leaving him .

Also tabata san also said that they are more than friends. So there's that too.

But its no secret 15 localization is tereible, the massacared prompto, he is so cringy in english, in jp yeah he is funny but like he says more stuff then random pop colture references, he breaks the 4th wall occasionally but not on the same level of the localization. Also, jp noctis is a little shit because he can and will, in localization he is more relatable while ignos and gladio are kimda mean. In jp its the other way around and up until chap 13 (when he is alone) noctis is a bratt. He has some moments when he is nicer, but when struggle shows he is a bratt about it- and its done purposely since he is a spoiled pronce who never done anything alone in his life.

Thats why in chap 13 he has a change of heart, because he was alone and learned to appriciate his friends when he was stuck alone in the dark with no weapons and i think it was a good call storytelling wise, but yeah the english localzation ruined it and made the whole chapter pointless .

Those are the implied/canon gays of final fantasy up to 15(we got a kiss so its obvious).

The series has always been kinda Fruity and i know some of yall will be like, 'but there's no proof'. Well, japanese speakers(who arent homophobic at least) will agree with me that we tend in media that is not specified like BL or GL to make things subtle. So what in the west is called 'queer coding' is very common in japanese media and it comes in way more shape and forms.usually implied with a desper conncetion relationship or linguistics.its funny cause in the 80's and very early 90's gay pple wasnt hidden in jp pop culture (no kisses or anything but it was straight out told to the viewer/player)

And only later 90's there was a trend of removing us completely from the media, but around that time a specific genre was created so it wasn't out completely.(like yaoi/yuri as erotic mangas existed aince the 80's but usually only love stories or main gay characters were mixed in with the straight media, kimda like what netflix does today, but around 96, 97 the shounen ai and shoujo ai genres rose in popularity(mainly cause of clamp) and things got seperated. In games- because it became a bigger deal in the west square took caution with how clear they gonna make stiff not to piss of the christians after the backlash of Pokemon (idk how it was really but through japanese media and news it seemed at the times that the american patents were pissed so game companies started sensoring their games from all things might piss off christians/monotheistics ).

*also i dont live in japan but i am mixed so i grew in a jp speaking house and family from there always sent games on holidays and birthdays+nhk was always running in the backround to check on the motherland😂

[gemsofgreece]

https://youtu.be/BNAT4ybsz_E

Rare video of someone discussing about sexuality in Greece.

As a Greek myself i must say that i find frustrating the stereotypes lf Usians, especially with retellings like the Song of Achilles.

Yes there was homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome, but there were some problematic like older men using their power over younger men as an experience phase before, or even during marriage, because it was forbidden in society back then.

It had happened also in ancient Japan with the brothels, but in general there wasn't a total freedom back then. What bothers it's just that foreigners take a piece of media and turn a stereotype for a whole country.

In general, I agree there are many problems with the wide misconception that “Ancient Greece was gay”, whatever that means. First of all, often this perception is not used as a way to imagine Ancient Greece as a place of freedoms and acceptance of all orientations but rather as a caricature, as the ultimate Eurovision wonderland. This can be fun at first but after the millionth joke it can soon become disrespectful or annoying when so earnestly spread in its inaccuracy, almost as a whole civilisation is solely defined by a sexuality or sex, like we are the bonobos. Secondly, it is not just used by the LGBT+ community as a way to express themselves or imagine a more hopeful place to have actually existed but from homophobes and anti-Greeks to bash on both. Thirdly, it is simply inaccurate and despite it being good or bad or simply fun, academia is responsible for spreading incorrect misconceptions. It being seemingly harmless doesn’t excuse them for perpetuating a misconception. Fourthly, it is frankly weird to see LGBTQA+ people saying “Ancient Greeks invented homosexuality” which I have seen a thousand times being said, because isn’t it very problematic to suggest, even as a joke, that sexual orientation is a human concept, a trend and a choice????

But now let’s go to the video you recommend. I will give this message the benefit of the doubt. I started watching the video, which makes many valid points and uses numerous ancient sources, and I was getting increasingly uncomfortable without knowing what the motivation of the YouTuber was behind making this video. Was it scientific, strict adherence to a historical truth… or something else? After about two points where I thought he was reaching and some cases where it seemed to me he repeated some offensive views more earnestly than he should, about half time in the video, I paused and searched his channel. Turns out that the guy is an antisemitic white supremacist Elon Musk fanboy. He is cunning enough to stick to facts and keep a polite profile as much as possible but the motive behind it is malicious if you pay attention. And his channel is demonetised. So, I stopped watching and hopefully you watched without noticing all that. The dude is doing all he accused LGBT+ and academia for, simply from the opposite side. He more or less admits himself that he is biased and that he dislikes how LGBT+ community tries to pass Ancient Greece as part of their heritage AND THEN immediately he explains that he dislikes it because he views Ancient Greece as the foundation of his utopic western white world (apparently ruled by straight males).

