#queer women in urban china

[cynosurus]

Queer women in urban China : an ethnography Elisabeth L. Engebretsen

Finally got around to start reading this book.

Elisabeth L Engebretsen is a Norwegian ethnographical reseracher who did field work in Beijing 拉relevant拉 (lala, queer women) communities in 2004-2006.

Edit: oh there's this glossary of Chinese terms discussed also, which is really nice when you know a bit of chinese and want to be able to check them out.

[ninja-muse]

I completely abandoned any pretense about reaching my yearly reading goal this December, but I did manage to read one TBR book per month and read 50 of the books I wanted to in 2022, so I’m counting the year as a win. And I got close to the goal, anyway, at least if you include the picture books. (I do not like to include the picture books.) This month also included surprise highlights, surprise disappointments, and not one, but two, history books, which I feel like I never do.

December also, obviously, included a book haul. I got a couple books I asked for for Christmas, a couple books that came from the “give everyone an essay about my tastes” wishlists, and The Atlas Six, which arrived at work too damaged to sell but is still perfectly readable and it had been recommended by a friend…. The highlight is Weirdos of the Universe Unite!, however. I read this at least three times as a kid, via the public library, and I’m pretty sure we can credit my love of urban fantasy to it. That one’s actually part of my birthday haul, but the postal system got in the way. Very excited to (hopefully) reread it in 2023!

The Mummy! - Jane C. Webb Louden A plan to resurrect a mummy somehow upends the monarchy and everyone’s love lives. Melodramatic satire on a grand scale. - Egyptian secondary character

Beneath Another Sky - Norman Davies A world tour of countries subsumed by the colonial West and the ways they’re rebuilding after. - diverse nations and peoples covered - warning: colonial mindsets 1491 - Charles C. Mann An examination of what is known about pre-contact life in the Americas, versus what has often been taught and believed. - Indigenous subject matter - warning: racists, genocide

The Great Believers - Rebecca Makkai Yale is trying for a bequest to his gallery while navigating a relationship and watching his friends die of AIDS. Thirty years later, Fiona is searching for her daughter and reckoning with how Yale’s friend-group has affected her life. - largely 🏳️‍🌈 cast, Jewish protagonist, Jewish secondary character, Black secondary character - warning: deaths from AIDS, period-typical homophobia, including apathy and hate crimes

Books and Libraries - Andrew Scrimgeour, ed. A collection of poetry dedicated to the love of books.

The World We Make - N.K. Jemisin The boroughs of New York thought they’d fought their biggest battle, but then a populist politician comes to town. - ensemble cast containing Black, Indigenous, Indian, Latina, and 🏳️‍🌈 protagonists, Black author, #ownvoices for Blackness

Don't Fear the Reaper - Stephen Graham Jones Jade Jennifer Daniels returns to Proofrock the week a serial killer escapes in a blizzard. Out in February. - Blackfoot protagonist, Indigenous secondary characters, Black secondary character, disabled secondary characters, Blackfoot author, #ownvoices for Blackfoot representation - warning: death, gore, animal death

Grumpy New Year - Katrina Moore with Xindi Yan (illustrator) Daisy’s going to China to visit her Yeh-Yeh for Lunar New Year! Daisy should have slept—but she didn’t. - Chinese cast

The Golden Spoon - Jessa Maxwell Six contestants, two hosts, one world-famous baking show. And a body. Out in March. - ensemble cast containing Black, Latina, neurodivergent, and 🏳️‍🌈 characters

Reread:

The Jolly Christmas Postman - Allan Ahlberg with Janet Ahlberg (illustrator) A postman delivers Christmas mail to the fairy tale and nursery rhyme residents of his village.

Currently reading:

A Killing In Costumes - Zac Bissonnette Jay and Cindy just got an offer that might save their movie memorabilia business. Unfortunately, their competitor has turned up dead and that might sink everything. - 🏳️‍🌈 protagonists

The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle Victorian detective stories - major disabled character
 - warning: colonialism, racism


Stats


Monthly total: 9
 Yearly total: 145 + 2
 Queer books: 1
 Authors of colour: 2
 Books by women: 5
 Canadian authors: 0
 Off the TBR shelves: 2
 DNFs: 0

January February March April May June July August September October November

[zooterchet]

Mission Briefing From Agent Brown (Program Vicar-1)

Royal Irish Navy: Labor control forces, the label of "Irish" in the Hebrew Geneology listings; police labor.

Canadian Mounted Patrol: Influence and art media, through call centers and backtraced lines; sum data, held in computers, through felony invoices on recording sheets of prior imprinted felony against controlled substances acts, or support groups thereof.

