#but honestly it’s been so good and he finds that kind of insta-influencing DEAD

[itspileofgoodthings]

I go off about Catholic/christian religious influencers of all kinds and I do so for many reasons but one of the main ones is just. the feeling they’re selling (and it is a feeling and they’re selling it, even if just for views) it doesn’t feel like that for everyone. That whole simplistic set-up of struggle struggle struggle, breakthrough, clarity, emotional peace, tears streaming down the face. That’s not real. Or at least it’s not real much of the time in MANY cases and even when it is real that isn’t the only part or the most important part of having a relationship with God. It’s probably the least important part, the feeling. and so it fills me with RAGE when the emotional part of religion is sold and packaged and paraded and presented on Instagram as “inspiration”! it distorts the whole reality of a relationship with God and puts a literal and figurative Instagram filter over the whole thing.

[impossiblelibrary]

Today's rant brought to you by: Queer Eye Japan, can we all just try to be as kind as they try to be?

After watching the Queer Eye Japan super short season, I wanted to google to see the overall reaction to the show, make sure that my western eyes were correct in seeing the care that was given to the culture. Were cultural taboos, other than being outwardly gay, crossed? So I find this article in the top results and other than the perspective, why tho? Tokyoesque.com had an article with a higher reading level, with surface level appreciation but at least better written.

I can't get over this hate article though. Unfounded, dumb, wrong and incorrect. Do not go forward unless you like that blistering kind of anger from me.

But the reasons just get weaker as the article extends: "Hurts the country it set out to save?" Looking for white savior much? They did not go to save Japan, they gave some free shit to like 4-5 people, think smaller.

Their culture guide wasn't gay enough.

You want to suggest any lgbt insta models or celebrities, use your platform to raises some up?

"There is a growing sexless culture in Japan for married and unmarried people, and it is perilous watching Queer Eye present this without any context behind what is driving this behavior."

Sexiness is what the fab 5 embrace, unfortunately and it was probably discussed behind the scenes of how much talking about sex was allowed or polite and the conversation of not having sex is closer to the tip of the tongue rather than the feeling of sexiness. The West is not the ones blasting that information. It is across multiple Japanese printed newspapers and online stories by now and the "context" is still being discussed and debated amongst Japanese. So I don't think any outsiders should be weighing in or "explaining" this phenomenon. We can repeat what we have been told but guessing at the reasons is not our place. The reasons illustrated by the author of the article seem lacking, a take but not the only one, but who am I to speak on that being in a sexual relationship with someone who pulls from that culture?

Kiko begins to lecture Yoko-san on how she “threw away her womanhood” (referring to a Japanese idiom, onna wo suteru) by going makeup-free and wearing drab, shapeless clothes.

The mistranslation by the subtitles fixed by this author was necessary information. But Kiko didn't lecture her on it, it was brought up by Yoko before any of them arrived, that was her theme, that was what she had decided to focus on. Meanwhile, if you watched Jonathan, he understood there was no time to spend on makeup and skincare so provided her a one instrument, 3 points of color on the skin to feel prettier. That and the entire episode being the 5 treating her like a woman on a date, not trying to hook her up, which is what they did in American eps.

"In teaching a Japanese woman, who already struggles to find time for herself, how to make an English recipe, Antoni is making great TV and nothing more."

So Antoni shouldn't have taught her apple pie because it's too exotic for a Japanese woman. (Can you smell the sexism?)

He didn't make an apple pie, altho Yoko did mention her mother made that for her when she was a kid. He made an apple tartine after going to a Japanese bakery who makes that all the time. Then highlighted the apples came from Fuji in true Japanese media fashion. Honey, American television doesn't usually highlight where the ingredients come from. A Japanese producer told him to do that. So all worries handled within the same ep. She got Japanese ingredients, had the recipe shown to her and then made it for her friends in her own house. Did the author actually watch this show or nah?

"beaten over the head with his western self-help logic. “You have to live for yourself,” he says."

The style of build up the 5 went for was confrontational but in a "I'm fighting for you" way. It's hard to describe, but the best I can say is, a person has multiple voices in their head, from parents, siblings, society, and maybe themselves. By being loud and obnoxious, American staples right there, they are adding one more voice. You deserve this, you are amazing, you are worth it. I know this is against most Japanese cultural modesty, but maybe it shouldn't be.

