#homosexuality in ancient china

[zhoudadudugongjin]

Still thinking about this article. all day everyday.

Since we can clearly identify when same-sex love appears in the historical texts, and we know that male love was accepted and normalised, it is not surprising to find in the Records of the Three Kingdoms that Cao Cao, along with other Han nobles of his time, had a sex life which included both men and women. Later translations of the Records understate the relationship between the two men, preferring – intentionally or mistakenly – to interpret it as platonic. Kong Gui is not mentioned at all in Cao Cao’s English language biography (Imperial Warlord: A Biography of Cao Cao 155-220 AD). Uncovering these relationships is therefore important, as without a nuanced history of sexuality our otherwise robust understanding of this time period becomes diluted.

[novelcain]

I meant like, the whole homophobia/transphobia thing, unless China was very accepting of enbys. Idk I don't really do history.

OOOOOOHHHH!!! Sorry I have a big dumb Skittle brain and am incapable of reading between the lines when it comes to nonverbal communication. 😅 Ok ok I did some research on this just now so I could give an accurate (as much as I can but I'm no expert for sure) answer.

And that answer is... it depends.

China has a very long history regarding sexually and its views of sex have shifted a LOT from one era to another. But for this post, we'll focus on the Tang Dynasty because that is the time period JTTW is set in (tho which time period of the Tang Dynasty is unclear)

So I'll start by saying that the Tang Dynasty was notoriously open about sex and sexual desires and homosexually was accepted in ancient but only in certain situations. Usually homosexuality or simply non-straight behavior was only accepted and allowed within the upper class. For example most if not all (I'm not too sure) Chinese emperors had several male lovers and they didn't hide it as it was often revered with great admiration.

NOW as far as gender orientation goes. This would HIGHLY depend on the person and their beliefs as during this period China was dominated by 2 religions Taoism and Buddhism.

Taoism was the official religion of the Tang Dynasty and states that nature is perfect as is and by proxy some believe that would mean they view transgenderism as a flaw of nature while most Taoists themselves do not view transgenderism negatively as the Tao is pretty unconcerned with identity and focuses on virtue and coming to accept things as they were born in nature. Therefore I think the only thing that would even remotely be said against transgenderism from a Taoist standpoint is that you shouldn't feel the need to change your body to reflect your mind. Conclusion: ancient Taoism would likely accept transgenderism so long as you don't pursue gender affirming surgery.

Now while the official religion of China at the time was Taoism, many emperors highly favored Buddhism and that can even be believed of the emperor described in JTTW.

That being said. Buddhism believes that the body is a cage that traps the spirit in suffering and should therefore be distanced from as much as possible. HOWEVER! The Buddha himself said that while you should try to separate yourself from the Earthly Realm one's body should be used as a tool of awakening, and given that awakening in to find Nirvana, one could argue that pursuing your gender identity is simply using your body to reflect your soul and therefore is good. But honestly Buddhists are pretty chill and as long as you ain't hurting anyone or anything I HIGHLY doubt a true Buddhist would care what you do so long as you live amicably. Conclusion: transgenderism would likely be cool with about 99% of Buddhists even in ancient China.

Overall conclusion: MOST people probably wouldn't care, though these are ancient times, so I'd really read the room before offering any info about being gender nonconforming or nonbinary. Having said that, the worst thing you'd have to do is pretend to be whatever gender you most closely resemble. But honestly I think a lot about how it'd be best to pretend to be a man when traveling as they are much less likely to be attacked, assaulted, or hate crimed.

So again, in situations like these you need to be flexible and willing to present as something you aren't. And while that can be hard, I feel like dying via whatever brutal death an extreme transphobe can think of is a lot harder. So if you play your cards right the most a nonbinary reader would get is probably some nasty comments and a few even nastier looks. Tho both could easily be corrected by Tripitaka explaining they shouldn't do that and that isn't what Buddhism believes if the person is a Buddhist and if that doesn't work or they aren't Buddhist then a few sharp glares from the Great Sage Equal to Heaven should be more than enough to get them to knock it the fuck off. Tho if you're good at talking people over to your side then they probably wouldn't even need to step in.

As for how the group would take it, I think they'd all accept it rather quickly after you explain what being enby is with maybe the exception of Bajie who just truly doesn't understand so you'd just have to explain the concept of other genders to him a few times.

I hope this answers your question at least somewhat 😊

[guzhufuren]

this is how you tell apart bisexuals and homosexuals in ancient China

[makingqueerhistory]

Two of the most famous gay couples in Chinese history are also the sources of some of the most recognizable queer symbols in China: the bitten peach and the torn sleeve. Stories that are partially legend, partially based in some reality, have expanded beyond what anyone could have imagined and shifted from a romanticized look at a homosexual romance to a term to be clung to as a historical hook from past to present; a reminder that there is a precedent for the kind of queer love that continues in contemporary China, despite attempts to stamp it out.