So as you see, it comes down to the same pattern when it comes to Greece. Marginalised and privileged alike, wronged and hateful westerners alike feel entitled to use the Greek heritage to define themselves and promote their agenda with too little care for historical truth or the moral implications of appropriating foreign heritage simply to serve very specific personal goals (whether good or bad ones). To the homophobes Greeks are macho straight “thoughtfully misogynist” fighters and to LGBTQA+ Greece is an inherent gay parade. Neither is accurate or realistic, if you think about it. Simultaneously, to homophobic Greek haters Greeks are a bunch of losers who of course would eventually lose some lands or wars in question because “they are whimps who like to take it in the butt” and to Greek hating LGBT+ people Greeks are immoral perverts that they shouldn’t be associated with in any way. So, I hope everyone understands why all this is a big problem from all sides.

As for what the truth was, the truth was that a) there were all sorts of sexual orientations in Ancient Greece like it happened in the rest of the ancient and modern world and people experienced them with the pleasures and the hardships that came with them as normal people and not as sex obsessed caricatures , b) there were different approaches on how to deal with less common sexual orientations depending on the era and the place / city-state in question, ranging from very homophobic to relaxed.

As an example, the Homeric era which is so romanticised by the LGBTQA community is most likely not one of the relaxed eras. Classical and Hellenistic period got to be some of the most relaxed and of course Athens in particular. As for pederasty it should not be either excused or beautified or immediately condemned based on modern standards because it normally was not supposed to involve a fully fledged out sexual relationship but we would be kidding ourselves if we denied that several older tutors didn’t take advantage of their protégés. As an example, the YouTuber is reaching when he says that erastes and eromenos simply meant “passionate for knowledge” LOL It is clear in every way that it meant that the young boy was the object of the tutor’s infatuation and / or devotion, regardless if that included a consummated sexual affair. But if erotic love did develop, the tutor was obligated to not lead the boy to an immodest lifestyle (that is, in short, being sexually submissive), which is after all a homophobic solution to a homosexual urgency, which is pretty strange (aside from the whole grooming problem). And pederasty was controversial even in Ancient Athens which established it! In general, we are not equipped to understand well how ancient people thought about sex, sexuality and genders, let alone try to excuse, defend, beautify or ferociously judge and condemn. Study and explore respectfully and impartially to learn more about the history of humanity is the only right way.

TL:DR the video makes many valid points but also reaches when the truth doesn’t benefit OP’s biases and the intent is harmful but presented in a very calculated, polite manner.

[femgirlfriend]

lmfao they're saying this about ancient greece??? no they very much had those concepts and definitely engaged in "that kind of sex" and they weren't shamed per se it was more about if you have children and a family or not. the only difference was that heterosexual marriage was compulsorily and seen as a duty to the state because it allowed you to have children but they did have gay partnerships nonetheless this is such a myth i hate how people just don't read plato around here. womens rights were in the trash though but passive male partners were not in that trash at all they were still men with all the privileges. there was the athenian practice of older men getting boys but that's not all gay ancient greek history and that's just the average heterosexual marriage too anyway..... overall the idea that they lived with radically different mindsets is funny to me considering "the western world" and the way we live today has its roots in that very society, and you can see that in the way ppl act around women even today. like brother you wishhh you were that different

[nation-of-bros]

[source]

Disappointed by False Heroes

At this point I must also make it clear that I deeply disagree with Jack Donovan's idea of favoring monogamous heterosexual marriages in which husbands merely hang out platonically with other men in order to compete. He had originally sensed the right direction, but is trapped because of his Western conservative world of values, where as a man he wants to pathologically assert himself against lesbians in men's bodies for straight men without any androphilic tendencies are nothing else.

In his answer, Donovan briefly described to me that he hasn't called himself an androphile for a long time and rejects the idea of an androphilic community as "bad." Instead, as already mentioned, he is looking for the – in his opinion "ideal" – compromise in the said monogamous married life with women and a little competition around it as a sharpening of men's masculinity. Here too, there may be some truth in it, as with everything he says, since masculinity can only be shaped by comparing and emulating men who are perceived as typically masculine.