Sarcasm lies ahead:

Apparently: mispronunciation is microaggressions, not just someone who had a sucky school system. Yea okay, They're laughing at the language not at how stumbling these monolinguals are with visiting another country. Mmhm. Japanese don't say I love you and don't touch and that should stay that way instead of maybe, once in awhile, feeling like they can hug. Yeah, let's just ignore Yoko's break down that she had never hugged her lifelong friend after hugging strangers multiple times. Maid cafes are never sexualized in Japan ever, just don't go down that one street in Akihabara where the men are led off by the hand sheepishly blushing. Gag me. And Japanese men love to cry in front of their wives and would never break down once the wife leaves. I have never seen a Japanese movie showcase that move. Grr.

"I identify as many cultures."

So you're a Japanese man when it's convenient for you to get an article published? Are you nationally Japanese or just ethnically or culturally?

Homeland is an inherently racist word?

"After the Bush administration created the Department of Homeland Security after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a Republican consultant and speechwriter Peggy Noonan urged, “the name Homeland Security grates on a lot of people, understandably. Homeland isn’t really an American word, it’s not something we used to say or say now.”

Yes, let's use a Washington Post article rather than a etymology professor. Yes, the google search results increased after 2001 Homeland Security was used but the word has been around since the 1660s and I've read multiple turn of the century lit on white people returning to their homeland, i.e. the town off the coast they were born in.

"But" is not disagreeing. I think the repeated offender for the author is the not acknowledging the makeover-ees feelings. But, that is how LGBT have decided to deal with the inner voices that invade from society. They are just that, not our own, they are the influence of society, and we can choose, we have to choose, to be influenced by someone, anyone else.

Karamo can't speak about being black when an Asian is speaking about being Asian, even though the Asian gay man was feeling alone. It's called relating bitches, and I'm done with people saying that is redirecting the conversation, it's extending the conversation. That's how we talk, the spotlight is shared, especially when someone's about to cry and doesn't want to be seen as crying, time to turn the spotlight.

The gay monk wasn't good enough, you should have invited the gay politician.

Yeah, causes I'm sure a politician has all the time in the world for a quick stint and cry. They picked a Japanese monk who travels to NY because they had a guest who travels to the West too. Did you want him to stop traveling back and forth? Did you want a pure, ethnic and cultural Japanese gay man who has no ties to the west to talk to this Western educated young man? Seriously?

This is just not how it works in Japan.

Being in a multi-cultural marriage between two rebels, discussions on facets of culture are plenty in my household. Culture should be respected enough to be considered but not held on a pedestal like we should never adjust or throw some things out. LGBT being quiet and private for instance. "Being seen" was Jonathan's advice, and a good one especially for a Japanese gay man that was called feminine since he was a kid. Some gay men can hide, but as Jonathan said, he couldn't hide what he was, he couldn't hide this. So fuck it. Don't hide. It's actually more dangerous for a feminine man to come off as anxious rather than gay and proud. It makes you more of a target if they think you won't fight back. Proud means, Imma throw hands too, bitch.

This is also from the civil rights playbook going back to Black America: never hold a protest or a fight without the cameras, without being seen. LGBT have found the more seen they are, in media, in the streets, the better off we are. When LGBT Americans were being "private" about our lifestyles, we died, a la 1980s. They won't care if you start dying off if they never saw you to begin with.

And hence why I think the author's real anger is from these 5 being seen dancing flamboyantly in Shibuya, in Harajuku, afforded the privilege of doing this safely because of their tourist status, cameras and very low violence rate in Tokyo, loud and obnoxiously. Honestly, they wouldn't have been invited or nominated if they didn't want that brash American-ness coming into their home, just for a taste, at least.

Here's my real anger, my own jealousy: Japan's queer community currently does not have marriage or adoption rights. US does, so we have progressed further. But we are also not that many years from being tied to cow fences with barbed wire, beaten with baseball bats and left for dead overnight. If things are so bad over there, maybe take a few pages from the civil right playbook we took so much time to perfect and produced by the Black Americans who fought first. But so far, I only hear loss of jobs and marriages, which we still have here too. Stop trying to divide us, we are one community, LGBT around the world and we are here to try to help. Take it or leave it, it's not like we're going to go organize your own Pride parade for you.

Rant over? I guess. Is this important enough to be put in the google results along with his. Hell no, anyone with half a mind can see he's reaching more than half the time. And any argument about: this wasn't covered! There are a shit ton of conversations that are not covered in the 45 min they have. They are not a civil rights show, it's a makeover show, doing their best in that direction anyway. Know what it is.

Next blog post, what research I would guess was happening behind the scenes for each of the 5? I'm pretty sure I saw Jonathan doing Japanese style makeup there...

[freakypumpkin]

The Dilemma for Captive Prince

It’s no secret, that there are a lot of people, who stopped the Captive Prince trilogy after the first book and that’s okay. The themes aren’t for everybody, the series in general has very mature themes and content and is not for everybody. The thing I want to touch on in this post is more about the reasoning of dropping the series after the first book. 

