#Western and Asian Gay Love

[raymencranpin17]

Come Home to ewa beach apartment guardian family to Mom and Brother always same safe home 91-1671 101 2017 Raymen Pin Angelic Jannlee and Rig Bayman and Leon Gay Love Enon Gabry Ponte Miani Indie Rock Sachen Carfend Lynda Trang Dai Park Yoochun Yuchun Youchun Jo in sung Zo in Sung So ji Sub No more everybody never hurt my granson Raymen alone anymore again okay Yes #RaymenPin #ComeMyWay #Enon #ParkYoochun #Joinsung #Zoinsung #Sojisub Never to Do Kyungsoo anymore Scam Rotton Whore okay Yes #SachenCarfend Choi Won Young Hate Everybody anymore much to me again I Britting Mark and Everybody no good Poor not hurt Raymen Pin 22 Years old December 31 2017 12/31/2017 Namie Amuro Sophie Monk Eng Jap Gay Couple Colby Rentren DOA5lr GTA 5 Castiel #GTA5Castiel 박유천 최원영 박기웅 #박유천 #최원영 #소피몽크 #絵音 Gay Crying Drama Hang on Raymen Bro okay Yes Joe Lucas Vance FT Uncle Waene 5/24/2018 Come back home be guardian family ゲイ泣きドラマ Milky Way Gabry Ponte David Paetkau Blue Polo Shirt White Pants Shorts Stocking Danny Lim Evan Ghang Keonjik Lee Peachmilky Be Bald and be easily calm okay Yes Innocent always Home soon okay Yes Kyosuke Kagami and Ingrid Taiyo Female Edit #WesternRibbonNecktie #KirbyCran #IndieRockEnon Marvey Ewa Beach Home play laptop anytime bro okay Raymen Young Teen Not a kid anymore okay Crying your Eyes Pain miss your Mom again to her okay Yes Legendary Lackey Shuttle In this City Cay Ratellite #CayRatellite #조인성 #소지섭 Hate Sam and Dean Both are creepo and Castiel Jack Gabriel Crowley Bobby no good guys anymore you Suffer Quit Fired okay Yes Justress always Home 김현우 #김현우 Bae Woo Sung Jung Woo Sung Not Two Both them no good anymore again okay Yes Fan Made Edit always my Family 21 22 Years old at 6 years ago okay Yes Joseph Lucas Ugly Eek Reverse Ryona okay Yes #LeifangJacket Leifang Kokoro and Marie Rose Kasumi tell DOA Male Character Come Zack Island okay Yes Young teen Boy handsome western cowboy plaid Polo Shirt always Home 12/24/2017 Crying I wanna go home to Mom Home ewa apartment okay Ive Killed Ice Wind to Back eft off away my granson Raymen alone you Stupid Pafetic Police Cops Asshole okay Yes Hilary duff Peachmilky Hilary Leifang Innocent Edit Gay Love Angelic Home soon okay Yes Release Raymen come home okay Yes Hate Crisis Shelter and Kiokie I Beat Him you asswipe My facebook friends Male Boy Man Loves always not other them anymore never again okay Yes Hat Straw tell Doctor Case Manager soon to Me Come home ewa apartment accept always okay Yes Akira and Jacky Gay Love Home 12/31/2016 Please come home always okay bro granson Colby Chunai Rachen Chunai Aaron Ashmore Shawn Brandon Routh Ed Burns #Kanggook #HomeComeMemory #SachenCarfend Paul Will Sonny Chandler Massey Freddie Smith Christopher Sean Relationship okay Yes Dealed with me always okay Yes Achiemedeh adiraoke Hat #DOA22hu34dGrandit #DOA56Crackit I Love boys Male Gay Crying Miss you Come Home back always Prayer Resurrection Cyclops and Iceman Scott Summers & Bobby Drake James Marsden Brandon Routh Christian Bale Returns Return Home soon always okay #TrandyCrewmen Craymen Pralo Craytren Randy okay Yes SBS MBC KBS TVN JTBS JBTS Phi Viet Volume 11 JTBC I Get I get i get Asshalfbraidwipe 蘇楷盛 ដា រ៉ូ សំណាង បឹងព្រីង ប្រុស ពៅ 더킹2017 코미웨이😭 #DOArig #AkiraDOA #JackyDOA #DOA5MichaelDesanta #DOA5Franklin #DOA5Trevor Roof Mech DJ Spyroof Tu vivi nell aria Teen Dance Pop DJ Techno France Khmer Cambodia Purple Blue White Red Lavender Indigo okay Yes model

[jabberwockprince]

saw some weird reblogs on my dash, so heres the friendly reminder that this user fuckin loves yuri yaoi fuyoshis fudanshis and so on and so forth ✌️

[pandoratheprocrasticreator]

ok see when i say luz and hunter are siblings i don't just mean like they hang out and make fun of each other sometimes. i also dont just mean they have parent-child connections with the same adults making them "found family siblings technically" or however people describe it. they can do that sometimes but what i mean is that they are blood brothers (east asian concept)

[happypotato48]

This Is A Gay Asian Rant About BL Comments Made By Some Queer Westerners I See Sometimes.

So you know of those gays (usually white) that made dumb tiktok dancing to list of countries that legalized same sex marriage and list of countries that discriminate against LGBTQIA+ poeple as a way to say something racist. yeah i kinda got the same vibes from some comments regard how asian BL is homophobic just cause they don't live up to queer western standard. look, i'm not saying that some BLs and their creators don't deserve criticism regard how they capitalized/exploited queerness for an easy cash grab.

But people need to understand that Asian countries despite recent progress are still very much culturally conservatives. so when people says that thai bl is homophobic and all the characters looks like bunch of straight guys, which is true for some olders thai BLs i'm not gonna denied that. but after all this time and newer BLs generally being very queer and most of creators being out queer themself and poeple still making these comments, i'm annoyed.