But marriage and the sexual fixation on women kills any form of cohesion between men! So the question is, what essentially holds his favored social model together other than mutual benefits? What if these lower material advantages no longer exist? What else, if not higher ideals, would motivate men to come together collectively with other men? Donovan completely ignores feelings between men and thereby denies their importance in our lives. On his website he even describes himself today as “sexually transcended”. What does this mean? Does he want to please straight men who don't give a shit about his masculinity anyway by dehomosexualizing himself for their fake favor, which is worth a shit?!

Why should they respect him for his masculinity, for his manhood, if they are only interested in women? Rather, they feel offended when a "homo" is more masculine than them, because the only thing they've ever learned as manly is fucking pussies, since they largely don't care about the array of other masculine attributes. But when they are suddenly faced with true masculinity, which exists completely self-sufficiently without being defined by pussyfuck, they can't help but react aggressively homophobic like bitchy dykes. No, they are not men just because they fuck women, they are just sperm donors, because to be men they have to love masculinity, and ultimately other men too. It is rather a shame that they controlled reproduction for generations, with correspondingly miserable results.

The Abrahamic concept of sin and LGBTQ+ are interdependent

Nevertheless, Donovan correctly recognized that boys and young men need male role models so that they don't become hysterical chicks with dicks. However, he misses the meaning of homosexuality. Every young person who emulates male role models experiences a certain level of sexual excitement about it. It's not at all unusual for many boys at this age to have same-sex fantasies and secretly fun with their mates. That doesn't have to mean that they don't like feminity, because basically sexuality isn't a fixed thing. But it shows that homosexuality and heterosexuality are not mutually exclusive.

The problem with our society today is that it draws insurmountable boundaries. Their conservatives nevertheless demonize homosexuality, thereby scaring many men into the left-wing rainbow world, which is not a real refuge for them, but rather a gathering place for defused beta males under the control of man-hating lesbians who are nothing else than straight dudes reincarnated in women's bodies and exchanging their former radical Abrahamic beliefs for a feminist ideology. Accordingly, homosexual men come from bad to worse: Their tormentors have just switched sex, so the situation remains unchanged.

I don't see Donovan offering a solution here, only the denial of androphilic feelings to fit into the Bible-tight worldview of conservative Americans who are generally unable to see any alternatives beyond their left and right oceans, separating their world, characterized by most extremes from the rest of the universe. With their idiotic belief in hell and sin, they themselves are the original source of the LGBTQ+ movement as the radical counterforce. They all don't understand that they depend on each other. My solution, however, is liberation from this polarity through an androphilic new order.

[rollercoasterwords]

I was just scrolling through your blog (because of your good fandom opinions), and I noticed that you majored in international studies! this is very random, but I wonder if you could talk more about what it is? (I never see other people who have studied it and would like a better explanation) (also no pressure!) (for me it's like... I study societies? it's interdisciplinary humanities??? idk. and history fits in very heavily)

sure!! so technically international studies/international relations is usually considered a subset of political science, so it's a social science whereas history is considered part of the humanities (or at least, that's the categorizations they fell into at my university). and international studies is essentially just the study of nation-states and international actors and the theories behind how they interact in the world. generally, in an i.s. 101 course you'll be taught the Big Three Theories, which are:

- realism (power is a zero-sum game, and all states are constantly competing for power and working to assure their own best interests)

- liberalism (power doesn't have to be a zero-sum game; states can cooperate and work to ensure their mutual interests)

- constructivism (rather than an outright focus on material interests and power, what drives states is their social and historical belief systems)

here's a link to a slightly more in-depth overview if ur interested

however, a lot of the i.s. field is very rooted in a western-centric and neocolonial worldview, where we get things like academics discussing "development" and measuring it based on the historical trajectory of colonizer states as though they're the model that other states should follow, which is...literally not possible unless u colonize people lol. like ummmm sure the u.k. and france and u.s. are more "developed" if ur rubric of measurement is shit like gdp....wonder how they amassed all that wealth....

anyway, despite its flaws, the field has had a turn more towards critcal theory in recent decades that i've found very promising and exciting, with more scholars developing marxist and feminist and postcolonial i.s. theories that challenge some of these problematic foundations and dominant modes of thinking in the field. and overall, it's an incredibly diverse field of study in the range of topics it spans. like, here's a quick overview of some of the things i studied while majoring in i.s.:

- how trump's racist migration policies worked to sustain state identity

- gender discrimination policy in india

- how traditional theories of state security contributed to violent conflict in bosnia + rwanda

