#ochi asked

[ochiody]

I'm asking your Hermes out

^_^

[aliettali]

request: anakin, ahsoka, and rex in a snowball fight (anakin cheats with the force or something idk)

what a loser. GET HIM

bonus:

[gmanmedias]

MAYBE YOU’RE MY LOVE!

👑 👑 👑

🌹 🌹 🌹

🍣 🍣 🍣

[softcryz]

burger

BURGER!! NOW HER AND CREATIVITY ARE MATCHING!!

m y burger beast so perfect

[mt-isnothere12]

every time i look at your pfp i go 'wow bros the meow meow monster' im so sorry that card has done irreparable damage to me

LMAOOOOO 😭🙏🙏😨

[asksmg4avatarpeachau]

Garth from @ask-marios-apprentice asks

I'll try and find if any of you exist in this world. It could take some time though looking through social media, historical records, and news articles.

I'm a bit scared to ask.

Is Peach a good person? From what you say it makes me nervous for your kingdom.

What does the royal family think.

in my world, both her parents have unfortunately passed away. Is the same true here?

What about her cousin Daisy? Is she aware.

I'm just in disbelief that a world like this has a leader.

I mean assassination attempts seem pretty harsh. I don't agree with them.

But it seems like there's a reason for this happening.

Please tell me there's good in this world!

Pear: Peach isn't... the best that what I'll say.

Ochi -walking past and stopping near by-: Peach is a good person. She might not be the "best" but she isn't evil, not really bad either. She just struggles with empathy and caring for others. When she does like a person though, she can be extremely caring and nice towards them.

Pear: I'd say her flaws outway the positives.

Ochi: And that's your opinion. But no matter what, I still like Peach. She may not be the best but she's good to me.

-Ochi walks off, presumably to do work-

Pear: I guess that's an for you answer, it's complicated.

Pear: About the royal family, we have no idea. Her parents could be dead or alive and we wouldn't know.

Pear: Mario has known Peach the longest out of all of us and had never met them. From what we know, Peach's parents left the picture when she was quite young, maybe 10 or 9, and never returned after that.

Pear: Before that, they were quite neglectful and often left Peach with the castle staff because they didn't want to deal with her. They were also known to be extremely uncharitable and vain.

Pear: Peach doesn't seem to remember her parents at all though or even having parents in the first place so we don't talk about the subject to her. It would do anything anyway.

Pear: She also only became how she is today when she was around 19 so her parents have no idea about her avatar role, if they were still alive.

Pear: Her cousin Daisy also has no idea about her avatar role or at least, I would hope not. Daisy and Peach used to get along well but due to personality traits changing, they no longer talk much outside of royal duties.

Pear: If Daisy did know, she hasn't spread the knowledge around or told anyone yet. Hopefully she doesn't know about it though.

Pear: And yeah, I'm not going to lie to you here, Peach isn't a great ruler. But she's better than no one I'll tell you that. If I had it my way, she wouldn't of been born into royalty, that would of made my job a lot easier.

Pear: But don't threat, there is some good to our world. It's just... hard to see sometimes. I'm not really the best person to answer that though, Mario's the only person that is full of that good I know of, that's for sure. Oh and maybe Ochi too.

Pear: I've also know that Luigi is nice and Melony, who works at a clothes shop that Peach frequents, is sweet. So there isn't entirely bad things in our world, it's just hard to find sometimes.

Pear: Thank you once again for the asks you give, I really do appreciate it. I can't really think of any questions to ask you right now but if you have any more questions to ask, feel free to do so. Just don't feel like you have to, of course.

[cashewally-sarcastic]

🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻

Oh hi there

🌻 Harvestella’s ost is very pretty and it’s genuinely tragic that it went under the radar because even if you don’t play the game I think the music can be amazing in its own right (but you don’t need me to tell you that)

🌻 Speaking of music, music is super fucking cool. Video game music is super cool, especially when a soundtrack changes context before vs after you play a game. Like you can listen to stuff on your own but then playing a game can completely change an experience for you.

🌻 Speaking of video game music I wish it was like. More acceptable to say like “oh I listen to video game music/ [insert game title here]’s ost a lot”. And yes yes cringe culture is dead and don’t let people ruin your joy but also man. Would be nice is people just went “oh cool” instead of “what the fuck”.

🌻 Oh also this is off topic but talking about like “acceptable stuff” reminded me of some injury recovery/survivability/murder research I was doing and like. Man why’s that gotta suck. You google “is [injury] survivable” or “does hitting [spot] kill quickly” and google’s gotta be all judgy about it smh. Like a yes or no or a nice answer would help but nooo they give me unrelated results about OTHER injuries.

