#bl trivia

[ineffable-opinions]

"Top", "Bottom" Discussion in Unknown ep. 12

The Office Gossip Scene

[Edited on 10th May; changes under clarification headings]

Now that the Unknown has resurrected the conversation about gong shou, let’s talk about it. The what and the why, so to say. Thank you @1serotonindeficientgirl (whose post inspired mine).

I welcome critiques and corrections. So, please feel free to do so.

Scenes and subtitles

The discussion in the episode starts with Wei Qian’s staff gossiping about his relationship with Wei ZhiYuan. One of the staff members comments that Wei Qian is like a little lamb (小绵羊) when it comes to his little brother:

只要遇到他弟弟 就像小绵羊

Someone replies with the following idiom:

羊入虎口

(Literally: “a sheep enters a tiger's mouth”)

It means to enter a dangerous situation where one will certainly suffer [Source: Wiktionary].

The female employee (who witnessed their kiss) asks San Pang:

三胖哥谁是羊谁是虎啊 - Who is the lamb (羊; sheep) and who is the tiger (虎)?

This has some employees confused and they ask for an explanation. They receive the following reply:

就是攻跟受的差别啊 – [it means] between them, who is gong and who is shou?

One of the staff members repeats the unfamiliar terms:

攻受 – gong shou

and the fu-nu (腐女; fujoshi) offers an explanation:

好啦姊姊教你们 – let this elder sis explain

老虎看到羊会 – the tiger upon seeing the lamb…

Before she can complete her explanation, Wei Qian moves into the scene accompanied by the growl of a big cat. The gossipers disband.

In the end our fu-nu expresses their support for Wei Qian’s relationship with Wei ZhiYuan. Before she runs off, she throws him the question:

你们谁是攻谁是受啦 – between the two of you, who is gong and who is shou?

In the next shot Wei Qian is alone. He flexes his muscles and comments:

很明显吧 - It's obvious, isn't it?

[END OF SCENE]

Everyone at that office seems pretty close. The staff calls Wei “Qian ge” 谦哥 (first name + brother) and not as “Mr. Wei” (as the English subtitles suggests). Looks like Lao Xiong (emphasis on Lao = old) is the only one who clearly disapproves of such gossipmongering.

Notice how the terms gong and shou were translated directly into top and bottom in English subtitles. While that’s technically correct, there’s some nuance missing.

While there are tongzhi (同志;queer) people who use the terms gong and shou, these are not the most popular terms for top and bottom in the tongzhi community. This series specifically uses the terms gong (攻) and shou (受). Why? We’ll get to that in a minute.

In a BL, being shou means that character is the bottom in that particular ship. That character could be top, bottom, versatile or neither in another ship. A character is a bottom (as we use the term in English) only when that character is an absolute shou (sou uke in Japanese). An absolute shou is invariably shou. No matter which ship he becomes part of and no matter who he is paired with, he will be the shou. Similar difference exists between the terms “top” and “gong”.

English subtitles use ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ from the get-go. There is no need to explain what those terms mean. But that’s not the case with gong shou – only 腐 (fu) people (BL fans) really knows what those terms really mean and thus warrants explanation.   

Clarification

[Edited. Thank you @abstractelysium and @wen-kexing-apologist for contributing to the conversation.]

As noted in the convo, Wei Qian is pretty ferocious in the office and is only gentle when it comes to Wei ZhiYuan. So, it is normal that gossiping irrespective of topic would end as soon as he arrives. Also, I think Wei Qian didn’t get what gong shou means other than allusion to tiger and lamb. The original language dialogues don’t make it clear that gong and shou means top and bottom (in a ship). [The English subs gives off that impression since gong and shou were simply translated.] Moreover, those terms are danmei literacies that has entered dictionaries but not necessarily public knowledge.

It is like an insider joke for fu-people made possible by Wei Qian’s ignorance. That wouldn’t have worked on Wei ZhiYuan who read danmei while growing up. That wouldn’t have worked if the fu nu (fujoshi) stuck around to explain what that means.

Usually in such conversations in BL, fu-people are shown to be mistaken: they either mess up the ship/dynamic (Love By Chance 1) or the character(s) in the ship deliberately trick them (Counter Attack). It is almost always played out with seme/gong’s approval in BL - not sure if that dynamic between fu-people & seme aka gong character ever appeared in any live-action dynamic. The trigger of this scene is Wei ZhiYuan’s deliberate choice of actions: PDA, kiss in the office right in front of a staff member.

BL literacies

BL is a media genre in itself with different sub-genres, genre conventions and classic works. It sure has a lot of overlap with other genres:

Romance as well as GL – they coevolved. They share mothers and other ancestors.

Queer – Is it really a genre? Even if one were to ignore queer as method in academia, it is still so complex.

Let me quote Taiwanese tongzhi author Chiang-Sheng Kuo:

… what exactly is queer literature? Is it queer literature if queer people like to read it, or is it only queer literature if there are queer characters in the books? Or is it an appendage of the queer movement? If a queer author writes a book without queer characters, does that represent a certain aspect of queer culture?

(You can find the whole interview here.)

Just as danmei (耽美; Chinese BL) has its roots in Japanese BL, so is gong (攻) and shou (受) from seme (攻め) uke (受け).

gong shou aka seme uke dynamics

Mother of BL, Mori Mari, didn’t come up with it, nor did her father Mori Ogai. Both she and her father, among the other dozen tanbi (耽美; same writing as danmei but different readings cause different languages, and different meanings cause different cultures) authors inherited it from authors before them who wrote on contemporaneous and historic Japanese male androphilia.

Spring Pastimes. Miyagawa Isshō, c. 1750 | seme uke dynamics in nanshoku pre-dates BL by hundreds of years.

While there is no dearth of riba (versatile) characters in BL, seme uke dynamics is:

a genre specialty. There are similar words in use in GL as well.

an enduring connection to the past of where BL was born.

remnants of a particular model of queerness; an alternative to LGBTQIA+ form of queerness.

What’s there in the scene

There is something hidden in the euphemistic explanation. On the face of it tiger devouring a lamb would be allusion to tiger gong devouring (topping) lamb shou.

But then tiger is a big cat and lamb is a herbivore. Neko (ネコ), the Japanese queer term for “bottom” means cat (etymology is obscure with this one). The term herbivore (草食) when used to describe a man means that man is masculine in a non-hegemonic way. In the series, Wei Qian embodies the hegemonic masculinity while Wei ZhiYuan is a quintessential grass-eater.

So, the description of lamb being devoured by a tiger would not be associated as simply as with the terms gong and shou especially when it comes from Taiwan which has been historically more connected to Japanese BL than any other BL producers (Sinophone or otherwise). This connection was highlighted during 魏之远 Wei ZhiYuan's naming scene where Le Ge used the borrowed Japanese possessive particle (の; no).

の = 之 (zhī)

The big cat sound effect for Wei Qian in particular adds to this. Wei Qian’s character is best described as a queen shou.

女王受 Queen shou: A shou who is as proud as a queen, and would devour gong. (source)

Wei Qian and Wei ZhiYuan’s ship is best described by Priest (the author of Da Ge, source novel of Unknown):

经典款毒舌女王和屁颠屁颠的忠犬组合 – paring of a classic, sharp-tongued queen and a tail-wagging loyal dog.

BL literacies & Affective learning

BL kind of has its own language (with words like gong shou), which fans use to share ideas and feelings. This secret language is what academics call ‘literacies.’ BL fans are all in on this and have their own ‘ways of behaving, interacting, valuing, thinking, believing, speaking, and often reading and writing’. Through ‘various visual, conceptual and textual literacies’, BL fans weave ‘an intertextual database of narrative and visual tropes which readers draw upon to interpret BL’. BL literacies is learnt through ‘affective hermeneutics – a set way of gaining knowledge through feelings.’ Audience learn BL literacies from BL works ‘which eventually leads to their active engagement’ with other BL fans. (source; Kristine Michelle L. Santos explains it in the context of Japanese BL but it applies to all BL media irrespective of where it is from.)

That scene in Unknown was set up to familiarize audience with BL literacies – not only those specific words but also the larger practice of imagining character pairing and indulging in that imagination. This is evident from the overall jubilant tone of the scene and the camera work. It is a celebration of moe. That is why we have a character who is not only a fu-nu but also willing to be openly fu-nu in that setting, sharing BL literacies and her colleagues interested to learn. 

For other examples, check out Thomas Baudinette’s book Boys Love Media in Thailand: Celebrity, Fans, and Transnational Asian Queer Popular Culture. He has a chapter dedicated to explaining how genre conventions were taught to the early audience of Thai BL through similar scenes.

Why must they do this? Why break the fourth wall like this? To get more people interested in the intricacies of BL and to get them to participate in the culture. BL is created by fu-people and BL literacies are their tools and source of joy. BL must draw in more people to keep BL culture going. Commercialized BL we have today is the result of an affective culture formed over the years. It is built on years of labor of authors and their audience. I mean, look at the Unknown. This BL employs the well-developed Loyal Dog gong x Queen shou dynamics. Apart from that which the series took from the novel, it also drew upon other common BL beats to tease the relationship between Dr. Lin and his senior.  

Teaching BL literacies is political. When Mainland Chinese government gets dangai productions to change names and relationships of characters (among other things), it is to prevent live-action audience from discovering BL as a genre with it disruptive potential. It is not only character's names and relationships that are changed. There are entire sub-genres of danmei (such as 高干) that got wiped out by censorship.

When a Taiwanese BL not only retains the character names & relationships and shows relatively explicit intimate scenes but also actively promotes BL literacies, it is an act of resistance. Discussion of gong shou, being genre specialty, manages to do so. Interestingly, they are doing it in an adaptation of a novel by Priest who has a particular reputation with self-censorship. That scene is not part of the source novel.

Heterosexual & gong shou

Association of bottom with the feminine (female or otherwise) has its roots in medicalization (and pathologization) of homosexuality in the west (such as through theories by scientists and doctors like Richard von Krafft-Ebing). This “knowledge” subsequently spread across the globe and was adopted to varying degrees and forms.

Moreover, the terms gong and shou applies to heterosexual pairing too.

BG (boy girl) ships have male gong and female shou

GB (girl boy) ships have female gong and male shou. [If this is interesting unfamiliar territory, check out the series Dong Lan Xue (2023).]

Moreover, if one is willing to look beyond LGBTQIA+ form of queerness (which is born and brought up in America), one can see other queer possibilities. For example, Kothi-Panthi queerness in South Asia which is characterized by explicit presentation of top bottom dynamics. There are very many similar forms of queerness in other parts of Global South.