Just to be clear, if you stopped the book or refuse to read them, because you don’t care about the characters (mostly Damen, because it’s his POV) or find the story boring or the things happening triggering, I have no issue with that. Nobody should be forced to read something that make them uncomfortable, bores them or downright is a threat to their mental health.

Disclaimer: There will be spoilers for the third book, because I feel like I need to put them in here to make the point because who are against the series won’t trust my word on ‘Oh, you will understand, when you get to the twist’ and because those against it might not read it at all anyway.

Again and again it comes up, that people are shocked at how the first book plays out, when they went in expecting a romance story like it’s (unfortunately) often advertised. (It’s not a romance, it has a romantic subplot.) And as I got back into watching booktube videos, I kept hearing things like:

“I don’t see, how Laurent could ever be redeemed.“ “I don’t see how they’re supposed to end up as this epic power couple.“ (I would also argue, that they don’t really end up as the power couple, but you can see at the end of book three, the potential of them becoming one)

Upon hearing these things, my first thought was always ‘Well, then read it and find out?’ because it’s one of the main motivators for me to keep reading certain books. (I mostly finished TMI to see how the relationship of Magnus and Alec would end and to this day I haven’t read the scenes of Clary being kidnapped by Sebastian and Jace because that was a storyline I didn’t care about.) But I also kept thinking about these comments about Captive Prince and that part of ‘I don’t see how this could be resolved’ as if they thought about every possible way of how this story could go and didn’t see a good conclusion at the end of any of these roads. 

The Pattern of Romance It made me think about how romance is usually written and noticed, that we usually have the pattern of:

1. book: Get together 2. book: Crisis happens 3. book: Making up/final establishment as a couple

In most books where the romance aspect plays a more prominent role the couple gets together at the end of the first book because their romance developing is a specific arc in the book. Not for Captive Prince. There it is more like:

1. book: We can help each other 2. book: Physical Attraction noted and acted on it + mutual respect 3. book: Feelings are happening all over the place (sort of, it’s been a while since I read the books)

The thing is, in terms of the usual romance plot, you get the first arc of the typical romance over the course of three books (which is why I mentioned, it’s just a subplot). But with most books, we tend to be conditioned, that romance happens either fast or becomes quickly visible, with insta-love being all over the place these days.

So, this is the first one of my theories, with which you can disagree if you want and chalk it up to me not having read that many mainstream books lately.

Laurent’s Redemption? People, who read the first book despised Laurent and are often up in arms about the abuse that happens between the couple-to-be and yes, I agree, that almost flogging Damen to death is not the best first date idea. (It has the added horror to people, that Damen is a POC and Laurent’s white, but that’s a story for another day, told by somebody else.) I was skeptical going into the first book. I’ve seen people hating it with a passion and others loving it like their first born child. So, I was curious to see how this would go. It was probably good for me, that I was spoiled for the stuff, that would happen and the flogging specifically, so I knew it was coming, which made me more curious on how this would play out.  Pacat had pretty much written herself into a corner after the flogging scene, I think. How would she get out of that and I do think, it takes more than a full book to get out of that Dead End, when at the beginning of the third book it is revealed, that Laurent knew who Damen was from the start - the person, who killed Laurent’s older brother. 

That and the point, where we find out, that his uncle, the Regent, also sexually abused Laurent after Auguste’s death and took advantage of him being emotionally vulnerable, that puts the whole first book into a new perspective.  Yes, Laurent is cruel in the beginning, but he is also in a situation where he is confronted daily with his abuser who holds the throne, and there’s nobody to talk to. And in this situation he is gifted a slave, who he knows is the killer of his brother, who he is stopped from actually killing in revenge by the guy who sexually abused him. I would say, looking back it’s fucked up situation to be in and to survive. 

Therefore I would also say, Laurent doesn’t get redeemed, he was cruel af and until the end, he doesn’t exactly become the king of Fluff, but that would have been a realistic character development. The flogging especially is something, that is very present between them and nothing that is imo treated as ‘ancient history, we all make mistakes’, Just like Damen carries the guilt of killing Auguste, despite it having happened during a war, with them on opposing sides. Laurent doesn’t get redeemed, he gets explained. His actions aren’t excused, but made understandable.