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[fiftysevenacademics]

Over the recent years, the term guofeng ( literally means “national style”) has seen a rising prevalence in Chinese media to describe popular televisions, films, and musics that are considered to embody an essential “Chinese-ness.” While originated from the Chinese classic The Book of Songs, the concept of guofeng nowadays has already become a part of popular culture. National style is often utilized by the state media to emphasize Chinese history and de-emphasize the queer elements in the drama when discussing boys’ love stories. In her analysis of another BL Xianxia drama, Ye identified Word of Honor, with its soft masculinity, as comprising a larger landscape of reconstructed Chinese masculinity that includes more militant depictions, such as the Wolf Warrior films (dir. Wu Jing, 2015 and 2017), and thus being complicit in “brand homonationalism with Chinese characteristics’.”39) In The Untamed, the national style is manifested through two instruments: the historical items with clear cultural fingerprints and the martial arts chivalry extolled in Xianxia stories.

Set in the ancient indeterminate times of China, the cultural elements like Mo’e (old-style headband), Liusu ( decorative silk tassel), Chinese style gardens and architectures, and frequently mentioned Confucian quotes are prevalent throughout the drama. Some of them are savvily deployed by the producers as a hint of boys’ romance. In most Chinese historical dramas, Mo’e is always used by beautiful men with feminine traits, such as the most widely known characters like Jia Baoyu (Figure 1) and Liu Xianglian (Figure 2) in Hong Loumeng (The Red Chamber, 1984). Gradually, this code is fixated with the meaning of beautiful men (and many times, effeminate men) with fair skin, exquisite facial features, slim yet strong body figures, and graceful manner. In The Untamed, when the male protagonist Lan Wangji appears with Mo’e (Figure 3), his configuration would recall people of the early screen visual presentations and to relate the androgynous beauty with the characters. This cult of male beauty distances young men from the traditional masculinity and delivers a non-conforming gender attitude towards conventional hegemonic models. Moreover, this cultural symbol is deliberately encoded with homosexual implications by the screenwriter. In the drama, people of Lan Clan are asked to wear Mo’e to restrict their behavior ever since they are a child. As a sacred symbol, no one can touch it except for their parents, wife, and children. It represents their identity and bears a sense of belonging. Though acutely aware of its significance, when Wei Wuxian is in danger, Lan Wangji still chooses to take it off and ties it to Wei’s wrist with no hesitation. The emphasizing of “Only wife and son can touch it” in the early part of the same episode denotes that when Lan takes off the Mo’e, he already acknowledges and places Wei Wuxian in the position of a “wife.” His action of taking off the Mo’e not only breaks their clan discipline but also functions as a repudiation of social norms. 

However, all this more or less overt depiction of boys’ romance is ignored and even recognized by state media because of its application of national style. Its adaptation of ancient oriental elements was even praised by The People’s Daily for its “wonderful presentation  of Chinese characteristics,” and “manifestation of Chinese people’s confidence and pride for our own culture.”40) As a Chinese traditional clothing accessory tied on the forehead and decorated with embroidery or pearl jade, Mo’e originated from the Shang Dynasty (1600 to 1046 B.C.)41) and was used in the military for managing and distinguishing troops, but in its later evolution, both men and women, especially in the rich family wore it as a decoration. When The Untamed gets an unprecedent hit in the overseas market, the Chinese government chooses to exploit its  cultural values to exert its “cultural export” program thus turning blind eyes to its boys’ love content.

Coalition between Drama Producer and Audience: Encoding and Decoding of Boys’ Love Stories in Chinese Xianxia Drama The Untamed (陈情令) 건지인문학 2024, vol., no.40, pp. 135-174 (40 pages) DOI : 10.22830/humins.2024..40.135 by CHEN YUE

[honeydreamzz]

“Back in my day, this Autism and ADHD stuff didn't exist!”

the first known case of autism was documented by french physician jean itard in 1799. greek physician hippocrates who lived from 460-375 bc described patients with quick reactions and short attention spans, exhibiting symptoms of adhd.

“Transgenders and gays didn't exist in my day, though!”

gala was a sumerian priest who spoke their own dialect and took on feminine names around 5000-3000 bc. the first known lesbian woman in modern times is from 1821; anne lister. in general, homosexuality rose in ancient greece, ancient rome and ancient china thousands of years ago.

