#baek;about

[littlegirlinvisible]

#BAEKHONG being: comedians [x]

[sophiebaek]

Sophie is Korean!

Things to keep in mind

———

Yay! Sophie Baek is finally here and with all of excitement of this casting, I think it’s also important to bring attention to the new intersectionality that comes with the character of Sophie (specifically show Sophie).

Why should you take my words into account? Well, as an Asian woman in society today, I feel that I am qualified to speak on this topic since I’ve experienced all of this.

All of my words come from kind intentions, and I purely just want to communicate to the fandom how to approach Sophie being Asian in a respectful way.

Asia is a gigantic continent filled with various countries that have a multitude of cultures and ethnicities. While on the surface they all seem similar, they each have their own customs and traditions that have meaning within our culture. Do not combine them.

It’s important to remember that not every Asian person is Chinese, Japanese or Korean (East asian).

With Sophie being Korean, please do not generalize when writing about what you think you know about Korean culture.

You like Kpop and Kdrama? Great! BUT that does not define what Korean culture is and you shouldn't use that content as a reference.

When writing, be aware of explicit and unconscious biases you have about Asian people.

Asian stereotypes (Model Minority, Dragon Lady, Lotus blossom, etc) are very harmful and spread false narratives about us. Stereotypes eliminate the dimensions of who we are as Asians (South, South East, East, North, West).

Please, please, please do not fetishize. Especially since Bridgerton is a romance series it's extremely important to be mindful of the scenarios you put in your fics.

This also includes the White Savior Complex we see a lot in media!

If you’re writing about something specific, research it and fully understand the content you are putting into your work. Feel a little iffy about if you should put it in your fic? Probably don’t then. It’s that easy!

It's always great to ask someone who is a part of the community as well to see if what you're writing about is appropriate or potentially offensive in any way.

Describing Sophie is something new as well. Be mindful on how you describe her and other Asian characters.

Let me be clear: descriptions like 'slanted eyes' or 'yellow skin' are harmful

Here are some great resources that go into further detail about specific things! Rather than me paraphrasing their words it's best to link the direct source. Even as a part of this community, these articles were a reminder of how I must keep myself in check as well!

Describing Asian Eyes

Some important tips on making/writing Asian OCs

writing east asian characters

The Depiction of Asian Characters - Book Edition

The Dragon Lady, the Lotus Blossom, and the Robot: Archetypes of Asian Women in Western Media

To wrap this up, I want to be clear that I’m not a professional on this topic, but as someone who has been affected by harmful portrayals in media, I feel compelled to share my perspective. My hope is to spread awareness and encourage others to be mindful of how they approach these subjects, especially if they may not be fully informed. It’s about showing respect, doing the necessary research, and recognizing the impact our words and content can have on real people and cultures. By staying educated and considerate, we can be more aware and thoughtful in our actions.

[froqpi-art]

microwaving them in my mind

[mizukamiyaseiryu]

had to draw these two once i saw that canon baekcheong stretching art it's crazyy (ref pose here!)

[lunarwednesday]

I do miss the summer a bit

[trendingdrama]

What are you doing here? Don't you know you should be more careful? Let's go inside. I'll explain everything. And then,I'll do as you say. So… Hyun-woo... If this ever happens again,don't save me.

Qᴜᴇᴇɴ ᴏꜰ ᴛᴇᴀʀꜱ 눈물의 여왕 (2024)

[tinfishmeal]

i refuse to believe he knows anything about fashion but here we are

i bet he wears tgose fuckass pink flip flops everywhere

[10underoot2]

The world is annoyingly beautiful so of course I want to live.

Hyunwoo and Haein's conversation at her Grandfather's funeral is such a reflective, thoughtful, calm pause amongst everything that's going on. She's truthfully telling him so openly that she wants to live. She's talking about her fear of being all alone, of passing into the unknown. All her emotions have led her to see the world, even during an affair as sad and gloomy as a funeral, as beautiful. 

I also love that Hyunwoo has no words to comfort her. He's taking in what she's saying and despite promising her 'You'll live, I'll make sure of it' He knows deep down how helpless he really is. How glum things really look for her. 