And don't get me start on the actors. you don't know them! why are you making assumption and calling them queerbaiter just cause they acts in bl. like maybe they're straight, maybe they're not but what they're definitely doing is making queer content for you know, queer people here. so when you made halfass comments about their sexuality what do you think that made other queer people who still in the closet feels. and when you add the nationality to that, "these thai bl pair are this and that, this korean actor is so ungrateful for his bl past", etc. when our societies are still very much still in progress regard LGBTQIA+ acceptance. it make us living here feels fucking awful like somehow we're lesser queer than people in the west just cause we don't have citibank at pride or some shit.

And the shittiest in my humbled opinion are comments regard censored chinese bls. people do know like, that the creators making these bls are risking their livelihoods for this. that these shows getting make at all are miracles. yes it sucked that they're censored but they're still very much queer shows making by queer people who want to express thier queerness despite the chinese government being the chinese government. when people dimissing these shows as not belonging in queer media, you're also dimissing their creators and audiences as not belonging in the community.

Look what i want to say is that we're trying our best over here, and maybe our best are not up to your liking. the ways we talk and express our queerness maybe still can be perceived as problematic by western queer standard. but these media are our house and you're the guests. for people aren't shitty we appreciated that you're here engaging and loving our media, this is your home too and you're welcome in it. i can speak for myself that i very much love being here on tumblr and interacting with people from all over the world who love BL. but for people who are being shitty sometimes about asian bl.

YOU'RE THE GUESTS, BEHAVE!

[sillysoliloquyshits]

I watched a few movie reviews on Nezha 2 and one of them on two white guys (iirc) doing a podcast on their surface thoughts on the movie kinda threw me off as one of them said 'one thing that was off-putting to me was a lot of onscreen crying' or something like that. Which is super off-putting to me actually.

I mean what do you mean? Your little brother or mother or wife just died in front of your eyes what do you mean you should not cry and it's not a natural response? Ao Bing cried into his dad at the start as he felt so awful for letting his dad down and his buddy nearly died if he didn't intervene. Ne Zha cried so hard when he saw his parents again because he really thought they were gone. Both kids are three years old for the love of God. And Shen Gong Bao is a literal family man he has a soft spot for his little brother of course when he died trying to escape he had to cry so much and to be honest, I've watched videos of how the animation team spent a long time animating and planning the crying scene for him to ensure it's perfect. The creative team has spent so long to ensure every detail to actually ensure the whole story and every shot and scene will have a lasting emotional impact to touch the audience.

And another thing that's also respectable is how the team and the story in general is very committed to fleshing out the characters and ensuring they are all very relevant to the plot and have their own personal stories in a sequel, which is not often seen nowadays given how hard it is to make a better sequel (but that's another story and post I digress, but anyway-)

What I'm trying to say is that we all need more stories of boys openly crying. The only other movies off the top of my head I can think that has boys openly crying are maybe Coco, or Luca and maybe HTTYD, and I feel Nezha 2 has done a great job in showing the different sides of healthy masculinity, in how it's okay for boys to ugly cry and for dads to be tough on the exterior while also being very caring and gentle to their own sons, and for close brotherhood bonds being a soft side of characters. And it also dispels a stereotype in how Asians are often stoic and not as emotional as westerners, as while a lot of Chinese and Asians are quite stoic, there are plenty of people who see themselves in Ao Bing and Ne Zha and etc.

And I also saw a post earlier on how Ne Zha and Ao Bing defy societal rules and societal expectations respectively, with Ao Bing doing so by being outwardly feminine in looks and being elegant while precise and aggressive in his attacks and still being able to be confident in his self, while Ne Zha has been insecure in his own looks until the end. And personally I feel the movie is a great place for kids and boys especially to learn that masculinity can be anything they can define, like how one can be more confident like Ao Bing even when he's not traditionally masculine, while knowing it's okay to be insecure and that they can overcome judgements in society.

And with their friendship and loyalty to each other (and possibly *cough* *gay* *it's ok if you don't ship them*), it also teaches boys that male friendships can be very close knit where they can be vulnerable to one another, like how Nezha soon learnt to be vulnerable around Ao Bing and how Ao Bing learnt to follow his heart through Ne Zha's influence. Boys can learn from one another and become emotionally stronger together like it's not just a girls thing yay-

So yeah this is another long ramble but tldr again:

Nezha 2 is a fantastic movie on healthy masculinity and we need more movies like this for boys especially to learn that expressing strong emotions are very healthy and essential in being a person. And we need to punch toxic masculinity to death the way Lu Tong and He Tong did at the end to the bald bitch so-

[bigbeanbear]

Nimona is also a milestone in western queer animation history because Ballister (South Asian) and Ambrosius (East Asian) are both of Asian descent in the movie, the same as their voice actors. They are a canon gay Asian couple.

[papenathys]

Funny that artists/writers really think that making their protagonists messy and disaffected and utterly divorced from any pride in their identity (be it religious, ethnic, sexuality or gender) is something profound and novel in modern publishing. To put it bluntly, practically no tradpub best selling genre fic or contemporary literary fiction in the past couple of years (except for the most tokenistic rep books catering to younger audiences) have the characters show any kind of meaningful relationship to their identities or communities any more. People LOVE reading the Fleabag Sally Rooney Otessa Moshfegh variety of disaffected apathetic personhood, where the protagonist just sort of ambles around without any ideological integrity or ties to community, unless the community is some sort of half assed queer "found family". Like Nicola Dinan said in Bellies, the best kind of novel and the best kind of minority identity that functions well in Western literary contexts is the identity that is fractured, apathetic and/or unattached. That, or the most soulless normie identity capitalism ("Asian fantasy", "queer rep cottagecore")

Everybody now is internally conflicted about their identity, doesn't believe in labels because that's cringe, and is a normal, non stereotypical person, aka has no ties to any sort of thing that might localize them, contextualize them trans historically or trans culturally. To even dare to do so is to "limit your audience" or "imply that minorities are a monolith". It's ok to talk about writing diverse lesbian fiction as a non lesbian author without ever using the word lesbian in your contemporary romance novel but using every slur imaginary in the book, as you have reclaimed it. It's ok to say your existence is inherently political as the writer of kinky gay smut while jilling for racist imperialist politicians on social media and guilt tripping people of color. It's ok to gain praise from western audiences about your mango diaspora "desi" history-inspired novel that completely erases every facet of anything remotely resembling Indian history and culture except maybe a lehenga and a man called Raja. It's even ok to use the prevailing politics of the day to speak about the collective trauma of your people when the only thing you have ever done is benefit from the oppression of your people and show off for the imperial core. It's ok. This is because minorities are not a monolith and representation is not for everyone and the evil people on the internet are policing you.