Why the difficulty with understanding him?  Looking at the character in broad strokes, Laurent is the stereotype of the cruel prince: royal by birth, scheming, living in luxury, cruel for fun with a sort of lethal beauty Though there are details added in the books, that shape Laurent’s character beyond the aforementioned stereotype are: - He’s not cruel for fun in general, he is cruel towards Damen because he knows who he is (Damen remarks later, that Laurent would have let him go had he been any other slave) - He lives in luxury, but doesn’t cover himself in jewelry, he covers himself in fabric as a defense against what has been done to him by the Regent - He’s royal by birth, but his throne is held hostage by his uncle, who first sexually abused him and now wants him dead - he is scheming and good at it (something, that I found instantly fascinating), but this as well is a defense developed as a measure of survival against the threat of his uncle - he’s really pretty ... no twist there. (Only, that he knows to use his looks if has to.)

Most of these details are not that prominent in the public display of the character because they are connected to spoilers of the plot.

Now, we have the more prominent stereotype of the ‘Bad Boy with the terrible childhood/past’ who just gets away with awful stuff because of his past. Readers are used to a character being awful at first taking that road of having some kind of tragic backstory thrown at the reader and that excuses their actions. So, I think, people often think, that is the only way it could go and are put off by that. But that’s not the case. Laurent’s childhood/past is pretty much hell, but it’s not used as excuse. (He himself doesn’t even bring up the sexual abuse, it’s his uncle basking in torturing Damen with that reveal.) It’s used to put his actions into perspective and as a reason for Laurent’s deep hatred for the Regent.

So, yeah, Laurent is an onion, that was peeled against his will once and now bites when people try to do it again. And the additional reveal of him knowing who Damen really is almost gives you whiplash after reading the first two books (especially the second one) of “Wait, WHAT?” because you realize Laurent grew to trust and respect Damen for his skills and personality despite knowing he killed his brother, he acknowledges that skill, too. (Honestly i found that refreshing after all those blind revenge plots of ‘I will avenge my [add family member here] and if it’s the last thing I do’.)

The Dilemma of POV Damen is the only POV telling the story, therefore the abuse he suffers is more visible and the reader actively suffers with him. It’s also shown, while Laurent’s abuse is told (in a much shorter way, too). That way, the abuse Damen suffers is more prominent, easily explained by the basics of writing.  Not to mention, that people, who stopped after the first book don’t even know about Laurent’s story.

It’s a case of ‘visible abuse vs. invisible abuse’, which is reflected in the writing. And if you want to be really provokative, you could say, the people’s reaction to Laurent and Damen is a mirror of society’s reaction to visible and invisible abuse and to the case of ‘not looking like a victim’ ...  There’s also the possible case to see Laurent as ‘the risk of an abuse victim turning into an abuser’ ... (there are some topics, that could be turned into a paper)

Conclusion? Pacat took a great risk with Laurent in the first book and to advertise it as love story didn’t do it any favors, but what she ended up achieving was quite impressive.  So, going back to the beginning of “I don’t see how this supposed to work itself out positively.” ... you’re not supposed to see that after the first book, it’s the point of the series to create a tense starting point and make you wonder how it’s supposed to be concluded. 

The problem stands with people, who have read the first book, judging the whole series as bad and terrible and judging the people who like the whole series and going ‘I don’t get how people can like this series’. 

When going into books, it can be important to realize, that our judgement of that book is influenced by expectations created by other books, the summary on the back and character types we met before or patterns we’ve seen before and when we get tidpits of these patterns in new books, we tend to put the rest of the pattern in by ourselves and see it as fullfilling the pattern despite it not being the case.  This why I tend to go for spoilers to either save myself the trouble of going down a path I don’t want to go or with at least wait a bit to see if the storyline I’m following is really as predictable as I think it will be (just skimming the text). If it ends up being predictable, I kick it, if not, I’m surprised positively and eventually go back to reread the part I skimmed. 

It’s more helpful to go “Will it go down this road?” instead of “It’s going down that road!”.

So, when CP doesn’t make it apparent how Damen and Laurent end up together after the first book, and you don’t like it, it’s not the fault of the book, it’s more your problem of expecting it to do so - is what I’m trying to say here.   

The trilogy is actually also not a trilogy like we are most used to seeing them, with each of the books having a concluded story arc, it’s more a case of one story being broken into three acts/books. And again, the expectation to get a trilogy like people expect based on how most are structured is not the fault of the books.

Are they flawless? No. But seeing people shit on CP as ‘trash’ and ‘problematic’ and then go and praise Cassandra Clare for her books, just annoys me and makes me think, that there are way more urgent issues of more subtle problematic writing, that we should worry about. Not to mention, that CC’s stuff is YA - aimed at teenagers - and CP is adult fiction.

And with this I conclude my two cents concerning people’s problems with CP.