B'nai B'rith: The sheriffs division, those hired at mercenary private detective to enforce law no longer in status or force or removed, through any politician, worldwide, to be enforced anywhere, worldwide.

Counter Terror: The Quaker Oats fund, to study factories and warehouses and grain silos, to export cereals productions overseas to train workforces to produce armored warfare and vehicles status produce.

Goldman-Sachs: A talent organization out of Broadway, specializing at the removal of negligent sectors of urban tract, through art movements, encouraging immigration by homosexuals, those practicing Lutheran logic; sterile men, by pituatary dysfunction, and barren women, through improper stance of lotus, scoliosis.

Saks Fifth Avenue: Sales of chemicals similar to Rohypnol, however herbal, and in terms of texture beneath nose, often used by CVS corporate executives out of Coens, Hitlers, and Murdochs.

Macy's: Hedge funds basis out of Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, New York City; used for the common coverage of any number of wars overseas with American involvement, to export illicit substance as common industrialized labor for pogrom of sectors of collegiate study; "genocide", actually, an anthropological study, in produce of queer labor, Protestants.

D-Company: Extension of Silk Road and East Indies Company, the holding share in Dutch Country, Boer South Africa, and Uighur West China.  Used in calculation of media movements and script shares, for particular breeding of assassins, out of a single economic role, held by the main character's child; however, if matching proper byline, now hired into contract by necessary partnership organization out of military ally's accounts.

Delta Blue: British Airways overlay, into Thailand, out of Delhi and Amsterdam.  The traffic in sex commerce, through inmates held in Indochina; used as specialists in technical sciences, in any commercial social science entering the common media as a secondary function of commercial product.

Israeli Defense Forces: Neo-Nazi forces held in reserve by Lutheran Iranian alliance, out of Judea and Samaria; held as "Arabs", actually Americans, Hamas, hostage, to sport fight from World War 2 forces ruled as "Hebrum"; Jewish-Americans, as converted to Christian Arabianism, and slurred as "Muslims", homosexuals, without being aware of such attachment.

Paramilitary Reconnaissance: Mercenary forces out of Italy, "Mafiaso", dealing in a third party isosceles triangle for a foreign broker, for development of a market by shift of relationship in a simple thread and peg, on a pair of logical points out of fiction discussed by product imported; Kabuki theater in Japan, prior to Douglas MacArthur.

Israeli Air Force: Training programs and pilot programs as being the same, instead of the foreign model, of an Air Force program as intelligence forces, and an academy being for flight of civilian and military craft.  Used as munitions export, through mercenaries recruited out of the entertainment community.

[bookclub4m]

15 Anthropology Books by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) Authors

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

The Power of Style: How Fashion and Beauty Are Being Used to Reclaim Cultures by Christian Allaire

Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang

Dakota Texts by Ella Cara Deloria

Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life by Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields

Say What Your Longing Heart Desires: Women, Prayer, and Poetry in Iran by Niloofar Haeri

Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica by Zora Neale Hurston

Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts by Margaret Kovach

Amphibious Subjects: Sasso and the Contested Politics of Queer Self-Making in Neoliberal Ghana by Kwame Edwin Otu

Blanket Toss Under Midnight Sun: Portraits of Everyday Life in Eight Indigenous Communities by Paul Seesequasis

Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples by Linda Tuhiwai Smith

On the Margins of Urban South Korea: Core Location as Method and Praxis edited by Jesook Song and Laam Hae

Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science by Kim TallBear

Desi Hoop Dreams: Pickup Basketball and the Making of Asian American Masculinity by Stanley Thangaraj

From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai'i by Haunani-Kay Trask

Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods by Shawn Wilson

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Ok so since I went on a wee tear about people reading someone other than Pratchett, the same as how HP fandom needs to read someone other than she who shall not be named, here are some authors to check out! Some are classics who you will have read before, or at least heard of, I hope some of them will be new to you as well. 

Feel free to add to it. I’m going mostly for fantasy/sci-fi/fabulism and their adjacencies:  

Octavia Butler (she’s a classic and her stuff from the 80s alone, and the context she was writing in, is 100% more radical than half the crap we all spew out now.) 

Angela Carter (she’s a classic for the retold fairy tale. I’v read other authors who try this and everyone is derivative of her and no one is nearly as good)

Scott Lynch (fun fantasy assassin world - though I feel like he’s #problematic for some reason now? I don’t follow all the lit drama that is out there)

Marie Brennan (dragons! women in science!)