[throwing-roses-into-the-abyss]

I am right now still watching:

Sunset x Vibes

Love Sea

The Trainee

My Love Mix Up TH

Meet You At The Blossom

Ayaka is in Love with Hiroko

The Secret of Us

Century of Love

4 Minutes

and, again: WHY ARE THERE SO MANY

ok I finished watching the rebound, and with col and love sea's last eps coming up I'm finally gonna free up some space for.

well.

other shows. (WHY ARE THERE SO MANY.)

[olderthannetfic]

On the topic of asexuality:

I have literally never experienced attraction and I thought it was normal. I thought that, of course I didn't experience the lowkey depraved romance and sex depicted in American shows. I'm Asian, not a slutty westerner! My absolute categorical lack of desire must be because I'm a normal, proper Asian. (lmao) I was firm in my stance, because my friends also didn't experience attraction.

Years later, I discover that most of my peers did experience romantic and sexual attraction as teens. I just coincidentally had the biggest ace spec friend group at school at the time.

The less funny thing is that, the more I grew, the less "normal" I felt. I knew that "normal" people fell in love and dated, I knew that "normal" people married happily and willingly, I knew that "normal" people found others hot. While I do think that culture can affect the way attraction manifests, it's actually pretty easy to tell when it just... isn't happening? And that can be alienating.

If I wasn't hanging out on tumblr to practice my English, I likely wouldn't have known the word "asexual" or that there was a name to my experience, that I wasn't just "weird" or "immature" or even "broken." Anyway, I'm glad that young adult me excitedly came out to my friends because they also soon discovered their own asexuality 😂 Thank you tumblr, for the brief period where you were the go to for fannish gay porn

--

[raymencranpin17]

Come Home to ewa beach apartment guardian family to Mom and Brother always same safe home 91-1671 101 2017 Raymen Pin Angelic Jannlee and Rig Bayman and Leon Gay Love Enon Gabry Ponte Miani Indie Rock Sachen Carfend Lynda Trang Dai Park Yoochun Yuchun Youchun Jo in sung Zo in Sung So ji Sub No more everybody never hurt my granson Raymen alone anymore again okay Yes #RaymenPin #ComeMyWay #Enon #ParkYoochun #Joinsung #Zoinsung #Sojisub Never to Do Kyungsoo anymore Scam Rotton Whore okay Yes #SachenCarfend Choi Won Young Hate Everybody anymore much to me again I Britting Mark and Everybody no good Poor not hurt Raymen Pin 22 Years old December 31 2017 12/31/2017 Namie Amuro Sophie Monk Eng Jap Gay Couple Colby Rentren DOA5lr GTA 5 Castiel #GTA5Castiel 박유천 최원영 박기웅 #박유천 #최원영 #소피몽크 #絵音 Gay Crying Drama Hang on Raymen Bro okay Yes Joe Lucas Vance FT Uncle Waene 5/24/2018 Come back home be guardian family ゲイ泣きドラマ Milky Way Gabry Ponte David Paetkau Blue Polo Shirt White Pants Shorts Stocking Danny Lim Evan Ghang Keonjik Lee Peachmilky Be Bald and be easily calm okay Yes Innocent always Home soon okay Yes Kyosuke Kagami and Ingrid Taiyo Female Edit #WesternRibbonNecktie #KirbyCran #IndieRockEnon Marvey Ewa Beach Home play laptop anytime bro okay Raymen Young Teen Not a kid anymore okay Crying your Eyes Pain miss your Mom again to her okay Yes Legendary Lackey Shuttle In this City Cay Ratellite #CayRatellite #조인성 #소지섭 Hate Sam and Dean Both are creepo and Castiel Jack Gabriel Crowley Bobby no good guys anymore you Suffer Quit Fired okay Yes Justress always Home 김현우 #김현우 Bae Woo Sung Jung Woo Sung Not Two Both them no good anymore again okay Yes Fan Made Edit always my Family 21 22 Years old at 6 years ago okay Yes Joseph Lucas Ugly Eek Reverse Ryona okay Yes #LeifangJacket Leifang Kokoro and Marie Rose Kasumi tell DOA Male Character Come Zack Island okay Yes Young teen Boy handsome western cowboy plaid Polo Shirt always Home 12/24/2017 Crying I wanna go home to Mom Home ewa apartment okay Ive Killed Ice Wind to Back eft off away my granson Raymen alone you Stupid Pafetic Police Cops Asshole okay Yes Hilary duff Peachmilky Hilary Leifang Innocent Edit Gay Love Angelic Home soon okay Yes Release Raymen come home okay Yes Hate Crisis Shelter and Kiokie I Beat Him you asswipe My facebook friends Male Boy Man Loves always not other them anymore never again okay Yes Hat Straw tell Doctor Case Manager soon to Me Come home ewa apartment accept always okay Yes Akira and Jacky Gay Love Home 12/31/2016 Please come home always okay bro granson Colby Chunai Rachen Chunai Aaron Ashmore Shawn Brandon Routh Ed Burns #Kanggook #HomeComeMemory #SachenCarfend Paul Will Sonny Chandler Massey Freddie Smith Christopher Sean Relationship okay Yes Dealed with me always okay Yes Achiemedeh adiraoke Hat #DOA22hu34dGrandit #DOA56Crackit I Love boys Male Gay Crying Miss you Come Home back always Prayer Resurrection Cyclops and Iceman Scott Summers & Bobby Drake James Marsden Brandon Routh Christian Bale Returns Return Home soon always okay #TrandyCrewmen Craymen Pralo Craytren Randy okay Yes SBS MBC KBS TVN JTBS JBTS Phi Viet Volume 11 JTBC I Get I get i get Asshalfbraidwipe 蘇楷盛 ដា រ៉ូ សំណាង បឹងព្រីង ប្រុស ពៅ 더킹2017 코미웨이😭 #DOArig #AkiraDOA #JackyDOA #DOA5MichaelDesanta #DOA5Franklin #DOA5Trevor Roof Mech DJ Spyroof Tu vivi nell aria Teen Dance Pop DJ Techno France Khmer Cambodia Purple Blue White Red Lavender Indigo okay Yes model All Get JTBC

