#censorship wilding out

[meherya]

crazy that it's been now proven (again) that india has been actively targeting sikhs in the diaspora... if people in our community aren't even safe abroad to what measure are we safe within that country

[queenerdloser]

looking through on sale nonfiction books on the barnes and noble website is fucking wild sometimes. there's popular nonfiction history next to movie cookbooks next to celebrity memoirs next to vitrolic conservative putdowns of joe biden next to reflections on the current state of democracy next to religious manifestos next to the most insane thinly veiled prejudiced frothing conservative mishmash you've ever seen in your life

[renthony]

In Defense of Shitty Queer Art

Queer art has a long history of being censored and sidelined. In 1895, Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray was used as evidence in the author’s sodomy trials. From the 1930s to the 1960s, the American Hays Code prohibited depictions of queerness in film, defining it as “sex perversion.” In 2020, the book Steven Universe: End of an Era by Chris McDonnell confirmed that Rebecca Sugar’s insistence on including a sapphic wedding in the show is what triggered its cancellation by Cartoon Network. According to the American Library Association, of the top ten most challenged books in 2023, seven were targeted for their queer content. Across time, place, and medium, queer art has been ruthlessly targeted by censors and protesters, and at times it seems there might be no end in sight.

So why, then, are queer spaces so viciously critical of queer art?

Name any piece of moderately-well-known queer media, and you can find immense, vitriolic discourse surrounding it. Audiences debate whether queer media is good representation, bad representation, or whether it’s otherwise too problematic to engage with. Artists are picked apart under a microscope to make sure their morals are pure enough and their identities queer enough. Every minor fault—real or perceived—is compiled in discourse dossiers and spread around online. Lines are drawn, and callout posts are made against those who get too close to “problematic art.”

Modern examples abound, such as the TV show Steven Universe, the video game Dream Daddy, or the webcomic Boyfriends, but it’s far from a new phenomenon. In his book Hi Honey, I’m Homo!, queer pop culture analyst Matt Baume writes about an example from the 1970s, where the ABC sitcom titled Soap was protested by homophobes and queer audiences alike—before a single episode of the show ever aired. Audiences didn’t wait to actually watch the show before passing judgment and writing protest letters.

After so many years starved for positive representation, it’s understandable for queer audiences to crave depictions where we’re treated well. It’s exhausting to only ever see the same tired gay tropes and subtext, and queer audiences deserve more. Yet the way to more, better, varied representation is not to insist on perfection. The pursuit of perfection is poison in art, and it’s no different when that art happens to be queer.

When the pool of queer art is so limited, it feels horrible when a piece of queer art doesn’t live up to expectations. Even if the representation is technically good, it’s disappointing to get excited for a queer story only for that story to underwhelm and frustrate you.

But the world needs that disappointing art. It needs mediocre art. It even needs the bad art. The world needs to reach a point where queer artists can fearlessly make a mess, because if queer artists can only strive for perfection, the less art they can make. They may eventually produce a masterpiece, but a single masterpiece is still a drop in the bucket compared to the oceans of censorship. The only way to drown out bigotry and offensive stereotypes created by bigots is to allow queer artists the ability to experiment, learn through making mistakes, and represent their queer truth even if it clashes with someone else’s.

If queer artists aren’t allowed to make garbage, we can never make those masterpieces everyone craves. If queer artists are terrified at all times that their art will be targeted both by bigots and their own queer communities, queer art cannot thrive.

Let queer artists make shitty art. Let allies to queer people try their hand at representation, even if they miss the mark. Let queer art be messy, and let the artists screw up without fear of overblown retribution.

It’s the only way we’ll ever get more queer art.

_

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[foone]

I want a human zoology textbook.

Zoology, as in the study of animals. Like, a study of how humans work, done by an author that is not human.

I specifically want this for a couple reasons:

1. Descriptive, not prescriptive: don't tell me what the author thinks humans should do or how they should be. Tell me what they do. Observationally!

2. No bias towards "nature". I don't particularly care what the author is imagining humans are like in some "garden of eden" unfallen state. I want it to reference how humans ARE.

3. No morality applied to this! What do humans DO, not what you think they should do, or how they should be. And most importantly, no self-censorship in order to avoid offending some of the humans that disagree with ways people live.

And the reason I want this is because of how biology textbooks/wiki pages get written, where even if they try to be progressive they're still written from this weird perspective where they're explaining based on old ideas and the progressive stuff gets a footnote.

Like it'll be "humans have two genders, male and female. This is determined from their chromosomes, XY for male and xx for female."

And then you scroll past two pages for men and another two pages for women, and then it has one subsection that covers non-binary people and intersex people. And it's like: well then integrate that into your main statement!

It's like the author's worldview is still "there's two genders and everyone is born as one" but they've been forced to accept there are some weird exceptions but the core worldview is unchanged. And it's understandable! Wrong, but understandable: the grew up in a world that is quite strong on the "there are only two genders" ideology and doesn't like to remember that intersex people exist.

But like, imagine if you tried to do this as a zoologist. You're like "hey, all bees are female!" and then someone points out the rare male drones and they're like "oh okay I'll update my zoology textbook."

And now it reads:

All bees are female. Most are workers, and one is the queen.

(a couple sections go pass)

Drones: recent science has discovered that some bees are born male. These rare exceptions live short lives where they fertilize a queen and then die.

And it's like, no? Drones are very important to how a hive lives and they can't survive without them?

And we're constantly doing the same thing to humans and it's just bad science. Like, sure, maybe you could have the theory that "humans come in two genders: male and female" but as soon as you see one non-binary person, you have to discard that theory: it has been proven false! It's like not believing in other galaxies after Henrietta Swan Leavitt figured out how Cepheid Variables worked.

Add to that the "nature" thing. Like, you can make a sort of argument about nature vs artificial settings for a lot of species: the whole alpha/beta wolf thing came about because it turns out wolves act differently in captivity compared to the wild, so it makes sense to study how the vast majority of wolves live, not a small group you stuffed into a small area with unusual conditions. It's like saying the lifespan of goldfish is under 5 minutes, based on your study of them in this dry box you put them in.

But humans are different: we are tool-users who build new environments for ourselves. And while you can talk about how humans living in different environments act differently, it doesn't make a lot of sense to call one of them "artificial". All of them are made by us, and humans always do this. This means all environments are natural (because building environments for ourselves is what we naturally do) and all environments are artificial: we always alter our environments to better suit us! That's one of the things we naturally do!

And as for morality, it's about not ignoring things humans do regularly because you think it's weird or you think they shouldn't.

Like that tweet where someone pointed out that lots of species can change gender. Clown fish are a big one, some frogs, a couple birds, some lizards, and humans.

And people often have an immediate knee-jerk reaction of "that doesn't count!" for the last entity in that list. Why? Because we do it (usually) with clothes and makeup and medication, instead of just "naturally"? Bullshit. We're naturally TOOL USERS. Of course we use tools to change gender. We use tools to do EVERYTHING. That's natural for us.

So yeah. I think it'd be refreshing and enlightening to have a zoology textbook written about humans with this detached non-human perspective. An unbiased description of what humans are and do, rather than one irrevocably tinged with ideas of what humans should be and should do.

Basically I want to load up Vulcan Wikipedia and check the "Humans" article.

[maybe-boys-do-love]

It's wild that the whole global trend of gay-focused happy ending romance shows and movies has only been going on for *looks at calendar* a measly ten years!

Just ten years ago. 2014. That's when you get the discovery of a market for queer romance series and films with happy endings. That year the OG Love Sick in Thailand came out. Brazil puts out The Way He Looks, which deserves so much more credit than it receives for influencing the aeshtetics of the genre. Looking premieres on HBO, and although it had low ratings, it's an important touchstone. And, despite Nickelodeon’s censorship and shifting the program from tv to its website, the Legend of Korra confirms Korrasami in its season finale.

The next year, in 2015, we get Love Sick season 2, and China, pre-censorship laws has a few options: Happy Together (not the Wong Kar Wai one lol), Mr. X and I, and Falling In Love with a Rival. Canada, premieres Schitt's Creek. In the US, Steven Universe reveals Garnet as a romantic fusion between two female characters, and will proceed to just be so sapphic. Norwegian web series Skam premieres and sets up a gay protagonist for its third season, which will drop in 2016 and entirely change the global media landscape.

Then, 2016! This is the MOMENT. That aforementioned Skam season happens. Japan puts out the film version of Ossan's Love and anime series Yuri!!! on Ice. China has the impactful Addicted Heroine, which directly leads to increased censorship. The US has Moonlight come out and take home the Oscar. In Thailand, GMMTV enters the BL game and Thai BL explodes: Puppy Honey, SOTUS, Water Boyy, Make It Right, plus, the Thai Gay OK Bangkok, which, like its influence, Looking, is more in the queer tradition but introduces two dramatically important directors to the Thai BL industry, Aof and Jojo.

By 2017, Taiwan enters the game with its History series. Korea’s BL industry actually kicks off with Method and Long Time No See. Thailand’s got too many BLs to mention. Call Me By Your Name, though not a happy ending, makes a big splash that will send ripples through the whole genre, and God's Own Country offers a gruff counter-argument to problematic age differences and twink obsessions. This is also the year of Netflix reboot of One Day At a Time bringing some wlw to the screen, and the Disney Channel has a main character come out as ‘gay’ on Andi Mack ( I’m am ready to throw fists with anyone who thinks the Disney Channel aesthetic isn’t a part of current queer culture). And I'd be remiss not to mention the influential cult-following of chaotic web-series The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo: "Sometimes things that are expensive...are worse."

All this happened, and we hadn’t even gotten to Love, Simon, Elite, or ITSAY, yet.

Prior to all this there are some major precursors some of which signaled and primed a receptive market, others influenced the people who'd go on to create the QLs. Japan has a sputtering start in the 2010s with a few BL films (Takumi-Kun, Boys Love, and Jujoun Pure Heart). Most significantly in the American context, you have Glee, and its ending really makes way for the new era that can center gay young people in a world where queerness, due to easy access to digital information, is less novel to the characters. And the QL book and graphic novel landscape was way ahead of the television and film industries, directly creating many of the stories that the latter industries used.

There's plenty of the traditional queer media content (tragic melodramas and independent camp comedies) going on prior to and alongside QL, and there are some outlying queer romance films with happy endings that precede the era but feel very much akin to QL genre tropes and goals, many with a focus on postcolonial and multicultural perspectives (Saving Face, The Wedding Banquet, Big Eden, Maurice, My Beautiful Launderette, and Weekend). I don't mean to suggest that everything I’ve listed ought to be categorized as QL.

Rather, I want to point out how all of these new-era queer romance works are in a big queer global conversation together, in the creation of a new contemporary genre, a genre that has more capacity and thematic interest to include digital technology and normalize cross-cultural relationships than other genres (there's a reason fansubs and web platforms are so easily accepted and integrated to the proliferation of these series).

You're not too late to be part of the conversation. Imagine being alive in the 1960s and 70s and participating in the blossoming of the sci-fi genre. That flowering is where gay romance sits now. Join the party.

[bruhstation]

steam team's seniors during their baby years

A friend group so weird and toxic to people they dislike it could rival It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’s. They're not immune to the "I came to Sodor to avoid my problems and wanted a fresh start" trope many Sudrians also follow

Edward Pettigrew

Age: 31 as of 1984

A kind, friendly NWR railwayman who didn’t mind a lot of things and was popular amongst younger folks for his looks and demeanor. He likes showing newbies the ropes of the NWR and Sodor as a whole because he just loves infodumping. Despite being made fun of by some railwaymen for his “weirdness”, Edward worked hard and was known as the jack-of-all-trades by his peers, usually treating younger and newer railwaymen to drinks after work to get them accustomed to Sodor (he did this to Henry, then Gordon, then James). Originally from the village of Pezë in Tirana, Albania, 1940s. Due to his beginnings in a small rural village and the Albanian government’s censorship of outside influences and heavy restriction of traveling outside the country, Edward’s hunger for knowledge about the world grew more and more. His family had connections to the Lëvizja Nacional-Çlirimtare and Edward’s particularly bright and good at talking, so he became a diplomat to travel outside Albania – a step into his plans of learning more about the world. After landing himself in the United Kingdom and studying everything he wanted, he believes it’s still not enough. He found out about an island infamous for its supernatural occurrences and cases of people missing just off the coast of the UK – Sodor. Being the curious man he is, he discarded everything that’s needed for the LNÇ to locate him and landed on Sodor, gorging himself with every mystery the island has to offer. Impulsive? Yes. But for the first time, Edward felt true freedom. However, Edward got too curious and nosy and became a casualty in an accident fueled by supernatural hysteria related to Lady of the Legend and was transported around 40 years into the future, landing in 1983 with his memories all over the place. Despite losing his sense of self and having no idea what he is, his thirst for knowledge still lives on inside his head. His cheerfulness, amicability, and kindness are extensions he formed to make up for the hole inside his heart. Edward does love his friends, but he believes that if he can withhold information from them and make them all live in blissful ignorance, they can be truly happy – this all stems from his fear of exceeding his limits and being discarded (which he later copes by being a typical wise friendly old man in 1999). He often sees visages of Lady in his dreams.