Stephen Graham Jones (Indigenous [Blackfoot] horror and the struggles of belonging)

Natasha Pully (steampunk and spies! Also you want some actual, canon, like it’s clearly stated gays in Victorian England and not some bad jokes vaguely hinted at kinda-sorta in Monstrous Regiment)

John Gardner (fun weird fabulism? idk I’m just here for Grendel) 

Imogen Hermes Gowar (Mermaids! cabinets of curiosity! low-urban fantasy! I got queer vibes from her stuff) 

Waubgeshig Rice (more Indigenous (Anishinaabe) horror - his latest Moon of the Crusted Snow is *chef’s kiss* perfect) 

Jeff Vandermeer (environmentalism sci-fi/spec-fic - weird and very Floridian. More women in science!) 

Amanda Leduc (new author! Apocalyptica and centaurs and meteors)

Katherine Arden (eastern European folklore retold in different ways)

Tamora Pierce (I know I bang on about her all the time - openly gay and trans characters; deals with racism and doesn’t dismiss it by saying speciesism is more interesting; no “loitering with intent” jokes that show how everyone hates the homeless and gay men etc.) 

Ursula K LeGuin (another classic; also openly gay and trans characters; fascinating stuff with gender and race; she’s so fucking smart)

NK Jemison (Like LeGuin, so fucking smart, doing cool stuff with race and sexuality and also environmentalism and other issues)

Silvia Moreno-Garcia (she wrote Mexican Gothic! She tends to do fantasy and gothic and folkloric retellings set in Mexico - her latest is 1920s Mexico and the Mayan god of the dead has come back. Shit proceeds to get real)

Rebecca Roanhorse (there’s a massive flood; so many earthquakes and other events cause magic to return. Tells the story of a group of young Navajo kids dealing with all of this)

Karen McBride (new author! Crow Winter is great - girl returns home to Spirit Bear Point First Nation and starts being visited by a local spirit/god and things go from there) 

Lydia Kwa (magic-realism in 7th century China with many ghosts and oracle bones also martial arts and some good action) 

Eden Robinson (she wrote the Trickster series! If you guys like trickster gods and the shit that can fall out from magic powers going sideways? Her books are for you.)

Tochi Onyebuchi (deals with magic and race and racism; also cops and incarceration and the violence of the carcerial system.) 

Rivers Solomon (she talks about race and slavery and class through spec-fic - she’s more on the sci-fi side - also she talks about generational trauma and inherited struggles)

This is obviously just a starter pack. 

Honestly though, if you want radical fantasy that talks about real issues? Stop reading white straight men for a year. For just one, single year read only black and indigenous authors, lgbtq+ authors, Latino authors, east asian authors etc. 

There is a massive wide world of radical work out there. I’m sorry to say, Pratchett isn’t really part of it. But if that’s what you’re yearning for, if you want to see yourself and your struggles on the page? It’s out there. Just google “queer fantasy” or “Latino fantasy authors” or “afro-futurism” and you will be inundated with fantastic writers all worthy of reading and exploring. 

[uncloseted]

So is it problematic if a character in fiction is gay or bi or trans, but that idea is never explored as a part of their character arc or struggle? Like it's just a one off aspect of them? I see some people get upset, especially in the case of Loki or JK Rowling, when characters are revealed as canonically queer but it's not an important part of the story. Does every queer characters arc and backstory specifically have to revolve around their sexuality or gender?

I think whether or not it's problematic depends on the larger context of the piece of media, but I actually think it can be more problematic when their *tragic queer backstory* is the only thing about them (although it's also good to have LGBT stories where that is discussed). For example, I think the [minor spoilers] Korra/Asami reveal in Legend of Korra is okay, despite it not really being part of the story, because it took so much for the writers to be allowed to show them in a romantic relationship at all.

Likewise, I don't actually have a problem with the "Dumbledore is gay" reveal. JKR has a lot of ideologies that I find horribly problematic, but in context, I don't think the Dumbledore reveal is that bad. It was in response to a fan who asked whether Dumbledore had ever found love. Rowling responded that she “always thought of Dumbledore as gay," and that “Dumbledore fell in love with Grindelwald, and that added to his horror when Grindelwald showed himself to be what he was." I always found it to be an honest answer to an honest question, the same way that she's answered questions about McGonagall's romantic past, especially since none of the teachers have romantic partners in the books at all. I think it's an answer that's relatively well substantiated in the parts of the book that discuss Dumbledore/Grindelwald (or at least, as substantiated as it could be for a children's book released in 2007- gay marriage wasn't even legal in the UK until 2013). I also think it's pretty profound for the most powerful wizard in the world to be a gay man, although it would have been better to have him be the most powerful wizard in the world *while being in an LGBT relationship*. I think the reason people struggle with this reveal is because they feel like JKR "announced" that Dumbledore was gay in order to get "woke points" without having to actually write an LGBT character or risk offending people, but I just don't think that's how this actually came about. I actually think it's more problematic that she wrote an epilogue where all of the characters were suddenly in straight marriages.