In many cultures, sexuality doesn’t inform identity but sexual preference does. That’s why is you are to ask a kothi-panthi couple which one of you is the bottom, the kothi would tell you without hesitation: “I am.” Might even asked you in turn, “Couldn’t you tell?” For them, sexual preference (being kothi) rather than sexual orientation takes center stage. This is the inverse of how LGBTQIA+ form of queerness looks at it. While LGBTQIA+ model of queerness focuses on sexual orientation (being pan, ace, gay, etc.) as something that can be freely discussed but sexual preference (top, bottom, versatile, side, etc.) is considered private.

*Just to be clear, “kothi” is a term of self-identification. It means that the person is a bottom. Panthi is not self-identification. That’s how kothi address the men who top them. 

While thanks to westernization LGBTQIA+ form of queerness enjoys more visibility, I think it is better to consider it as one type of queerness rather than the only model of queerness. Gong shou dynamics doesn’t fit into LGBTQIA+ form of queerness because it comes from another, much-older nanshoku model of queerness that made its way into Japan from China, hundreds of years ago. Friction between different models of queerness is common where ever they interact. In 1970s, Japan was witness to public debates between a younger, westernized Japanese queer activist Itō Satoru and other Japanese queer activists such as Fushimi Noriaki and Tōgō Ken who were rooted in indigenous tradition of male-male sexuality.

[Itō Satoru’s] insistence on the necessity of adopting western models of gay identity and coming out have brought him into conflict with other activists such as Fushimi Noriaki and veteran campaigner Tōgō Ken.

Interpretation and Orientalism: Outing Japan's Sexual Minorities to the English-Speaking World by Mark McLelland

Clarification

[Edited. Thank you @wen-kexing-apologist for contributing to the conversation.]

Under the LGBTQ+ model of queerness, it maybe considered inappropriate to have conversation about “top” “bottom”, especially in the office, going as far as to ask that to Qian ge. From that perspective, the BL audience (especially those who are unfamiliar with the terms gong and shou) are fair in their assessment of that scene being out of place or outright offensive.

I think things might have been a bit different if the subtitles retained the terms gong shou instead of “top” “bottom” since they aren’t exactly the same thing. That would have had the desired effect (of introducing BL literacies - gong shou in the context of 强强 (strong gong x strong shou) pairing) without unintended consequence.

What is considered rude under the LGBTQ+ framework is an essential part of fu culture. It is like addressing Wei Qian as just Qian – that could be considered rude in the original language but pretty normal in English. Different cultures, different norms, so to speak. It is only polite to be mindful of the cultural differences and avoid discussing about sexual preference where it is considered inappropriate.

As for the normalization of fu culture (especially discussions of gong shou), in my opinion the didactic scope of Unknown is undermined by the very fact that it is primarily a gǔkē danmei (via adoption (收养)) with tongyangxi vibes (highlighted multiple times by San Pang in the novel) associated with Wei ZhiYuan.

Somehow fu-culture gets judged by those who consume products of that culture. Everyone is happy with fu-cultural products as long as fu-people don't discuss who is gong and who is shou.

Why are fu-culture and BL always judged based on a culturally alien lgbtq+ form of queerness? Why must BL be arm-twisted to fit into norms of lgbtq+ form of queerness just because that is the most mainstream form of queerness?

-

That’s not much a conclusion but this is already so long. I really hope it gives you something to think about.

If you are interested, here's more.

[ineffable-opinions]

GMMTV and TrouBLes

What @pandasmagorica is picking up on is a time-honoured BL trope. It has appeared plenty even in live-action BL, in fact it had figured prominently in the first ever BL live-action: Summer Vacation 1999 (1988) based of Hagio Moto’s The Heart of Thomas. I think it is one of the tropes inherited from earlier media including BL’s progenitor tanbi. As is evident it is not a popular trope in 傻白甜 style BL (those with soft and sweet storylines and relationships) that GMMTV produces. That is why the trope seem new to GMMTV audience.

Quick Mention of BL Literacies and GMM TV's Learning Curve

BL kind of has its own language [with words like seme uke riba], which fans use to share ideas and feelings. This secret language is what academics call ‘literacies.’ BL fans are all in on this and have their own ‘ways of behaving, interacting, valuing, thinking, believing, speaking, and often reading and writing’. Through ‘various visual, conceptual and textual literacies’, BL fans weave ‘an intertextual database of narrative and visual tropes which readers draw upon to interpret BL’. BL literacies is learnt through ‘affective hermeneutics – a set way of gaining knowledge through feelings.’ Audience learn BL literacies from BL works ‘which eventually leads to their active engagement’ with other BL fans. (source; Kristine Michelle L. Santos explains it in the context of Japanese BL but it applies to all BL media irrespective of where it is from.)

BL literacies have to be learnt since they are BL specific and BL is a genre with its own conventions that are inaccessible to outsiders. The problem is GMMTV and its BL producers never took the time to delve into the genre deep enough to learn. On top of that GMMTV’s got a BL model set up: the one that involves soft and sweet storylines with a sweet (あまあま) narrative progression. There are alternative narrative progressions. Here are some typical narrative progressions for a (Japanese) BL:

あまあま – sweet

ユニーク – unique

シリアス – serious

邪道 – evil road (Jadō)

王道 - royal road (odo)

Any theme/one-line plot can choose to take any of these narrative progressions. Moreover, Thai BL usually originates online which allows for innovation in narrative progression. Talking of live-action BL... consider KinnPorsche: it ed KinnPorsche on odo while VegasPete ventured on jado. MAME is probably the only one who ventured into BL live-action making business in Thailand with knowledge of BL literacies. There are creators who have put in the effort to learn – a recent example being "F" Nontapat Sriwichai who delved into jado with Love Syndrome: The Beginning before succumbing to cancer. Most Thai BL creators are basically working on products (novels) by authors (producers of BL and BL knowledge) with limited knowledge of their own. That is a little sad since Thailand makes so many BL. Also, this is probably because BL only got popular pretty recently (two-decade or so) in Thailand (compared to Japan where it has been popular for a while now (half-a-century) and more creators are familiar with BL literacies to play around with them or even China where 腐 fu-culture (BL fan culture) has been popular for not so long, yet held wider public attention through superhits and spill-overs) Another reason could be that ‘sweet BL from Thailand’ being an easier produce to sell without having to compete with other countries and their other flavor BL.

In case of GMMTV, its BL formula or preferred route of narrative progression is the first one (あまあま) – the overall flavor would be sweet and relationship progression is pretty smooth (SOTUS, Together, Bad Buddy, My School President). If not, then it would be royal road progression wherein characters have to go through troubles but end up with each other through hard work and perseverance (Dark Blue Kiss, Never Let Me Go). Moonlight Chicken is an example of a BL with “serious” narrative progression, I guess. Eclipse may be regarded as having taken “unique” route, at least by GMMTV standards. Only Friends unintentionally took the evil road but GMMTV couldn't have that.

There are some reasons behind GMM TV’s slow and sad learning curve – GMMTV learns BL literacies much slower than a lot of other BL producers. The main reasons are tied to its business model itself, based on what Sataporn Panichraksapong (CEO/managing director of GMM TV) informed Thairath newspaper. The formulaic nature of its BL is aimed at an audience (teens to 60-year-olds) interested in feel-good BL. The audience is there to cheer their beloved characters on as they navigate manageable issues. The BL formula or narrative progression exists to offer comforting familiarity for its audience who want to relax and feel happy watching them.

Other than from content (series), GMMTV makes money through merchandize, advertising, fan-meets, etc. For all these and to gain popularity internationally (China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore and India being main international fan bases and Europe and Latin America being newer markets), GMMTV is banking on their beloved khujin (actor CPs; also known as “branded pair”). It is clear that pairings rather than shows are the money-making parts of GMMTV’s entertainment biz. Series are basically just another activity these actor CPs participate in. That ties into how far GMMTV can and can’t deviate from its BL formula: GMMTV got to keep its audience happy enough to get them to show their appreciation through purchasing power.

But does GMMTV really know what BL fans really want? Not necessarily. They have been very wrong in the past, particularly with what they thought their audience wanted in terms of sexual content.  

Sathaporn Panichraksapong, an MD of GMMTV, a major producer of BL series, claimed that audience members who are mainly heterosexual women look for romantic relationships among the characters rather than sexual relationships. We know that our audience are [sic] women. Women want to see only two boys having romantic moments together. They don’t want to see sex. Sexual relationships in BL are for a gay audience. That’s why in SOTUS the Series we have only two kissing scenes. With only these, audiences were already screaming. This is enough for them. (Interview with Sathaporn, GMMTV, 10 Aug. 2017)

Jirattikorn, Amporn. “Heterosexual Reading vs. Queering Thai Boys’ Love Dramas among Chinese and Filipino Audiences.” (2023).

Today, it is clear how wrong GMMTV was from how much more sexual content we are getting from GMMTV itself. So it is clear that GMMTV will learn, albeit super slowly, from other BL creators and tweak if not break out of its BL formula.

The BL Trope in Question

I must highlight that seme/uke/riba simply means top/bottom/versatile in a ship. The idea that “seme/uke representing chaser/chased” is a misattribution teetering on cultural appropriation. There are uke characters who chase (such as yakuza Mitsuo Ichikawa from Double Mints) and there are riba characters who are chased (such as Bai Louyin from Addicted).

One or more characters in a ship being emotional aggressors, physical abusers, sexual predators or outright villains is a very common trope in BL genre. These are popular sub-types (most notable: brute kichiku 鬼畜) of seme/uke/riba with these specific attributes and they have dedicated fans who thoroughly enjoy such characterizations. But these are clearly not everyone’s cup of tea. Some BL fans finds these themes unbearable. That is why GMMTV and other BL live-action producers who don’t want to upset any of their audience members usually:

avoid such characterizations all together especially with sweet narrative progression

tries to soften such characters into more universally palatable forms

tries to redeem those characters by getting rid of those with odo – this is what currently airing My Stand-In would do.

make them villains – never making them the protagonists who gets any kind of happy ending

This is done not to trouble the average audience’s worldview (世界観) and is clearly a low effort and low skill (in terms of BL literacies) approach. But since a lot of audience don’t appreciate villain-like characterization, it is clearly low risk, no chance of a backlash from angry audience and the best method for assured money making.

Occasionally BL live-action producers venture into the risky terrains, especially with jado. The Japanese does it a lot, especially in movie format. China and Taiwan also delve into jado fairly regularly. Live action Thai BL seldom does anything dangerous, except for the few discussed above.  