Gordon J. Gresley

Age: 26 as of 1984

Joined after Henry. Looked like he was fresh out of a funeral. A young hotshot who was more polite, quiet, and reserved compared to his 1999 counterpart. Gordon started out as an apprentice fireman for the Wild Nor’Wester’s previous driver. He treated his arrival on Sodor as a desperate last resort to escape his issues and grief and pitifully believed he was “lumped with the social pariahs in the boonies”, but he’s gotten better and believed that this is where he can truly outshine everyone, much to the annoyance and chagrin of his seniors. Gordon acts like he knows what he’s doing in order to build up his image as someone who’s dependable and strong and revels in small basks of limelight. However, he was constantly uncomfortable with how Edward treated accidents as normal due to their survivors being in tip-top shape the next day and how Henry is so distrustful of and odd about everything and everyone and sweats 24/7, but he’s been masking and convincing himself that he’s not like the rest of them. He’s normal. He’s normal! Let’s all hold hands. Don’t be fooled by his sad face. Young Gordon can be arrogant and think he knows everything for being a youngin.

Henry Stanier

Age: 27 as of 1984

Joined after Edward, so he’s quite close to him. Gordon’s “senior” by 6 months. He’s always, ALWAYS scared endlessly about anything “out of the ordinary” and beats himself up over it, much to his own disgust. Henry had a deep rooted hatred and jealousy towards his peers for pitying him after a coworker revealed to other railwaymen that he’s narcoleptic without his permission. He’s been masking his disabilities despite it being detrimental for his well-being, but as long as people treated him “normally”, Henry would endure (dreadfully). He did this especially with Gordon, the newest addition to the Northwestern Railway at the time, because he didn’t want anyone else to treat him differently when they find out about his health issues. As an extention, Henry developed a vitriol towards Gordon too – he’s particularly jealous about how he’s so “ungrateful” of everything’s given to him like his fair looks, clothes, and position as the to-be face of the Wild Nor’Wester. They did become friends though despite the process not being easy. It’s okay. They became besties that were mean to old nosy folks. Initially wanted to pursue arts, but due to circumstances from his past related to his health and paranoia fueled by his past failures and “jinxes”, he came to Sodor as a half-hearted last resort to get a job. He wasn’t hopeful of having anyone respect him for who he is, but things do get better, much to his surprise.

James A. Hughes

Age: 25 as of 1989

Joined the NWR 5 years after Edward did. At that point, Gordon already discarded his GNR Green look and went for the blue attire (minus the big coat). Flaunts his beauty almost at any given time, especially when someone mildly complimented him. He’s more of a nerd (word used loosely because he acts like a know-it-all when he actually has no idea what he’s doing) compared to his canon, 1999 counterpart. James came to Sodor for a fresh start and believed he deserves more than what he’s given. He thinks he’s so tough and hard as nails – in fact it became his source of hubris because he gets into accidents and was scolded by his seniors for being so vain and stubborn. He doesn’t want to get dirty, he doesn’t want to shovel coal, he doesn’t want to get wet from the washdown suds – he only wants the good out of the work and doesn’t want to accept the “bad” sides as well, so James was branded as the “problem kid” of the NWR by older folks. James, who can’t handle harsh criticism and labels well, grow even more distant with them. He primarily hangs out with the RWS trio because they seem to understand his situation and the feeling of being “outcasted” (despite Gordon’s annoyance at his boastfulness). 

[chic-beyond-the-wall-oc-acct]

So, project 2025 has been deleting their PDFs but a few lovely people have posted the list of books they want to ban and other than the fact that the entire list is stupid, here's some that stuck out to me + the reasons listed next to them. Most of the books on the list are lgbtq+ books which one would expect to find there, so I just did ones I didn't expect.

The Holy Bible - Challenged for religious beliefs and graphic content.

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin - Sexual violence, political intrigue.

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson - Death and religious content.

Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey - Toilet humor and "disobedience."

Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak - Critique of the Russian Revolution.

Deadly Deceits by Ralph McGehee - Former CIA agent's critiques of the agency.

Emma by Jane Austen - Complex gender themes, social critique.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury - Censorship and media manipulation by the government.

Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling - Accusations of promoting witchcraft.

Howl by Allen Ginsberg - Explicit sexual content, anti-establishment themes

Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss - Concerns over violence against parents.

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez - Mental health, sexual content.

It's Perfectly Normal by Robie H. Harris - Sex education content.

It's So Amazing! by Robie H. Harris - Sex education content.

None Dare Call It Conspiracy by Gary Allen - Discusses alleged hidden global power structure.

None Dare Call It Treason by John A. Stormer - Anti-communist and conspiracy-focused.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - Critique of Soviet labor camps.

Operation Paperclip by Annie Jacobsen - Exposes secret U.S. program involving former Nazis.

My Brother Sam Is Dead by James Lincoln Collier - Violence, anti-war themes.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt vonnegut- Anti-war themes.

Spycatcher by Peter Wright - Ex-MI5 agent's account of intelligence operations.

The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama - Criticism of religion, perceived political messages.

The Awakening by Kate Chopin - Female independence, sexuality.

The Book of Night Women by Marlon James - Slavery, graphic violence.

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede - Magic, feminism.

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein - Themes of selfishness, parenting.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy - Examines class and caste issues in India.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - Critique of religious extremism and patriarchy.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas - Examines police violence and racial injustice

The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins - Depicts oppressive government and rebellion.

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster - Political subtext, wordplay.

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver - Critique of colonialism and missionary work.

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene - Critique of religion and political oppression

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle - Religious critique.

The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli - Seen as a critique of political ethics.

The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare - Often challenged for themes of submission of women in marriage.

Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer - Themes of violence, supernatural elements.

V for Vendetta by Alan Moore - Political rebellion, violence.

War is a Racket by Smedley D. Butler - Critique of war profiteering.

Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein - Dark humor, "rebellious" themes.

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak - Themes of rebellion, dark imagery.

Where's Waldo? by Martin Handford - Alleged inappropriate illustrations.

White Noise by Don DeLillo - Critique of consumerism and modern society.

Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes - Feminist themes.

Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss - Seen as political allegory.

Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis - Critique of authority and societal norms.

[eyesteeth]

if they make a modern version of the truman show i think it would be fun if it wasn’t a remake (doomed to fail at capturing the very specific style of the original) but instead was treated like an in-universe reboot that’s been updated for the modern era. other fun stuff could happen such as

fandom commentary: conflating real people with the roles they play, parasociality, etc. there was tackling of that in the original with the people sneaking onto set, but i think it could be modernized for fun. a popular youtuber is allowed to film a vlog on the set and almost gives away the act. people form theories about the “truman” online and then other people go “okay but this is a real guy. you’re theorizing about a real guy’s life. what is wrong with you” and absolutely wild internet drama goes down.

queer characters as commentary. perhaps an in-show character is queer but barely present, and it forms a commentary on tokenism. or an actor character is queer playing a non-queer role and it’s a commentary on censorship. maybe even the “truman” of the show is queer and it causes the studio executives to flip because they can’t have america’s new darling be an icky queer!! no way!! (personally i think trans woman “truman” would fucking rule. such a rich soup of potential there) (there is no fucking way an american movie company would let this happen btw. but it would be cool)

media commentary in general. this would also trend close to og i think because of Hollywood still being suspicious as hell, but it’s still a fun space to play in. “Fifty Years Ago, A Man Was Born On Television. Today, They’re Doing It Again”. a whole media circus about whether or not it’s ethical. protests and boycotts but the showrunners are so overwhelmingly rich that the show stays on the air.

probably too niche but comparisons to “influencer families” could be made i think. putting a child in front of a camera since birth and all the issues that come with that. the surveillance state hell we all live in with a smaller media hell panopticon that’s less universal

it would likely have a bleaker ending though. technology has improved since the original truman show. he got out. he was never meant to get out. this new truman won’t get out. not as long as the show is running. honestly it would be funny if the ending was like. show got cancelled. and they let “truman” out into the world, completely unprepared. but they’d make their way, somehow. they have to.

granted if they do end up doing a truman show reboot it would probably be, fucking awful. but if it was handled by someone who actually gets that it’s a horror movie and not a comedy, i think it could be something special.

now let’s all hope i didn’t speak the most soul-sucking hollywood-missed-the-point movie of all time into being

[charcubed]

Doctor Odyssey thoughts after the penultimate episode!

Or more accurately... Doctor Odyssey "worst case scenario crash out" exploration of a sorts, with some thoughts I've been sitting on without sharing for a bit:

• I'm staying in line for ODY3 and hopefully renewal because I'm incredibly stubborn, but more importantly because I personally find it more fun/rewarding to have excitement and "hope" about the shows and storylines I enjoy until the (possibly bitter) end. I don't find it fun to make myself truly miserable preemptively when watching something.

• I don't think it's an accident that this finale storyline involves a "group wedding" in language even if we don't get to see it in practice (more on that later), and also that the ship's got double booking going on as they're overrun with passengers. I think the intent/setup for some possible throuple follow-through is deliberately all there and so close we can taste it.

• However. That being said:

• We all have eyes and brains. I don't need to recount all the ways the throuple has felt like more of a love triangle and less like a throuple for several episodes, even since the absolute emotional peak and gorgeous cinema of Hot Tub Week seemingly put us back on track. Some of that was for episode reordering reasons, yes... but there hasn't been a ton of effort to course correct since, and overall in the back half of the season we also haven't gotten much Tristan/Max interactions either which has fucked with the characters' dynamics.

• Setting aside the boys' side of the triangle though: the bare minimum hope now is for Avery to choose them both, and for the boys' part to be either hinted at or developed in a second season. This is what we've been reduced to hoping for at this point with one episode to go, right? Manifesting it regardless.

• But!

• Look. Doctor Odyssey's been a miraculous gem of a show since day one that drew us all in because it had clarity of purpose about showcasing diversity in different kinds of people, love, and relationships, and because it was very obviously intended to have the thesis of a polyamorous slow burn love story. That is the show's premise and its point, and that's also the reason why it's felt like it's been floundering a bit as that point became decentralized. The reason why it's so miraculous that the show's been accomplishing all of what it's done so far is that it's on network fucking television. Network TV is infamous for the restrictions it operates under (the cast talked about this in interviews in regards to the threesome choreography a little) and the censorship of queer storylines that tends to befall it because of executive oversight.

• Censorship is why we have subtext and queercoding, and also why people's use of the word "queerbaiting" is nearly always bullshit that erases nuance and the acknowledgement of the constraints queer storytelling is often put under. But I digress.

• All this to say: this ain't my first rodeo. It likely isn't yours either. And there is, unfortunately, a non-zero possibility that – despite its miraculous existence – Doctor Odyssey as a show did not get to evade the crush of the censorship boot and network executive interference indefinitely. Especially after coming back from hiatus.

• That statement ^^^ stands on its own merit, because I think at this point it can be a hypothesis that holds up based on a lot of storyline and character dynamic shifting we've been seeing. It's not a wild thing to think.

• But here is where I also put my conspiracy hat on for a quick second, as a treat. Last episode, when we heard the Captain say to Max, "It got me thinking about the future and life after the Odyssey. Family. Love. But you just can't make someone else want the things that you want. So I’ve taken the next-best course: accept and surrender"... I was like, hmmm. What I'd LIKE for that to mean, in the style of unsubtle typical Doctor Odyssey foreshadowing, is an eventual "accept and surrender" to a throuple scenario. But in the moment, the dark second thing that occurred to me for its potential meaning was a worst case scenario option: that that line is potentially extra-narratively about having to accept and surrender to doing more of a love triangle than polyamory.

• Here's why: The Captain is the consistent mouthpiece of love and support for the OT3 in our show. I adore him. He is the captain of the ship, pun intended. "The three of you take care of each other. I like seeing that," for example. When Captain Massey speaks of what he wants for our trio, it's what we (and likely the creative team behind the story) want too. So him saying he couldn't make someone want what he wanted... It did make me wonder if it was a small warning.