I think it also show that support doesn't always mean comforting words. Sometimes it's someone who loves you failing at hiding their tears because they don't want you to see how utterly sad they are. It's them silently being there for you. Offering you their hand for support. That you can lean on them. That they're there for you in your sadness.

I also love how Hae-in very readily accepts his hand. It's her way of telling him 'No matter how much you hide it I know... I know how sad this makes you. You can rely on me through it all as long as I'm here, as long as I can'

And at the end when Hyunwoo refuses to look at her lest he give in to the tears threatening to fall from his eyes, Haein gives him a look. A beautiful smile adorned on her face she looks at him adoringly as if screaming:

'You and your love are annoyingly beautiful as well, so of course I want to live.'

It's painful for both of them. They're trying not to show it for each others sake lest they give into despair but they're both so devasted.

Gif credits: @seawherethesunsets and @jcpostsobsessions

[rainbow-sunshine-unicorn]

I haven’t said anything about it because I genuinely think that most of it is simply ignorance rather than anything else, but it makes me extremely sad to see Sophie referred to as the “first Asian lead in Bridgerton”, when Kate is literally from India, a country that is very much located in Asia.

South Asians (and Southeast Asians as well as Central Asians for that matter) are Asian. Just as Asian as East Asians. And I hope more people become aware of the fact that often the denial of this stems from racist rhetorics rooted in eugenics. So that they don’t end up accidentally repeating and furthering it.

Kate and Sophie are both Asian leads in Bridgerton and the world is a better place for it.

[mrsbridgerton]

happy 16th september benophie nation!

[nainwoo]

MISS NIGHT AND DAY EPISODE 10 So why are you doing this?

[sophiebaek]

I just need a theme of stairs/levels in season4 to visually show the class difference between Sophie and Benedict. Show Sophie as The Lady in Silver at the top of the stairs to represent what she could have been if she was legitimate. That she was seen as an upper class lady at the ball that made her an enigma and therefore in Benedict's pov, someone who will be unattainable to him.

Besides the obvious height difference, give me Sophie who is mostly positioned below Benedict and extension his family. Whether it's her kneeling down to hem a dress or curtsying to the Bridgertons. Show me she is below their station. The fact that we get to explore the downstairs in greater detail let's us see Sophie's liminal struggle between those two worlds, not quite belonging in either. Up and down, up and down, she constantly goes.

And then Benedict challenging it by assisting Sophie into a carriage or softly lifting her chin up to meet his eyes; wanting so badly to be on the same level. She is so close to him, yet so far out of reach causing the same theme as The Lady in Silver but just at the opposite end of the social class!

All for at the end of the season to get Sophie and Benedict at equal heights, (the bath, a bed) finally being able to be together.

[huepou]

brat summer

[dalfurawa]

this is so dear to me 🥹 i love how in both times haein isn't actually wishing/praying, but looking at hyunwoo with the most loving smile instead because she's already got her wish. what more could she ask for when she already has the love of her life by her side and they're this happy?

[lunarwednesday]

making breakfast for someone else

[fmet]

I always go back to that moment in 206 when Eunyung has just left his family home for the last time and he calls out to Haejoon and Juwan, but there’s no answer. They had to leave, and Eunyung realized that for however long, he had been experiencing that confrontation with his dad (and mother) essentially without allies. Everything that he had done and said, with the perceived security of knowing there were people in the other side of that door who could hear them, was suddenly reassessed under a vulnerable and isolated lens, rather than a secure and supported one. He soon learns afterward that they were forced to leave by security because they were accused of loitering, but the gap in time that he probably spent thinking they left of their own free will while he was facing off his parents isn’t something that can be easily coped with.

Eunyung “saved” himself from his parents, and it wouldn’t have been as immediately liberating as it had been for him if someone else had forced that separation. But the adjacent people in his life that he (at least previously) saw as a support network and frame of reference for normal/abnormal relationships are just as invaluable as his own introspection and bravery during this arc.