Now about GMMTV’s rendition of that BL trope…

GMMTV cannot veer far away from its BL formula and their formula truly don’t have the grit to afford dangerous characterizations that would upset not only the formula but also its audience. Instead of taking the evil road (jado), GMMTV force villainous characterizations onto character on its formulaic narrative progression. This results in the dissonance that @pandasmagorica talks about. The character might do terrible things (not enough to be a proper evil character) and manipulate the other character in the ship. But won’t feel remorse, apologize and improve for better – this is a violation of the expectation placed on characters on sweet narrative progression. Audience do not expect characters in a ship to be anything but good to each other, especially after they have become a couple. While audience don’t mind characters making mistakes, in this narrative progression audience also expect characters to learn from their mistakes and to grow closer by earning and giving forgiveness.

In BL that focuses on characters being villains, there are no such expectations. These BL work within the confines of their own worldview which don’t necessarily match with our IRL worldview. Characters are allowed to act in ways that goes against our everyday perception of what is right and what is wrong. Neither the characters nor the audience expect the characters to right their wrong, to apologize or to get punished, through judicial procedure or otherwise. Happy endings are not after reparations and resolution of issues, it would be in spite of those. Bad endings aren’t necessarily punishments for bad actions committed throughout the narrative, that’s just the ending of that story. Unlike with the BL with sweet narrative progression, these BL are not necessarily stories of two or more guys falling in love. Neither is their love (if at all there is love) expected to be healthy and wholesome. (It can be wholesome but it is just as well if it is not.) There are expectations from such narrative progressions too and resolution to most issues aren’t among those expectations. Clearly not everyone’s cup of tea, especially if they expect BL to be didactic like fables.

GMMTV fails to reconcile what is expected of its BL and BL’s natural tendency to veer away from the sweet route for the sake of less than wholesome entertainment. Some of the content GMMTV adapts have jado tendencies at its core. While it can stick to the well-trodden route of sweet narrative progression, BL authors and audience appreciate alternative narrative progressions. So, as it tries to churn out 20+ BL per year, GMMTV will be forced to work with novels (and plotlines) with different narrative progressions. What GMMTV can do is to awkwardly tone down uneasy characterization so that it will sit well with its formula.

The problem gets papered over (if they get back together) or never gets resolved (if they don't).

Here @pandasmagorica points to a very popular BL trope done wrong. Problem getting papered over is the expected approach in jado. When characters get together/get back together with the problem or any "problem" never really dealt with, it is proper meriba (merry bad ending). Plain bad ending where there is no resolution is also typical in jado BL. The appearance of this trope in a sweet BL upsets the set-up and leave the audience feeling disappointed. Maybe creators really wanted to try something here but they couldn't.

Moreover, it is difficult to sell BL with jado and other narrative progressions. It becomes even more difficult to sell branded pairings when the characters they play are not impeccable. It is unlikely that actors playing bad guys can sell products for advertisers. (Imagine the characters from The Effect being in ads together!) It is even more unlikely that fans would go broke behind wicked characters and would want to attend fan-meetings and concerts featuring them in some way.

BL producers for GMMTV might someday learn to balance audience and genre expectations. More audience might come to enjoy more than just sweet BL. But until then this friction will probably continue and audience will suffer for it.

-

As always, all corrections and criticism are welcome.

I am not well-versed in GL tropes, so I avoided talking about them. As far as I know, GL operates on a slightly different wavelength with its genre conventions being very different (sometimes even opposite) than that of BL.

I didn’t want to lump them together, even when they are both in live action form.

GMMTV has a new QL trope and I am not a happy camper

With the last few series I've watched or partly watched on GMMTV, it would seem there is a new trope. I'm not certain it's a new trope, but I searched @absolutebl for trope posts for at least half an hour and didn't find it, so I don't think I'm totally off about this.

I'm calling it emotional punching bag. Instead of seme/uke representing chaser/chased, it represents emotional aggressor/victim.

The general pattern is this:

Character A gets angry at character B over a real or imagined slight.

A claims to be the victim.

A is unaware (or pretends to be) of any contribution A made to this issue.

B apologizes, whether or not B contributed to the problem.

A never apologizes and never acknowledges their part in the problem.

The problem gets papered over (if they get back together) or never gets resolved (if they don't).

I think it started with Only Friends. Boston (B) gets set up by Atom (A) and is made to be the villian. The truth is revealed. Boston apologizes for his other behavior in the series but nobody apologizes to Boston for him having been set up. Never gets resolved.

Then there's Last Twilight. Mork (B) tries to engage in self-care and Day (A) makes it all about Day and breaks up with Mork. The problem gets papered over when, plot hole, Day wanders through a hotel lobby without the cane he got so he could be more independent and which we never see again, and Mork steps in and helps him, and then they get together and Day gets his eyesight back at the same time with no real narrative resolution. Mork gets back together with Day.

And now we have 23.5. Sun (A) outs Ongsa (B) to Ongsa's parents. Ongsa objects. Sun storms off. Ongsa seeks out Sun and apologizes. Sun breaks up with Ongsa. Ongsa again seeks out Sun and apologizes.

At this point (partway through episode 11, segment 2) I paused the series. I have not intention of going back unless I get word from you Tumblerites that Sun acknowledges her role in all the trouble and apologizes to Ongsa. If they get back together without Sun doing the emotional and reparation work I want no part of it.

And I'm worried. Do I need to wait and binge the rest of Wandee Goodday, which I, as of two episodes, absolutely adore? And this is a boxing series. Is Wandee going to become a literal punching bag?

Do I need to never watch another GMMTV QL series week by week again? Do I have to wait for an all-clear and then binge?

GMMTV, please get your ending act together, I beg of you.

[fr-wiwiw]

lmao i lost it over this trivia

Hua Cheng is confirmed to have the best skills in bed by mxtx. Our virgin Crimson Rain is the best in bed lol I'm sorry I just find it so hilarious

[iguessitsjustme]

This is a highly westernized shit post. Context and fun facts under the cut.

I did a bit of googling and learned the "Nam" means water in Thai. Now, I'm not a native Thai speaker and I'm trusting what google has told me, but if I'm wrong, please feel free to let me know. Also I could not find what her full name meant, just Nam.

ANYWAY. April showers bring May flowers and all that.

I also learned about the origin of the phrase. It comes form Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales:

"When April with his showers sweet with fruit The drought of March has pierced unto the root And bathed each vein with liquor that has power To generate therein and sire the flower"

But the phrase we use today should be credited to Tusser in his poem Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry:

"Swéete April showers, Doo spring Maie flowers."

[rarepears]

Oh! MBJ "bridenapping" SQH, it sparked an ~idea~

What if instead of MBJ bringing his husband to rest, it's an INJURED MBJ, looking for his Qinghua because he always heals and protects him. But since he's injured, he doesn't really have the cognitive thought process to realize SQH's aura isn't in a safe spot in his internal GPS and doesn't think to go to SQH's house. Just straight to SQH. In the middle of a meeting with most of the Peak Lords, excluding LQG because I agree, nothing would be able to happen if he was there since he'd kill an injured MBJ in an instant.

SQH has a split second to think.

Save MBJ or himself?

SQH tears a reserve teleport talisman he had MBJ make for him so writers choice if anyone knows if SQH did it himself or if the injured Demon Lord did.

Anyways, MBJ tears open a portal, covered in blood and SQH doesn't have much time to think and catches his husband King and has a split second to choose.

EITHER WAY THE GOSSIP!! The An Ding Peak Lord was kidnapped out of a meeting with the Sect Leader and multiple Peak Lords present by a demon.

That'd be terrifying just at first thought. A demon made it past Cang Qiong's wards and Qiong Ding's, all the extra wards in that meeting room alone, faster than all present Peak Lords could react.

Then we have the 2 main gossip chains. Why was SQH taken? Logistics and Love

Logistics for all the info the An Ding Peak Lord has access to since he maintains it all. Prime target for a surefire way to do a lot of damage. If SQH talks, the Demon Lord can get past all the wards and kill, pillage and raze anything in a high profile area.

Love because if they hear he did this super injured, just to collapse onto SQH and spirit him away? The screams from the BL lovers. I bet LMY could belt out a few chapters pretty quick about it lol.

She writes the next love epic, countering HHP's propaganda by accident lol.

Prominently, both SQH and MBJ now know that SQH would save MBJ even when he might/is declared a traitor.

MBJ would feel so much more secure knowing that. Maybe even becomes forward enough that SQH can't mistake the interest.

And SQH just cut off his own path to safety by not letting his sect kill his King.

So now they both get to live with this neat bit of trivia.

Don't really have any other thoughts besides HHPM ends up dead and SQH is Queen in the North by the end. Maybe TLJ gets let out and hears a whisper about a child on the Luo River.

Would be hilarious if Cang Qiong found out that there's a loophole in the Cang Qiong wards to allow in demons that meet very specific conditions... like being a peak lord's spouse, so they don't even realize that Shang Qinghua modified the wards to let in Mobei Jun (and Shang Qinghua doesn't even realize that he could had hacked the wards by getting married instead of spending 6 months painstakingly learning the wards and then learning how to crack the wards.)

Somehow it doesn't even require the peak lord to know that they have a demonic spouse.

[ineffable-opinions]

what MAME writes is odo (royal road) BL. Love Sea is an odo BL. It is not a sweet or jado BL. Some audience members are picking up on that. That's what BL scholars call 'BL literacy learned through affect'.

Use of pop pseudo-psychology terms is just 🧿 Japanese BL fans used to call such characters "super darling" (now that term means something else entirely).

I had written plenty about MAME and BL literacy in general when the new show started airing anticipating this confusion.

I don't know what else to do anymore. I really wish people will criticise the characters and MAME within the specific sub-genres and narrative progressions in BL rather than based on how didactic they are.

It worries me that so many of you think 𝘢𝘯𝘺 Mame lead character is a green flag. That woman literally only knows how to write the type of men that your female friends make a stink face about.

[luthiest]

230608

life update: i have a pixie cut, my attendance lately has been atrocious, i saw a post about autistic burnout that made me reconsider my behavioral patterns and i am now looking into getting an asd assessment, i delivered a fatal blow to my scroll and had to start over, the 5 lbs of antique glass beads i ordered on ebay arrived, im working at a vintage clothing store part time, we finally found the class rubber mallet that went missing weeks ago and it was shoved in a cardboard box underneath the break table, my team won pub trivia for the 2nd week in a row, i watched top gun maverick and i can now confidently say i understand why there were murmurings about miles teller amongst bl enthusiasts, i finished my sazabi gunpla, andddddddd……. i’ve decided on fujita from dorohedoro for my next anime convention cosplay? i think that’s about it.

edit: also i got new double conch piercings. they’re cute i promise. believe me. over ear headphones only for the next year ish.