- same-sex marriage policy in south america

- how traditional conceptions of state security contribute to gendered violence against migrant women

if u are noticing a pattern here....that is because i minored in gender studies lmao. also i really hate realism + traditional conceptions of state security <3

[strangerindunya403]

I totally hate the concept of you have to date for many years and then marry them. A majority of these people will sleep around, then date someone for 5+ years THEN Marry for love and then divorce. More than half of the nation has been divorced and many are in second or in their third marriages. They think that you have to “get to know” someone for 10 years then decide to settle down. And most of the time men are using these women for one night stands then throwing them aside. When you tell these people that you married within a month or few months they’re sooo bewildered. These same people who have failed marriages and high divorce rates. You literally can sit down with someone talk about your values, likes dislikes, and much more a few times and then if they align with you. You’re good to go. Islam is the solution to everything! I hate the western concept of marriage. On the flip side I hate parents who force their girls to marriage. Love doesn’t even last. Your lust for the person goes away but if you love for the sake of Allah and you both on deen helping each other. Having same values and morals it lasts. ✍️📝✏️

I agree. Once you are aware of the catastrophic effects of having too many options, it'll allow you to take a step back and analyse the grave consequences of constantly picking and dropping people like their tangible items.

People talk of marriage on social media but have no sabr nor any grit to work through challenges.

It baffles me how deluded certain individuals are. Invest in your mind before you go onto corrupt other people.

Zina has been normalised because of the fact that men and women refuse to take accountability. They follow their desires and emotions and think Allah will bless them.

"Wake me up for fajr" merchants won't like this but relationships aren't your tiktok algorithm or instagram reels. It is obedience to the Quran and the Sunnah and the islamic jurisprudence derived from them to navigate your ways.

[astropithecus]

In a vacuum, I love evolutionary sociology. I've talked before about finding comfort in things that are universally human, and I love the idea that our evolutionary history shaped us to be wired for social cooperation and some shared core values.

In the real world, I sort of hate it. Biosociology is a less empirical science than other forms of evolutionary biology, and a lot of literature in the field seems to suffer from motivated reasoning. In lay discussion on the internet, it's even worse. There, biosociology concepts, regurgitated only half-digested, are usually just a pseudo-scientific justification for oppression. Tenuous "hunter/gatherer" crap is used to ensconce Western gender roles in a sense of biological inevitability, like we have an imperative to always end up with men in charge and women in "supporting roles" in the narrative of humanity.

While early humans were hunter/gatherer cultures, the idea that men hunt and women gather isn't an accurate perception of how hunter/gatherer societies work. The idea that these roles are gender-linked is mostly just a public misunderstanding of some unfortunately titled scientific articles in the 60s and 70s (like "Man the Hunter" and "Woman the Gatherer"). So any evolutionary sociology hypothesis that starts with a supposition that "men were hunters and women were gatherers" is building from a flawed foundation, and that misconception is almost synonymous with "biosociology" for a lot of the public.

Looking at hunter/gather cultures like the Inupiat of Alaska's North Slope, we see labor doesn't divide so easily by gender. The whole concept that "men hunt, so they provide the meat, so they're in charge" falls apart - even in cultures where there are gender-linked tasks, there's an interdependence of roles that mean neither is viewed as successful without the other. In the Inupiat, the general perception is that without women, men can't hunt, or indeed even survive. From the link:

In pre-contact Iñupiaq society, there was no institutionalized way to live as an adult outside of marriage. How this was expressed within the system of ideas becomes clearer when listening to people talk about the consequences of losing a spouse. According to Bessie Ericklook of Nuiqsut, "This is what we have always known. When a mother loses a husband, she can sew, or she can get food by begging or working for it. But when a husband loses a wife, he can't do anything".

To sum it all up - from what we can observe, the division between being "a hunter" and being "a gatherer" is a blurred line. Humans of any gender are involved in both occupations, and there's no reason to believe "men as providers, women as caretakers" is biologically mandated. That misconception is taken for granted as an immutable truth far too often when the topic of biosociology is raised.

So, in short, I hope this book changes the world.

[thorne1435]

Heya, Random-Music-Anon here (as you christened me with that name). Just... Gonna drop you some more music and watch as you review em and give recommendations.