“Gay people are abnormal, humans are the only animals that have homosexuality!”

over 1500 animal species have documented cases of homosexuality. this includes the barn owl, chicken, emu, spider, bottlenose dolphin, bonobo, penguin, giraffe, cat, and dog. the bonobo are even bisexual.

we do exist, we have existed since before the modern day, and we will continue to exist until the end of humanity. we are not the first and we are not the last.

[dragonsandphoenix]

Thoughts while reading books about Ancient Yaoi

Don't mind me, just word vomiting. Now I'm reading more on the history of homoerotic literature in China and I really can't help linking them to my understanding on danmei written in the modern times. I'm becoming more certain that relationships in BL, especially classic BL are more based on the pre-modern model of male love, where homosexuality wasn't an orientation and homoerotic relationships were normatively ideal between an older man and a pubescent youth. The younger man, of which the modern uke/shou is modeled after is feminized but is thought of as distinct from women. Femininity isn't so much about womanhood but about sexual submission. This was the model of homoerotic relationships that would have been seen in many cultures including Ancient Greece, Ottoman Turkey, Feudal Japan and Imperial China before we entered the modern era. For the past 300 years understandings of sexuality shifted in the West, but it appears they didn't really in China up until the 20th century, after which there was a century of suppression, then China opened up to globalization.

How does all this contextualize danmei? Well a lot has been said that danmei isn't necessarily supposed to be LGBT media, at least not in the same way Western queer media is. The reality is danmei does draw from different influences including anime/manga, Western pop culture and Chinese classical literature among other things. My thought is that I would imagine it would be hard to completely discard the pre-modern understandings of male/male relationships in art, similar to gender roles. After all they have only been suppressed for a century. Which is a long time but relative to China's history, isn't that long. People are still bringing up "cut-sleeve" and that was so 2000 years ago man. That being said, nowadays there are distinct differences between modern danmei and homoerotic literature from back then:

Monogamous relationships are king. No more offering your wife to your bro in exchange for his ass sir.

LGBT identities are a thing. Western cultural hegemony for the win.

A more egalitarian model for relationships. At least compared to back then, age gap relationships with underage boys are not nearly as normalized. Really Bingqiu and Ranwan are a step up, they at least get together in their adulthood. Same goes for class status (at least couples with class differences won't automatically end tragically).

Related to number 3, the popularity of 年下 and tropes like shizunfucker. The overturning of power dynamics based on age and social ranking would have been anathema to the rich literati of back then.

No conclusion to draw here, but imagine how future scholars would view danmei now, and what that says about society.

Further Reading:

The Libertine's Friend: Homosexuality and Masculinity in Late Imperial China by Giovanni Vitiello

The Dragon's Whim: Ming and Qing Homoerotic Tales from "The Cut Sleeve" by Giovanni Vitiello

Was China Part of a Global Eighteenth-Century Homosexuality? by Matthew H. Sommer

The Daoist Art of the Bedchamber of Male Homosexuality in Ming and Qing Literature by Wanrong Zhang

All interesting reads. The last one makes mention of the first recorded fujoshi (or I guess 腐女), who wrote the only complete novel on male homosexuality written by a woman in ancient China, "with 52 chapters and 1.8 million words" (MXTX got nothing on her good god).

[augustameretrix]

went and fetched myself a paper on female homosexuality in ancient china because I needed to know what maomao would think of it

anyways the answer would probably be something like: "thats just bound to happen when women are neglected by their husbands. but if they really like each other theyre lucky if they get to marry the same guy... they cant really run away, can they?"

[olderthannetfic]

I went down a rabbit hole on penis subincision, which lead to an edu article on sexual behavior in indigenous Hawaiian populations. (By Milton Diamond if you feel an urge to google). The article talked about how it was normal and even encouraged in a lot of these cultures for young people to engage in homosexual acts for the purpose exploring each other and simply having fun. This, in turn, reminded me of an assertion that Mark Thompson made in his book, Gay Spirit: Myth and Meaning...

--

....I’m not sure if you’ve read Thompson’s work but you posted passages from his book a while back. He compares the rejection a fixed gender identity and the phenomenon of "changing" to the archetypal definition of being a shaman, which is kind of fine. But then he goes on to claim that Diné (Navajo) people had a cross-dressing shamanic priesthood of gay people (the nadle) until white colonialism destroyed the tradition. Which, frankly, was a claim that I initially dismissed as...

…a gay white dude making things up until this whole subincision thing made me go look into it more closely. There are in fact many detailed articles on this. (They’re called Nádleehi, not nadle in these papers). So what I want to ask is if anyone knows exactly how common it was for LGBT+ to be accepted in non-colonial populations. Because I was under the impression that the consistent natural reaction to queerness in almost every human culture is to eradicate it.