🌻 in other unrelated news the wip that has been haunting me for years is back on the brain and I’m trying to shake things up a bit in it.

[kitaychan]

🌵🦷❄️

🌵 ⇢ share the link to a playlist you love

The You're trapped with Alfred F Jones in space playlist, it's my go to when I just want to chill

🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on

Eating eggs with rue plant can decrease the intensity of period cramps, I don't know if it is scientifically proved or anything but it's something that my family has done for years and I think it helps a lot.

❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

This is such a difficult question... I think there are a lot of amazing fics with that theme already, but my dream theme is mainly a murder mystery (with blood, a bit of catholic imagery, discussions about the symbolism of inflicted violence and ofc rusamechu) plus that Nietzsche quote xd

"Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you."

Now for who would write it best?

Well I think if I want a fic catered to my taste then I have to write xd besides it's basically what I am trying to do with Nerium Oleander

[eicreators-rp]

image of Curse with his two sons Ochi and Gai

[most-hated-blorbo-bracket]

How many bungou stray dogs submissions so far?

Bungou Stray Dogs has had three submissions so far!

Characters submitted are…

Dazai Osamu, with one submission

Ochi Fukuchi, with one submission

And Ogai Mori, with one submission! Feel free to send in more submissions for the show >:3

[ochiody]

hands up this is a robbery give me some odypen and telestratus art

you can have one

[ghaothbhean]

tag dump

[korosenaiishi]

tag dump

[kokyuchusei]

tag dump

[kozukensgf]

would u do more hoshi bf texts please 🙏🏻

you ask and i deliver 🙏🏻 i’m sorry it took so long but here you go!!

bf texts with hoshi!

genre: smau, crack, fluff, nsfw (tiny little bit)

character: kwon soonyoung

warning(s): curse word

note: ipad kid pocket sized ochi is here again!!! i want HIM

masterlist

part one | part two

[nieves-de-sugui]

A Quick History of BL

As someone who wrote a thesis on this very subject a few years ago, here is the short version of how BL has evolved throughout the years. For the new comers ❤ 

a minute of silence for the original form of this post that tumblr decied to not save right after I saved it

I am going to go with a chronological approach. Unfortunately, I cannot put everything in one post so if there’s any questions about this or that aspect of the history of BL that you want to know and it’s not talked about here, you are welcome to ask me directly :)

Context and influences - Japan in the 60′s

Before the US forced Japan to open its borders to the outside world in the 1800s, homosexual practices were common place between budist monks, samurais and kabuki actors. During the Edo period (1600s to 1800s) there was a very rich amount of poetry, art, books (such as Nanshoku Okagami (The Great Mirror of Male Love) by Ihara Saikaku) and codes of conduct about how to have a good master/aprentice relationship, kinda like the greeks if you know what I mean. However, with the arrival of western influences, in order to become a more “civilized” country, it was all put in the closet. 

Yet, in the 60′s Japan started to pick it up again through literature about young androginous beautiful boys (aka bishounen). On one hand, in 1961, the novel Koibitotachi no Mori (A Lover’s Forest) by Mari Mori was published. It tells the story of a young and beautiful 19 year old worker and a half french half japanese aristocrat, and their tragic romance. On the other hand, Taruho Inagaki wrote Shounen ai no Bigaku (The esthetics of boy-love), an essay on aesthetic eroticism (of which he wrote a lot of). All this was know as Tanbi (lit. aesthetic) literature. It generally refered to literature with implied homosexuality and homoeroticism such as works by Oscar Wilde, Jean Cocteau, etc. And of course, Mori and Inagaki. 

In chinese tanbi is read as danmei (term used to refer to BL novels in china today, ie: The Untamed it’s all connected friends).

From the birth of Shonen Ai  to Yaoi - 70′s to the late 80′s

Around the beginning of the 70′s, shoujo was being revolutionized by the Year 24 Group, a generation of women manga authors (mangaka) who started to explore new themes. Among them, their interest in tanbi gave birth to a new subgenre: Shounen ai. 

Their most known manga were:

Kaze to Ki no Uta (The Ballad of the Wind and Trees) by Keiko Takemiya, and Toma no Shinzo (The Heart of Thomas) by Moto Hagio

Their stories are characterized by having suffering eurpoean bishounen in boarding schools, living an idealized perfect love (meaning passionate) that, despite the tragic end of one of them, lives forever in the other. 