🎧 : like a raspberry - 宇宙ネコ子

[chaoticgoodthief]

Voices and Video Games

Contrarian should play a game where you can annoy people. Untitled Goose Game, The Stanley Parable, Portal, all that good stuff. I think ones that allow the people to annoy you right back would be the funniest, through. Because he's never actually been in the position of being the one annoyed, and I don't even know how he would react. No matter if ge takes it really well or really horribly, there'd still be a brief whiplash moment and I'd pay to see his face during that mental bluescreen. (I also want to see his reaction over the Real Person ending in STP Ultra Deluxw, because Pain.)

Broken... I don't think he's in a mental state where "having fun" comes easily. But Contrarian taught him how to win the fighting games and it seems to make him slightly less miserable.

Smitten would probably thrive through trashy romance VNs. Sure, he would declare that his true affections lie with the princess, but that won't stop him from wooing each cardboard cutout love interest that digitally smiles at him. But do you know what would be really funny? Giving him a BL. A love interest rivals to lovers and watch him obssess over his "rival", see how quickly genuine intrest in the girl turns into one-uping the other guy. Or give him DDLC if you prefer your chaos with a side of pain. Tehehe...

Cheated deserves a two-player or multiplayer game. Actually winning against his opponents would be good for him. And even when he loses, he still has a chance of winning the next round. And I'll be nice to him and just leave it at that. He deserves nice things.

As I saw in another post (so sorry I didn't save it so I can't credit you but if you see this thank you for sparking this idea), Cold would probably ... can't say enjoy but ... he would be provided enrichment in his enclosure woth Undertale. I completely agree with you, he would deeply relate to Flowey as a character. But I have another thing I want to bring up. The genocide route. A route that Cold would definately at least attempt to see what happens. Would Papyrus's speech affect him? If not stop him, at least make him hesitate? And would he kill Flowey without hesitation? I'm curious. I am so unbelievable curious.

Paranoid should be given the most relaxing games possible. His blood pressure is high enough without the additional stress. Cute farming games, petting puppies, styling hair, just give this poor guy a break. He deserves it.

Stubborn would probably prefer real fighting to the online stuff, but still go to fighting games if there's no way to beat up real people. He would also absolutely suck at them at first, which would be pretty funny to watch. Even funnier if someone managed to teach Broken how to play the game beforehand (wink). I would pay to see Stubborn's face if that happened. He would probably mope for days. He would also probably like the trashy romance games too, but only if they have someone who could beat him up. Managed to start an arguement with Smitten about the better love intrest that quickly decends into a month of warfare between the two.

I... can't really think of anything for Hunted. Even if there was a game the suited him, I'm not sure he would even play it. He would probably be super helpful if there's some kind of trivia game about wildness survival.

Skeptic would love any detective/mystery games. But he either would be brilliant at them or completely hopeless, with absolutely no in between. Multiplayer deduction games with the other voices would be just as fun to watch, the sheer chaos of them being forced into potentially unfamiliar roles. Now I want to write a whole story about the voices playing mafia so badly...

Hero honestly deserves a break from moral dilemas and all the stuff the Narrator forced on his shoulders. Cut and dry good fights evil or no-stakes games. Just let the guy rest. He's dealy with enough world-ending side choosing for one lifetime.

Opportunist would probably lie about his favourite to anyone who asks, but enjoy games where you play as the villian or generally do immoral things and actually get rewarded by the game. I just think those games really cater to his world view. But what would be really interesting is one of the games were you are forced to realise that you are the villian, that what you are doing is wrong. Just for the funzies.

Phew, I really am deeply sucked into this fandom. Don't think I've ever written so many posts about the same thing before. I should do this more often with my other fandoms...

[ineffable-opinions]

Now that the Unknown has resurrected the conversation about gong shou, let’s talk about it. The what and the why, so to say.

Before I start, I want to make somethings very clear:

I am only discussing about one particular aspect of the post.

I don’t mean to disrespect or invalidate. It is perfectly understandable for anyone to find that scene offensive, out-of-place, etc.

I welcome critiques and corrections. So, please feel free to do so.

Scenes and subtitles

The discussion in the episode starts with Wei Qian’s staff gossiping about his relationship with Wei ZhiYuan. One of the staff members comments that Wei Qian is like a little lamb (小绵羊) when it comes to his little brother:

只要遇到他弟弟 就像小绵羊

Someone replies with the following idiom:

羊入虎口

(Literally: “a sheep enters a tiger's mouth”)

It means to enter a dangerous situation where one will certainly suffer [Source: Wiktionary].

The female employee (who witnessed their kiss) asks San Pang:

三胖哥谁是羊谁是虎啊 - Who is the lamb (羊; sheep) and who is the tiger (虎)?

This has some employees confused and they ask for an explanation. They receive the following reply:

就是攻跟受的差别啊 – [it means] between them, who is gong and who is shou?

One of the staff members repeats the unfamiliar terms:

攻受 – gong shou

and the fu-nu (腐女; fujoshi) offers an explanation:

好啦姊姊教你们 – let this elder sis explain

老虎看到羊会 – the tiger upon seeing the lamb…

Before she can complete her explanation, Wei Qian moves into the scene accompanied by the growl of a big cat. The gossipers disband.

In the end our fu-nu expresses their support for Wei Qian’s relationship with Wei ZhiYuan. Before she runs off, she throws him the question:

你们谁是攻谁是受啦 – between the two of you, who is gong and who is shou?

In the next shot Wei Qian is alone. He flexes his muscles and comments:

很明显吧 - It's obvious, isn't it?

[END OF SCENE]

Everyone at that office seems pretty close. The staff calls Wei “Qian ge” 谦哥 (first name + brother) and not as “Mr. Wei” (as the English subtitles suggests). Looks like Lao Xiong (emphasis on Lao = old) is the only one who clearly disapproves of such gossipmongering.

Notice how the terms gong and shou were translated directly into top and bottom in English subtitles. While that’s technically correct, there’s some nuance missing.

While there are tongzhi (同志;queer) people who use the terms gong and shou, these are not the most popular terms for top and bottom in the tongzhi community. This series specifically uses the terms gong (攻) and shou (受). Why? We’ll get to that in a minute.

In a BL, being shou means that character is the bottom in that particular ship. That character could be top, bottom, versatile or neither in another ship. A character is a bottom (as we use the term in English) only when that character is an absolute shou (sou uke in Japanese). An absolute shou is invariably shou. No matter which ship he becomes part of and no matter who he is paired with, he will be the shou. Similar difference exists between the terms “top” and “gong”.

English subtitles use ‘top’ and ‘bottom’ from the get-go. There is no need to explain what those terms mean. But that’s not the case with gong shou – only 腐 (fu) people (BL fans) really knows what those terms really mean and thus warrants explanation.   

BL literacy

BL is a media genre in itself with different sub-genres, genre conventions and classic works. It sure has a lot of overlap with other genres:

Romance as well as GL – they coevolved. They share mothers and other ancestors.

Queer – Is it really a genre? Even if one were to ignore queer as method in academia, it is still so complex.

Let me quote Taiwanese tongzhi author Chiang-Sheng Kuo:

… what exactly is queer literature? Is it queer literature if queer people like to read it, or is it only queer literature if there are queer characters in the books? Or is it an appendage of the queer movement? If a queer author writes a book without queer characters, does that represent a certain aspect of queer culture?

(You can find the whole interview here.)

Just as danmei (耽美; Chinese BL) has its roots in Japanese BL, so is gong (攻) and shou (受) from seme (攻め) uke (受け).

gong shou aka seme uke dynamics

Mother of BL, Mori Mari, didn’t come up with it, nor did her father Mori Ogai. Both she and her father, among the other dozen tanbi (耽美; same writing as danmei but different readings cause different languages, and different meanings cause different cultures) authors inherited it from authors before them who wrote on contemporaneous and historic Japanese male androphilia.

Spring Pastimes. Miyagawa Isshō, c. 1750 | seme uke dynamics in nanshoku pre-dates BL by hundreds of years.

While there is no dearth of riba (versatile) characters in BL, seme uke dynamics is:

a genre specialty. There are similar words in use in GL as well.

an enduring connection to the past of where BL was born.

remnants of a particular model of queerness; an alternative to LGBTQIA+ form of queerness.

What’s there in the scene

There is something hidden in the euphemistic explanation. On the face of it tiger devouring a lamb would be allusion to tiger gong devouring (topping) lamb shou.

But then tiger is a big cat and lamb is a herbivore. Neko (ネコ), the Japanese queer term for “bottom” means cat (etymology is obscure with this one). The term herbivore (草食) when used to describe a man means that man is masculine in a non-hegemonic way. In the series, Wei Qian embodies the hegemonic masculinity while Wei ZhiYuan is a quintessential grass-eater. So, the description of lamb being devoured by a tiger would not be associated as simply as with the terms gong and shou especially when it comes from Taiwan which has been historically more connected to Japan and Japanese BL than any other BL producing region (Sinophone or otherwise). This connection was highlighted during 魏之远 Wei ZhiYuan's naming scene where Le Ge used the borrowed Japanese possessive particle (の; no).

の = 之 (zhī)

The big cat sound effect for Wei Qian in particular adds to this. Wei Qian’s character is best described as a queen shou.

女王受 Queen shou: A shou who is as proud as a queen, and would devour gong. (source)

Wei Qian and Wei ZhiYuan’s ship is best described by Priest (the author of Da Ge, source novel of Unknown):

经典款毒舌女王和屁颠屁颠的忠犬组合 – paring of a classic, sharp-tongued queen and a tail-wagging loyal dog.

BL literacies & Affective learning

BL kind of has its own language (with words like gong shou), which fans use to share ideas and feelings. This secret language is what academics call ‘literacies.’ BL fans are all in on this and have their own ‘ways of behaving, interacting, valuing, thinking, believing, speaking, and often reading and writing’. Through ‘various visual, conceptual and textual literacies’, BL fans weave ‘an intertextual database of narrative and visual tropes which readers draw upon to interpret BL’. BL literacies is learnt through ‘affective hermeneutics – a set way of gaining knowledge through feelings.’ Audience learn BL literacies from BL works ‘which eventually leads to their active engagement’ with other BL fans. (source; Kristine Michelle L. Santos explains it in the context of Japanese BL but it applies to all BL media irrespective of where it is from.)