Nonnie... WHUT?

YES, oh my god, a ton of cultures were okay with some form of something we would today see as queer.

YES, colonialism routinely wiped this out or at least tried to, and many of the places doing the colonizing also stamped out their own ancient traditions.

I don't recall that particular book or quoting it, but I post a lot.

It's not as clear-cut as total acceptance or acceptance of all forms of queerness. A common format is some kind of third gender role for nonconforming or trans or intersex people, often a combination of what we'd see today in the West as femme gay men and heterosexual trans women. Sometimes, this third gender had a specific social role, like shaman or entertainer. The modern split between gender identity and sexual orientation is not really how people saw it in a lot of past cultures (or, hell, in plenty of modern ones outside of the mainstream Western world).

When I was 14, I was fucking obsessed with this academic book of compiled journal articles called Third Sex, Third Gender: Beyond Sexual Dimorphism in Culture and History.

In terms of binary m/m interactions... uh... Ancient Greece is right there. Did you... miss that?

Historically, Japan was all about it being manly to fuck dudes because they didn't have girl cooties until the Meiji Restoration. Similarly to Ancient Greece, it was unmanly to take it up the ass as a grown man, but that's different from m/m sex in general being a problem. As with many societies outside of the mainstream West post... like... mid 19thC, m/m sex was seen as something you did, not something you were.

Medieval Europe would have kicked your ass for "sodomy", including oral with your spouse, which also falls under that term in that period, but they still wouldn't have thought a man was "gay" for fucking men. They'd have thought he was falling prey to a common sin that any man could potentially be tempted into. Sexual orientation is pretty much not a thing until after we get psychology as a science.

China got more homophobic over the dynasties. There was a time that the emperor's boyfriends were in the fucking history books along with his baby mamas. That's where we get the term "cut sleeve" from.

We don't tend to know what f/f stuff was going on in most times and places because most of the written record is men writing about their dicks.

Modern Thailand has all kinds of interesting things going on, and that whole region of SE Asia has had at points, though the more colonialism, the more local shit got suppressed. I can't speak to the total accuracy, but here's a wikipedia article on gender identities in Thailand.

Tibetan monasteries had abbots openly promoting their boyfriends. As long as you were doing it between the thighs and not touching icky girls, it was fine.

American Indian cultures are well known to have had fucktons of priesthoods/shamans of that type. It wasn't every group. Some were more prone to punishing gender nonconformity. AFAIK, a specific variant role for AMABs is more common than just letting people do whatever. In some, you could become a shaman, but they also tended to scapegoat the shamans in times of crisis. I'm no expert. I'd look up what modern two-spirit people have to say about their cultural traditions along with journal articles. The historical record is fragmentary and full of missionaries' unhelpful opinions.

Humans do often punish difference, but tons of cultures didn't see m/m sex or some specific form of third gender as anomalous. A ton probably didn't care about f/f sex, though it's harder to tell.

Gender conformity is often enforced... but why on earth would you assume most cultures only have 2 and that they map exactly onto our modern ideas of gender?

Seriously, nonnie, where have you been?

[clearlakeve]

thoughts on female queerness as a queer Asian woman

Growing up, I was often told stories about my culture by my parents. Stories like the woman who floated to the moon, the archer who shot down the suns, the white deer who led the hunters to Sun-Moon Lake. Many of these stories were about heroes or heroines who fought monsters and fell in love -- but as I grew older, it became clear that these stories only existed within the sphere of what is considered culturally appropriate in Asian culture.

To be female, queer, and of Asian descent in the United States is to struggle with identity for much of your life. It is easy to define oneself by only one of those things, or maybe even two. But to be all three is to look back into history to find a gap in knowledge before the modernization of China. Only recently has there been a push to promote such Asian histories in the Western world -- moreover, any of the sparse sources found tend to be limited to post-1900s Asia. However, this is still a marked improvement from previous centuries, when even a mention of female queerness tended to represent a sort of social taboo.

In many other cultures, we have ancient letters from women to women, about their love for each other - and yet we do not possess the same for Chinese women. Perhaps the irony of it all is that while some degree of acceptance of homosexuality existed prior to Western/Christian influence, the only documents written by women about same-sex desire are from the latter half of Chinese history. We know these people existed! There are oblique references to women who took female companions, who lived with them in relationships that could be construed as marriage-like. We have stories of “Golden Orchid Associations”, “paired eating”, even fiction stories (written by men) that focus on female-female queer relationships. However, none of these are from a woman’s perspective, and even fewer of them paint such relationships in a positive light.