• (Also worth noting that, in a semi-abrupt turn, this was about how the Captain just lost the baby he was so excited to have. The baby and life he accepted he was ready to move forward + embrace in the Hot Tub Week episode, which was also our peak ODY3 indication episode. Captain lost his baby... did we lose ODY3? And so on. He is also about to be removed from his position of authority as Captain in the final episode of the season, based on the promo; whether he'll be reinstated by the end of it remains to be seen, but of course I hope so from a character perspective as part of a happy-ish ending.)

• Yes, this all sounds bananas. But remember, the Captain's lines aside, my point here is that this is still network TV, and there is no end to the amount of things network executives can decide to turn around and stifle when it comes to queer stories.

• Part of this is because I'm still thinking about that Disney exec's quote about a possible Doctor Odyssey renewal. We've all seen it:

"I really love Doctor Odyssey, I think it’s a wildly inventive show, and we’re doing everything we can to support it. That decision ultimately lies with Ryan Murphy, whether Ryan wants to continue to do it, and he feels like there’s stories to tell that he feels confident in."

• I have quietly felt like this quote was some level of bullshit from the moment I read it lol. Again, this is all conjecture, BUT: there is a non-zero possibility that the execs gave Ryan Murphy an ultimatum about no longer doing polyamory, and since that's the premise of the show, he is stuck struggling to figure out where the show can go from here. Which is maybe why it's a decision (but not much of one) that the execs say Ryan Murphy has to make, which positions him as the bad guy who has to take the fallout from fans if he ostensibly ~just decides not to continue the story~ if renewal doesn't happen.

• So. With aaalllll that in mind, this is my Responsible Posting moment before the finale next week (and God I'm tired of having to write this type of post. But this ain't my first rodeo):

• If we do end on some fuckass "Avery chooses Max in the love triangle and Tristan's heart is broken" type of worst case scenario story, and especially if we don't get renewal after that, it will suck so fucking bad. SO bad. It'll be a tragedy after all the potential. In my stubbornness, even as I type this, I still have some level of belief that won't be the case and that even if we don't get explicit throuple we'll somehow get a secret third thing lol. But I'm preemptively holding up the Hot Tub Week episode (and these words from the director of it) and shaking it like a rag doll to remind everyone that that episode was crystal fucking clear and given to us as a gift that works as an optional "I've decided the story ends here" if we need it to be. That is not an accident, or queerbaiting, or whatever-the-fuck-else people will start calling it (and the threesome, and the multiple explicit poly relationships we got on network TV, and all the other queerness this show gave us) if this goes south. I'm saying this now in advance in case it ends up being needed: You aren't insane, this show wasn't stringing you along maliciously, what we did get was still beautiful, shit happens when it comes to network TV even in the big year of 2025, yes we can and will crash out but we can do so with nuance without blaming creatives who fight for the stories we love rather than the people above them who limit their work, Goddammit.

• And! And. If we do get a fuckass ending, I will personally also be perceiving and witnessing and pointing to whatever throuple crumbs we may get in between the fuckery. Because if NOTHING ELSE, I do have faith those crumbs will be there despite any bullshit. The creators of this show knew what they were making, and if they weren't allowed to make it properly anymore, then... it may be a situation where they did what they could, and so I'll be doing what I can to glean the hints at that.

• I hope this makes sense.

• TL;DR: if they leave the throuple behind for a love triangle "resolution" type of ending in the eleventh hour, remember how we got here and understand how we got here and know where to direct your ire.

• Thank you for coming to my TED talk. This was written out of caution and minor foreboding but hopefully it'll all become unnecessary.

• Now let's get this ODY3 + renewal anyway despite it all. Yes? Yes.

[thebroccolination]

Can we all just take a minute to fully admire and appreciate how fucking brilliant it was to make a trailer for “The Ex-Morning” in which the only hint of a sex scene is this?

Like, as a longtime KristSingto fan, this series is breaking my brain. Because it’s not just that it’s a meta series written for them. That’s old news, and I think all of us have fully processed that aspect by now, right? Right.

No, what’s wild to me now are the love scenes. Plural. Multiple! So many of them that even Singto showed up to set one day like, “Wait, there’s more?”

It’s not even the fact that there are sex scenes that’s wild to me. I mean, we’re in a new era, and they’re adults now, so that’s par for the course.

Like, their debut series “SOTUS”—The One that Changed It All—aired in a time of much stronger television censorship in Thailand, and KristSingto were so young at the time, it makes sense that the most suggestive thing they were allowed to do was sneak the teensiest hint of tongue into one (1) kiss in “SOTUS S” when they were each a year older. And even then, they got slapped with a WARNING on the SCREEN because of it!!!

[It’s this one. Episode nine, part four. Enjoy!]

Like, their magazine spreads released at the same time were much more suggestive than anything they were allowed to do onscreen!!!

Those are from back when they were featured in the Thai edition of the gay magazine Attitude.

Twice.

Singto is so proud of the second shoot he fucking showed Arm a shot he keeps on his phone last year.

He also has a photo of him and Krist in his wallet. It’s been there for eighty-four years. You’ve gotta be unhinged about your partner to last in this industry, and that applies to every pair in PeBaCa.

So, okay, they couldn’t do sex scenes back then. But then they got older and the industry got bolder and both of them went on to have sex scenes with other costars. And as of “Be My Favorite” in 2023, they’ve both had sex scenes in BL with different partners. That’s bonkers enough, right? THE KristSingto, the original point of the Holy Trinity, have never had a sex scene. Purely because of timing, age, and GMMTV never bothering to give them another BL together because they were content to milk the “SOTUS” nostalgia.

But the wildest thing of all to me?

The really bonkers part?

The genius of the marketing for “The Ex-Morning.”

Because we know there are sex scenes. They keep talking about them. But apart from some suggestive production photos, that gif of Singto without a shirt is the closest thing we have to a preview of them.

And like??? The fact that the trailer just focused on the story and the characters and their relationship and still racked up over two million views in the first twenty-four hours when they could have thrown in another sexy shirtless scene like they did at the end of the pilot? Keeping everything for the series? Amazing choice.

Now it’s clear that those two million views were based off the strength of the series, the excitement about KristSingto reuniting, and the enthusiasm of their fans—not that there’s sex in the trailer.

It’s the perfect balance: they have plenty of love scenes, but they’re not using them for marketing purposes aside from talking about them. It would have been so easy to do! But they were remarkably restrained. They even pulled back the shot at the very end of the trailer so you can’t see them making out on the beach!

So now people are focused on the comeback and the story, and the sex is acknowledged and important but it isn’t the main focus.

Like holy shit, I’m not used to GMMTV marketing anything this well. So much so that I’m wondering if they outsourced it.

Nevertheless, major kudos. Big applause.

[apoemaday]

Rain

by Billy Collins

Some time after the books had been forbidden – The one about the woman and her daughter, The one about the boy who spoke poorly – And after the smoke from the incinerators had cleared, It was suggested that censorship be extended To the plover, the wild turkey, and the common moorhen. But these birds have done nothing, a few protested. That is precisely the problem, the loudspeakers announced. It rained that month day and night. Men with nets fanned out into the fields And shouted to each other along the shorelines. Teachers disappeared on the way to their cars. Then the committee came after the morning glory For its suggestive furling and unfurling And the ligustrum and the alstroemeria Because they were difficult to pronounce and spell. Then the pine tree for its tricky needles and cones And parsley and red and yellow peppers for no reason at all. You would think the lock and the gate Would be safe, but that was well before whispering, Shaking hands on the street, And hooking an arm around someone’s waist Became the subjects of discussion Across long granite tables behind dark glass doors. And the rain was constant and cold – fine days to curl up with a good book, someone joked – but there were no more books, just the curling up of people quietly in corners and doorways, bits of straw floating down the streets along the curbs into the turbulent rivers and out to sea.

[respectthepetty]

Pride Petty Watch

Long story short, I owe the BL gods, so I'll be watching TWO series from my Petty List during the month of June. This list includes shows I haven't watched for purely petty reasons, so I'm asking the crowd to pick the two shows I will watch from all the MAME series, some censored Chinese bromances, a few sexual tension-filled Korean bromances, and one wild card.

I'm making my first ever poll, so whichever two series get the highest numbers will be the two I watch. And for all the kind people in the crowd, this is not the time to think about me. Pick your favorite. And for all the people who I annoy on the daily with my wild ass takes that piss you off, pick TharnType. But there is a possibility of a secret thirteenth option that would hurt me much worse . . .

The petty ass reasons are below the poll.

Disclaimer: If you're going to read the petty ass reasons, I need you to understand these are PETTY ASS REASONS, so don't try to hit me with 2,000 words about why me not watching censored bromances is a problem or why me not liking your fave hurts your feelings. Nah. Pick a show!

MAME

Love By Chance

This show came out at the end of 2018, and I watched the first episode, maybe first two, and thought it was boring. Then, in 2019, I saw a GIF of the locker scene, so I recommitted. I made it past the first episode just when the PerthSaint drama started spilling out everywhere, so I chucked the deuces and haven't returned since.

TharnType

For some reason, I couldn't find the first episode when it aired. Then, I found out how the first episode ended. Then, I found out about Type's past. Then, I just kept finding out more awful stuff until eventually the MewGulf shit finally hit the fan, and I was still reeling from the PerthSaint drama (and the emerging ZeeSaint chaos). At this point, I've built this show up so much that I'm afraid to see what it is actually about.

Don't Say No

A story of another GIF of a locker room scene sucking me in! After the first two MAME pairs blew up, I believed her shows were cursed, so I opted out of watching this one even though I thought it would be the one to vibe with me the most. But the biggest reason was because the main characters came from TharnType, so I felt like I would have to watch TharnType to understand this show, which was a big hell nah.

Love in the Air

I watched this through mutuals on my dash, so I feel like I did watch it. It is also the highest rated MAME series, so I had faith in it. However, when I found out about Sky's past, TharnType's ghost popped back up, and I realized this demon of a show is gonna haunt me in every MAME series.

The Wedding Plan

Y'all hated one of the leads so much while it was airing that I now hate him, and I don't think I can let that go, so I'm coming in with pre-hate and TharnType's ghost, but on top of that, some of y'all said it was boring. But what is boring in a MAME series? Consent? Not kidnapping someone? I never got answers, so I'm very conflicted about this show.

Censored Chinese

The Untamed

It's color coded, but FIFTY FUCKING EPISODES! What is this shit? Grey's Anatomy? The fuck! Second, once China pulled Addicted, I was holding grudges for life because it crossed from entertainment censorship into real-world oppression, so I could not bring myself to support media from a country that openly discriminates against the queers when I live in America where our highest court is just one Supreme Court Justice away from making us all live in the damn Mojo Dojo Casa House.

Word of Honor

It's color coded, but THIRTY-SIX FUCKING EPISODES! What is this shit? Supernatural?! The fuck! Second, I don't know the difference between this and The Untamed. Both are color-coded, one of them has a lot of uncles (?), one of them has awful facial hair, and they all have pretty outfits. Every time someone makes a reference about these shows, I just nod the same way I do when people mention Star Wars because none of it makes sense.

Guardian

I spent two years believing Killer and Healer was Guardian. I haven't watched either, but I thought they were the same show. Honestly, if this show wins, I might just watch Killer and Healer because I will forget they are not the same show. Don't they both solve cases? And because it's China, past lives must be involved, no? I'm looking at their MDLs as I write this, and I'm still not convinced they are different.

Stay with Me

It's color coded, but I know how it ends, and word on the street is that IS the ending since a second season seems unlikely. China couldn't just let me be hurt over Addicted, the original. No. Gotta hurt me again with Addicted, the remake. Rude af.

The Spirealm

First off, SEVENTY-EIGHT FUCKING EPISODES! What is this shit? Law & Order: SVU?! The fuck! I know how this ends, and it ain't happy! I don't care how people are trying to spin it, so to sit through SEVENTY-EIGHT DAMN EPISODES just for that ending already has me irate. And don't try telling me Viki combined episodes so it's only thirty-four. That's still a lot. However, everybody who has watched it says it's phenomenal, so is the pain worth it or are these people all lying so they convince themselves it was worth it?

Korean Bromance

Beyond Evil

With most Korean dramas, I feel like I missing something important. Like some part of the story does not click with me and I stay lost for the rest of the show. I suck it up for the queers, but the not-queers-but-it-is-queer shows . . . nah, and especially one about cops . . . (-_-). Also, The Worst of Evil just showed, and it was another reminder that I need these cops to quit their jobs and just screw each other. Embrace "Be Gay. Do Crime"

The Devil Judge

I know enough about Kpop to know GOT7 would not let one of its members kiss a man in this show. I looked at those GIFs of Jeff Satur and Jackson Wang on their show knowing damn well that if Wang got too close to Satur, an entire management team would have ascended from hell and kidnapped both of them, so the promo for this show was so wild because it felt queerbait-adjacent, and I was salty about it.