That scene in Unknown was set up to familiarize audience with BL literacies – not only those specific words but also the larger practice of imagining character pairing and indulging in that imagination. This is evident from the overall jubilant tone of the scene and the camera work. It is a celebration of moe. That is why we have a character who is not only a fu-nu but also willing to be openly fu-nu in that setting, sharing BL literacies and her colleagues interested to learn. 

Moe is the excitement or a sudden outburst of affection one feels for one or more characters.

For other examples, check out Thomas Baudinette’s book Boys Love Media in Thailand: Celebrity, Fans, and Transnational Asian Queer Popular Culture. He has a chapter dedicated to explaining how genre conventions were taught to the early audience of Thai BL through similar scenes.

Why must they do this? Why break the fourth wall like this? To get more people interested in the intricacies of BL and to get them to participate in the culture. BL is created by fu-people and BL literacies are their tools and source of joy. BL must draw in more people to keep BL culture going. Commercialized BL we have today is the result of an affective culture formed over the years. It is built on years of labor of authors and their audience. I mean, look at the Unknown. This BL employs the well-developed Loyal Dog gong x Queen shou dynamics. Apart from that which the series took from the novel, it also drew upon other common BL beats to tease the relationship between Dr. Lin and his senior.   

Teaching BL literacies is political. When Mainland Chinese government gets dangai productions to change names and relationships of characters (among other things), it is to prevent live-action audience from discovering BL as a genre with it disruptive potential. It is not only character's names and relationships that are changed. There are entire sub-genres of danmei (such as 高干) that got wiped out by censorship. When a Taiwanese BL not only retains the character names & relationships and shows relatively explicit intimate scenes but also actively promotes BL literacies, it is an act of resistance. Discussion of gong shou, being genre specialty, manages to do so. Interestingly, they are doing it in an adaptation of a novel by Priest who has a particular reputation with self-censorship. That scene is not even part of the source novel.

Heterosexual & gong shou

Association of bottom with the feminine (female or otherwise) has its roots in medicalization (and pathologization) of homosexuality in the west (such as through theories by scientists and doctors like Richard von Krafft-Ebing). This “knowledge” subsequently spread across the globe and was adopted to varying degrees and forms. It is that knowledge that motivates critique of seme/uke aka gong/shou dynamics - particularly those which directly assumes that it is mirroring of heterosexual pairing, hence perpetuating heterosexism and is ignorant of the actual queer cultures that produced the said dynamic.

Moreover, the terms gong and shou applies to heterosexual pairing too.

BG (boy girl) ships have male gong and female shou

GB (girl boy) ships have female gong and male shou. [If this is interesting unfamiliar territory, check out the series Dong Lan Xue (2023).]

Moreover, if one is willing to look beyond LGBTQIA+ form of queerness (which is born and brought up in America), one can see other queer possibilities. For example, Kothi-Panthi queerness in South Asia which is characterized by explicit presentation of top bottom dynamics. There are very many similar forms of queerness in other parts of Global South.

In many cultures, sexuality doesn’t inform identity but sexual preference does. That’s why is you are to ask a kothi-panthi couple which one of you is the bottom, the kothi would tell you without hesitation: “I am.” Might even asked you in turn, “Couldn’t you tell?” For them, sexual preference (being kothi) rather than sexual orientation takes center stage. This is the inverse of how LGBTQIA+ form of queerness looks at it. While LGBTQIA+ model of queerness focuses on sexual orientation (being pan, ace, gay, etc.) as something that can be freely discussed but sexual preference (top, bottom, versatile, side, etc.) is considered private.

*Just to be clear, “kothi” is a term of self-identification. It means that the person is a bottom. Panthi is not self-identification. That’s how kothi address the men who top them. 

While thanks to westernization LGBTQIA+ form of queerness enjoys more visibility, I think it is better to consider it as one type of queerness rather than the only model of queerness. Gong shou dynamics doesn’t fit into LGBTQIA+ form of queerness because it comes from another, much-older nanshoku model of queerness that made its way into Japan from China, hundreds of years ago. Friction between different models of queerness is common where ever they interact. In 1970s, Japan was witness to public debates between a younger, westernized Japanese queer activist Itō Satoru and other Japanese queer activists such as Fushimi Noriaki and Tōgō Ken who were rooted in indigenous tradition of male-male sexuality.

[Itō Satoru’s] insistence on the necessity of adopting western models of gay identity and coming out have brought him into conflict with other activists such as Fushimi Noriaki and veteran campaigner Tōgō Ken.

Interpretation and Orientalism: Outing Japan's Sexual Minorities to the English-Speaking World by Mark McLelland

-

That’s not much a conclusion but this is already so long. Since you have read through to the end, I really hope it gives you something to think about.

If you are interested, here’s more.

I believe it's high time for us viewers and the screen writers to exclude the top-bottom discussion. I watched unknown and the discussion between their co workers was absolutely worse. The whole discussion regarding it is ridiculous. Like what do you even get from knowing it? If you get to know about a couple, why do you wanna know about their sex life? It's their privacy. Why do you have to intrude into it?

The top-bottom agenda is a kind of hetrosexualisation of homosexual couples. I know there are people who clearly enjoy having such division. But does it really matter? Why do other people care? It's their matter. Stop poking your nose where it doesn't belong.

Homosexual couple can have top or bottom, or versatile or whatever they want. It doesn't concern you. You don't have to imagine their sex life. You don't have to fantasize about it. They themselves can if they wanted to. Unless they asked, you are not needed in their sex life. Why is it so hard to understand?

The way they made the whole scene as a comedy is actually tragic. Though BL can be controversial (well, I'm basing my whole discussion on a bl which is about a love story between found siblings. Anyway whatever) it did raise serious awareness over the course of time. It's time for us to push the "making people care about LGBTQIA+ people" a bit further. People are learning. Let them learn to be respectful

[ineffable-opinions]

Danmei tropes in My Stand-In

This is a quick introduction to some popular BL tropes that are fairly new to live-action BL:

wife chasing crematorium

substitute lover

transmigration

(Contains spoilers)

All corrections and critiques are welcome.

As you probably know My Stand-In is based on the danmei novel Professional Body Double. Specifically, it belongs to 188男团 (“188 group” where 188 cm is the height of every gong (seme) in the novel series). It is a shared universe of novels with characters from one featuring in another and almost all gong are very scummy (or “red-flag” so to speak) initially.

Trope #1: wife chasing crematorium

What 188 group novels all have in common is the trope popularly known among English-speaking fandom as “wife chasing crematorium”. This is a super-popular trope, not only in danmei.

origin 追妻火葬场 (zhuī qī huǒzàng chǎng; chasing his wife’s crematorium) derived from the longer phrase 傲娇一时爽，追妻火葬场 (àojiāo yīshí shuǎng, zhuī qī huǒzàng chǎng; Tsundere was on his high horse for a while, now chasing his wife’s crematorium.) Alternative form: 追夫火葬场 (zhuī fū huǒzàng chǎng; chasing husband’s crematorium) – usually involves scum shou (uke) chasing after his gong (seme) after initially abusing gong’s love.

The trope involves the love interest being initially cold or even cruel to the protagonist who is in love. This continues until all of that love gone. By then, the love interest would have come to his senses, eager to seek forgiveness and chase after the protagonist. In some cases, the love is already lost irrevocably, especially when the protagonist is dead – hence, literal crematorium. There are also works where the love interest is discarded all together and protagonist moves on to someone else. Rarely, there are works where the protagonist is the scum.   

In 188 group novels, this is how the basic structure of wife chasing crematorium:

Shou loves gong. Gong treats shou terribly.

Gong goes too far. Shou is fed-up and leaves gong, one way or other. Gong realises that he has been in love all along.

Gong regrets his action and chases after shou. Grovelling ensues.

Gong and shou gets back together. Gong dotes on shou and the couple face other challenges (family, villains) together, if any. Happy ending.

Fans are in it for the melodrama. They want to watch scummy gong to go too far, the relationship to break down and for the gong to grovel and make amends through various selfless deeds, until they reestablish the relationship and trust (as much as possible). Every one of those stories end with a happy ending with the gong endlessly doting on shou and the relationship having turned wholesome.

Trope #2: substitute lover

Other than the previous trope Professional Body Double and its adaptation My Stand-In involves the “substitute lover” trope.

Substitute lover trope involves, usually the gong, having a 白月光 (white moonlight): a person whom he loves a lot but can’t reach/touch. This is usually his first love and has a profound impact on him.

Aside: White moonlight in itself is a common trope. Both Vip Only and Sahara Sensei to Toki-kun used white moonlight trope to in a typical kishōtenketsu narrative structure.  

Since white moonlight is unattainable, gong finds a substitute lover.

The relationship between gong and substitute lover is usually just physical. This is because gong doesn’t plan to move on from white moonlight, instead stubbornly carries the torch. Gong doesn’t plan on betraying the pure feeling he have for his white moonlight by giving any of his love to anyone else. So, he tries to ensure that no love leaks out of the dam he has built to store his love for the white moonlight. This is, from gong’s POV, a kind of emotional fidelity which he extends to his white moonlight. A tribute of gong’s unshakable love for his white moonlight.

The substitute lover sometimes resembles white moonlight in some way –

in body – first ever live action BL (shonen-ai actually) adaptation Summer Vacation 1999 (1988) based of Hagio Moto’s The Heart of Thomas plays around with this trope, a lot. More recently, Playboyy sorta lampshaded it with the twins premise.

in spirit – a recent example is Love is Better the Second Time Around wherein prof. Takashi sleeps with his assistant Shiraishi Yuto because the assistant (or his desperation at least) reminded him of his white moonlight Miyata Akihiro.

Aside: There is only one live-action BL that actively subverted this trope: HIStory3: Make Our Days Count. The series introduced a doppelgänger of Yu XiGu (Xiang HaoTing’s white moonlight), a perfect candidate for substitute lover trope. But instead of pursuing it, they subverted the trope.

There are usually two outcomes to the substitute lover trope:

gong falls for substitute lover. In some cases, this involves white moonlight turning into rival or villain.

gong and his white moonlight get together. In this case, substitute lover turn into rival or get a lover of his own.

Itsuka no Kimi e, first ever live-action adaptation of a yaoi manga, employed substitute lover trope in one of its best executions. It is so brilliantly done that I can’t think of anything topping that, unless 4th volume (particularly the case-solving plot involving the photography club) of Takumi-kun series gets live action adaptation.

Trope #3: transmigration  

Basic premise of Professional Body Double and its adaptation My Stand-In revolves around transmigration of soul.

This too is a popular trope in BL. One of the most popular danmei Mo Dao Zu Shi and its adaptation The Untamed involves this trope.