[pumpkinpaix]

once again reminded of how many people in mdzs/cql fandom really said with a straight face that homosexuality was "akin to normal" (false) in "ancient china" (a vague notion of a concept that spans thousands of years and thousands of miles)

and then somehow twisted that into "so mxtx is a homophobic bitch"

[sicmvndvscreatvsest]

BASICS

FULL NAME: SEON HAE [ 선해 ]

OTHER NAMES: AKIRA, AKIRA HAE, SEON HAE [ 아키라  in Korean, あきら in Hiragana, アキラ in Katakana, and 明 in Kanji. 선해.]

» MEANING: Seon [ As a family name, Seon may be written with either of two hanja, one meaning "to announce" (宣) and the other meaning "first" (先). Each has one bon-gwan: for the former, Boseong, Jeollanam-do, and for the latter, Jinseong, Jinju, Gyeongsangnam-do, both in what is today South Korea.. ]; Hae [ Hae in Korean means 'sun.' The Chinese character behind "Hae" (해) in Korean names, meaning "sun", is 海 (hǎi) in Mandarin Chinese and 해 (hae) in Korean Hanja. It is a combination of the characters for "sea" (海) and "sun" (日), and can be interpreted as "ocean sun" or "sun over the ocean". ]; Akira [ Akira (あきら, アキラ) is a given name present in a few languages. It is a unisex Japanese given name that is predominantly used for males. There are several kanji for Akira. In Thai, Akira or Arkira (Thai: อาคิรา, อาคีรา, อาคีระ) is a unisex name meaning 'the sun' or 'sunlight'. In Japanese there are many alternative ways to write the name Akira in kanji. This is not an exhaustive list. A popular kanji is 明 (the combination of the two different characters 日 = sun and 月 = moon) which means "the light coming from the sun", "sunlight and moonlight", "bright", "intelligent", "wisdom" or "truth". Though Akira is generally used to name males, sometimes it can be a female name as well.]

NICKNAME: Sunny, Aki.

AGE: Nearly 300-years old; 28 in appearance.

DATE OF BIRTH: 13th November, 18th century South Korea.

PLACE OF BIRTH: Kumiho realm, in fall.

OCCUPATION: Bodyguard to a powerful and rich vampire businessman.... Akira trained with her friend Seung-yong.

RELIGION: N/A

ORIENTATION: Homosexual; Homoromantic.

GENDER: Cisgender Female.

SPECIES: Kumiho

A kumiho or gumiho (Korean: 구미호; Hanja: 九尾狐, literally "nine-tailed fox") is a creature that appears in the folktales on East Asia and legends of Korea. It is similar to the Chinese huli jing, the Japanese kitsune and the Vietnamese hồ ly tinh. It can freely transform into a beautiful woman often set out to seduce men, and eat their liver or heart (depending on the legend). There are numerous tales in which the kumiho appears, several of which can be found in the encyclopedic Compendium of Korean Oral Literature (한국 구비문학 대계/韓國口碑文學).

Mythology

The old Chinese text Classic of Mountains and Seas, the earliest record to document the nine-tailed fox, mentioned that the fox with nine tails came from and lived in the country called Qingqiu (靑丘) three hundreds miles east, the term meaning "green hill" interpreted as the country or region of the east and was later historically used to refer to the region of Korea at least since the era during the Three Kingdoms of Korea. However, the name of Gojoseon (called Joseon in the record), the Korean kingdom that existed along with other minor states of the Korean peninsula at the time, was separately introduced in the same record. Kumiho and other versions of the nine-tailed fox myths and folklores share a similar concept. All explain fox spirits as being the result of great longevity or the accumulation of energy, said to be foxes who have lived for a thousand years, and give them the power of shapeshifting, usually appearing in the guise of a woman. However, while China's huli jing and Japan's kitsune are often depicted as either good, evil or neutral, the kumiho is almost always treated as a malignant figure who feasts on human flesh. It is unclear at which point in time Koreans began viewing the kumiho as a purely evil creature, since many ancient texts mention the benevolent kumiho assisting humans (and even make mentions of wicked humans tricking kind but naïve kumiho). In later literature, kumiho were often depicted as bloodthirsty half-fox, half-human creatures that wandered cemeteries at night, digging human hearts out from graves. The fairy tale The Fox Sister depicts a fox spirit preying on a family for their livers.