WILD CARD!

This option will be automatically unlocked IF this stupid little poll gets 216 votes, so I have high hopes this will not happen since I ain't that popular and I hate this wild card which is . . .

SOTUS

This show is my original TharnType. It came out in 2016. I watched it live. I watched the sequel. I remember neither. New was in it? Off was in it?! WHAT?! I have no memory of this show except Krist wiping his mouth, and I have carried that with me for eight damn years. I loved Be My Favorite, so I thought I moved past whatever strange grudge I was holding against this man who doesn't know I exist nor care, but then I saw that trailer for The Ex-Morning, and unlike Elsa, I can't let this shit go, so I'm willing to play Jumanji and go back into the jungle to finish this once and all.

So what it's gonna be, mi gente. Which demons am I facing for Pride and what shows do I get to stay petty about? Help me decide!

[kseniyagreen]

I already have one big fanfic project and don't have time for others, but all these moments of dancing around censorship make me think about one idea.

And maybe someone will find this idea interesting.

That this drama would be a great fit for an AU in the style of the k-drama "Extraordinary you". Where the manga characters begin to gain self-awareness and fighting with their plot.

Imagine a classic hetero fantasy drama. Where Zhuo Yichen is assigned the role of "a good third wheel guy who must become an instrument of tragedy for the main characters in the finale." But he begins to gain consciousness and free will, falls in love with the ml not the fl, tries to change the plot.

And he remembers "past lives" - how in previous stories by this author he and Zhao Yuanzhou were friends, enemies, rivals. An emperor who is losing his mind and his faithful guard. A young prince and his mentor. Different stories, in each of which they woke up at the very end and realized that they loved each other, but they still had to play out the plot to a tragic end...

This time, Zhuo Yichen woke up earlier and tries to wake up the others. (Somewhere in the middle of the story, it turns out that sister Pei woke up earlier than Zhuo Yichen, she just didn't make a big deal about it).

I want a happy ending and lots of funny moments when the characters go wild in between scripted "scenes".

[the-conversation-pod]

Year in Review 2024

AND WE'RE BACK!

Come join Ben, NiNi, and Shan as we talk about the trends we noticed, air some grievances, hand out some of our favorite fan awards, and make some new resolutions!

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Welcome 00:00:55 - 2024 Headlines: Industry Consolidation 00:06:49 - 2024 Headline: Self-Censorship 00:13:52 - 2024 Headlines: Vertical Format Micro-BLs and Other Shit We're Anti 00:20:14 - Festivus Airing Of The Grievances 00:36:51 - 2024 Fan Awards 00:55:49 - QL Resolutions 01:04:45 - Affirmations and Hopes for the Future

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation, the Queer Media And Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

I'm Ben, the media critic

NiNi

I’m NiNi, the vibes queen

Ben

And we are your drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie who are sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs

NiNi

We’re here to talk queer film and dramas, with a special focus on Asian QL

Ben

So if you like to dive deep into queer stories…

NiNi

If you like cracked out takes on art and commerce in queer media…

Ben

If you just enjoy simping for attractive people…

NiNi

We believe in simping!

Ben

Tune in!

00:00:55 - 2024 Headlines: Industry Consolidation

Ben 

And we're back. Oh my God, it's time to review 2024 before we get to the VIIB Awards, where it's just nonstop us talking about our faves. Once again, we have brought Shan into the booth because we have too much to discuss. Shan, say hello.

Shan

Hello!

Ben

First, it's time for us to talk about the big ideas of the year. NiNi, as the person who loves Thai BL the most on The Conversation, let's talk about how clearly the money is drying up and everybody is having to shuffle to whoever's got something to offer them.

NiNi 

Is the money drying up or is it just being funneled all to the same place? Because it feels like more money is getting spent on fewer things. I don't think that's necessarily a good thing, but I'm not sure that I can put my finger up and say that's a bad thing, either. We have seen some definite dips in quality. We don't have as many faves this year as we did last year, or even the year before. But what we did love, we loved-loved. 

So it's a complicated picture, I guess, but definitely there's been a consolidation and we wanted to talk about it a little bit because we predicted this in our very first set of episodes, all those many, many, many moons ago. We predicted that there was a consolidation coming in Thai BL because everything just got so big, so fast, and that usually precedes everything's starting to shrink back down a little bit.

Ben 

Big things we noted this year was GMMTV absorbing a bunch of free agents and, in one case, basically the entire staff of a whole studio that they now hire to do production work for them. 

Shan

Mmhmm. It's been wild. Like every week, I feel like we've been seeing announcements of new talent acquired by GMMTV.

Ben 

Barcode is now at GMMTV.

NiNi 

That was a big get.

Shan 

All the Wabi Sabi boys this year, too.

NiNi 

Yeah, those were the two big headlines, Wabi Sabi getting folded into GMMTV was one and definitely Barcode coming right at the end of the year. That was a big one.

Shan 

They also got Dimple Fluke.

NiNi

I mean, we love Dimple Fluke, but I don't know how big Dimple Fluke is in the general fandom—

Shan 

—He's big in my heart, NiNi, big in my heart.

Ben

[laughs] We thought this was coming when they got Singto to come back. Clearly trying to do it on his own didn't work and they were able to get him back in their house. I don't know how I feel about it. Wabi Sabi is no longer doing talent management. BOC seems to be shrinking

NiNi 

BOC (Be On Cloud) has said that they're backing off of talent management, as well. They dropped most of their roster. I think they only represent Mile, Appo, and Bible now.

Ben

Wow.

Shan 

GMMTV is the big studio that seems to want to be in the idol management game. And so that's where a lot of the talent is going. What feels concerning about it to me—we've talked quite a lot on this podcast about the increase in output, but not a commensurate increase in quality from GMMTV.

Out of all of the BLs that they're putting out annually, which is around eight to 10, there may be only a couple that actually have really good scripts behind them. So they're acquiring all this talent, but we know they don't have enough good writing to support shows to support this much talent. They put out, this year, a script writing contest to the plebes to say, “Help us, we need help writing shows.”

NiNi 

I was just gonna bring that up.

Ben

With hostile as fuck language, by the way.

Shan 

They literally went to the fans and said, “Can you write us some shows? Because we got nothing and we're acquiring all this talent.” That's just on the BL side. They've got this whole side of the house of these great, talented actresses and very few projects to cast them in. So it's concerning to me to see all the talent going to this one place that clearly cannot handle everybody that they're taking on.

Ben

It worries me too, because we've noticed a lot less sponsorship deals in most of their shows. One or two shows per year will get the usual eight- to 10-plus sponsor cards at the beginning, but that number has dropped off overall. It's very clear that there's maybe not as much ad money helping fund the production in the first place.

NiNi 

Bestie, I haven't seen an Oishii ad in quite some time.

Shan 

Right, where did Oishii go?

Ben 

If the juice makers have given up, it's over.

NiNi 

It is concerning to see this consolidation happening. There's a few people who are out on their own, who I think might be able to survive on their own. Like Jeff is out on his own, Billkin and PP are out on their own, and they're probably the ones who can sustain. Everybody else is either going to GMMTV or they're getting into the other side of GMM Grammy, like the One31 kind of lakorn side. But even that is shrinking, we're given to understand, people are moving into BL because that's the growing side of the market. 

Actors are moving into BL who might not have done BL before. Big names got into BL this year, like Jes Jespipat did 4 Minutes with Bible, a Be On Cloud production. He's a big lakorn actor. And then JJ and Tor did Spare Me Your Mercy at the end of the year. The headline on that really is like these big lakorn actors who nobody would have ever expected to do gay shit are doing the—well, in the case of Spare Me Your Mercy, semi gay shit. But Jes did gay gay shit in 4 Minutes, you know what I mean? So that's one of the big, I think, headlines that we need to be looking at looking at Thai BL in particular going forward.

00:06:49 - 2024 Headlines: Self-Censorship

Ben 

We need to talk about Thai BL starting to self-censor, likely to reach specific markets.

Shan 

Yeah, it's concerning. I wouldn't call it a trend yet, but we've seen a few examples of it in the last few months and it's making me nervous. What I'm talking about is, productions that are publicly saying, admitting that they are censoring some of the more explicit romantic or sexual content from their BL shows so that they can focus on reaching a wider audience with their message. We've seen statements like that from the Addicted Heroin creator. We've seen recently the screenwriter of Spare Me Your Mercy talk about the decision to remove explicit sexual content from the show for the same reason. We saw some of this related to Love Sick as well. If you're gonna do a Love Sick remake in 2024, the one thing you would expect them to improve on is not having censored kisses, but nope, they didn't do that. 

So there's this drive and this stated intention by some of the creators behind these shows to create BL dramas that minimize the actual BL as much as possible. They want to take advantage of the market for BL. They want to take advantage of the fan interest and the fan engagement for BL while also getting away with keeping the actual queer romance in these stories as minimal as possible. That is pretty shitty. They're coming out and they're saying this openly, this is not us just guessing.

NiNi 

Just saying that taking the romance out is why I left a lot of Western media. I'm so tired of seeing people say things like, “Well this doesn't have any plot.” The romance is the plot, the relationship is the plot and not recognizing that in a genre that is about romance is the part that kind of makes me go like mmm, okay, like yes—

Ben 

The genre is literally called Boy Love. (all) Where is the love? 

How old is that song? Hold on, let me Google that real quick.

Shan 

Don't look it up. But this is what I mean. Like, NiNi and I are refugees from Western romance. We came over to Asia for kdrama, because we wanted to see a genre of television that respected romance, that took it seriously as its own storytelling, that actually respected romance fans and people who like love stories. That is one of the best and most consistent features of Asian drama. And so to have now this subset of Asian drama creators who are specifically working in a queer love space that is even more hard for people to find, even less accepted by the mainstream, to have them intentionally self-censoring because they are trying to prove some kind of weird point. It just completely misses the point for me of why people are here engaging with these dramas. Certainly it doesn't seem to be helping in terms of pushing forward the social agenda in these countries where they're making these shows.

Ben 

This is the part that always stresses me out when we're trying to measure how gay can it be and still get funded because this happens to us repeatedly in queer viewer space. Netflix pulled this shit on us where, when they first wanted to go to digital streaming, they set up deals with all of the gay distribution houses. And we got to watch all of these movies that we had never had access to before. And it was great. And we all were like, hell yeah, I'm going to go on Netflix so can watch my little gay shows.

As soon as they get tastemakers—read: queer and brown people—to pimp their shit, they try and immediately convert and get a bunch of normies in there.

NiNi 

Yep, that's basically what happens.

Ben 

This, again, this is not shit I'm making up! This is what really happened.

Shan 

These are the patterns and we've seen them play out so many times in so many places and it's the pattern we're starting to see play out in BL and it's alarming.

NiNi

I mean! It played out on Tumblr. The platform that we spend so much of our time on, this is exactly what happened. The people who built the ship got kicked out of the ship.

Ben 

It's been an actually horrible year on Tumblr for queer people, especially trans people. It's a bad look that the gays who make the shit who seem like they're in an accepted enough space are either choosing to or being pressured to straighten up their act so that they can continue to get fed and make stuff. That doesn't feel great. It feels really worrisome as a sign about what may or may not be going on. Like it's only a few things right now, but we're seeing this everywhere else.

NiNi 

What we're basically saying is support GagaOOLala

Shan

Please! If you're gonna spend money on any of these platforms, spend your money on the queer platform hosted in Taiwan that actually cares about queer people.

Ben 

If you have spent significant sums of money on iQIYI in the last year for two shows and you haven't spent money on Gaga, reflect and then message us. [all laugh]

NiNi 

And I mean if you need yet another reason to subscribe to Gaga, their social media manager is like the greatest person in the world.

Ben 

They're my favorite person. They made fun of Kidnap. They were like, Kidnap, the show that's probably poorly named, is back on this week.

Shan 

Let's just get on our soapbox about Gaga for a minute, okay? They are the only platform that streams the vast majority of Japanese QL, period. They bring us Taiwanese BL. They bring us Thai BL in increasing volume.

Ben 

The WeTV shows have been consistently airing on Gaga lately. GMMTV is also clearly trying to consolidate and are starting to put their shows behind the Gaga and iQIYI paywall.