As this genre starts getting popular, more and more fans of these stories start making their own self published manga, aka doujinshi, of the genre. It is around this time that the term Yaoi is coined. Meaning “YAma nashi, Ochi nashi, Imi nashi” (no climax, no fall, no meaning). Basically PWP fanfiction, for the most part. Doujinshis could be considered an equivalent of fanfiction in manga form.  It is also here that the term Fujoshi (aka Rotten Girl, for liking rotten things) starts being used to refer to women readers of yaoi. 

With this rise in popularity come the start of the commercialization of the genre. Which meant the publication of magazines dedicated solely to yaoi/shonen ai/BL. The most popular yaoi manga magazine at the time was June. The common trait of their stories being the therapeutic power of the love between the mains. The traumatized character would heal throught this newfound love.

Most of the stories at this time happened in the West (Europe or the States) as the exploration of these dark themes intertwined with homosexual romance and homoeroticism still feel safer to explore as a foreign concept. One example would be Banana Fish (1985).

Commercialization and Yaoi Ronso -  90′s 

As more publishing houses pick the genre up, the term Boys Love is used to include every type of manga about homosexuality made for women. 

The increasing amount of BL series sees a changes in its themes: 

the start of the “gay for you” trope where one mantains their heterosexuality despite being in a homsexual relationship, 

the uke/seme dynamic (mirroring hetero realtionships) also relating to physical appearence (one being more feminine, the other being more masculine), 

the use of rape as an act love (sexual violence has always been present but here it becomes a staple),

anal sex as the only type of sex, 

older and more masculine men start to appear 

they now happen in Japan

Good examples of the presence of these themes in manga are Gravitation (1996) or Yatteranneeze (1995).

However in 1992, Masaki Sato (a gay activist/drag queen) wrote a letter in a small scale feminist magazine attacking yaoi and pointing out how it “represented a kind of misappropriation or distortion of gay life that impacted negatively upon Japanese gay men”. The female readers of yaoi responded, defending the genre as a means to escape gender roles and explore sexual themes that was never meant to represent the realities of gay men. This is know as the Yaoi Ronso (Yaoi Debates).

The debate ended with both sides understanding more of each other, with mangakas starting to include queer views in their works. It also started the academic reasearch of BL. 

Yet, it is a debate that has been restarted more than once, as it is still relevant despite the evolution of the genre.

more on this on another post

Globalization and coining of BL - 2000′s 

By the beginning of the 2000s BL is being sold all over the world (like all manga), and has become a stable industry. We could say it has finally become it’s own genre. 

Some of the most well known manga series, to us (in the west), of the time are:

Junjou Romantica 2002 Koi Suru Boukun 2004 Love Pistols 2004 Haru wo Daiteita 1999

all of these have anime adaptations for the curious ones

We also start seeing short anime adaptations or special episodes of the most popular series, with questionable themes, such as: adoptive father x adoptive son  (Papa to Kiss in the Dark 2005), father x son’s friend (Kirepapa 2008), etc... 

However the themes remain more or less the same. Junjou Romantica’s love story starts with a non-con sex scene by the older one (masc, seme) to the younger one (more feminine, uke) addressed years later in the manga btw. Koi Suru Boukun’s love story is triggered by aphrodisiacs and rape. They’re still very present in the stories but slowly going away. A mangaka that represents this era could be Natsume Isaku (Candy Color Paradox 2010).

Change is slow in Japan. Even though the voices of LGBT+ people started to be taken into account in the genre it is not until later that we see it reflect in the mangas themselves. However, we can already see the start of this in Doukyusei (Classmates) (2006) by Asumiko Nakamura. Also Kinou Nani Tabeta? (2007) which is actually part of a more mature genre: Seinen.

It is my personal (subjective) theory that the BL of this era was the one that got popular outside of Japan, which is why we see lots of references to the themes, tropes and dynamics of this time in today’s BL series. 

The LGBTzation of BL and the rise of webtoons - 2010′s to 2020′s

Slowly but surely LGBT characters and themes enter the scene of BL. Existing simultaneously with the previous tropes and themes, we start seeing a shift in these stories. We now see:

characters that identify as gay or some type of queer

discussions about homophobia

more mature themes about life and romance

At the same time as we get the usual love stories with the usual themes, a new trend starts to take over. And we get simultaneously, cute, sometimes questionable but light love stories:

Love Stage 2010 Ashita wa Docchi da! 2011 Kieta Hatsukoi 2019

More profound stories and darker or more complex themes:

Blue Sky Complex 2013  Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai 2011 (mafias) Given 2013 (suicide) Hidamari ga Kikoeru 2013 (deafness)