Knowledge beads

The most distinctive feature that separates the kumiho from its two counterparts (Japanese kitsune, and Chinese huli jing) is the existence of a 'yeowoo guseul' (여우구슬, literally meaning fox marble/bead) which is said to consist of knowledge. According to Korean mythology, the yeowoo guseul provides power to the kumiho and knowledge (and intelligence) to people if they can steal and swallow one. The kumiho can absorb humans' energy with it. The method of absorbing energy with the "yeowoo guseul" resembles a "deep kiss" (i.e. a kiss using a tongue). The kumiho sends the yeowoo guseul into people's mouths and then retakes it with their tongues. If that person swallows the yeowoo guseul, however, and then observes "sky, land, and people", each observation gives the observer preternatural knowledge. But the person fails to watch the "sky" in most tales, so they get a special ability but not the most important one.

Powers

Most legends state that while a gumiho was capable of changing its appearance, there is still something persistently fox-like about it (i.e. a foxy face, a set of ears, or the tell-tale nine tails) or a magical way of forcing; its countenance changes, but its nature does not. Although ancient legends indicated that kumiho could help humans, in modern times, these animals are known to eat human livers and hearts. They usually carry out their evil acts by tricking people into consuming their organs. Unlike Japanese kitsunes, which are portrayed as having multiple tails and magical abilities, kumiho is a nine-tailed creature all throughout their lives. According to Korean mythology, if a kumiho doesn’t eat human flesh for a thousand years, it might transform into a human. This is because the animal’s soul can still seek human flesh.

**Akira is deemed to be very strong even at a young age as a kumiho. She fights well because of her extensive training and has the ability to use her kumiho powers of bending and stopping time, appearing and disappearing, etc. Although sometimes, she can be impulsive. Akira is trained in taekwondo, sword fight, and other forms of martial arts. She also boxes often with Seungyong.

PERSONALITY

STRENGTHS: Powerful, Brave, Loyal, Passionate, Resourceful.

WEAKNESSES: Distrusting, Violent, Stubborn, Manipulative, Jealous.

APPEARANCE

FACE CLAIM: Han So-hee.

HEIGHT: 5'5 [165 cm.]

WEIGHT: 105 lbs. [48 kg.]

BUILD: Lean.

GAIT: TBA

HAIR COLOR: Reddish.

EYE COLOR: Amber in kumiho form; she likes wearing contact lenses for the colors.

BIRTHMARK: Yes.

OVERVIEW: » SCARS: Yes. » TATTOOS: Hell yeeees!

BACKGROUND

HOMETOWN: Spirit world; kumiho world.

RESIDENCES: Spirit world; Seoul, South Korea. She has a home in Japan, too.

NATIONALITY: Well, South Korean.

ETHNICITY: Asian.

FINANCIAL STATUS: Upper-class, she is also mad rich.

EDUCATION LEVEL: Akira took many courses coz she gets bored easily, she probably finished some of them or almost finish some of them.

DEGREES: Something...

SPOKEN LANGUAGES: Korean, Japanese, other Asian languages, she's been learning Thai but she sounds awful. English and Hebrew... She said she likes the way it sounds so she just picked it up. Then she got into Arabic, too. She's a mess.

RELATIONSHIPS

PARENTS: Kumiho gods/spirits. They're alive and well and just want Akira to settle down. Never happening, she said.

SIBLINGS: Lots....

CHILDREN: None.

PETS: She's got a pet dragon, but not really coz this 'pet' is a FULL GROWN dragon. More like bffs.

SIGNIFICANT RELATIONSHIPS: » Dragon bff.

FAMILY HISTORY: Akira is a mischief and lazy and her parents prayed to the kumiho gods and guardians to help them straighten her. A kumiho have nine tails all throughout their lives but the gods decided that Akira will be working for hers. She was to earn a tail for each 100 year she lives and make her parents proud. Later on, Akira met Seung-yong, a human who bonded with a dying dragon's ball and earned its powers. She became very close to the young witch/dragon and trained with him as a soldier/fighter. Seungyong became a bodyguard which interested Akira but her parents didn't think it was a suitable job for her. Akira pursued different careers then and witnessed how her kind were treated and taken advantage of by humans. When a childhood acquaintance got into a mess caused by a human, Akira became vindictive and haunted humans who has a dark heart and feasted on them.

Her parents didn't want her getting in trouble so they allowed her to finally train with Seungyong and pursue a career that would keep her focus. She has been working as a body guard for various entities and the latest was for a rich vampire who is living among the humans.

Seungyong wanted to investigate this vampire who has been connected with some known murders in other realms. Akira is helping his friend by sticking with the vampire and collecting info for her bounty hunter friend.

Akira travels everywhere due to the nature of her job.

ROMANTIC HISTORY: Messy. She had a lover that she had a roller-coaster relationship with. Akira can get overwhelming and many times, this reincarnated lover/partner, left her.