Shan 

It's a good platform that is worth supporting and it's far cheaper than any other streaming you're paying for. You should have it. You should subscribe.

NiNi 

This is not an ad.

Ben 

They do. We are not being paid. But if you guys want to hang out—I'm just kidding. Don't put that in there, NiNi. [laughs]

NiNi 

Yeah, but yeah, support Gaga. That's the only platform that when Park Seo Ham came out of the military, sent out a tweet saying, “Tell the world the bitch is back.”

Ben 

I love her!

Shan 

They deserve it.

NiNi

She is us, we are her, and this is a non-binary she. We don't know the gender of the GagaOOLala social media manager, but she's one of the girls.

Ben

I'm using ‘she’ in a gay way. It's very affectionate.

NiNi 

She, non-gender specific.

00:13:52 - 2024 Headlines: Vertical Format Micro-BLs and Other Shit We're Anti

Ben 

While we're bitching about things, let's talk about all these stupid vertical TV shows that keep coming out and how we must continue to refuse to watch them. We have already seen one of the shows that [Iijima] was in is going to apparently be put on TV properly. 

Good job, everybody, in not watching that. [NiNi and Shan laugh]

Do not let this become a thing. We cannot tell them that we are willing to watch shows two minutes at a time on our phones only. Unacceptable.

Shan 

Not only two minutes at a time on our phones only, but only after burning through a huge number of ads. That's how you get to the shows.

Ben

Gross.

NiNi 

This is like Ben's whole conversation in one of our more recent episodes about the BL TikTok filter. They're trying to get you used to the BL TikTok filter in like a million ways.

Ben 

I won't. I will NOT accept this!

Shan

Because the aim of this is to stop making actual dramas and just get us to watch a version of TikTok on our phones and call that BL. That's the end game here, guys. Don't fall for it.

NiNi 

Do not fall for it.

Ben 

We are here to support storytellers only. We are not here to make ad guys happy.

NiNi

I think that's a good segue.

Ben 

Speaking of ad guys who clearly don't like us, Korea is not interested in BL right now. [laughs]

NiNi

Oh my God.

Ben

We got three good Korean BLs this year.

Shan

At least they were all excellent. I know we talked about it on our recent Hallyu episode but now that the year is complete and the data has been crunched, I just want to underline this. We got, not necessarily fewer shows total from Korea, but we got fewer shows of a decent length. We got fewer shows of quality. A lot of what Korea put out this year was junk, frankly. These little vertical series, these small little web series that are really short episodes and very lacking in narrative. And then they also put out three of the very best things of the year. 

So it was a real dichotomy. In years previous Korea was putting out a more steady run of quality shows. We saw a real drop off of that this year.

Ben 

Oh shit, did Strongberry even make anything this year?

NiNi 

I was just about to say this is the year that Strongberry pissed me off because they made that Happy Ending thing that was neither happy nor an ending.

Shan 

And they made Blossom Campus, which was terrible.

Ben

Ew…

Shan

Strongberry let us down this year for the first time ever.

NiNi 

I kind of feel it for them because the CEO of Strongberry has spent so much time telling us how hard it is to get shit made and to get money to get shit made. So I was just like, ooh, things must be getting, like, real rough if they couldn't put out anything good.

Shan 

Can we though just take a moment to shout out the CEO of Strongberry for putting out his own little story about what happened with that show and basically being like, I told the writer not to fucking do that and he didn't listen to me.

Ben 

I did love that. I love that he just said, I told her she ain't let one listen.

Shan 

He was like, this is not on me. Do not associate this with me. You love Strongberry. You will continue to love Strongberry. [NiNi laughs]

Ben 

He basically did say it like that. We were like, all right, girl. [laughs]

Shan 

We'll let you have this one.

NiNi 

Yeah, but I mean it's a year in which we had nothing good from Strongberry, and that to me is like, wow. We got other really good stuff, some of it came out of absolutely nowhere. And I think that it had to come out of absolutely nowhere to get aired, because, as we saw when things are in the pipeline and they know about it, they're going to try to kill it.

Ben

Our last big highlight of the year we want to point out is that there was a Japanese BL airing almost every week this year. That is unprecedented. Usually, even if stuff gets made, we barely know about it, it gets no distribution, and the fansubbers are having people show up at their houses over. [NiNi laughs]

So we almost never get a lot of the Japanese BL, but there was a significant amount that was just handed to us on legal platforms for us to support, most notably GagaOOLala.

Shan 

GagaOOLala! I started Japanese QL Corner in January of 2024 on Tumblr. It's just a weekly post that I do that tracks the Japanese QL that's out. And I had things to write about every single week for the entire year. And we weren't always having to chase things down in the dark corners of the internet. We had things that we could watch on a regular streaming platform every week from Japan, And there were weeks when I was writing about six or seven shows at a time. That's how much was airing.

NiNi 

Now were those six or seven shows great? 

Ben 

Not always.

NiNi

I would say no, not always, but in terms of batting average, I think Japan did pretty well this year.

Shan 

I'd say still about half of the shows that aired from Japan this year were good to fantastic. And the other half were problematic here and there. There were only a handful that I thought were, like, bad bad.

Ben 

My favorite thing about watching Japanese BL is that I am never mid about it. I either really liked it or I was like, who is this for? [Shan and NiNi laugh]

I love that there's not all this wishy washy shit about like, oh, maybe it's kind of okay if I squint this direction. I'd be like, no, fuck that show. A 4 for you, a 3 for you, a 4 for you. Stay away from the shows I love. All of you over here, my 9s and 10s. Don't look at them. They're not worth it. Averages are not the most useful metric but I really like that when I'm recommending or not recommending Japanese BL, I feel very firm about how I feel about these shows.

Shan 

I do think that there has been a lot more variation in quality with the high uptick in volume of shows. But the batting average is still pretty damn high. 

We've got two new Japanese QL productions starting this week. So I'm excited that it's gonna keep going.

Ben 

That's it for the big highlights.

00:20:14 - Festivus Airing Of The Grievances

Ben 

Before we close out this year, we need to vent a little bit of grief. We need to talk about the things that we were super hype about that made us look like clowns. We're gonna start with our biggest disappointments in no particular order. Starting with the worst. 

NiNi, Wandee Gooday!

NiNi

[laughs] The absolute worst. I am so pissed off at this show. I talked a little bit about how pissed off I was with this show in our mailbag episode, but friends, I still have more ire in me about the show. I was so stoked, and the show dragged me along for a solid five to six episodes and then literally dropped me on my face. And that's something that I do not forgive in any way. I will remain pissed off forever. 

This is not The Shipper level, but damn close and I can't do it.

Ben 

If you want to feel a little solidarity, David was actually bitching about this at brunch earlier this weekend. He said, I can't believe I wrote a whole post for the first time on Tumblr about this show only to be made to look like a clown like this. He said he's never writing anything ever again.

NiNi 

[laughs] David's like, how dare you embarrass me?

Shan 

How dare you? It sucked, man. It was a huge letdown.

NiNi 

And the thing is that it could have been so good.

Shan

Could’ve had it all.

NiNi

I'm convinced that the first half and the second half were written by two different people. That's the only thing that makes any sense to me.

Ben 

Yes, let's start talking about BL like Star Wars fans. STAR WARS COULD BE SO GOOD IF IT WAS GOOD. Before you bitches come after me, my very first email address I made is a Star Wars email. Don't come for me.

NiNi 

Don't come for him, period. Okay?

Shan 

Leave us alone, it's been a long year.

Ben 

Speaking of a long year of disappointments, Shan, I'm letting you have the entire disappointment that was all of Sammon’s collected works this year.

NiNi 

Oh God, here we go.

Shan

We're calling this the Sammon Omnibus entry in the disappointment list. This year there were four different projects associated with Dr. Sammon. She screen wrote three out of four, and was the original writer for one: these shows were Dead Friend Forever, 4 Minutes, Spare Me Your Mercy, and Petrichor. All QLs, all with her attached, all very heavily promoted and very buzzy. 

I'm not gonna say that none of these shows were good at all or had any artistic merit. I actually really liked Dead Friend Forever until it fucked up the ending. 4 Minutes I found to be a very beautiful but ultimately incoherent mess. Spare Me Your Mercy was just a flop for all of us, none of us finished the show after all of us putting it on our list of the most anticipated of the year. 

Ben 

After JJ put his whole ass into Great Men Academy, I can't believe they embarrassed him like this.

[NiNi laughs]

Shan 

We have all seen Tor and JJ in other projects. You are lying if you claim that they were on their game in this show. I'm sorry. They have both done better with other people with better material. This show did not live up to the hype. I did not even finish it because I was so disappointed.

Ben

I can't believe we're saying that Tor was better in fucking Midnight Museum.

NiNi 

He was! He was absolutely better in Midnight Museum.

Shan 

He was better in Midnight Museum! And he had better chemistry with Gun than he did with JJ in this BL. JJ was light yards better in Great Men Academy than he was here. I'm not trying to shade the actors. It's not their fault. It's the material. The writing was bad. The show was flat. They seemed not at all dialed into their characters. They seemed confused about what they were supposed to be conveying, probably because their relationship development arc didn't make any fucking sense. It's not the actor's fault. They are very good actors and this show did not give them what they needed to succeed. I cannot believe what a letdown this show was after all that hype. There's also Petrichor, which is the first GL that has her attached to it. And I had to drop that one, too. It was hard to watch. 

Sammon is kind of considered one of the best screenwriters in the QL industry in Thailand. She wrote Triage. She was attached to Manner of Death. She has a track record. She has all these novels that are very popular and well liked. So there's a certain level of expectation that comes with her shows. But this year, her big year of four QLs, this was not it. Not a single one of these projects left me satisfied. I started the year as such a strong fan of her work, and I'm ending the year kind of throwing my hands up like, well, girl, guess Triage was a fluke. I don't know what's been going on, but you have not even come close to meeting that standard again.

NiNi 

I liked DFF and 4 Minutes more than you guys did. We've talked about this already. But I will say that these are shows that they spent money on. I have no complaints about production quality on any of these shows. They pulled up some quality actors. They got Engfah in Petrichor. They got JJ and Tor for, as you mentioned, Spare Me Your Mercy. Bible and Jes put on a clinic in 4 Minutes. And the DFF boys, they put their whole pussy in. They acted these shows, and they produced these shows. They look great, they sound great, but the writing just didn't hold up to everything else that they were putting in. 

And they got progressively worse because the one that I enjoyed the most was Dead Friend Forever, that was the first one. And the one that I enjoyed the least was Spare Me and Mercy. Like, we all dropped it. For different reasons, I think, but we all dropped it.

Shan 

I mean, it was not working on any level. So no matter what you were there for, there was just nothing to hold on to. If you were there for the romance, if you were there for the mystery, if you were there for the euthanasia discussion, it didn't really succeed at any of those.

NiNi 

Let's move on. Because we could talk about this forever.

Ben

Oh, that's fine. It's time for me to go the fuck off. I've been holding this in for months. [NiNi] It's time to talk about My Love Mix Up.

NiNi 

God, here we go.

Ben

Before I hurt people's feelings about this, I like Fourth and Gemini a lot. I think they're both very charming. I think they are both real talents and I am very much looking forward to seeing how they mature over the next decade, the way we got to experience with the original GMMTV BL boys. That being said, part about supporting your faves, for me, is wanting them to get work that uses them well. And I do not believe that My Love Mix Up used anyone well. It's extremely disappointing to me that after doing such a good job on Cherry Magic Thailand, that GMMTV released a show that did everything I was afraid would go wrong with Cherry Magic Thailand.

Cherry Magic Thailand managed to make the Cherry Magic story applicable to the Thai context in a way that we all loved. My Love Mix Up was not a Thai adaptation of Kieta Hatsukoi. It was My School President in a terrible Halloween costume, clearly trying to sell more tickets for concerts for these boys. It was embarrassing and it was a waste of everyone's time. I am so mad about this because I had doubts about this the whole way into it, but really hoped that after the strong showing in Cherry Magic, that there was gonna be something really cool here. I had a lot of hopes about this. This sucked.

And so much of it comes down to casting. As much as I like Forth and Gemini, I like them as individual actors, not as a branded pair. I think they work just fine together, but they were not the correct boys to play these characters together.

NiNi 

It's especially noteworthy because there were other boys in My Love Mix Up who I think would have done a better job. 

Ben

[performately coughing] Aungpao!

NiNi

They put Aungpao in this show and they didn't make him one of the leads. Aungpao would have killed Atom.

Ben 

Yeah, Aungpao would have done a way better job.

Shan 

Yeah, he would have been perfect. 

Ben 

And I think Fourth should have played Ida's character.