Maybe I should say set-up instead of trope for this one. Transmigration involves soul of a character getting transferred to a body different from his own at the time of triggering event.

Own body, different time – either past or future. When past is involved, it is likely a do-over story where the protagonist gets to redo their life, change their love interest, make different life choices, take different course of action, etc.

Reincarnation – completely different lifetime but with retained memories of past-life/lives. Until We Meet Again; Choco Milk Shake (different lifetime for the pets)

Different body, present (near-present) time – character’s soul enters a different person’s body. The character gets involved in his previous circumstances but now in a different capacity. Revive (2016), that danmei adaptation no one ever talks about, went to town with this set-up.

Different body, different life – soul enters character in a book, game, simulation, etc. and would be primarily tasked to thrive there. One Room Angel (2023) explored a type of badro with this set-up.

With transmigration set-up, it is common to have one of these two:

Transmigrator retaining some connection to previous life.

Transmigrator’s previous life doesn’t matter anymore.

These Tropes in My Stand-In

These tropes are explored to varying degrees and with different levels of efficiency in Professional Body Double. In its live-action adaptation, there are a bunch of limitations. Primary one being the cultural difference – audience of a danmei novel are already familiar with these tropes to some extend but the live-action audience is one which has been primarily consuming sweet BL from Thailand that are inherently deficient in BL literacies.

Another is the khujin problem. Branded pairs are very important to Thai BL industry, so they cannot have two different actors playing before and after transmigration. (Actually, this was not impossible but there hasn’t been any precedent. Also, The Untamed enjoyed success by having Xiao Zhan play pre- and post-transmigration Wei WuXian. I wish they tried two khujin (UpPoom & UpWinner) one couple, since they chose to introduce Winner as pre-transmigration Joe. I don’t know, maybe that’s asking for fan wars and pitting actors against each other.) [In the tags, @deliriousblue reflects on what having two different actors could do with example from Cupid's Last Wish (a series I haven't watched) and its impact on audience on an emotional level. @myezblog has commented that Alchemy of Souls (another I haven't watched) is an excellent example of transmigration played two different actors.]

Third limitation is one that comes from medium – you can’t have long monologues in live-action. This deprives audience of the inner workings of character’s minds. Most of the motives, especially Ming’s trouble with warring desires of his heart, is inaccessible to the audience. @clairedaring have posted a deep-dive by Liltsu into some of that here.

Aside: Another interesting trope is giving watch (a taboo gift) – Chinese superstition rising from 送钟 (gifting watch) and 送终 (to bury the dead/attend funeral) being homophones. Taboo gift trope - white lilies associated with death and funerals - have appeared in Summer Vacation 1999 (1988) and Forbidden Love; both of these have substitute lover and death.

Ming’s characterization as a young master, coming from money and prestige that breeds arrogance and deficient in empathy (this post by @tungtung-thanawat is particularly enlightening) is a highlight of his cruelty as a 188 group gong.

While redemption of scum gong is what 188 group offers its audience, it is not necessarily what live-action audience would be wanting from the set-up. It is likely that a part of the audience was in fact looking for revenge plot.

As @lurkingshan highlighted in this post there is no exploration of identity (tied to Joe’s body pre- and post-transmigration) forth-coming precisely because this isn’t that kind of story and body is only treated as a temporary shelter for the soul for most part when transmigration trope is involved. Moreover, the novel is steeped in Confucian values. So, most of the resolution to what it means for Joe to have a mother now is dealt through his selfless gratitude and the filial piety he offers her.

The same is the case with his old body – a proper funeral for that body is what he owes his own parents for having given flesh and blood to the body which housed his soul previously. Remarkably, his own house figures prominently as an inheritance and as an enduring connection to his own parents – a bond more precious to that him than the bond he had to his old body. I am unsure how much of those core Confucian values they will retain in the live-action adaptation, given the cultural difference.

As @befuddledcinnamonroll discusses here, it is tied to cultural ideas of self, religious beliefs, etc.

@bengiyo has pointed out a weakness in execution of the transmigration trope over the substitute lover trope: the latter is a recurring and inverted trope in this series while the former plays out straight. Even though it is clear that coma!Joe is basically friendless and his career already dead (or that he has no career to speak of), it might have been better to hint at a lack of resolution and impending doom, and build anticipation by leaving clues about the troubles that coma!Joe has left behind. That way when the substitute lover trope peaks again, audience would feel as trapped as Joe.

This is where I think Revive (2016) did a better job with friends, colleagues, past-lovers and rivals especially with such similar set-ups: entertainment industry, classism, scum gong, and intersecting lives pre- and post-transmigration.

[somedaylazysomeday]

SomedayLazySomeday's Masterlist

Hey, friends! Here is the collection of everything I’ve written up to this point. Fics have their own page to keep things neat, and those links are posted under the media to which they belong. 

All fics feature a female reader with minimal physical description and no use of ‘Y/N’. All of these works are rated mature or explicit and are not intended for minors. Please take note of the warnings listed on the chapter links for each fic.

Thanks for reading and enjoy!

- Ink 

Arcane (2021) 

Good Intentions - Silco x fem!reader. - 54.7k words. Reader runs a charitable organization, the Haven, which seeks to help people overcome their Shimmer addiction. Silco soon takes an intense interest in the Haven and the woman who operates it.

Noisy - Viktor x fem!reader.  - 7.2k words. Reader is a student at the Piltover Academy and lives in student housing, one floor below Viktor. He’s a bit of an insomniac… and a noisy one at that.

Avengers (2012) 

Cold - Loki x fem!reader. - 3k words. Reader is in a casual physical relationship with Loki. When she attends a party at Avengers Tower with someone else, he’s bothered by the idea that she’s ashamed of him. Themes of jealousy and minor monsterfucking.

Beetlejuice  

A Deal with a Demon - Beetlejuice x fem!reader. - 13.3k words. Reader is a witch who’s a little down on her luck. She summons a demon for help, but he turns out to be very different from what she expected. Themes of magic, desperation, and monsterfucking.

Black Sails  

Captured - Captain Charles Vane x fem!reader.  - 9.1k words. Reader disguised herself as a man to cross the ocean, but her ship was captured by pirates who brought her on as a member of their crew. Vane eventually figures out the truth. Dub-con themes in Part One; mind the warnings!

The Boondock Saints 

Na Buachaillí - Murphy MacManus x fem!reader, Connor MacManus x fem!reader. - 13k words. Reader is a high school science teacher working temp jobs over Christmas break to help pay for her divorce. 

Ex Machina (2015) 

Winner Take All - Nathan Bateman x fem!reader.  - 11.6k words. Reader knows Nathan from MIT, and they constantly run into each other during trivia night at a local bar. Enemies to friends to lovers vibes.

The Gray Man (2022)

Paranoid - Lloyd Hansen x fem!reader. - 9.7k words. Reader runs into Lloyd and he takes a liking to her. She can’t say the same for him. Dark!fic with themes of non-con. Mind the warnings on this one!

The Hobbit 

Dexterity - Thorin Oakenshield x fem!reader. - 14.6k words. Reader sells wool at Erebor’s markets and is familiar with the king, handsome and aloof. But Thorin rapidly warms up when a storm forces her to stay in Erebor overnight…

A Boon - Elvenking Thranduil x fem!reader. - 20.2k words. Reader owns a bar in Lake-Town and is very unimpressed with the Elvenking, even as he slowly works to win her over. Enemies to lovers vibes.

Labyrinth 

Dreams - Jareth x fem!reader.  - 7.7k words. Reader wished away her college roommate, beat the labyrinth, and resisted the Goblin King. But he isn’t done with her yet… Themes of dark fae, magic, and predator/prey.

Random Jareth Fics - Jareth x fem!reader - 6.8k words. Reader is a teacher who was wished away by a young student. She becomes Jareth’s eyes and ears in the human world, working to keep his legend alive. Over time, she becomes less human, but an occasional need still arises.

Narcos

Informant - Javier Peña x fem!reader. - 2.3k words. Reader has some information about Pablo Escobar and ends up making a different sort of deal. (Similar in tone to Oaths, but I hadn’t quite figured out how to write Javier Peña’s character yet.)

Oaths - Javier Peña x fem!reader. - 11.5k words. Reader is a nurse who treats the Escobar family. She turns information over to the DEA, though she doesn’t care for the agent assigned to her case.

Matter of Perspective - Captain Horacio Carrillo x fem!reader.  - 9.6k words. Reader works for the DEA in Columbia and accompanies the Search Bloc to prove one of her theories. Enemies to lovers vibes.

Southern Vampire Mysteries/True Blood

Blood Donor - Eric Northman x fem!reader.  - 2.4k words. Reader is a were-animal working for the vampires of a town Eric is visiting. You are sent to feed him. 

Star Wars 

Target Acquired - Jango Fett x fem!reader. - 9.6k words. Reader is a bounty hunter who often finds herself in direct competition with Jango Fett. They have a deal: whoever catches the bounty sets the terms of their night together.

Pursuit - Boba Fett x fem!reader.  - 6.5k words. Reader is a bounty Boba finds, but she must convince him to let her go… even if they both know it’s only temporary. 

Star Wars: The Bad Batch 

Hunted - Hunter x fem!reader. - 7.3k words. Reader works with the Bad Batch. She has a crush on Hunter that seems one-sided… until a chance encounter with a mysterious substance on a mission. Sex pollen and themes of predator/prey. 

Aim - Crosshair x fem!reader. - 9.9k words. Reader works with the Bad Batch and gets stranded with Crosshair after a mission. They won’t make it back to the Havoc Marauder without blowing off some steam. Enemies to lovers vibes in both parts. 

Experiment - Tech x fem!reader. - 3.5k words. Tech thinks he can’t be distracted from his work. Reader bets that isn’t true, and she’s willing to prove it.

Stretch - Wrecker x fem!reader.  - 13.5k words. Reader and Wrecker are a strong couple, but there are some challenges that come with dating someone so physically large. 

Different, But Still Good - TBB!Echo x fem!reader.  - 3.4k words. Reader is a sex-positive asexual, unbothered by the ways Echo was changed during his time with the Separatists. They’re both a little surprised when he volunteers to help on an unusually needy day. 

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Bitten - Commander Wolffe x fem!reader.  - 13.4k words. Reader has a crush on Broadside, a pilot with the 501st. When it isn’t returned, a helpful stranger encourages her to let Wolffe provide a distraction.

Tied Up in You - Commander Fox x fem!reader. - 9.8k words. Established relationship between Fox and Reader. Sickeningly sweet glimpses at a loving, unlikely relationship.