PLATONIC RELATIONSHIPS: Dragon bff, Seung-yong.

THOUGHTS ON LOVE: "It's messy."

HEALTH

PHOBIA(S): None.

HANDICAP(S): None.

MENTAL DISORDER: None.

PHYSICAL DISEASE(S): None.

PREDISPOSITION(S): N/A.

[web-novel-polls]

Baihe Character Mini-Tournament

Round 1 will open Wednesday, October 11th, 2023, at noon CST and will remain open until October 18th.

Qi Yan vs. Bo Qingbo vs. Li Shiyi

Xiang Tiange vs. Nagsi Jiya

Yun An vs. Lin Wanyue vs. Nangong Jingnu

Yu Rubing vs. Li Xian vs. Li Yanru

Tag: #baihe character tournament

List of Characters below the cut

Jing Wei Qing Shang / Clear and Muddy Loss of Love

Qi Yan from JWQS

Prince of the Chengli tribe AKA Qiyan Agula

Submission: 

she 💗💗 character of all time

Raised as a man due to politics & then pretended to be a frail scholar to get revenge on the Wei Kingdom that destroyed her tribe, which led her to become Princess Nangong Jingnu’s fuma. 

A Horse Girl™ with a rap sheet a mile long 😍 /light-hearted

Nangong Jingnu from JWQS

Submission:

I love her dearly

The only legal child of the Emperor; Zhenzhen Princess 

Li Yanru / the Masked Person from JWQS

No propaganda submitted

the eldest princess from the previous dynasty

Gave Qi Yan top surgery?

Nagsi Jiya from JWQS

No propaganda submitted

The Youngest Princess of the Tuba tribe who was originally offered to be Qi Yan’s wife. After the destruction & conquest of the plains, Nagsi Jiya decided to marry Emperor Nangong Rang as a consort for power. Overall? Sounds like a girl boss

Wiki Trivia: “She is the first character to encourage and engage in a full-fledged homosexual relationship in the novel (where both parties know that they are both women, as Nangong Jingnu is under the impression that she is in a heterosexual relationship).”

Other

Yun An from Matrilocal Marriage/RUZHUI

Propaganda:

She's a massive lesbian duh

Volunteered to go back in time to get over a breakup

Tried to get a meal and ended up marrying into the excessively rich Lin family 

Explained Dragon Ball Z in ancient China???

Lin Wanyue from Female General and Eldest Princess

No propaganda submitted

“In this life of mine, I’m so glad that I could have you as my wife…” - Lin Wanyue to Li Xian (source)

The Female General who took on her brother’s identity - Lin Feixing - to get revenge against the Huns that destroyed her village and killed her family. 

Li Xian from Female General and Eldest Princess

No propaganda submitted

The Eldest Princess who’s trying to keep herself and her sickly brother, Crown Prince Li Zhu, alive during a fight for the throne

"If you go fight against the enemy now, that is the best way to protect me." - Ch. 25, Li Xian

"The highest level of using people is to let that person remain completely unaware that you are using them. You must make them feel that everything they do is their own decision. Do not always think about steering, but understand how to influence." - Ch. 33, Li Xian

Li Shiyi from Wen Guan/Reading the Remnants 

No propaganda submitted

Li Shiyi is tasked with guiding the dead to reincarnation and letting go of their pasts.

Yu Rubing from She is the Protagonist

Submission: 

Staying silly :3

She was transmigrated into the protagonist while the villainess Tang Han Qiu was finally reborn with free will. Yu Rubing rebels against the system she hates & shamelessly supports Tang Han Qiu in doing whatever the hell she wants (<-has not read it)

Dealer’s Choice

Bo Qingbo from The General’s Manor Young Concubine Survival Report

She is so special to me. Upon reincarnating as a newly-married concubine staying at a (female) General’s estate, she just. Assumes she was married to the general (who is their husband’s main wife). 

Xiang Tiange from The General’s Manor Young Concubine Survival Report

Badass general who girl bossed so hard that her husband (Prince Yixing) hired a fake concubine (Bo Qingbo) to get rid of her

[fubuwu]

Hmm.... Just saw someone say that jcs "homophobia" has nothing to do with the society or the time period he was born in and it still means he's bad and I just e-e

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Society and time period kinda does effect how one might think of other groups tho. They've been raised and brainwashed to think that way, so much so that being homophobic is the norm whilst... Unfortunately... Being gay was deemed "evil", "bizarre""morally incorrect...."

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This isn't me condoning homophobes BTW. Obviously it's bad and you are valid to feel upset by his actions. But at the same time you got to appreciate the social context here... Him being homophobic in such a setting doesn't entirely make him a bad person because that was just how he was taught to be and was the norm.