Shan 

I watched one or two episodes of this before I dropped it. And to me, it was just such an obvious case of miscasting. They cast it based on wanting to shove a pre-existing branded pair into a set of characters that did not fit them. And so from the start, the whole production betrayed the story. That's just frustrating.

Ben 

And they clearly did not understand the major themes either. They really fucked it up.

NiNi 

I came at it from a different perspective than you guys, because you guys had watched Kieta Hatsukoi, and I deliberately did not watch Kieta Hatsukoi until after I had watched My Love Mix Up, because I wanted to be sort of a control, and I ended up in the same place on the whole thing that you guys did, watching Kieta Hatsukoi afterward. 

They did not get this right at all. They didn't have the spirit of it.

Ben 

I'm really glad you were able to arrive at this conclusion with us. Kieta Hatsukoi is really solid and I do not understand how they fucked that up that badly. It pissed me off. It was disappointing. Chop!

Speaking of chops, how dare they reboot Love Sick in 2024 and then fuck it up this badly. I loved Love Sick as what felt like the Thai Degrassi. How do you make a worse version of that? In 2014 Love Sick was absolutely insane. They had girls two-timing dudes in the same bed with them in their own apartment complex. They have motherfuckers trying to drown each other in the pools and shit. [NiNi laughs]

Shan

And they had sex. They didn't show it on screen, but those characters had sex.

Ben 

I get much of the stuff that we saw in 2014. Love Sick may have been adding stuff and they may have been trying to be more true to the book by just making it into this boring ass GL and BL experience, but it just wasn't good. And I was pissed because they went in a cool direction by making Aim queer that was really good, but it doesn't save the show.

Shan 

That was the only interesting thing I heard about this remake, is that they made Aim a lesbian which added a little bit of a layer to her desire to cling on to her boyfriend. But everything else they did worse on than the original show.

Ben 

I don't want to be super mean to these boys because everybody was new in Love Sick and everybody's clearly new here. But goddamn, the new kid does not match Captain. And the way that they went so hard in making him look like Captain undercuts him constantly because he's just not as good as Captain.

Shan 

You know, Ben, the moment I saw that buzzcut is when I knew that this production was doomed. [NiNi laughs] Because that is so not the fucking point. That's not the part of him you have to get right!

NiNi 

My whole thing about this is that to be disappointed you have to have expectations. I was not disappointed in Love Sick 2024 because I had no expectations. I did not watch it. From the time I saw that they were remaking Love Sick, I remember, I think we said on this podcast, “Who needs it? Nobody.”

Nobody needs a Love Sick remake in 2024.

Ben 

We were correct. We asked why it was made and they had no answer.

Speaking of why was this made, Yin and War had a great deal of fun with their friends in the show that they produced, Jack and Joker. I ended up dropping it because they killed Jennie and I refused to accept that and I left.

NiNi 

Jennie Panhan is a goddess and you cannot kill her on your show. I'm sorry, you just can't.

Shan 

They really shouldn't have. It was pointless and gratuitous and disgusting. 

But let me just say, I did finish this show and I don't wanna be super mean to Jack and Joker because here's the thing: it's not a real show. It is a self-funded vanity project from Yin and War so that they could hang out on a set with their friends.

Ben 

And Tee Bundit was there.

Shan 

And Tee Bundit was also there. I went into the show and I was like, I know this is not a real story. They cobbled this script together themselves. We're just having a good time here. That was my only expectation: this will be fun. It'll be entertaining. I have no expectations for a coherent story, for themes, anything like that. And even with that bar, the lowest bar I can possibly grant to a show, somehow this show disappointed me. 

It was a mess, but not a fun mess. It was boring. It was mostly sexless, which was the most shocking part to me. They had three pairings in this show, only one of whom actually kissed on screen. 

Ben 

They had our boy Pee in this show.

Shan 

They put Pee fucking Peerawich in this show and they didn't let him kiss anybody! I was pissed.

I'm livid, still. They had this great side couple that the fandom was super into. They never actually let them get together on screen. They did not become an actual romance. 

Ben 

The most useful thing about that side pair is that Shan recognizes Mark Siwat about 30% of the time now.

Shan 

I know what his face looks like now!

Hi, Mark Siwat, this is my letter of apology to you.

NiNi 

Shan has a very specific Mark Siwat face blindness.

Shan 

It's Mark Siwat-only face blindness. And I'm sorry, Mark Siwat, you don't deserve that from me. You were a delight in this show. And I'm so mad that your character did not get a proper story. 

The thing that frustrated me about this show is it's a fucking fan service project. So why aren't you serving the fucking fans? We spent 16 hours in this show and it was mostly boring nonsense. They stopped doing the capers halfway through for some reason and just made us sit in these endless plots about this stupid fucking mafia whatever, rich families playing squid games. It was stupid. It was boring. 

Meanwhile, they didn't deliver on most of the things that the fans wanted. What a pointless use of so much money. Why, Yin and War? Why?!

Ben 

We hadn't seen Mark properly in BL since Bite Me, so I was especially disappointed. I'm still mad about that, too! Don't you worry! I'm still mad!

NiNi

God, I'm still mad about Bite Me.

Shan 

This should have been the funnest thing that happened this year. And instead, it was boring and sad.

Ben 

I'm so sorry that you were on two of our disappointments, Jennie. You didn't deserve that, either.

NiNi 

That's an important thing to bring up. Like, where's the fun? I feel like there were things that should have been fun that were just a slog. Where did the fun go? If this is gonna be a caper BL, then be a caper BL. You know that it's bad if you can't get me to watch a Tee Bundit show. I have not watched a minute of it. You know I feel about Tee Bundit. I love him even when everybody else hates him. Except for Hidden Agenda, which we will never talk about again. But this show didn't even compel me to watch it, which is saddening.

Shan 

Yeah, it was lackluster and it was truly only the fan sentiment for Yin and War that made it popular. It was just fans supporting actors that they like, and there's nothing wrong with that. But there's no there there with this show.

NiNi 

Shout out to War’s pottery videos. Sir, you are hyper competent and I find that very attractive.

Shan 

And I really recommend just watching his pottery videos instead of this show.

Ben 

That's right, just head to IG instead. War did good work in Love Mechanics. That's why he's a fave. That doesn't mean I have to applaud everything he does after that, especially when it's not that good. 

I did like all of his outfits, though. Clearly he had a great time.

NiNi 

Okay, so now that we have completed our Festivus airing of the grievances… 

Ben

I feel better. I really do.

Shan

I'm happy we got that off our chests.

NiNi

Let's move into our fan awards.

00:36:51 - 2024 Fan Awards

NiNi 

In advance of our Very Important Internet BL awards, VIIB Awards that are coming up later this month for you guys, we just wanted to have a few awards that are just us having fun. And so we put the call out and we got some feedback.

Ben, take us into it.

Ben

We are finally awarding the Girl, You Tried winner of the year. Girl, You Tried, for those of you who have been with us, is something we like to award every season to shows that we think had really good ideas that maybe weren't executed as well as they could have been. We handed out quite a few awards this year. I don't remember all of them right now, but we have selected a winner.

Shan, would you like to announce the winner?

Shan

Ooh, do I get to announce? How exciting. Okay. 

The 2024 Girl, You Tried Award goes to Love Is Better The Second Time Around from Japan. [air horn]

Ben 

We've already covered this. I'm very happy about the yukata sex, but not about episodes 5 and 6.

Shan 

So close to being one of our favorite shows of the year. And that is why it gets this award.

NiNi 

Agreed. I am in 100% agreement.

Ben

Other shows that were up for consideration included The Sign, Living With Him, Ayaka Is in Love with Hiroko, I Hear the Sunspot—oof I got beef with that show—and The On1y One, Shan got beef with that one.

Shan 

I got beef with that show!

NiNi 

I think we made the right choice in terms of the final winner, though. I think of all of those the one that was closest to actually making it.

Ben

A bunch of those guys are in another MBS not-BL right now where they're all playing boxers, hugging each other without their shirts on, and sweatin’ and shit.

NiNi 

Yes, more information? You're burying the lede here. Like, I need to know where I can find it.

Ben

[laughs] Nowhere, man. It's not in the Western circles right now. 

NiNi 

The fan subbers are letting me down. 

Ben

I got a couple of Japanese fans keeping me in the loop. They send me little clips and it's all my favorite boys wrestling on the ground and shit in dark gyms.

NiNi

Why don't they make more shows like that?

Shan 

This is what I'm saying!

Ben 

Let me tell you, Petty's been demanding this BL for like four years.

Shan 

It's true.

NiNi 

I think we are actually getting a boxing BL next year.

Ben 

We are. [everyone laughs]

Onto our next award. It's time to award our Trash Fave of the year. 

NiNi, please describe the award.

NiNi 

Trash Fave is basically my favorite award. I cannot defend any of these shows, but I had such a good fucking time with them.

Shan 

Our Trash Fave winner of the year is Gym Affairs from, wait for it, China! Did you all know that China put out a real modern BL with kissing on screen in it this year? Well, they did, and it's called Gym Affairs, and it's winning the Trash Fave award because, listen. This show is not a quality production. It was clearly filmed on some iPhones with just whatever guys they could find around. But you know what? I respect it because it had a narrative, it had a clear story, and they are doing what they can in China to get these queer stories out, one way or another.

Ben 

It really spoke to guerrilla filmmaking, like they just really popped up somewhere, filmed what they needed to and got the fuck out of there.

Shan 

And it's a cute little show. It goes quick. Watch it on YouTube, it's free. It's a fast binge. It's charming. The actors are cute. It's a good time. We can't really call it a good show because the production quality is so low, but it's a fave. All of our friends who have seen it had a great time watching it. You should join in.

(Transcript note: The show has since been pulled from YouTube.)

Ben 

Our other two shows for consideration were Kidnap and OMG!Vampire. [NiNi laughs]

NiNi 

Yup.

Shan 

O-M-G Exclamation Point Vampire.

NiNi 

I was gonna say that y'all have very different definitions of trash than I do because even though I haven't seen Gym Affairs yet, from what I've heard about it, it is not trash it is just produced on a shoestring. Whereas Kidnap was actual trash.

Shan 

Yeah, Kidnap is super trashy. Like, trashy in the sense of, like, pulp novels.

NiNi 

It's called Kidnap, but there's only half a kidnapping, maybe.

Shan 

Did anyone actually get kidnapped in Kidnap? That was a Gaga joke.

Ben 

This show was so stupid.

NiNi 

At one point the guy kidnapped himself. Like, there was a lot going on.

Ben 

This show was so stupid that I got bored with Ohm Pawat, and was like I can’t do this anymore.

Shan 

I could only sustain myself by looking at Ohm's arms for so long.

NiNi 

This is what makes it my Trash Fave. I watched it till the very end because my favorite two things were in it, Ohm Pawat and being babygirl.

Shan 

You know what I think this is, NiNi? I think it's like when you open the trash can and you look inside, you sometimes find, like, this gem of a thing that someone threw in the trash. And that's what Gym Affairs is. And Kidnap is all the actual nasty, dirty trash around it.

NiN

Ohm, we love you on this podcast, sir. We love you so much and that's all we're gonna say.

Shan 

Free Ohm from this trash. That's what I want to say.

Ben 

We love you, even though all of Tumblr celebrated your character getting shot again, just like a few weeks ago.

Shan

And I don't think any of us actually watched OMG!Vampire.

Ben 

Our friends loved it. They had a great time with Lee and Frank's final show together.

Shan 

Several of our friends submitted it and they had a great time watching it. They highly recommend it if you're into vampires that are, apparently, very bad at being vampires. [NiNi laughs] You know, you should check that out if that's your thing.

Ben 

Onto my favorite award, it's time to award the BEST BOY!

NiNi 

The Namgoong Best Boy Award, which I promise I'm gonna watch Light On Me this year. I promise, I promise.

Ben 

NiNi, I swear to God.

All right. Shan, I'm putting this in my resolutions at the end of this. If NiNi does not watch Light On Me, we are not doing this show next year. [NiNi laughs] I've had enough. I have a list of shows that are non-negotiable for the next awards show. Light On Me and Rainbow Prince. 

NiNi 

Okay, I will. I absolutely will. 

Ben

You will watch them. There will be no more arguing about this!

NiNi

Okay, we're not arguing. It was never an argument. It's just more kind of, it always gets pushed down to the bottom of the list, but I promise you this year, bestie, this year.

Ben

Namgoong is the best boy and is the reason why we have this award. And this year, the award for Best Boy who did everything he could for the gays goes to Yai from The Sign. [air horn]

Congratulations, sir. We loved everything about you. We loved your arms. We loved your heart. We loved your wife.