Hope you like it, includes a couple more pure EDM and foreign language songs 🧡

The Edge - Panicland

Rome Falls - Panicland

Same Graves - The Ghost Club

Secukupnya - Hindia

Where'd U Go - Illenium

The Edge: Yo, it's like All-American Rejects but, like, with a synth. I'm really fond of how the entire everything changes for the chorus. Like, the chorus and the verses are different songs, and that's cool. I'm not sure what all changed. The tempo, for one. I'm tempted to say the key changes also but actually I'm very bad at judging when a key changes, most of the time. It just makes this song more unique though and I like that. It should be said, that its chorus being significantly slower than the verses does sort of set up and then subvert the idea that the chorus will be significantly faster than the verses. This could be deliberate ("Edging" so to speak) or...they could've just had that chorus written down ages ago and wanted to use it somewhere but then they wrote a verse that was completely different and they just mashed them together because they really wanted both things to get used. I've done similar things before, so it sort of makes sense that it would happen with better composers than me.

Man, you'd fuckin love this band called half alive... Here, listen to this!

Rome Falls: Billie Joe Armstrong is that you?! Oh-- oh that's the joke?! Shit dude, I don't even know what to say. I was gonna do the same joke I did up there and recommend some green day song and then give you the link to something completely different but now I feel like that's lazy, because this is a style parody. But it's a really good style parody. Save for the opening. Green Day would never try to be that ornate, I've never heard a Green Day song with that kind of choral element or that vocal range.

Wouldn't it be so funny if I recommended Green Day anyway? I think it would.

Same Graves: You ever just listen to a song and hear the same basic concept as a country song you heard like 5-8 years ago? And you think "Well, I shouldn't say it, because if I do then everyone will know that I took note of a country song, and that's social faux pas." But you think about it, and like, it sticks with you. And then you think, "Hey, didn't a rap record say this, too?" And then you remember rock icons like Cobain who hated the celebrity worship aspect of music as a modern medium and how they would probably agree with the message, too. And then you think "Huh. I guess no matter how you make it big as an artist, if you manage to in the first place, your social life will become a dichotomous mixture of harsh criticism and blind devotion and you'll never be a person again, and artists probably go into it knowing it'll occur but needing money less than artistic expression." and then you go "Fuck. I hate capitalism. I want the art back. I want our peaceful existence back. I want life to be what it should be." And then you cry about it...

I'm sure that's a universal experience.

Anyway, uh, what were we doing? Music share? Oh, fuck, uh... take...this? I guess?

Secukupnya: Unfortunately, I don't speak Indonesian (or any other Austronesian language). So, I had to look up a translation of the lyrics, which is always sketchy when it comes to small artists and/or languages that have no real western presence like Filipino or, like, Romani or something. From what I can gather, though, this song is about life being fucking depressing. People living paycheck to paycheck, marriages being loveless and weathered beyond repair... but it's not about that alone. They're saying that it's better if we're all sad together (Bersedih bersama-sama) which I think means grieving what could have been as a community instead of as individuals. After all, everyone fails sometime (Kita semua gagal), so we all have something to be sad about. Sharing our problems with each other will make us feel better than just keeping it to ourselves and watching everything collapse in silence. I choose to believe this is a call to action for our communities to start caring about each other like we should: to start being communities. Because that is the based interpretation.

Well, I have sad music in another language also! Granted, it's Molchat Doma which kind of blew up a year or two ago, but...shut up.

Where'd U Go: Ah...EDM. I really liked the lo-fi drum set, about a minute in. But that usually isn't my style. Modern dance music seems to follow an easily-listenable formula and then gets really loud and full, with heavy emphasis on beats and percussion, which is pretty cool but I don't tend to like easily-listenable music, at least not in its modern iterations. I stand by it being valid art, all the same. It's just usually not as memorable to me as shit that I had to listen to a few times to actually understand what it was supposed to be. There's usually nothing to say about EDM. It's just music, specifically for listening. No real meaning outside of the sound itself. That's interesting, and I think it absolutely says something about humanity and "The Human Experience", just by virtue of existing. But it's not good for overanalyzing which is what I love doing to music, so, like...it's not for me. (unless it's really jazzy. if you put your edm on a blues scale i will suddenly pull a 180 and love it unconditionally)

That being said, sometimes I do like to no-thoughts-head-empty while listening to a piece so, uh, here. Take this.

[pinkhologramnight]

Are you Ready for your First Boyfriend.

Dating and friendship sections If you are serious about discovering love or making new pals, that is the section for you. I hate confrontation however love a very good debate. Anyway, "they" say that you should find a companion who loves your loved ones, treats you effectively, would make a great dad, and many others. however is that the be-all and finish-all? Besides finding an excellent webpage to satisfy beautiful girls for marriage, you may face difficulties in dating someone from a distinct nation and tradition. “Liking someone depends very much on that in-person ‘clicking,’ which is extraordinarily exhausting to foretell forward of time,” she informed me. Yes, I would like someone enjoyable to cling out with. Kayaking. Not only is it fun but also nice exercise! Sometimes I do, like if I've a really great book I want to learn. The Stones have just two children when the present premieres -- 14-year-previous Mary and 11-yr-outdated Jeff. That is the place the word "chemistry" comes into play since it has to do with two folks being (and feeling) compatible with each other.