[evilbeepthemeep]

You know after watching James Somerton's dog shit Killing Stalking vid, I don't know how people didn't notice the racism.

He literally just analysed it from a western culture lens and divorced it from the culture it did come from.

As well as refusing to do any research into why it's classed as a romance. Pretending that straight women and the publishers were behind the categorisation of it as a romance. When it was marketed as a Boy's Love manhwa in its native country of South Korea. Meaning the whole point was you are meant to ship the characters together. Plus Boy's Love is a genre for a majority female audience. Who are mostly queer in some way.

He also complained about the sex scenes. Like the sex is there for people to get off to. Because even porn can have artistic merit and be a horror story. Sex and horror go hand in hand after all.

The most egregious thing was him bringing up an interview Koogi did in 2018 while KS was still being serialised to prove it wasn't a love story. Completely ignoring a different interview she did in 2019 once the story was over to confirm Sangwoo loved Bum.

Throughout that god-forsaken video he kept mispronouncing the characters names. Like he kept calling Bum things like bomb and balm while also always calling him Yoonbum, when Yoon is actually his family name and Bum is given name. And forever saying Sangwo instead of Sangwoo unless I'm wrong about that but I doubt it.

His anti Asian racism is so fucking blatant the only reason people didn't fucking say anything because it was hating on a comic that they disliked for being queer in the wrong way.

So if you did like James Somerton and didn't notice the racism, please check your biases. Talk to those of us who are into BL as a genre and actually listen to us when we say it's not straight girls fetishising gay men. It's usually queer people who enjoy our media to be different from what the West has to offer. Most of us aren't white either.

And if you liked the Untamed, I'm sad to break it to you but that was also a BL novel written by a woman who wrote kinky gay sex.

[telugu-girl-13]

so...i just watched wicked! here's my review, with the goods and the bads. these are more or less in order. major spoilers for wicked below!!

disclaimer: i watched and am talking about this movie as a person who has not watched the plays or any content related to wicked before, and just knows the story of the wizard of oz. i didn't even know the wicked witch of the west's name was elphaba before this movie came out (it's never generally mentioned okay 😭) so that is how clueless i am. however, im kinda glad about that, because otherwise much of the plot might have been somewhat anticlimatic.

additionally, i am a naturally cynical person and even if i love something, i feel the need to point out all its flaws, so bear with me!

below the cut! bullet points because i felt like it

wicked was an overall amazing movie and experience, ariana and cynthia were outstanding, and i absolutely cannot wait for the second movie!

the introduction with the munchkins celebrating elphaba's death had me expecting her to die throughout the whole movie, i was almost certain there would be tears. BUT IM SOO GLAD SHE DIDNT!

elphaba being the child of a secret alcoholic affair was NOT expected, nor did i expect that to be shown. (plus it escalated so fast) random, but i had to say it 😭 and im sorta glad her moms not alive anymore

at first, i expected nessarose to be that one person in elphaba's childhood, i was actually really surprised when she wasn't. still, an interesting character who needs more recognition!

the fact that the movie was directed by an asian director has me so happy, because i also saw a lot of representation in the background cast! different skin colors, body types, hair colors (GINGER REPRESENTATION LMFAO), we got them all! and i was SUPER happy about that!

one of my new favorite quotes is 'well, bock, i believe strangers...are just people i've never met *hair flip walks off*'. like GALINDA HELP 😭😭🙏🏽🙏🏽 whyd i actually expect that to be some sort of inspirational quote loll

is there a reason why all the male extras were so zesty? like i swear, ALL OF THEM WERE GAY FOR FIYERO (and fiyero was flirting back). ESPECIALLY THAT ONE ASIAN DUDE WHO BECAME FRIENDS WITH GALINDA IN THE BEGINNING, his lines had me rolling lmfao

not the popular boy x popular girl until popular boy actually falls for the nerd girl trope...whyyy...also fiyero lowkey gave flynn rider vibes with that entrance (but i havent watched tangled either cuz i dont have a life or a disney account sooo)

madame morrible using elphaba, and the wizard being powerless? that was not expected ( though my dad anticipated madame morrible being 'evil' from the beginning, hes smarter than me )

someone would say 'save the turtles!' to elphaba and she'd be like oF cOuRsE and be so confused why everyones laughing 😭

"we're...friends. best friends" babes your lesbian i need them to both ditch fiyero and get together

defying gravity is HANDS DOWN my favorite song. NO ONE can convince me otherwise. its the most dramatic song, its at the very climax, and ITS MEEEE will always be playing in my head

SO IF YOU CARE TO FINDDDD MEEE LOOOK TO THE WESTERN SKIEEEES

fuck glinda and elphaba themes (unless someone wants to match freaks with me) A SHIZ THEMED 300 FOLLOWER EVENT (thats never happening forget i said that)

i need to see how glinda became the good witch and see elphaba saving the turtles animals cant wait for the next movieeee

anyway, thats it gbye! (ill probably edit this if i remember more stuff)

ps. i am extremely sorry to the people sitting near me in the theater who probably had to hear me sing a few times :P

[marengogo]

Rambling in INFJese - Part 10: Queerful In South Korea

SGMB and RPWP focused playlist

[Music is a very big part of my life and I’m MOSTLY INCAPABLE of writing without music, so I just thought I'd share what I am listening to while writing this]

🐺 — 🐺 — 🐺—

Gurls, Bois and Enbies … Hellooooooooooo 📢 Yes, I’m finally, officially, back from my travels.