Shan 

Mostly loved the wife the most.

NiNi 

I definitely had a lot to say about those arms. I'm sorry, I'm spacing out thinking about them now.

Shan 

This award is for the best supporting male friend who is all about helping the couple get together.

Ben 

He was so great. Good job, Yai.

NiNi 

Yai absolutely did that.

Ben 

What a mess of a show, but you had a clear throughline.

NiNi 

I just loved him saying, “Where were you discussing the problem? The bed or the sofa?” I think that was one of my favorite lines.

Shan 

He was mischievous.

Ben 

Other boys in consideration were Ryoga from I Became the Main Role of a BL Drama for his feathers and his support of his friends by tricking them into having a date and also telling Akafuji he was aggravating and then giving him useful advice.

Shan 

He was a real one. He was helpful.

NiNi 

He was the realest.

Ben 

Our last boy is Ryosuke from The Fragrance You Inherit, a last minute addition to this list.

Shan 

The drama did technically end right before the end of 2024. Ryosuke is the lead’s, Sakura, of the show, he's her bestie. He's been supporting her since college. He's the person who knows her and who props her up through all the hard things in her life, including her gay disappointment, her crushed, unrequited love, and parenting her son who is a perfect angel boy. He's there for it all. He is there to help her out. We love him.

Ben 

He is also played by Takeda Kouhei.

Shan 

He sure is! Looking excellent. Sir, I salute you.

Ben 

If you don't know who that is, you better ask somebody.

Shan 

You better not come ask me, because I'll get mad at you.

Ben 

On to my second favorite award. The Yiwha Best Girl Award!

NiNi 

Yiwha! We love her over here!

Ben 

I absolutely love Yiwha. I love that that show, all these years later, spawned the best girl and worst girls award. The Best Girl, like the Best Boy, goes to the girl who supports the boys the right way and is there for them and willing to scrap for them. 

NiNi, please hand out the award to our Best Girl.

NiNi 

Best Girl for 2024 is Lukpeach from Knock Knock Boys!. [air horn] All she wanted in life was to spread good information about sexual health and behavioral practices, to support her boys and to write non-creepy fan fiction about them. I salute you, Miss Mama. You are the best.

Shan 

Yes, support her in all her endeavors.

Ben 

She was a great character. I really like her as part of the evolution of the shipper character. I'm okay with them finding a way to write girls that really love gay boys and want them to have a good time without it being creepy. 

Beyond Lukpeach, we also had Jane from Knock Knock Boys!, Ju from Century of Love, and Pai from Cherry Magic Thailand on this list.

I liked Pai a lot and she was a strong contender for this award, particularly because she stole a motorcycle to make sure those boys had the scene they needed to have. And then she left. She explicitly said, “That scene is for them. I got what I needed. I know my boys are going to make this happen.”

Shan

Pai  was great at knowing the line between supporting and inserting herself where she didn't belong, and she never crossed the line.

Ben 

What a great character. This was a pretty decent year for fujo characters in the genre. That is one of the positive things I can say about this year in terms of trope-related stuff.

We have introduced a new award this year.

Shan 

What exciting stuff.

Ben

I'm gonna let you award this one, Shan. This is our Bridesmaid Award. This goes to…

Shan 

Hyunho from Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo. [air horn] Oh, I love it. This award is for the second leads. The character that can never win, but that still manages to make you kind of want them to and who makes you sympathetic for them when they inevitably lose. I think Hyunho was the platonic ideal of the kdrama second lead in Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo. He is definitely a deserving winner of this Bridesmaid Award.

Ben 

Our other two people in consideration were Sangwon for Love for Love's Sake, because he got into a whole fight for the gays and then got mad that they kept asking him for help for the rest of the show. And Kurosawa from Ossan's Love Returns, because this man has not won five times now. Incredible.

Shan 

He will always be the Bridesmaid eternally. But yeah, this is really Korea's category to lose, because this is what they do. Second leads are specifically a Korean trope.

NiNi 

Good job, Korea.

Ben 

We are once again awarding our favorite version of BGP!

Shan 

Ben, remind the people what BGP means.

Ben 

BGP is a term that we got from Bump Up Business, a terrible BL from the boys of OnlyOneOf, a Korean kpop group whose entire business model is pretending to be gay, and they made a whole show about idols who had to work together in a what they called a business gay performance to sell records, and wanted us to pretend that it was a real romance. Absolutely insane behavior. The audacity!

Shan 

I can't believe this show happened.

NiNi

I'm sorry! “Is our business gay performance over before it began?” [everyone laughs]

Ben 

Oh my god!

NiNi 

I watched that entire show specifically because they told me that line was in it.

Ben 

She, NiNi was like, Shan and Ben are just cackling. This has to be ridiculous if the two of them have completely lost composure over it. And she was not let down. 

We love the term BGP because it's about the performance of the relationship for consumption. Shan, please announce our winners.

Shan 

This year's BGP award goes to Daou and Offroad, the only potential winners of our hearts.

NiNi 

I have to agree, there wasn't even a question. This was definitely Daou and Offroad’s to lose this year because, sir, the performance is performance-ing.

Ben 

They got a really solid outing with Century of Love despite everything that we now know was happening on that set and around that production. And they have continued to make their music and handle their performances, and they're coming to America this year. That's a huge deal.

Shan 

They have a fan meet in the United States that is already sold out. These boys are making moves.

Ben 

I'm very excited for them. Also up for consideration were Chris Chiu, aka Modi, and Kurt Huang for Unknown the series, because they went way hard on their Taiwanese BGP. Tumblr may not have been paying that much attention to it, but those boys were working very hard. And of course, we're going to acknowledge Yin and War, who got a whole show financed on BGP alone.

NiNi 

That is impressive.

Shan 

Pretty impressive.

Ben 

All right, our final award, our most fun award. We are handing out the Blorbo of the Year Award. This is for the character that took over your brain and you just could not let them go. Every time someone tried to take it from you, you just bit down harder and shook.

Shan 

Ben, would you like to announce the winner?

Ben 

The winner of the Blorbo of the Year award goes to Go Young from Love in the Big City. [air horn] What a great year for us and that character.

NiNi and Shan in unison

He is the moment. [all laugh]

NiNi

Oh my gosh, I can't get it out of my head. You owe me a coke.

Ben 

Yeah, it's gotta be a coke because you guys can't have any more drinks after Friday night. [laughs]

NiNi

Oh my god, no more, no more, no more drinks, no more.

Shan 

Keep it, keep it to soda, non-alcoholic. Nope.

Ben 

Go Young was so important to us. He is one of the most dynamic and complicated queer characters we got to experience this year. I am so thankful that despite all of the drama, we were able to get Nam Yoon Su and friends’ version of these characters. My goodness.

Shan 

I feel unbelievably blessed that they got an actor of Nam Yoon Su’s caliber to play him in the drama. I never in my wildest dreams could have expected that.

NiNi 

And he put his neck, his back, his pussy, and his crack into that.

Shan 

Holy shit. Me and NiNi are kdrama watchers. We have seen him in other work. He transformed himself for this role. It was impressive shit.

Ben 

Our runner up, who we had a great deal of discussion about and who almost won this award until like five minutes before this recording, was Dynamite from Cooking Crush, another complicated queer character with a ton of heart that we deeply loved. I've been thinking about this boy all year.

Shan 

As often is the case when a character you love is misunderstood by others, it makes you love them even more fiercely. That definitely came up with Dynamite.

Ben 

A lot of you don't watch anime, but Twig and I were not gonna let this go unremarked. We wanted to acknowledge Hisashi from Twilight Out of Focus, along with Shion, who was my favorite boy from that show. I love that pink Twig so much! He said, I'm going to high school and I'm gonna get me a motherfucking boyfriend. And he did.

Shan 

The pink twink!

Ben

I love that pink twink so much! He said, I'm going to high school and I'm gonna get me a motherfucking boyfriend. And he did.

Shan

He did. He did it all.

NiNi 

Good job, anime twink. I think there is a missing person here. I can't believe that Ben left this one out considering how he started the year. Aoyanagi Hajime?

Ben 

He's not on my Blorbo list. I think about that boy a lot. But does he take over my whole soul like these boys? He does not.

NiNi 

Mmm, interesting.

Ben 

I admire him deeply, and I think Nachika did a great job with him, but they're getting the sequel, so. It ain't over yet! [laughs]

Shan 

We'll get to talk about him again.

NiNi 

We're gonna talk about them in 2024 and 2025. Fantastic.

Ben 

I'm winning. I might not see Go Young ever again, but I'ma see my boy again this year. A win for me.

NiNi 

Excellent, good job.

Congratulations to the winners of all of our fan awards and our runners-up. These are not VIIBs so you do not get a plate but we will figure out something, I don't know.

Ben 

I'm gonna send you a cup.

Shan 

Souvenir mug!

NiNi

At least it's not a koozie. A koozie is just disrespectful. We discussed this before.

Ben 

I know that if we sent Gap Jakarin a mug that said Best Boy, he would absolutely show it on the IG.

Shan 

He totally would and he’d pose with it!

NiNi 

I believe that. 100% he would totally do it. Maybe, maybe he would even put it next to his bicep.

Shan 

Maybe we should consider sending it.

[Ben laughs]

NiNi 

And I would have a plotz moment. He's large, people, you know how I feel about the large ones.

00:55:49 QL Resolutions

Ben 

It's time for our QL resolutions. Shan has pulled up the record on the things we said we would do for this year. It's time for the call-outs. We'll start with me. 

Shan, proceed.

Shan 

All right, so Ben stated a couple resolutions last year. His kind of not that serious one was he said he will watch 100 shows in 2024. And his second, which he was more serious about, is that he would be backing off of shows when he's getting aggravated with them sooner than he used to and just being more willing to stop watching shows. 

So Ben, you've definitely failed the first goal, but I think you did good on the second one.

Ben 

I did great. I engaged with 75 Asian QLs this year, but I dropped 26.

Shan 

That's big for you. That was a big mental wall that you had to move through this year and you did a great job, bestie.

NiNi 

Four for you again, Glen Coco. Four for you.

[Ben laughs]

Shan 

Are you feeling better now that you started backing off shows you're not liking?

Ben 

Honestly, yeah, I feel way better that I'm recognizing when a show is irritating me and I'm not forcing myself to watch it for this weird sense of ego. Like, “It's really important that I say something about this.” I don't care anymore. Who cares? It sucks. I'm not writing about this. 

The core of what I want to do is, I want to convince uninitiated BL viewers to watch BL. There is no value for me in watching a show that I despise or just isn't working for me, because I'm not using it as a reference to try and get people who might like BL to watch BL. I'm not gonna ask them to watch a mid-tier BL. So it gets dropped.

Shan 

All right, NiNi, in January, 2024, you said your resolution for the year was that you were gonna stop picking on New Siwaj. Let's check in on that, how you feeling?

NiNi 

I definitely had a great time with a New Siwaj show this year and talked about it on the show. These resolutions do have power so you gotta be real careful when you make them. I won't say entirely that I have stopped picking on New Siwaj. I'm still gonna pick on him if he deserves it. But I liked something that he did this year.

Ben 

Don't worry. He definitely deserves it.

Shan 

But you found something nice to say about him this year. You did.

NiNi 

I did find nice things to say about him this year. So I think that I have kept that resolution.

Shan

We did great this year guys, because my resolution from last year was to be more aware of when I'm getting no joy out of a show and cut it off and not feel bad about not finishing it. And I did that this year. I also got better at not starting shows I didn't think I was going to like. And I think that that was a good and healthy choice and I'm glad that I did it because as we've been talking about, the genre just keeps getting bigger. There are so many shows. We can't watch everything and we can't make ourselves miserable trying to force ourselves to watch the things we're not enjoying.

I'm real proud of us. I think we did good on our resolutions this year.

NiNi 

Excellent, good job. So let's look ahead. What are the resolutions that we're all making this year 2025?  

Ben?

Ben 

I have no fucking idea. What should I do?

Shan 

Do you have something about how you wanna write or how you wanna engage on Tumblr?

Ben 

I'm probably going to focus on writing more reviews this year. I stopped doing Stray Thoughts but I don't want to stop writing about things I loved. I think I'm gonna push myself to write more reviews and stuff. I think I'm going to start writing on Tumblr more about Western stuff. I think I'm going to start writing more reviews about more generalized queer work that I'm engaged with. That'll probably be my thing this year, writing more thoughtful pieces about work after it's done instead of yapping about it in real time.

NiNi 

Okay, Shan, how about you? What are you resolving to do this year?