In Western tradition, people typically look to the Mediterranean area as the beginning of human historical past, at least relating to civilization. Hinge is a dating app that’s “designed to be deleted,” which suggests it’s intended for people occupied with long-term relationships. נערות ליווי ברמת גן Shakespeare and Jane Austen, for instance, both grew to become famous writing about relationships. There have been quite a few relationships and marriages that ended on account of lies and deceit. In response to the Myers-Briggs persona take a look at first printed in 1943, there are 16 primary character types! 60s Tv. Take our quiz to test your knowledge of this traditional present! What does Reed do initially of every show? You may know Donna Reed from her function as Mary Bailey in "It's An exquisite Life," however Reed actually made simply as huge of a splash on television as she did on the massive screen. Please tell us if you discover any information about Bobby Wagner that's out of date. What's your concept of an ideal date?

It was a actually amazing expertise, and i loved that they have been my excellent journey buddy. Donna Reed deliberate to stop the present after season 4, so producers pitched a again-door pilot for neighbors David and Millie Adams in the season 4 episode, "The Wide Open Spaces." When Reed decided to proceed with her present, the brand new pilot was dropped. When Lesley Gore of "It's My Party" fame seems in town, throughout the season finale of the present, Jeff and Smitty attempt to get her to perform their track. With Phoenix Singles, you get personal service and attention while you need it. That is what you need to communicate to the man in your life (but please be gentle, and don't bring up any old baggage from the final dangerous relationship). Need a guest to your present or a quote to your article? James Darren makes a guest appearance as pop star Buzz Berry. While it’s comparatively simple to seek out out who is dating Leon Burns, retaining monitor of all his flings, hookups, and breakups is more difficult. Finding out who is dating Kamal Givens is comparatively straightforward, however holding monitor of his flings, hookups, and breakups is harder.

Maybe what it actually comes all the way down to is finding a man who has the identical values as you and desires the same things out of life, no matter they may be. He comes to town to carry out, however then comes down with the measles and must get better on the Stones' house. In a collection crossover, Dennis Mitchell exhibits up within the Stone house and gets in the way as Donna tries to decorate. Cooper Wrather, the title character in the collection Coop and Cami Ask the World, was a baby actor who landed a starring position in the collection Coop and Cami Ask the World as a baby actor. They later undertake a third child after Mary goes to varsity. Both of the little one actors on "The Donna Reed Show" were required to sing on high of performing in the collection. The present ran for 275 episodes over eight seasons, from 1958 to 1966. Reed pulled the plug on the collection with a purpose to spend more time along with her family. Each episode of the show opens with Reed answering the telephone, then passing the receiver to her husband, earlier than ushering him and the children out the door. They hold the door open for me.

[nightfoot]

So I’m not a historian, but I just finished posting my medieval AU fanfic that included a medieval trans character, so I thought I’d ramble a bit about some of the research I did prior to writing it.  There’s this idea that Western society believed in an absolute binary of men and women until Stonewall happened and introduced Western cis people to the concept of gender not being rigidly set in stone, but that’s just not the case.  So here’s a brief overview of some specific cases I found along the lines of “Medieval and early modern people were thinking about gender too.”

The first is the one I think about most often.  This is actually a little bit after the medieval period, in the 16th century, but still interesting.  There was a person in the little town of Vitry-le-Fran ois who lived as a man. He was married to a woman and worked as a weaver.  Tragically, his marriage lasted only 5 months before someone recognized him as “[birth name]” and he was tried and condemned (for the crime of using a dildo).  But, he was given the option to go back to wearing skirts and live as a respectable woman.  He rejected the offer, and chose to be hanged rather than live as a woman.

I just think about him a lot, and how much I wish he could come to the 21st century and see how the world has changed.  He is also the person I always think about when I see the claim that all trans men in history were just “women trying to live with more freedom.”  Because if it was only about trying to live a better life, then choosing any life at all would be better than death. 

