#look i even hid it all under a “keep reading” tag ahahahaaa

[aeternallis]

It's been hanging out in the back of my mind for the past few months, but I think the reason why it's so hard for me to interact with the kpts fandom on here (with the exception of a very select few people) is because fanon has taken over to such an extent for kpts that subsequently, a lot, and I mean A LOT of the cultural context in this show has been erased because it's just easier to do so to a story with a modern setting, as opposed to a historical one, yknow?

And with that ease comes the resulting of some of the most...colorful interpretations and HCs that ngl, definitely hints at a more western mindset, than anything else.

Which is not necessarily...a surprise, based on what I've seen this site do to Asian media in general. Hahaha. After all, this is the site that said Sesshoumaru from Inuyasha is a pedo for marrying his ward, that Kaname from Vampire Knight is "ewww incestuous" for being in love with his distant ancestor. This is the same site that said JGY from MDZS did nothing wrong (ever), and thinks LWJ can't talk properly and speaks like Netflix's terrible subtitles.

And last but not least, this is the site that thinks dom/sub and top/bottom discourse is #immature and #feteshization when in reality the Asian BL subculture is literally built and maintained on this very important distinction of pairing order, which transcends who's sticking who in the ass, and has more to do with interpretation of characters as the author's explicit intent.

MXTX isn't being a whiny bitch when they say they hate it when their pairings are switched, it's because by switching up their pairings, you erase the literary importance of the gong love interest, and why MXTX positioned them that way. There's a reason why every single one of the MXTX novels is written from the POV of the shou, yo.

But, anyway.

I'm not Thai. I'm Filipino-American, who grew up in the Philippines for a good portion of her life and regularly goes back, and who is still somewhat fluent in Tagalog. And the borders of SE Asia contains within it a wonderful blend of so many different cultures that there are some scholars who, although dedicate their entire lives to studying this region, will never be able to fully grasp the cultural nuances that just aren't easily translatable to English sentences.

Having said that, there is still a set of cultural values and norms that unites this region AS Southeast Asia. I will definitely say for my own experience with kpts, one of the biggest factors as to why I fell in love with this show is because there were so many things about it that reminded me of my own upbringing, the cultural values and experiences that I grew up with, that makes this show special to me.

But Tumblr being Tumblr, it's no surprise that as always with non-western media, the cultural nuances are minimized or outright forgotten entirely.

In which case, KPTS is yet another victim to this inevitability, alas alas.