Shan

I was thinking about this a bit. I think there's a couple things on my mind. I want to continue quitting shows if I'm really just getting no joy out of them. I want to continue being more selective about what I start in the first place. Another thing I've been doing more of lately that I think is working for me and that I want to continue is waiting to binge shows that I suspect I will not enjoy very much week to week. For me, it makes a real difference how I watch a show, because if I'm watching weekly and participating in a weekly discussion, I'm going to naturally think more about the show, I'm gonna dig into it more. And when these shows are kind of weak or mediocre, I'm spending an awful lot of time thinking about what isn't working. So, I'm trying to identify those shows where I just can tell I'm gonna have a better time if I get it over with quick instead of stretching it out. 

I also wanna stay committed to continuing to have variety in my media diet. I want to continue to watch things outside of QL, want to be better about continuing to mix in Western shows here and there. If you just watch too much of the same thing all the time, you really lose perspective. So I wanna be attentive to that this year and make sure I'm changing it up.

Ben 

You heard it here, friends. Shan is joining me in watching over 200 movies a year!

NiNi 

I'm not sure that's exactly what she said, bestie. [laughs]

Ben 

She said she wants to mix it up! I got a great Indonesian film for you to watch.

Shan

I will say this. This is my big gap. I just don't watch many movies. I like long-form stories. 

Ben

Mm-mm. I’m challenging you, Shan. It's not like I hate movies. You’re gonna watch some movies with me, Shan. I watched a great Chinese film from 2015 last night! 

Shan

Ben’s resolution is to force Shan to watch movies. I don’t hate movies. They just don't fill my soul the same way, you know? They're just here and gone so quick.

NiNi 

Yeah, if I really love something, I definitely need to sit in it for a while. So I am definitely more on the long-form storytelling side of things, as well.

Ben 

A great film just stays with you forever. All right, we're starting with Ghost Dog.

Shan

All right, you can make your list. NiNi, what’s yours?

NiNi

My resolution this year is to finally watch some of the shit I have been meaning to watch. My watch lists keep growing and growing and growing and I need to put some time and effort into actually watching some of this shit. Some of it because Ben is going to stop talking to me if I don't watch it. And we can't have that.

Ben 

It's true! I'm glad you recognized that that is a real outcome!

NiNi 

There's definitely some things that are on the list I gotta get past. I think I've finally gotten past the uncanny valley effect so that I can watch Light On Me. And I'm gonna watch Eternal Yesterday. Finally, I am gonna watch Rainbow Prince.

Shan 

I forgot you haven't watched Eternal Yesterday?! 

Ben

I haven’t!

Shan

Oh my god.

NiNi 

To be fair to me, I do not think that is the thing for me to have watched when I was in the mental state that I was in for most of last year.

Shan 

It's very true. You need to wait for the right moment, but I'm excited for you to watch it.

NiNi 

I am looking forward now that I'm feeling mentally better to getting into some of the things that I have meant to watch, but just not been able to hit play on. Like I said, these resolutions have power, so It's definitely happening this year.

Ben 

I'm excited. My resolution is to torment Shan into watching movies. That's great. I feel good about this one.

Shan 

He's getting revenge because I have forced him to like kdramas and he's mad.

NiNi 

You have gotten Ben to watch kdramas, cdramas.

Ben 

I have watched Goblin, I watched The Rebel Princess. What else did you fucking force me to watch? School 2013. That is like 6,000 hours of TV. You owe me a few movies.

Shan

I sure did! School 2013. He's starting Healer again. Listen, the truth is that Ben likes the kdramas. He hates that he likes them, but he likes them.

Ben

They're just so fucking long. I just spent two hours on a fucking episode of a kdrama. I could have watched one of my fucking movies during this time.

NiNi 

Speaking of movies, y’all have got to watch Paradise of Thorns as soon as you're able.

Shan 

As soon as it's out.

Ben 

I believe it becomes available very soon after we finish recording this.

Shan 

Yeah, I'm excited to watch that one. And I still need to watch How to Make Millions When Grandma Dies. 

NiNi 

Have you not watched that yet?

Shan

No, it was only on New York screens for like a few days and I didn't make it during.

Ben 

We have literally not had access in the US, girl! Like this, it's one of those things where like I've been intentionally waiting because we know it's coming to American distro.

NiNi

It's on that Oscar shortlist, so it's definitely coming.

Shan

Yeah, we need it. It's gonna come for sure. It'll be in theaters and I'll go watch it.

01:04:45 - Affirmations and Hopes for the Future

Ben 

Okay, affirmations for the year. Things that we really liked that we would like to see more of. Number one, Kongthup Productions. Good job this year, guys.

Shan

We love them.

NiNi 

We do. This is the studio that produced Knock Knock Boys!, Monster Next Door. There was a GL. 

Ben 

Apple My Love.

NiNi

Apple My Love, yeah.

Ben 

They have been a really fun breath of fresh air in the genre this year, and I really hope that whoever is having fun funding them is getting returns so that they can keep doing that.

Shan 

They are out here producing original scripts that are interesting and that have things to say.

Ben 

Next, despite how much I deeply despised My Love Mix Up Thailand, I would like to continue to see more of these cross-country collaborations. There were a lot of interesting results we got from that this year. We got Unknown the series out of it. We got Love in the Air: Koi No Yokan. 

Shan

I loved it.

Ben 

We got Cherry Magic Thailand. And we got a couple of interesting projects where it was kind of funded in both places. Like Eccentric Romance, Meet You at the Blossom, Battle of the Writers. There may have been Chinese money involved in that one.

NiNi

There definitely was.

Ben 

It's very interesting seeing these sort of cross-cultural collaborations. And even within the countries, Oxin Films and, what is the other group's name? They teamed up and made Haunted Hearts. It wasn't good, but they worked with someone else.

Shan 

I'm interested in these productions adapting works from other countries in these kind of joint funding models. Love in the Air Koi was great because the MeMindY team was deeply involved in that production and there was a lot of cross marketing. They had actors from the original Love in the Air Thailand cameo on the Japanese show. It was cool to see that kind of cooperation going on.

Ben 

Lastly, and we say this every year, more GLs. There needs to be way more lesbians in this genre than there are.

Shan 

And we need to give them good stories.

NiNi 

And even though there was a ramp up this year, because there was actually quite a bit of GL this year, I can't point to one GL that I saw or was truly that interested in this year that really hooked me.

Ben 

She Loves to Cook happened this year.

NiNi 

I mean, yes, yes, okay. She Loves to Cook, She Loves to Eat, but that goes in the category, the same category as What Did You Eat Yesterday? It's eternal, it's everlasting.

Ben

I'm sorry, you didn't think Chaser Game W changed the face of the game?

NiNi

No.

Shan 

There were a lot of GLs this year, but most of them had, like, really terrible writing. What's wild to me, and this has been a really interesting thing that we've started seeing in the recent months. These shows, even when they're not very good in terms of the quality of the story, they're really popular because the fans are so thirsty for this content. The QL viewership wants GL and these studios need to put some real resources behind making these shows and making them good because there is a lot of potential there.

NiNi

I think GL's kind of following the trajectory that BL followed, which is a shame because BL sort of set the trajectory already, so they could have shortcutted all of that.

Shan 

Can we not just skip to the good content part?

Ben

Well, they did try to make GL SOTUS, so hang in there, girls. [everyone laughs]

That's going to end it for us. We will see you all in the coming weeks as we make our way through the VIIB Awards. I'm very excited.

NiNi 

And a little super special little treat for you before we get to the VIIBs, which I will not spoil but it's gonna be fun. 

That is going to wrap us up on our Year In Review. Oh my god guys, another year. This is our third Year In Review.

Ben 

My goodness.

NiNi 

Absolutely wild. This is our 50-something episode. We're getting up to 60. We're about to be retirees up in here. We love it. 

See you guys next time, we out. Say bye to the people, Shan.

Shan 

Bye people!

NiNi

Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace!

[bitbybitwrites]

So yeah that oh so fun "glitch" with Meta

Yeah, so yesterday I had vented about this oh so fun fact :

After being alerted by a friend to check FB/ IG to see if you were following Trump, Melania and Vance, I was surprised to find they were there.

And sure enough on FB there at the top of my "Following" page - there they were. Did I follow them previously. No. So I deleted them.

Checked IG and the only one of the three I appeared to be following (again without choosing to do so) was Vance. So I deleted him.

That was 1/21/25.

This morning (1/22/25), checked on IG and Vance popped up again AND I found out I was now following Tump and his wife ( which I hadn't done before).

So I deleted all three on IG ( Vance for the 2nd time, the other two for the 1st time) and blocked them all (and Vance had like 3 seperate accounts that looked official I blocked the other two I wasn't made to follow just in case)

Checked FB and I wasn't made to follow the trio again - thankfully, but blocked them all as well just to be safe.

Is it going to happen to everybody - who knows . . is it only going to happen to US users - who knows.

I do know I did follow President Biden, VP Harris and Dr. Jill Biden previously on FB. Their accounts are now marked as "archived". And I'm still following those archived accounts. So it wasn't like a let's change the name of the old account or anything so the followers remain the same. So Meta just decided hey, lets all just automatically take all their followers, create a new account for the new president and cronies and make em follow them too!

Whether its a "glitch" or it was deliberate - I don't care - it's still annoying as hell. I'm hoping the blocks will keep them out of my hair for now - though I am curious because I've heard people having to repeatedly deleted them from followers. I wonder what is the highest amount of times a person has had to do it so far?

Social Media is supposed to be a curated thing. I see what I want to see and I don't want any of their bullshit on my feeds.

Its all crazy I'm already seeing that creators on TikTok ( those who have gone back) are having videos removed because of "questionable" content . . . so the censorship begins over there . . .

I've had friends already pull out of Twitter, FB and IG because of this whole mess (plus the whole stupid idea of Zuck's to stop fact checking) . . most are migrating to Bluesky . . . I'm not sure where else folks might be going to but let me know!

I know this place isn't perfect, but hopefully it'll be ok for a time . . . because I'll certainly need a place to get away from the stress of the real world by enjoying weird wild fandom shit with you people.

It's gonna be a LONG 4 years - but we'll get through it together, folks!

[mariacallous]

A ninth-grade health and wellness textbook has caused a minor uproar in Russia after activist Yekaterina Mizulina — more commonly known for championing Internet censorship measures — unearthed excerpts showing dubious advice to young women about navigating the hostile world of male sexual predators. For example, the textbook urges schoolgirls to avoid wearing bright makeup and short skirts to prevent becoming victims of sexual violence, reasoning that such displays “provoke boys and men.” Despite claims from the book’s lead author that it’s not required reading in Russian schools, the victim-blaming lessons offered in the text have raised concerns that at least some schoolchildren are being subjected to a backward education in gender norms.

Sergey Vangorodsky, who coauthored The Foundations of Life Safety, told RTVI that Mizulina’s complaints are “unfounded” because the book is not standard reading in Russia’s high school curriculum.

However, several readers told Mizulina that the textbook is used in health and wellness classes at schools in Rostov-on-Don, Volgodonsk, and Tambov. It’s also available for sale online. “Given that not all school library collections are updated in a timely manner, it may still be in use in [other] schools. I’m confident that the Education Ministry will investigate the matter,” Mizulina wrote on her Telegram channel.

In a section called “Safe Behavior for Girls,” Vangorodsky and his coauthors write that women who are alone with a man “should be prepared for him to develop a desire for intimacy.” Here are some other eyebrow-raising snippets from The Foundations of Life Safety:

“Many conflicts and attacks occur due to the victim’s own behavior, signaling through her appearance that she is either ‘ripe for it’ (being in the wrong place at the wrong time), willing (too available), or defenseless (drunk, scared, aroused, [or] overly trusting). Avoid standing out among others with excessive extravagance.”

“If you are alone with a man (even one you know well), be prepared for him to develop a desire for intimacy with you. Maintain a relaxed demeanor, but do not try to flirt or tease him, as in an intimate setting, he may interpret your flirting as an invitation to intimacy and your resistance as playacting.”

“If you cannot escape or counter a rapist’s weapon or physical superiority, you can still defend yourself by leveraging men’s psychophysiological traits during sexual intercourse and targeting their vulnerable spots. Try to trick the rapist into believing you agree to intimacy, get him to lower his defenses, and then act decisively according to your chosen plan.”

“How not to become a victim of violence: When going to a party, a café, a bar, a concert, any large event, or somewhere with a bad reputation, do not wear very short skirts or paint your lips, eyelids, and eyelashes in wild colors. This provokes boys and men and is perceived by them as a signal.”