Am I feeling relaxed and refreshed?

NO.

In fact, I’m pretty sure I’m more tired than when I left 😬. You see, there was more excitement than I thought, or even budgeted for, but, lowkey highkey I knew it was going to turn out like that, so, it was what it was and it was unforgettable 😊💜. 

Now, on to the topic of today!

As the title kinda spoils, I would like to bring forth the topic of queerness in present day Korea, touching upon specific sub-subjects within this main-theme, which you will discover as you keep reading.

In order to provide more context and understanding, I’ll have to bring up a bit of Geography, a tad of Politics and a lot of History, and let me make this clear, even though I have been out of politics for quite some time I used to be very invested in world politics … I am presently indeed somewhat annoyed, because there seems to be a lot of misinformation that has been going around with regards to what it might mean to be gay/queer person in South Korea, in the big year of 2024, which is why I’d also like to encourage us to be proactive and do some research, on our own, with the available resources that are out there. I know it sounds heavy, but I promise I’ll try and make it as least cumbersome, and as much relatable to what might concern all Queer people, and JK and JM of course, as possible ✌🏾.

Let���s start with some Geography.

Asia … is a big ass continent. Because it is so big, amongst the people who make these kind of decisions, it was decided that this continent would have to be divided into 5 regions: Central, East, South, Southeast and West. The regions we are going to be concerned with are East and Southeast also known as ASEAN. The East has a total of 8 countries, out of which we are going to focus on 4 being; China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, while the Southeast has a total of 11, out of which we are only going to concentrate on 1, being Thailand … aaand that was all for Geography; painless right?

Great. So now it is time for some of History. We are now going to be talking about the history of the BL genre and the Queer art genre within two particular cultures; Eastern and Western.

BL, otherwise known as Boy’s Love, is a genre that was born in Japan in the 1970s. To properly discuss the world of BL it would take way too many blogs, so I’m afraid I won’t delve too deep into it, but in order to proceed with our discourse I need for everyone to at least understand the substantial difference between, for example, a series like The Eight Sense and Heartstopper. The first is a BL and the other is a Queer Coming-of-Age Drama. These two series are the I most point out very positive outcome of a lot of struggle and progress within both the BL and Queer art genre through the years.

The East and BLs - BL was created by women to be consumed by other women in Japan. It had nothing to do with creating content for gay/queer people, and this is very fundamental for everyone to understand. The thing is that it doesn’t matter where in the world you are, if you are or were a girl/woman you know the struggles are real. Different parts of the world deal with this frustration in different ways, and Japan and eventually the other 4 Asian countries I listed above found this to be one of them. The BL genre is basically having two men in a forbidden relationship, driven by mad passion, and who would always choose each other over the rest of the world. Star crossed-lovers where one of them would always be the Seme/Top or male-male and the other the Uke/Bottom or female-male. At the core of it all, BL was intended to be escapism, which eventually turned into fetishism and now can be all the above and something else entirely; evolution aye?

Mainly Asian women perhaps used BL to feel like their opinions and emotions could matter, in an environment where like also many other countries in Africa men are the ones that have the last say, or just any say at all. So they fulfilled their fantasy of being heard, and having power, while at the same time having the “strongest/most ideal” of men fall desperately in love with this male version of themselves. It is obviously much more complex than my two line sentence explanation, but for now, kindly keep this image in your mind.

Moving on!

The West and Queer Art - The queer genre in the West for the longest time was almost always a guaranteed tragedy. Interestingly enough, even though the first movie that mentioned homosexuality was in the 1960, the beginning of Queer culture in movies was, also for the West, in the 1970s. I can’t tell you the amount of books and films I have read and seen in my day says the woman in her thirties LOL and, despite the heart-wrenching looming tragedy, I would still enjoy finding comfort during those few chapters/scenes when the couple/pairing was happy, even though I knew for a fact that either one of them or both would die, or be eternally separated, or some other kind of tragedy.

The funny thing is that I would just accept it, because why not? Is not like my reality showed any different. It wasn’t like I was aware of happy and successful queer people around me, so why would I expect to read or watch anything else? Also I am a nasty ass angsty person so really I have no excuse. 

… are y’all following me thus far?

Now, let’s take a bit of a leap into the 2000s where money-makers finally clocked in on the fact that there is mad-money that can be made with BL in the East and Queerness in the West. In the East we start adopting fanservice within boybands and Asian-Dramas, we start printing thousands of BL mangas, and producing as many animes to match. In the West we keep having the token queer comedian appear on every show as well as making movies of historic queer figures who have impacted the world somehow, so that the queers can feel represented, even though all the actors are for the most part straight, because at this point in time, even though we acknowledge that Queer people exist, coming out is still very meh.

As the 2000s progress and we enter the 2010s thanks to actual progress within some western countries, the interweb and social media it becomes increasingly easier for an Eastern Fujoshi/Fudanshi/Fujin (Bl lover girl/boy/enby) to find themselves in say the UK, which has areas that breathe queerness and queer history and for a Western Queer to find themselves in say Japan where they can easily buy a manga about “queers” in happy relationship or, somewhere in South Korea, can easily see two very attractive boys/girls from a random kpop band openly kiss.

And then, in the midst of this “cultural” exchange, and awakening, something happens.