The second story involves another person from France in 1601.  Thankfully, his chosen name was recorded - Marin began sleeping with a woman while they were both working as chambermaids in Rouen, but after a few weeks, he told her he was in fact a man, and proposed marriage.  Before their marriage, though, Marin was accused of sodomy for being a “woman” trying to marry another women.  However, he plead his case and asked for a medical examination, and after a genital exam, the doctor declared Marin had “a hidden but functional penis.”  I read this as him being intersex.  The court demanded he dress as a woman for 4 years in hope that the situation would clear up, but after those 4 years passed, he was allowed to go back to presenting as male, married his wife, and lived the rest of his life as a man.

This story is interesting because it demonstrated that people in 1601 were ready to accept “huh! sex and gender are complicated! I guess it is possible for someone to change from one thing to another!”

And the reason they accepted this is because of the “one sex model,” the idea that male and female are just two ends of a spectrum and all humans fall somewhere on that spectrum with the potential to shift position.  This model is not exactly correct, because they also believed that it had to do with body temperature and that if a woman’s body temperature raised too much she would spontaneously grow a penis, but it is very interesting that 400 years ago, academics realized that sex is much more complicated than “you’re either A or B��� but in our enlightened 21st century, we have to argue about that again.

Cross-dressing saints are also common in hagiography.  One example is Joseph von Schönau, a celebrated monk who joined the abbey of Schönau in 1187 after a life of travel in Europe and the Middle East.  What’s interesting is that during his deathbed confession, when he came clean to the priest about all his other secrets and sins in life, he said nothing about his sex.

There is another story I recall that, for the life of me, I can’t find the source for now.  In that one, a saint lives his entire life in an abbey as a man. During his life, a local woman accused him of fathering her child.  He could have easily disproved the accusation by explaining that he didn’t have a penis, but instead accepted the child as his and accepted the shame and disdain from his fellow monks.  They only realized he couldn’t have been the father after his death. 

My next two stories are fictional:

The first is the 13th century French story Roman de Silence.  This is the story of a woman whose father needed a son to inherit, so when she was born, he decided to raise her as a boy.  Throughout the story, personifications of “Nature” and “Nurture” argue over which of them determines who a person is.  Throughout the story, Silence becomes a knight, captures Merlin in a prophecy twist (of the “no man can defeat Merlin” sort), reveals her sex in the end and marries a king.  I actually think it’s more interesting to read Silence as a trans woman, despite being what we today would “assign female.”  She was assigned male by her father, and grows up feeling conflicted about this.

Silence isn’t an example of a real life trans masc knight, but the story overall is exploring the question, “What exactly is it that makes someone a man vs a woman?”  This says to me that Medieval People Were Thinking About This Too, and the idea that man and woman could be more complicated than looking at a baby’s genitals has been around for a long, long time.

My favourite fictional story is Yde et Olive, another 13th century French romance.  This one tells the story of Yde, a princess being forced into a marriage she hates.  Rather than go through with it, they dress as a man and run away.  Over the course of Yde’s adventures, they learn how to fight with a sword, take down bandits, and end up as a knight in a foreign king’s court.  The king is so impressed with Yde that he arranges for them to marry his daughter, Olive.  Yde confesses to Olive that the marriage will never work because of his sex, but Olive says she doesn’t mind and will keep their secret, which, y’know, #Bi Princess.  But someone overheard the conversation! And now the king will have them put to death for same-sex relations! (even though... he’s the one who insisted they marry).  Yde prays to God for a miracle, and God responds by magically transforming Yde into a cis man.  The day is saved and Yde lives happily ever after as a man with his wife.  They have a son named Croissant.

My research mostly focused on transmasc stories, but I have to at least add the suggestion to read up on Choisy, an 18th century French transfem person.  She wrote a novel (Histoire) about a child who was raised as a girl with no idea that having a penis meant people would think she was a boy.  When her mother eventually tells her that she is “male,” she simply does not believe it.  She goes on to marry a Marquis, and realizes she must tell him that she is allegedly male, only for the Marquis to tell her that he is, in fact, "female.”  They go on to live happily ever after as a t4t couple.

Anyway, as I said, I am not a historian and this is not academically rigorous, but some interesting stories I came across while researching.  I wouldn’t say any of these suggest that trans people were common and accepted by broader society throughout history, but they do show that people over the centuries have been thinking about gender, what it means to be a man or woman, and how the line between those can be blurry.  This is far from being a 21st century exclusive discussion.

Unfortunately, hand-wringing hysteria about trans people is also nothing new, because I also came across several instances of medieval writers fretting about the idea of “men disguising themselves as women to sneak into convents and have sex with nuns.”  Truly, the world never changes. 

Sources:

Ferguson, Gary. "Early Modern Transitions: From Montaigne to Choisy." L'Esprit Créateur 53, no. 1 (2013): 145-57.