Misbehaving - Commander Cody x fem!reader.  - 9.2k words. Reader is in a relationship with Cody. Their relationship is one of control and boundaries, but they’re both willing and ready to test each other.

Star Wars: Legends

Bodyguard - Alpha-17 x fem!reader.  - 9.2k words. Reader is a Senatorial aide, assigned to work for a hated senator who endangers both of their lives with his politics. Fortunately, Alpha is sent to keep them safe.

Gar Cyare Spice Fics - Alpha-17 x fem!reader. - 6.8k words. Assorted spicy chapters of an ongoing fic on my main blog. (Gar Cyare by WanderingInkSplot) Established relationship between Alpha and the fem!reader.

The Boys

Hooked - Billy Butcher x fem!reader. - 8k words. Reader is a tow truck driver sent to tow Butcher's car. He's less than pleased.

The Walking Dead 

Arm Candy - Negan x fem!reader.  - 18k words. Reader is a Savior and a prospective wife. Negan likes to show her off at meetings, but he is easily the most distracted person in the room.

[29daffodils]

the problem with fk fanservice is that due to their bond it feels too real. the closer they will be in public the more still affirming they are just platonic friends might seems incongruous as they get teased. them being em friends who seems to have navigated it with some resolution makes me question if they would also or have to put distance

even jd tongue in cheek fs can feel very real.

in some ways it actually endears me for cp where i can think "comfortably" nothing is going on because they are absolutely 100% bro or taiwan over the stop paid performance on stage online lights off over.

In the end what we might perceive as fs is their lives and having made it part of their performance, can we really judge if their boundaries are so close they make the fans uncomfortable in their ambiguity? should or could they hide their closeness to make it less intense or should they share less or more?

hi non!

yes you're absolutely right! i think fkt's brand of fanservice feels too real because of how close they are.

I'm sorry, i didn't get this bit but do you mean taiwan does over-the-top fanservice on stage with lights on? haha, that sounds funny but i think the LOL concerts are pretty much the same.

also, regarding how much they should share : i think it totally depends on them. if you'd read my other answers to various asks about this, i have said that I don't actually mind any of it, in fact i love them as much. it's just that I wasn't aware that thai bl directors draw so heavily from their actors while they are filming. an example provided was yok , who's temperament could easily be carried by first. however i think with the northern lights trivia about the characters, bison doesn't feel like a character to me anymore, rather an extension of khaotung himself which made me question whether the tung we see is real or not.

anyway, haha, i hope i don't get any more asks about this because i've already answered so many. but thank you for yours! have a good day, non!

[ineffable-opinions]

I finally got around to listening the Ep.01 - The Origins & Boston Deserved Better 2024 and here are my thoughts.

I must admit that I didn’t like the characters from the get-go and abandoned the series at episode 4 because I could see the pairings ready to be shipped and the (non-BL) route the series was ready to take. I didn’t want to go down that path.

I didn’t like the making style. In my opinion, it was not a BL BL and borrowed heavily from western queer shows (Verbotene Liebe, Queer as Folks, Os Nossos Dias, etc.) that I watched while growing up and got tired of (so much so that I barely ever revisited any of them). These are not problems per se, just things that got me less and less interested in them. It had a flavor of what I call Channel V type series that has young adult/new adult characters acting without much rhyme or reason and very little connect to their immediate surroundings or social context, clearly inspired by western entertainment aimed at similar demographics. These were a mainstay of Hindi language entertainment aimed at youth for a while until Channel V went under, until they were swept under the new wave of entertainment that was more grounded and survives in pockets, catering to a specific class of audience.

Now on to the content of the podcast…

The discussion highlights a bunch of interesting issues and here are my thoughts on those:

khujin (actor CPs; popularly known as "branded pair") – it was obvious from the get-go that the series isn’t going to stray too much into the intense BL territory. Not was it going to go queer the way western shows do. Also, it is the farthest thing from other Thai queer media products. They had actors who are part of a pairing and pairings rather than shows are the money-making parts of GMMTV’s entertainment biz. Series are basically just another activity actor CPs participate in.

2. Formulaic BL – GMMTV usually sells a particular type of BL: those with a soft and comedic tone (傻白甜 storyline) and aimed at an audience interested in feel-good BL (source given above). The audience is there to cheer their beloved characters on as they navigate manageable issues. The BL formula or narrative progression exists to offer comforting familiarity for its audience who want to relax watching them. Another reason, I think, is the lack of knowledge of BL literacies among directors who never took the time to delve into the genre deep enough to learn other narrative progressions.

Only Friends don’t fit into the narrative progression GMMTV usually employs. But it could have fit into other narrative progressions.

Here are some typical narrative progressions for a (Japanese) BL:

あまあま – sweet

ユニーク – unique

シリアス – serious

邪道 – evil road (Jadō)

王道 - royal road (odo)

Any theme/one-line plot can choose to take any of these narrative progressions. Moreover, Thai BL usually originates online which allows for innovation in narrative progression. Consider KinnPorsche which led KinnPorsche on odo while VegasPete ventured on jado. Only Friends could do that, but only with a script written by those who are well-versed in different BL forms. MAME is probably the only one who ventured into BL making business in Thailand with knowledge of BL literacies. Most BL creators are basically working on products (novels) by authors (producers of Bl and BL knowledge) with limited knowledge of their own.

In case of GMMTV, its BL formula or preferred route of narrative progression is the first one – the overall flavor would be sweet and relationship progression is pretty smooth (SOTUS, Together, Bad Buddy, My School President). If not, then it would be royal road progression wherein characters have to go through troubles but end up with each other through hard work and perseverance (Never Let Me Go). Moonlight Chicken is an example of a BL with “serious” narrative progression, I guess. Eclipse may be regarded as having taken "unique" route, at least by GMMTV standard. Seems like Only Friends unintentionally took the evil road.

Let me try placing the characters in BL set-ups:

Boston is just a yarichin (playboy) riba (versatile character) who is osoi (sexually aggressive) uke (襲い受け) when it comes to Top. Top on the other hand is a black-bellied (腹黒) character who is set up to fall for Mew, only for him to be exposed (incorrectly to an extend) as a brute seme (鬼畜攻め) and that relationship to involve groveling and “wife-chasing”. Nick on the other hand is a yandere obsessed with Boston.

The series could have taken evil road deliberately. That would mean leaning into Nick’s yandere-ness, making him do some more reprehensible things and then reveal it all to Boston, mind-break to meriba (merry bad) ending. Or develop an isolation and codependency plot for Boston with heartbreak from unrequited love (involving Top), alienation from the friend group and overall despair, leaving him with super-Machiavellian Nick as his only solace. Or take the classic BL dark plot of confinement, breaking leg(s) or removing tendon and Lima syndrome with a bat-shit crazy Nick. This would be asking too much of GMMTV and its average audience.

* I think this warrants a disclaimer: making a (yarichin or otherwise) character go through mental/physical hardship in BL is not understood a punishing that character (like in Western media analysis). It is basically employing pain to elicit feelings of sympathy and doting from audience or for catharsis. If not, it is for a kind of perverse moe. In all cases, it is purposeful (in relation to traumas and various anxieties) since the days of June magazine and draws from tanbi lit (where in it was part of the overall melancholic aesthetics), even when the execution fails.

3. Virginity, NTR (infidelity both as a fetish or an element of a relationship), NP (ships involving more than 2 people; 3P, 4P, etc.), & open relationships – these are minority interests in BL. There are hardcore fans of these and therefore there is no dearth of these themes in BL. There are authors who specialize in these. Some occasionally focuses on these themes. Similarly, audience who are not especially interested in these themes also occasionally enjoy them. (Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese, which contains NTR as a main theme, enjoys super-popularity.)

Another treatment: These themes also appear as issues in BL relationships that often involve punishing characters for infidelity – rupturing of trust, loss of innocence, etc. In case of virginity - as a source of anxiety and distance which has to be dealt with for the relationship to flourish.

It is also one of the preferences/fetishes/specific interest for at least some of the audience members to indulge in – you can find BL fans asking for recommendations with both characters being virgins & first times in forums and such.

There has to be clarity as to what these themes are supposed to do in a narrative for it to resonate with the audience.

Also, new queer media (some given below) feature many of the same themes as Only Friends. Clearly, there are differences and similarities in how BL and the following shows treat those themes. It might be interesting to compare how Asian queer media (other than BL) treat those themes with how Only Friends did. It would also be fascinating to look at the treatment of the same themes in shows from elsewhere, such as the west.

Cheers by Cheers 짠!하면 알 수 있어

Breakfast by 想再見你

Sesame by 百里屠伕

Shimbashi Koi Story by SHIMBASHI TUGBOAT

Will they; won't they about infidelity is the main source of drama in the last arc of Tugboat's Shimbashi Koi Story season 2.

Have an unpopular opinion about a BL? Don't worry, we probably do too. Saying all the things you do or don’t wanna hear Part 5 (of 4) is here to engage with BL media from Japan, Thailand, China, Korea and more. We're talking film-making techniques, narrative analysis, fandom woes, while asking questions like, hey why don't the bottoms move their arms? We may not be experts, but we are loud, chaotic, and full of opinions.

In today’s episode we’re discussing the origins of our hosts De and Sinna’s friendship and Only Friends! Mainly Only Friends cause, whew, is there a lot to talk about. Anyone else still salty over that ending? Or just us?

Show Description: Mew, Ray, Boston and Namchueam; a group of business students running a hostel together-blur the lines between friendship and romance.

Where to Watch: Only Friends

Check out the read more below for further reading resources on topics we discussed in today's episode like framing devices, and color theory in film. Along with a list fanworks we loved from the fandom! Add any fanworks you loved as well, give the people their stars.

Listen to this podcast on: Spotify | Soundcloud | Youtube

References:

Framing Devices

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT FRAMING DEVICES

A Story Inside a Story: Using Framing Devices in Fiction

10 Films that Utilize a Frame Narrative

Color Theory in Film

Color Theory in Film — Color Psychology for Directors

What Is Colour Theory In Film?