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Jc is described as a person who follows social norms. Had he been born today where homophobia is generally frowned upon, I wonder if he will be more approving of homosexuality then? >.> Being accepting of homosexuality (depending on your society of course. It's still dangerous for many gay people around the world to be out and proud) is now the soical norm. Makes me think will he be much more accepting had the social circumstances been different or if this was a modern setting?

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Furthermore, his "homophobia" wasn't aggressive or anything and could have been read as him being repulsed by PDAs too as I've seen others pointed out *shrug*

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For someone from ancient china, I'd say he was a lot more tolerant than others in the book seeing as homosexuals back then were often executed, persecuted, kicked out as we seen with mxy etc. Plus, he let wwx go in the end to be with lwj. He never brought up their relationship again or showed physical disgust depsite knowing full well what they're going to be getting up to XD. Therefore, i feel with time and better education/understanding, someone like jc can easily grow to be more tolerant. It's not like he was going around, seeking out gay people and murdering them. Idk.... Just kinda think it's another case of people reading deeply into things as other members have mentioned in this tag before.....?

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Would also like to point out that there are other characters in the book who have made homophobic comments and more frequently than jc too.... Wwx himself used a homophobic slur in the beginning before realising his own gay awakening because again that was the normal thing to doo.... Kinda interesting that antis never talk about those points but eh.... It's just a book. It doesn't need to be read that deep. We're not writing essays on it.

[bingsoo-jung]

Old Farmer and a Dragon

This myth was taken from glbtq archives and was translated into English by Hong Kong Gay rights activist Xiaomingxiong. I’ve personally never been able to find other versions of this myth, but it is likely due to a lack of resources.

A 60-year-old farmer named Ma strolled along a field, when suddenly there was thunder and a rainstorm and the sky turned gray. He felt a crow scratch his back and he thought it signified wrath from Heaven. So he crawled down and lay still. 

Rather than wrath from Heaven, however, the curious events were caused by a dragon descending from the sky. Finding Ma lying still, the dragon sodomized him, while biting his head. After the dragon finished sodomizing the farmer, it ascended to the sky and bellowed with the thundering noise; the farmer was left alone on the ground with stinking liquid all over his body. At first, the farmer dared not mention what had happened to him to his family, until his rear hurt so much that he asked a doctor for a cure; then the event was revealed. 

Notes

While most of the animal fairies in Chinese mythology enjoy homosexual relationships with younger men or boys, only the dragon consistently enjoys sexual relationships with older men. As the dragon was the symbol for the rainbow in ancient China, they frequently appeared during thunderstorms and then they captured old men for gay sex.

[grand-theft-carbohydrates]

[extract: cao cao is bisexual dot jpeg] “Ah, Cao Mengde is here!” Dong Zhuo exclaimed, “son, this is the promising young fellow I was telling you about.” 

“Oh, so this is he?” Lu Bu murmured, making a show of looking him over. He stalked a languid circle around Cao Cao, his fingers tapping leisurely on the jewelled pommel of his sword. He wore soft-toed riding boots, and his gait was unnervingly quiet, reminiscent of a leopard Cao Cao had seen once in a menagerie. All that coiled, deadly strength, trapped in a too-small cage. His voice, likewise was a low, throaty, growl as he remarked lazily, “the honour is mine, to be sure.” 

“Tales of your valor echo far and wide, General Fengxian,” Cao Cao made a show of being star-struck—not that he needed to try particularly hard. Call it a foible, but he found handsome, arrogant men as impressive as they were annoying. “As the saying goes; ‘amongst men, Lu Bu has no equal. Amongst horses, Red Hare.’” 

Lu Bu preened “so they’ve been talking about me behind my back, have they?” 

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it!” Cao Cao enthused. Greedy Back-stabber, Wandering Demon, Bastard-with-three-fathers —and those were some of the more pleasant ones. ---------- notes: - main inspiration for this was sima qian's writing. ancient china had this very matter-of-fact, almost refreshingly non-judgemental attitude towards homosexuality and/or male-male sexuality. and idk. i guess it's nice knowing history isn't about linear progress, different time periods can surprise you. - it's kind of refreshing to read stuff like "yeah so the court came togather and brutally assassinated the emperor's male lover. not bc we're homophobic btw (most of us have tried to dress like the guy just to get the emperor's attention), but it was bc he was amassing too much political influence" - diversity win! i guess! - my characterisation isn't so much as "who is gay/bisexual" but rather "this is the han dynasty, guys, and we're spending 80% of our time in the army. who amongst us HASN'T had a homoerotic experience?"