The Eastern Fujoshi/Fudanshi/Fujin realise that there are actual real queer people in the world sounds stupid, but believe me, it is not. That queer people are not just characters in a book, or anime, and that in fact there really are people in the world who are for example of the same sex and truly wanna be together and, if gay, for example, can also be both very masculine and still want to be together. At the same time the Western Queer realise that they actually can be happy, and that they deserves a happy ending, because some of this BLs aren’t half as bad and they sometimes make valid points and then you find out that actual queer people are now also writing BLs so things start to make some sense. 

As I mentioned, society was also changing, Queer people in the West started gaining a few rights, such as being able to get married in America and some European countries, and as a consequence, in the following decade, we now have series and movies that have Queer protagonist, with happy endings to boot! In the East, things are either not moving at all or moving a bit differently, or kinda slowly, but still it is movement. Within the countries that are moving differently, talking about Queerness is still heavy but has finally become something that they “don’t mind” just talking about and the gay neighbour is actually seen as the gay neighbour, whether they will talk to them is debatable, but at least they are recognised as such and not absurdly explained away or their existence ignored.

Now back to geography. The reason why I mentioned those 5 countries (China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand) is because at some point in the 2010s they were the main producers, and consumers, of BL within the Asian continent, and yes, while still being hella homophobic and, but let’s be real for a second, queer people have been around since the beginning of time, so even though BL was made and intended for women, our Queer Eastern Siblings would find a way to secretly also consume BL, being the closest thing to reading about a queer relationship, so added to the westerner consumption as well, it is no surprise that these 5 countries suddenly had a boom, despite having been being homophobic. 

Hence, it can be said that these 5 countries were on the same wavelength in the early 2010s, but what about now? With the considerable change in behaviour and thought with regards to Queer people in these countries in the early 2020s where do these 5 countries stand with regards to their Queer people and politics? Well, China has now banned BLs entirely, and I will not delve into their further lack of queer rights. Taiwan and Thailand have legalised Queer marriage. Then there is Japan which is making progress towards trying to legalise Queer marriage with to my greatest joy a successful ruling that happened this year in March related to same-sex unions … so, what about South Korea?

Well … SK is so close 🥹 … Yet so far 😫

It’s like they are taking 4 steps forward and 3 steps backwards, constantly. They are well far from China-levels which is a fucking relief I tell you! but they are dragging their feet to be at Japan-levels (and Japan is very close to Thailand and Taiwan Queer status currently). Yet, it is not as negative as it seems, or as some people try to portray it. You look around social media and they depict SK as if it were China. SK is currently facing a situation where it notices that things are changing and change is scary y’all. Resistance is the usual reaction to change, and the older generations, mainly those led by the Christian groups are not really where is at. SK’s youth and older liberal generations hold the answer to the Queer Korea questions.

So what exactly makes SK look hopeful? Well, time to get back to some History again 😘

The first Queer organisation in SK was formed in 1993 by 3 gay men and 3 lesbian women. The following year the 6 separated into 2 groups and formed the first gay organisation and the first lesbian one respectively. In 1997 we have the first demonstration for gay and lesbian rights, which then lead into 2000, the year of the first Pride Parade, which is one of the events of the very first Seol Queer Culture Festival Daegu Queer Culture Festival will be created in 2009, do keep this in mind … but another major event happened in the year 2000.

Y’all know that saying X walked so that Y could run? Well Hong Seok Cheon was basically forced to walk so that Queer Korean could learn how to properly train to run.

Though Seok-cheon is presently back to being somewhat popular again, his coming out was pretty traumatic. His career as comedian/actor started in 1994 and he was quite popular which landed him a good number of acting roles, and a lot of placements in comedy shows, as well as a kids show. In 2000 he was asked about his sexuality and he had no qualms in replying that he was gay. The show editors decided to cut out that part but a journalist gotta love them 🙃 got a hold of the footage and forced him to “elaborate”. Upon confirming, Seok-cheon lost all his jobs and was shunned verbally abused, discrimination and the lot, oh yes … by his own country. 

Not surprisingly, given that nobody in his own country wanted to interact with him, he at first thought of moving to the US to start afresh, but then decided against it. Seok-cheon decided to stay and prove to everyone in his country that he could make it and be successful again. And that he did. In 2002 he opened the first of what now is a high end chain of 9 restaurants in Itaewon. 2004 he joined the Democratic Labor Party and was selected by Time magazine as the Asian Hero of that year and in the following years Seok-cheon will keep racking up achievements  🎶🎵Did you see my bag? Did you see my bag? 🎶🎵 Namean?! (I’m not gonna list them all but you should definitely look him up and learn a bit about him, if you are interested).

But how does that connect to today? In 2008 he started his own talk show Coming Out and though there was a bit of resistance at the beginning as expected, the youth came in force and he started gaining audiences and boom! He was back on TV and slowly he’d get also a few cameos on prominent media, such as the Netflix drama Itaewon Class. Now let’s leave the lime-light for a second and let's look at the military 😬. It is vitally important that people understand that being gay is not illegal in any of the 5 countries we’ve been talking about yes, even China, but the public opinion and beliefs of each country greatly influence how their queer communities are thought of and treated.

Now, SK Military has become pretty infamous within the queer community for conducting witch-hunts in order to find out and humiliate gay soldiers, so much so that organisations such as Amnesty eventually had to step in. That being said, let's be real real real for a second. Though it is appalling what they have done to the queer soldiers, the SK military was also very famous for hazing, assaulting, causing cadets regardless of sexuality to want to unalive themselves and what more. All of the aforementioned, which put SK’s military on the map in a not so positive light globally, added to the increase in suicides, made the government address the situation, and they eventually came up with solutions such as the buddy system, which was first implemented in 2003. But, back to the gays. The most popular witch-hunt happened in 2017 where two soldiers amongst others were outed, but these particular two were found guilty of having sex off-base, during off hours.