His being taken care of by Juwan and Haejoon, where he has soup bought for him and he’s chauffeured around; his conversation with Marie, where he gets to witness the ramifications of domestic abuse as an outsider; and the countless conversations he had with Haejoon over this arc, where Haejoon insists to him that what he was and is going through is abnormal. By getting to sympathize with a fellow abuse survivor and by growing adjusted to having people like Haejoon advocate for him, he develops the beginning of an expectation that he can be understood and supported by these people. Not only that, but that he should be, or at least it’s something that he should strive for when given the opportunity. This perceived support ultimately culminated in him being able to say the things he did to his dad. He was the one who took that final step, there’s no denying the courage he displayed doing what he did, but it would have been impossible for him to focus this courage into a clear and aspired effort without getting a glimpse of what he had been missing growing up: predictable love and empathy.

Emphasis on predictable, because from what we know of Eunyung’s home life and the people that have supported him in the past, every ounce of love and grace he received was conditional and temporary. His abuse being unpredictable, the people who loved and supported him frequently withdrawing when they realize that he’s an actual person with idiosyncrasies and needs, and that advocating/caring for him takes real effort, and the defensive mindset needed to grow up in an abusive household would have warped his view of people’s rejection or acceptance regardless. Learning to expect that Juwan and Haejoon would be there when he needed them to be isn’t just unexpected of Eunyung: it’s juxtaposed to everything that he’s learned growing up on the streets. It’s probably only his being younger (i.e., more capable of change) that granted him the flexibility to expect care from someone again.

So, the realization that Haejoon and Juwan weren’t there when he thought they were dramatically shifted his perspective on their support, Haejoon’s in particular. Just after beginning to develop this alien expectation, something happens that allows him to dismiss it. Relying on these people in an emotional way has to be done very carefully, sparingly, in his mind, because at any moment, whether by freak chance or someone’s own animosity, lack of caring, etc, it could be ripped away from him. Similar to the unpredictablility of his father and mothers behavior, he approaches other people’s emotional states with the same fleetedness. If he can’t understand the way people think, if he can’t guarantee he’ll always be able to abide by their guidelines for humane treatment, or, now, if in Haejoon and Juwan’s case, he thinks his nature is incompatible with theirs, he will deliberately withdraw himself from them.

The same way he continues to reminisce and hold onto the haunted dorm as the visage of a fleeting home environment, he considers emotional homes such as Haejoon with that same impermanence. Only now, with concrete “proof” that it isn’t permanent, with Haejoon and Juwan not being there when Eunyung thought they would be, it’s much easier to distance from that emotional home as a way to protect himself. The title of “emotional home” can even be ascribed to inanimate objects and concepts: his childhood passion for theatre, his talent in cooking, his hairstyle. So many of the things he holds dear he is also deathly afraid of having. Having to decide between deprecative abstinence, fearing even more having lost it after experiencing it firsthand; versus reckless overindulgence, after experiencing loss in the past and thus losing the emotional sincerity he carries for something; summarizes a lot of his behavior, and it can especially be seen in the current arc. He holds off on signing up for theater until he’s racing against the clock (221), he deliberately distances himself from Haejoon and Juwan because he doesn’t consider himself as “adjusted” of a person as they are; but robs bald HR teacher dry when he takes him to eat and laughs at his efforts to connect with him. The latter being juxtaposed to his middle school-selfs response, because prior trauma from his middle school teacher jaded him to the concept of adults, and especially teachers, advocating for him unconditionally.

Eunyung’s deliberate absence from Haejoon’s life is both in his efforts to protect Haejoon’s body and to protect his own. In that same light, his hesitance in following his passions, while inadvertently mocking the systems of support he’s been betrayed by previously (teachers, parents, etc) are all in efforts to protect himself emotionally. If he never fails after trying, if he dismisses all outreach as insincere, if he’s never reminded of what he’s lost and how it hurt him, he doesn’t have to be hurt again. It looks like with the rest of this “Eunyung Baek Again” arc, we’ll probably witness more proof of this fleeting view of support/commiseration via this middle school teacher, portrayed in how he treats his high school HR teacher now. In the opposite vein, trying to actualize his passion for theatre (and being successful in doing so), seeing new and old people in his life advocate for him, and maybe even acknowledging that his HR teacher could be looking out for him, are just a few of the many details that could begin to deconstruct his emotional lines of defense. I’m not caught up with the spoiler chapters, but I hope (and really believe) that this will be the case.