Hotchkiss, Valerie.  “Clothes Make the Man: Female Cross Dressing in Medieval Europe.” Garland Publishing, 1996.

[absolutebl]

“I have loved you since before i knew what it was to want.” 

BL trope du jour 

Childhood Crush

Lovely Writer (Thai)

History 4: Close to You (Taiwan)

We Best Love (Taiwan)

Where Your Eyes Linger (Korea)?

Love Stage! (Japan)

Irresistible Love (China) 

Word of Honor (China) 

Minato’s Laundromat (Japan) 

Dear Doctor, I’m Coming For Your Soul - sort of, it’s paranormal and complicated (Thailand)

Mr Cinderella (Vietnam) 

Together with Me (Thailand) 

Cutie Pie (Thailand) 

DNA Says Love You (Taiwan) 

Cherry Blossoms After Winter (Korea) 

Enchante (Thailand) 

Kimi no Koto Dake Mite Itai (Japan)

Minato’s Laundromat (Japan)

With the possible exception of Where Your Eyes Linger (which I watched a long time ago and can’t really remember) all of the ones I screen capped actually depicted the younger selves on screen (with one or both protags recast with child actors). Characters that started pining in high school or university not included (like Star in My Mind, Bad Buddy, or Plus & Minus). 

This is a contentious one (it touches on taboo for a lot of people) and I think the source is not BL. It is in yaoi but mainly coupled to the stepbrother trope, and even there it’s not all that common. So I hesitate to call this a yaoi trope. 

Early live action “seed” yaoi adaptations out of Japan sometimes had this trope but didn’t actually depict the childhood, only referenced it (Takumi-kun & Forbidden Love come to mind). Thailand still does this, but often for side dishes like TulHin in A Chance at Love. 

This is one we occasionally see in western het historical romances from the 1980s and earlier, sometimes coupled with an arranged marriage. But usually the two child characters are depicted hating each other, not actually falling in love (or starting to). 

It is a Thing in het Asian romance dramas too. I think it has a lot to do with a prevailing culture concept that to know someone first means not only to know them best (or better than others), but to have a greater right to their affection and attention. 

The "I liked him first = I have a prior claim" idea. To have known a lover in childhood gives priority and preference to the nature of your affection (something cherished over time and having weathered the slings and arrows of puberty and adulthood). 

We love a piner. The longer the better. Who has had the crush the longest carries a ton of weight in a crushers right to the crushie - so far as the narrative is concerned.

We can actually see a form of this in fandom and fan behavior. The idea that somehow having discovered a band, or having liked that one Kpop group, longer than some other fan (or before they became famous) somehow makes you a better/superior fan, just because of longevity.

Back to childhood crushes in Asian dramas.

The burden of affection conferring obligation on the one who's being adored is also quite a common. In other words, "I like you, therefore my feelings for you are now your responsibility."

I have theories this has to do with the importance of filial love in collectivist cultures conferring higher value on longer term affections. But also that affection carries with it an obligation of physical care of the kind that adults might give children (from wound tending, to feeding, to sponge baths and beyond). Romantic intimacy is tied to what we (the west) would often think of more as expressions of parental affection. Therefore to tie romantic interest into childhood, in the form of a childhood friendship or crush, meshes extremely well if your concept of “what is romantic, or what comprises romantic gestures” is also somewhat... parental.

In BL we see this manifest as the seme often being the one with the long cherished (and acted upon) crush. The seme will also be handed the lion's share of the parental gestures of affection and care.

But it's not actually that uncommon in the western world either. There is this idea amongst friendship groups that "I liked him first, therefore you can't like him" - calling dibs. This is particularly common in early romantic relationships and younger friendship groups.

To have done a thing first carries tremendous weight of importance in the human psyche. We see "first by virtue of time" (as opposed to first by virtue of ability) cross culturally. It's like birth order. It's a status that anthropologists would call ascribed status (rather than achieved). I hope you can see how it might be particularly important in Asian cultures where to be older is to hold higher status no matter what, see linguistic honorifics.

To have loved longer, under these circumstances, is to hold higher status as a lover.

I have seen one drama face up to and challenge this notion: Thumping Spike. It's a noona romance and the guy who wins the girl is NOT the one who has had the childhood crush. He challenges the one who does have it, by saying something like, "if we valued love by who loved the longest, I should be married to the local grocery lady."

All of which is to say, it's so common a trope it's been called out for its own tropeiness.

Updated Sept 2022, not responsible for childhood pining after that date. 

(source)