In 2022 this conviction was overturned, the soldiers were no longer guilty and it is now no longer illegal, for queer soldiers, to have sex off-base during off-hours. You know what else happened in 2022? SK aired their first Queer reality shows, one being To Me(a)rry Queer and and the other being His Man. In 2023, His Man 2 will give us our first successful real-life queer couple, who are our beloved couple Junseong and Seongho (together known as Junseongho). They are the first queer couple to ever appear on Dazed magazine and we are all familiar with Dazed, it is not the front page like our boys get, but we all know how big of a deal this is, right?

You know what else happened in 2023? Remember that Daegu Queer Culture Festival I was talking about? The Mayor of Daegu (big Christian sympathiser) tried to stop this festival which includes the Parade and many other events, even though the Court ruled it was okay for the Festival to be carried out. The Mayor gathered other supporters and pulled up to the group, but the Daegu Police protected the Festival and removed the mayor and his “friends” from the premises. This was big and made news worldwide. 

In fact, Daegu’s Queer Culture Festival is the second largest one in the country, after Seoul’s. This is mainly possible because the Local Authorities (such as the police) are quite independent in belief from their present Mayor and the Christian factions. In contrast, for example, Busan’s Queer Culture Festival had a two year run but was then cancelled in 2019. Unfortunately, in Busan, The Mayor, the Local Authorities and the Christian factions are buddy-buddies making it much harder to get protection and permissions, aaaaaand things like that, kids, is why it is super important to vote for your local administration as well.

Even though these are all very important stepping stones, SK is nowhere close to being the UK, obviously. The LGBTQ community still has to get all their core rights being legalised, and queer people can still be subject to random ass attacks, such as the singer Holland had in 2022, which, by the way, also still occasionally does happen in the UK and everywhere else in the Queer World. Which is a general minority reality I’m afraid.

Furthermore, it is still illegal to have sex on base, which the country maintains that they are upholding because they are trying to prevent possible sexual assaults not too mad about this tbh, which is a valid concern, but most importantly they now know that the world is watching and why is that important? Because, for example, even though they are now separated, one of the boys from the Me(a)rry Queer couples enlisted around the same time with JK & JM and from his posts and photo-booth pictures that other soldiers posted of him, he seems to be making friends and to be comfy as comfy as you can get while serving, kinda like Joonie and most likely JM & JK

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A post shared by 박보성 (@park_bosung)

Not quite the attitude of someone fearing a witch-hunt, right? But then again, there isn’t much to hunt when you are already out, it is afterall illegal to hunt people and the world is now aware; is there? …

Now back to the general people of SK. According to a survey conducted in 2023 last year, 56% of South Koreans still oppose same-sex marriage (in comparison with only 26% of Japanese). 56% is not bad but then 72% don’t want queer people in their neighbourhoods and  workplace, though 81% think that it is not right to terminate people because of their sexual orientation 4 steps ➡️3 steps ⬅️… … … Basically it’s okay to be queer here as in SK, but not here-here, perhaps over there like a queer only neighbourhood or something which at the moment is the Itaewon district. 

So yes, 2024 Queer SK is still struggling though they are not going to be overtly nasty about it, because the world is watching. I mean, don’t get me wrong, progress is progress and we love to see that, it is actually amazing, but there still needs to be a general environment where LGBTQ rights in SK need to be recognised and for queer Koreans to not be discriminated against in their social/work/family life. It is also great that Queer media is trying to transition more and more from only BL to actual Queer Drama, for example I am really looking forward to watching Love In The Big City which btw also stars Kim Go Eun.

There is still work to be done, but I think Jung Cueri, a lesbian woman who helps with the Seoul Queer Culture Festival, says it best (here is the full article https://www.dw.com/en/why-are-south-koreans-less-welcoming-of-lgbtq-neighbors/a-68698268 ):

“I think the attitudes of younger generations of Koreans are getting better," she said, pointing out that young LGBTQ+ individuals "tend to come out sooner to their families, in their workplaces and schools than my generation because they are more aware of their sexuality through social media and exposure to various discussions that are more tolerant of LGBTQ+ people." And the cultural festival can help to be a catalyst to change further, she believes. "It will get better," she said. "And that is why the organizers and everyone else involved in the festival are working so hard; they know that Korean society will get better, and they want to contribute to that.

From where I stand it seems Hopeful, Queerful, if you may.

So, Fighting!, Queer South Korea!

Always respectfully yours,

Marengo. 

[khaotungthanawat]

2024 Tumblr Top 10

tagged by @sandushengshou and @sheisraging! xoxo thank you jackie and rae!!! 💜💜💜

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clearly you can see where my head has been at this year kdjfghdk. i do love my pretty gay bozos!

it's fun to see people engage with my sets, esp in this economy. asian media often doesn't do big numbers here like western media, so that my stuff gets notes at all is a treat!

tagging some darlings (no pressure, ofc): @mingjoes @firstkhao @deokmis @qominsi @spicyvampire @thisautistic @jimmysea

[catpriciousmarjara]

Tell me: Is He Gay or In a Sherwani?

Imposition of western norms in fandom analysis of Asian characters

With the rising popularity of Indian cinema sparked by the recent success of RRR on international platforms as well as the easy availability of multiple streaming services, in addition to the appearance of South Asian characters in prominent roles in western, particularly US media, I've begun to see some concerning 'analysis' posts online. So I thought I'd address something I found common in most of these takes.

Guys, characterizing your blorbos as queer is great and all, love it, but you're making a fundamental mistake by making their clothing choices the foundation for your queer headcanons, especially when it comes to male characters. Do not apply existing western cultural ideas regarding male clothing onto South Asian characters and their dressing please.

The vast majority of the clothes being used by people in various online spaces as 'evidence' of a character being queer(gay or bi mostly) are just normal Indian clothing for men, like daily wear. A top being pink or a character's wardrobe being mostly pastel means absolutely nothing...cos Indian clothing tends to be colourful in general and the tendency to ascribe colours masculine and feminine qualities is considerably less in the subcontinent. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but generally not a concern.