And others that adress the queer experience in a more mature way (which might actually fall into the Seinen genre)

Itoshi no Nekokke 2010 (slice of life, queer characters) Smells like Green Spirit 2011 (two ways to deal with a homphobic society) Strange 2014 (relationships between men) Shimanami Tasogare 2015 (an LGBT group helps a closeted gay) Old Fashioned Cupcake 2019 (you know this one 😉) Bokura no Micro na Shuumatsu 2020 (the end of the world)

As queer stories are explored, BL mangakas and mangakas from other genres start to consider more stories about queer people such as the Josei Genderless Danshi ni Aisaretemasu (My Androgynous Boyfriend) (2018) by Tamekou, or the Shoujo Goukon ni Itarra Onna ga Inakatta Hanashi (The story of when I went to a mixer and there were no women) (2021) by Nana Aokawa. 

Still, we can see two realities live side by side. Doukyuusei gets adapted into an impactful animated movie in 2016, meanwhile Banana Fish gets an anime adaptation that keeps the homoeroticism but not the homosexuality.  

For those who might be interested. Here are some of the authors that represent the first half of this era, where they start to include newer points of view:

Scarlet Beriko, HAYAKAWA Nojiko, KURAHASHI Tomo, OGERETSU Tanaka, Harada, KII Kanna (Stranger by the Sea), etc...

And authors that while keeping classical themes break the stereotypes in a subtle manner:

CTK, ZAKK, Jyanome, Cocomi, Hidebu Takahashi, SUZUMARU Minta, etc...

Mangakas also no longer stick to one genre only. They explore whichever of them they want, from BL to Seinen to others. 

ie: Tamekou, 

or Asumiko Nakamura

The curious case of Webtoons

With the digitalization of mangas, throught Renta and Lehzin, it has become easier (and more expensive) to access these stories. Korea makes and appearence with their webtoons. Through the lack of piracy protections and the majority of them being digital, manhwa (korean webtoons) sees a rise in popularity. Through the digital medium the influencee can be the influencer.

However, like many other East Asian countries they have consumed BL, without hearing about the conversations about BL. So they end up mantaining the older themes and stereotypes that newer BL is trying to leave behind. Therefore, we end up with a mix of old and new, ie:

Killing Stalking 2016 Cherry Blossoms After Winter 2017 Painter of The Night 2019

Additionally, it is also thanks to the easy access to internet that Omegaverse, with its higher dramatic stakes (that parallel hetero dynamics), enters the mangasphere in 2016. It has grown in popularity ever since.

With the Thai BL Boom of 2020, Japan rediscovers its own BL market and starts investing in it more. Which is why we get live action adaptations of BL manga that was popular years ago (Candy Color Paradox was a manga from 2010), the more recent ones (The End of the World With You) or new anime adaptations (Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai in 2020). 

more on this in my japanese live action BL post

What has it become now? is it BL? ML? or Seinen? Or is it all just gay manga?

It is clear that Shoujo manga (with BL, Josei and Seinen) is exploring queer themes such as gender and sexuality more and more. Japan is interested in this conversation, not only in manga (Genderless fashion). Which brings up the current question in BL studies: Does it make sense to keep these categories?

As a response to BL, ML (Male Love), which is made by gay men for gay men, started happening (around the 70s too). And Bara (gay manga porn) in response to Yaoi. However both gay men and women read BL and ML. We also see other themes being explored through BL, such as friendship (in BL Metamorphose), food (in Kinou Nani Tabeta), male relationships of all kinds (in Strange), and different queer views on life and its challenges (in Shimanami Tasogare). More and more what is LGBT and what is BL is merging, the line is blurred. 

Conclusion

BL has been in my life for longer than it hasn't. It is through shoujo and BL that I have come to understand people and romance.

It is flawed, like everything else this life, but it's flourishing in many ways.

The genre feels old and new at the same time. 

We can still find shounen ai/tanbi elements in more modern manga (All About J). Or the gay for you in a new light (Itoshi no Nekkoke). Or more educational manga on queer issues (My Brother’s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame). BL has around 50 years of existence but it is also being born anew in Thailand and Korea. 

BL manga will continue to evolve in acordance to Japanese tastes, as it is still a local market. Hopefully the korean webtoons that get popular will be the more daring ones in their themes. Who knows where it will go from here? The only thing we know for sure is that it will continue to change. Isn't it exciting?

A post on the evolution of live action BL in Japan is coming, to complement this post.  As well as a more detailed explanation of the Yaoi Debates and gay manga.