Color Symbolism in Literature: Examples and Meanings

Stain: Phenomenal and Literary Approaches to Color Studies

BL Budgets

The Storyboard: Interview with the Dee Hup House director Tee Bundit - Original Interview | Translation

BL Production Info from Strongberry - Original Interview | Translation

Fanworks We Loved:

ONLY FRIENDS as SZA Lyrics 2/? -> SMOKING ON MY EX PACK by @firelise Run away fast as you can by @iwantoceans GIF Set BostonNick by @taeminie Boston GIF Set by @khaotunq Top x Boston | Only Friends | Crazy in Love by stb Boston & Nick | Angels like you can't fly down hell with me by Scodders sand x ray | ''i need somewhere to begin by thanxxjessie “Compared to Boston, you're a saint” by @rabbiitte If Boston has a million fans by @no2tinngunshipper Only Friends FMV | Cardigan | BostonNick by @technicallyverycowboy Told You So by CaffeineAddict94 You’re On Your Own by technicallyverycowboy “Boston was ostracized, isolated and berated to the point that it completely shattered his sense of self” and “Boston and his “friends”” by @neuroticbookworm “Dear Boston” by @lurkingshan "go for it." by @gunsatthaphan

Goodbye Forever (Until Next Time) by Anonymous

Credits:

Chaotic Hosts: Dé & Sinna Beloved Editor: Bones Creative Kingpin: Libby

Support the podcast

[optimismxmagicism]

TOA Anniversary Munday

(TY for the template Neffi!)

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is.

Repost, don't reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing!

Happy anniversary, TOA! Here's to many more years spent together.

Name: Queen

Pronouns: She/Her

Birthday (no year): October 18th

Where are you from? What is your time zone? Netherlands, CEST

How long is your roleplay experience? Uhhh about 10 years now I'd say?

How were you introduced to roleplaying as a whole? Gamefaqs had a thread where you could create your own Fire Emblem Fates character. I joined out of curiosity when i was like 13 or so and things just kinds went from there.

How were you introduced to TOA? Rosie, my online big sis, sometimes shared snippets of her experiences with me. I got curious and the rest is history.

Do you have any pets? I have an elderly doggy named Beef :)

What is your favorite time of year and why? (Season, holiday, general period) Winter, definitely. I'm a cold over heat kinda girlie and I like the early nights and cold weather. Perfect for soup!

What is your IRL occupation? IT support service worker and Maid Cafe waitress during the weekends.

Some interests and things you like/enjoy? I'm big into cooking, gardening and cleaning.

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? Final Fantasy, Genshin Impact, Persona, Danganronpa, Pokemon, Tales of, Uchikoshi games, just to name a few. Also big into Otomes and BL games.

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon: Fairy! Favorite is probably Sylveon and Vivillon.

Tell us some funfacts and trivia about yourself! - I am an auntie to 3 adorable little nephews. Love babysitting them :) - Truly I am a girly girly girl. I love pink and cute things and all that goodness. Always have firmly believed that femininity is strength and anyone who disagreed with me has been ground to dust under my heels :) - I used to have a YT channel where I uploaded my own vocaloid covers. I stopped though because I lost interest and the videos gained little traction.

How did you get into Fire Emblem? *Deep sigh* Ike x Marth Yaoi during the Smash Bros Brawl days.... This was before I knew anything about either character and just thought they looked cute together.

What Fire Emblem games have you played? All of them except for Gen 2 of Genealogy (glitches killed that run) as well as Thracia. I'll get to them someday...

First & Favorite Fire Emblem games: My First game was Shadow Dragon. My favorite is a tie between Sacred Stones and Three Houses

List your 5 favorite Fire Emblem characters across the series! Ashe, Ewan, Nils, Nina, Dimitri

Who was the first character ever to make you go “ooh I like this one in particular” and why? Can be any context and reason! Wolf. This was because I was still young and just entered my "started liking boys that weren't squeaky clean" phase.

Any Fire Emblem crushes? 😳 Dimitri.. If you know me you know I'm down horrendous. Sorry kwdjwkdj. Chrom and Xander are also hot.

If you’ve played (or are familiar with) the following games, who was your first S support? Who would you S support nowadays? - Awakening: Chrom forever and always. - Fates: Tsubaki was my first. Nowadays its Xander, Jakob or Shigure. - Three Houses: Dimitri. Its always Dimitri. If I play BL and I don't choose Dimitri I have been killed and replaced. - Engage: Diamant was my first! I also really liked Kagetsu and Amber.

Favorite Fire Emblem class? Dancer!

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class and stats? Would you be playable? I'd be the cleric that needs to be babied at first but gives cracked heals later on. High magic/speed/resistance, low Strength/Defense.

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? (Black Eagles, Blue Lions, Golden Deer, Church of Seiros, Those Who Slither in the Dark, unaffiliated civilian, other - for example Almyran) Blue Lions baybeeeeeeee

If you were an Officers Academy student, what would be your boons, banes and potential budding talent? Boons: Faith Reason Authority - Banes: Axes, Brawling, Heavy Armor

If you were an Engage character, which nation would you originate from? (Firene, the Kingdom of Abundance; Brodia, the Kingdom of Might; Elusia, the Kingdom of Knowledge; Solm, the Queendom of Freedom; Lythos, the holy land of the Divine Dragon; Gradlon, the desolate land of the Fell Dragon) Wherever Kagetsu's from.

How do you pronounce TOA? 🤔(separate letters, to-ah, other?) To-ah.

Current TOA muses: Ewan, Nils, Byleth M

Past TOA muses? Uhhh from the top of my head: Saleh, Rolf, Nina, Takumi, Male Corrin.

Who was your first TOA muse? If you no longer have them, can you see yourself picking them up again? Ewan was my first! I don't think I'll be dropping him for a long time as he's just become so special to me :)

Do you believe you have a type of character you gravitate towards writing? Characters that put up a front of being easygoing or simple, but have a lot of inner troubles they hide from others. Those that like to make others happy.

Do you have characters or types of characters you don’t think you can handle writing, but wish you could? Very masculine types. Manly Men or Muscle Himbos are characters I greatly enjoy but just don't like to write.

What kind of scenes, situations etc do you believe you enjoy writing the most? I like writing scenes where characters bond with each other, either over an earnest heart to heart or silly shenanigans.

Do you have any scenario in mind for your muse(s) that gets you thinking “man I hope I get to write this one day”? I would love to write a scene where the mask just fully crumbles and the entire truth is revealed about my muses deepest feelings. Also for Byleth specifically I'd love to write post timeskip scenes where he's in touch with his emotions and takes on the role of Archbishop.

Favorite TOA-related memories? A specific one was Andrei's turnaround on Ewan during the halloween candy game. It was one of the first major bonds Ewan would end up developing.

Present or past tense? I Try to say I'm past tense mostly but sometimes I jumble things up a little.

Normal size text, small text, no preference? I've started trying small text recently, but I'd say I have no real preference.

Got any potential muse delusions to share? 😉 Nope! I think I'm set for now. There is one character that, If the opportunity ever arises I'd want to get but not right now.

[ecargmura]

Cherry Magic Episode 4 Review - You're A Wizard, Tsuge

As the first half of the episode has shown, Tsuge has become a wizard now. Like Adachi, he has gained the power to listen to people’s hearts. How will Tsuge use this to find a love interest? Well, he found one already. That was darn freaking fast. Who does he fall in love with? The cute deliveryman Minato.

I think their ship name is called Tsugemina. Anyways, Tsugemina’s portrayal in the live action is a bit exaggerated compared to the manga and anime (which are pretty much identical). In the live action, Tsuge is very dramatic when he falls for Minato and when he realized he’s in love, he actually bashes his head against a bookshelf. When I watched the live action, I thought that Tsuge was a bit of a weirdo, but reading the manga and watching the anime made me realize that the way Tsuge is portrayed here is more faithful as he is a stoic man by nature. While the Tsugemina section seems short, that’s because the Tsuge chapters are pretty short in comparison to the main couple; there aren’t a lot too, so who knows when we’ll get another segment of them in future episodes.

I do like the Tsuge and Adachi scene. As Tsuge is a novice wizard, he’s unsure how to make use of the power, but for Adachi, the power has brought good things into his life; Tsuge even notices this too as Adachi has become a bit more talkative, especially when the topic revolves around Kurosawa. In the manga, this scene actually takes some time after the second Tsugemina scene as Adachi had mentioned that he read Tsuge’s new book and noticed the change in his usual heroine types as he added in a heroine with the exact same description as Minato, showcasing how down bad he is for this guy he barely knows (heck, he doesn’t even know his name until later on). Despite the changes, I do like the scene but I dislike the fact that Tsuge gets blocked from the chances he gets to talk to Adachi about the magic.

After Tsuge and Adachi meet up, the episode then shifts to Adachi being the focus character, which I think is a rather good way to transition. Adachi gets jealous for the first time when he sees a pretty lady talking with Kurosawa and starts getting insecure about himself. Despite his jealousy, he does realize that if he did get jealous of that woman, that means he does like Kurosawa in that way. I do like how he was fast to process that and accepted it right away. It sort of shows that even if he doesn’t have romantic experiences, he’s still mature enough to understand what love is.

It’s kind of sad to see why Adachi’s so hesitant towards romance. I sort of get it. If I heard someone say that it’s impossible to date me because of the lack of experience, I’d get insecure too. I’m glad that Kurosawa exists to show that Adachi can be loved no matter how much he adverses romance. The part where Kurosawa comes over to his house was sweet; however, how the heck did he know his address? The way Kurosawa thought about how he’d cherish all of Adachi’s first was heartwarming. I legit stomped my feet in a giddy mood. Why is this anime so cute? Why are they so cute?

No worries, though. The pretty lady happens to be Kurosawa’s sister, Mari. She’s hilarious as she feels like a typical older sibling trying to pester her brother to get what she wants: to stay at Kurosawa’s place until her boyfriend apologizes to her. She even followed him to Adachi’s house via GPS. I do like how Kurosawa feels like a bullied little brother here. She is also good with words as she managed to convince Kurosawa to stay at Adachi’s house, to which his simp self accepts after fantasizing a domestic AU he conjured up in his mind. Haha, he’s such a simp.

Oh and uh, the voice actor trivia of the week is that Gen Sato, Minato’s VA, only has done BL recently. Like out of the four main cast, he has the least amount of experience in BL media but I’m sure that’ll change. In the drama CD, he was voiced by Kouhei Amasaki.

What are your thoughts on the birth of the side couple? How about Mari as a character? What about the whole Kurodachi segment? What did you think about the episode as a whole?

[smashingpunks]

Hello BL and GL lovers!

My friend and I recently started a Thai BL-centric podcast called BL in the Air. We currently have 3 episodes up, and are posting every single friday :) Come listen if you want to hear discussions about deep dives into specific series, the actors in the BL community, upcoming/recently announced series, games/trivia, our views on the climate and cultural impact of BL, and SO MUCH MORE!

Here is our Linktree for our official socials, and links to podcasting platforms other than Spotify

If you give it a listen, lmk what you think <3