There's also this pervasive idea that colourful clothing = flamboyance = queer and that itself is something many people have already pointed as a deeply flawed way of thinking and a stereotype. Furthermore, even if you do lean into the archetype of queer men being flamboyant, subscribing to the 'stereotypes exist for a reason don't they?' school of thought perhaps, there's also the fact that ideas of what is considered flamboyant change dramatically across different cultures. What is 'flamboyant' for someone might just be normal for others. Like maybe pink or purple or yellow might be considered too much, unmanly, emasculating etc in the US or something but they're just perfectly normal colours for men to wear in many, many cultures.

It's the 'Is he Gay or European?' principle. Did you characterize this Indian character (or any South Asian character really) as queer because of their canonical behaviour and portrayal, or did you just see their clothing and decide they're queer because being well groomed and having a colourful wardrobe is a character trait you exclusively ascribe to being queer?

Like guys, I like Chaipunk like the rest of you, but if you consider Pavitr queer just because his costume is a lot fancier than the others' (An actual take I've seen multiple times) without taking into account his cultural background....¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Let me make this clear, I don't think people need a ten page analysis to imagine their fave as queer. Headcanoning a character as queer can have any reason ranging from 'I said so and so it is' to 'this is my light character analysis that makes a masters thesis look shabby' and they're all valid and an integral part of the fandom experience. What I am annoyed at are these so-called 'well-researched' theories that did not make the slightest effort to look into South Asian culture and simply transposed their western bias onto Indian media and confidently make flat out wrong judgements and mislead other people. Clothing based sexual identity determinism is the least of it. That I can at least understand through the lens of a habitual process built through years of analyzing crumbs of queer representation available only through queer coded characters and symbolism such as clothing choices being the only way to see an aspect of yourself portrayed in an aggressively heteronormative media ecosystem. I do that too, because media is tragically heteronormative everywhere. But the rest? Its just straight up misinformation and misrepresentation touted as truth.

Its the same with relationships between men. There are plenty of cultures where skinship between men is not unusual and dynamics and nuances tend to be vastly different from western representations of male friendships. In xianxia and wuxia fandoms you can see this same problem in a different font when outsiders, most often the western side of the fandom, try to apply their own standards and morals onto the original work and try to interpret it through a lens it was never supposed to be interpreted through in the first place, except maybe for comparative analysis. This practice itself isn't a major problem, its natural for people to apply what is familiar to them to try and understand something new. But when this is also accompanied by them foisting their personal interpretation and analysis as the 'correct' one and trying to impose it on the fandom as a whole, it escalates into a powder keg situation as you can imagine.

Again, not saying that western parts of fandoms are the root of all evil or anything like that, gods know how toxic netizens can be. But in this specific situation, where people try to impose western ideals on to non-western content and assumes the universalism of their own principles and value systems? Indeed an issue to be addressed.

[dropthedemiurge]

So I went to see the Korean version of Angels in America today, and Taevin was amazing, as expected!

I don't feel too good to leave a full review (seriously, going outside in 35 degrees heat should give me a sick leave for work) and it was only Part 1 (3 Acts) so I'll just talk about Taevin briefly, and if anyone's interested in hearing more, I can come up with another post comparing original and Korean versions later...

Anyway, LEE TAEVIN. I was so right to fall into him (the way he acts, but also I'm in love with his voice who knows why). He was very emotional, very bold, captured original Louis so well (and delivered such fast and complicated rants nicely xD) and also - yes, we had gay kiss and implied fucking on stage as well 👀 In Asian country, talking and showing AIDS stories - it felt very unusual but as an outsider to both cultures and histories, I don't have much ground to speak on.

Also of course, some wordplays were lost but some were added, but mostly the translation was sticking to the original almost perfectly (if only I was more fluent in Korean, I could tall about it even better but I'm really glad I watched the original play first so I knew the story and what they were supposed to say (huge thanks to @dragonsareawesome123 for providing me links!). But I could tell the difference where jokes in English were supposed to land and which comedic moments in Korean striked the best instead xD It was fun noticing. But the loudest laugh (twice at that) was during Louis x Guy hookup on street lol (yes I still can't believe I watched Taevin getting "fucked" on stage the guy really chooses the most queer and bold and interesting roles in the beginning of his acting career)

And there were slight changes in decorations and costumes, and I liked some things more than original, but some original moments got lost.

There are two actors for Prior and tbh I went to see the more popular one because everyone said he's been acting in dramas and other cast worked for me but... I didn't get enough tbh x) Like, Yoo Seungho was good and he was also emotional and delivered lines well - but I guess, I just didn't get the Sick Gay Drag Queen vibes as much as in the original xD I mean, man was so toned and had abs! But the actor himself is thin so it can't be helped Ig, Koreans aren't pale :D

Plus, he was supposed to be contrasting to Louis and Joe but he was less flamboyant so I guess that's the only flaw I can point out. I'll go watch second actor in the second part of the play to compare acting between Korean versions and not with western one, it's going to be interesting.

But still, Seungho himself did a good job with acting with his body and emotional delivery, I'm merely comparing to the original play. He was also very sweet when he came out to the fans after the play ^^

Anyway, the rest of the cast was great as well, the explicity from original - in both language and portrayed things - stayed there and only details ended up more smoothed iut (more Asian style?)

The Art hall was almost full on Sunday, which I was surprised to see for such story, and I saw a lot of couples and people in their 30-40s and nobody left mid-break which to me is a good sign xD

That was a nice experience, it was my first time seeing or knowing about Angels in America too, I'm definitely gonna go for Part 2 because that's where the most of the fun is :D

Tagging @doyou000me @non-binarypal7 who were interested in my review (if you watched the original, I can share more about the actual lines and moments xD)