In the case of Loki, however, I do think it's problematic. Loki came out this year, when 70% of US Americans support gay marriage and it's legal in all 50 states, their target audience is adults aged 18 to 34, and Marvel constantly queerbaits because they know it will make them money. The reason Loki (and Marvel movies in general) doesn't contain any LGBT content is because they're afraid of losing business in China. They're being cowards, and we shouldn't keep letting that happen.

In general, I don't think an LGBT character's entire personality should revolve around their sexuality/gender, and I don't think their backstory needs to be about the *trauma* of being LGBT. But I do think they need to be allowed to be shown with a same-sex partner, the same way that straight characters are shown with opposite-sex partners. Thirteen in the TV show House is a pretty good example of this; she's bisexual and she's shown with both male and female partners, in both casual and committed contexts, but her storyline never really revolves around being LGBT. It revolves around the trials and tribulations of her being a doctor, her relationship with her own health, and the struggles she has within a relationship (regardless of who that relationship is with).

Jules in Euphoria is another pretty good example- she's trans and she talks about her experience as a trans person trying to understand what that means to her. She's also bisexual and is shown in romantic relationships with men and women. But her gender and sexuality aren't ever the focus of her character arcs; her relationship to herself and to the people around her is. She's pretty much accepted as both a trans person and as someone who's bisexual, which gives room for her stories to be about other things.

GLAAD released an LGBT analog to the Bechdel test called the Vito Russo Test which I think helps to illustrate which portrayals of LGBT people in media are and are not problematic. The criteria for passing the Vito Russo test is as follows:

The film contains a character that is identifiably lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or queer.

That character must not be solely or predominantly defined by their sexual orientation or gender identity (i.e. they are comprised of the same sort of unique character traits commonly used to differentiate straight/non-transgender characters from one another).

The LGBTQ character must be tied into the plot in such a way that their removal would have a significant effect, meaning they are not there to simply provide colorful commentary, paint urban authenticity, or (perhaps most commonly) set up a punchline. The character must matter.

I would add a fourth criteria to that list about sexuality specifically, which is "The LGBQ character must be shown engaging in an LGB relationship comparable to that of their straight counterparts".

[oberlincollegelibraries]

Weekend Edition: Books By and About Women

If you’re participating in OCL’s Reading Challenge Bingo, then you know one of the prompts is to read a book by or about a woman. But because March is Women’s History Month, we’ve decided to double-down and highlight books that are both by and about women! 

God Save the Queens: The Essential History of Women in Hip-Hop by Kathy Iandoli "For far too long, women in hip-hop have been relegated to the shadows, viewed as the designated "First Lady" thrown a contract, a pawn in some beef, or even worse. But as Kathy Iandoli makes clear, the reality is very different. Today, hip-hop is dominated by successful women such as Cardi B and Nicki Minaj, yet there are scores of female artists whose influence continues to resonate. God Save the Queens pays tribute to the women of hip-hop--from the early work of Roxanne Shante, to hitmakers like Queen Latifah and Missy Elliot, to the superstars of today. Exploring issues of gender, money, sexuality, violence, body image, feuds, objectification and more, God Save the Queens is an important and monumental work of music journalism that at last gives these influential female artists the respect they have long deserved."--Amazon Broad Band: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet by Claire L. Evans "The history of technology you probably know is one of men and machines, garages and riches, alpha nerds and brogrammers. But the little-known fact is that female visionaries have always been at the vanguard of technology and innovation--they've just been erased from the story. Until now. Women are not ancillary to the history of technology; they turn up at the very beginning of every important wave. But they've often been hidden in plain sight, their inventions and contributions touching our lives in ways we don't even realize. VICE reporter and YACHT lead singer Claire L. Evans finally gives these unsung female heroes their due with her insightful social history of the Broad Band, the women who made the internet what it is today. Learn from Ada Lovelace, the tortured, imaginative daughter of Lord Byron, who wove numbers into the first program for a mechanical computer in 1842. Seek inspiration from Grace Hopper, the tenacious mathematician who democratized computing by leading the charge for machine-independent programming languages after World War II. Meet Elizabeth "Jake" Feinler, the one-woman Google who kept the earliest version of the Internet online, and Stacy Horn, who ran one of the first-ever social networks on a shoestring out of her New York City apartment in the 1980s. Evans shows us how these women built and colored the technologies we can't imagine life without. Join the ranks of the pioneers who defied social convention and the longest odds to become database poets, information-wranglers, hypertext dreamers, and glass ceiling-shattering dot com-era entrepreneurs. This inspiring call to action is a revelation: women have embraced technology from the start. It shines a light on the bright minds whom history forgot, and shows us how they will continue to shape our world in ways we can no longer ignore. Welcome to the Broad Band. You're next"-- Provided by publisher

Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive by Kristen J. Sollée; illustrations by Coz Conover   "Witch, Slut, Feminist: these contested identities are informing millennial women as they counter a torturous history of misogyny with empowerment. This innovative primer highlights sexual liberation as it traces the lineage of 'witch feminism.' Juxtaposing scholarly research on the demonization of women and female sexuality that has continued since the witch hunts of the early modern era with pop occulture analyses and interviews with activists, artists, scholars, and practitioners of witchcraft, this book greatly enriches our current conversations about reproductive rights, sexual pleasure, queer identity, pornography, sex work, and more."--Back cover

Leftover in China: The Women Shaping the World’s Next Superpower by Roseann Lake Forty years ago, China enacted the one-child policy, only recently relaxed. Among many other unintended consequences, it resulted in both an enormous gender imbalance--with a predicted twenty million more men than women of marriage age by 2020--and China's first generations of only-daughters. Given the resources normally reserved for boys, these girls were pushed to study, excel in college, and succeed in careers, as if they were sons. Now living in an economic powerhouse, enough of these women have decided to postpone marriage--or not marry at all--to spawn a label: "leftovers." Unprecedentedly well-educated and goal-oriented, they struggle to find partners in a society where gender roles have not evolved as vigorously as society itself, and where new professional opportunities have made women less willing to compromise their careers or concede to marriage for the sake of being wed. Further complicating their search for a mate, the vast majority of China's single men reside in and are tied to the rural areas where they were raised. This makes them geographically, economically, and educationally incompatible with city-dwelling "leftovers," who also face difficulty in partnering with urban men, given the urban men's general preference for more dutiful, domesticated wives. Part critique of China's paternalistic ideals, part playful portrait of the romantic travails of China's trailblazing women and their well-meaning parents who are anxious to see their daughters snuggled into traditional wedlock, Roseann Lake's Leftover in China focuses on the lives of four individual women against a backdrop of colorful anecdotes, hundreds of interviews, and rigorous historical and demographic research to show how these "leftovers" are the linchpin to China's future.

[miseriathome]

hi, do you happen to have that name of the book about kweer asian theory because i lost it, and google isn't being helpful atm. hope you are having a nice time.

Oh shoot, I haven’t talked about transnational Asian queer studies in forever. I’m going to be Problematically Dominantly Ethnic for a second and assume you mean along the lines of China and not India because I’ve read from both but usually I just talk about China.

Tiantian Zheng is who we read for class, specifically we worked with parts of Tongzhi Living: Men Attracted to Men in Postsocialist China. We also discussed MSM and HIV in China (which may have also been Zheng).

On the “other” side, I’m pretty sure we used Queer Women in Urban China: An Ethnography by Elisabeth L Engebretsen for discussing T/TB/T-P roles and dynamics (that section is almost entirely available on google books’ free view). She has other works on lala women as well.

Miscellaneous other topics:

Young activists, new movements: Contemporary Chinese queer feminism and transnational genealogies by Wen Liu et al.

Cultural Politics of Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Asia by Tiantian Zheng (have not read, but it covers many Asian countries)

Going public: Transnational Pride politics and queer grassroots activism in China by Elisabeth L Engebretsen

Approaching transnational Chinese queer stardom as zhongxing (‘neutral sex/gender’) sensibility by Eva Cheuk-yin Li

[weirdletter]

Studies in Gothic Fiction, Volume 6, Issue 2, 2020, edited by Enrique Ajuria Ibarra, Cardiff University Press, 2020. Info and free download: sgf.cardiffuniversitypress.org.

Studies in Gothic Fiction is devoted to the study of Gothic from its beginnings in the eighteenth century to the present day. The journal is not limited to literary studies, and encourages the publication of articles on other Gothic-related media, such as film, television, and video games. It is also interested in the relationship between Gothic and the arts, such as theatre, music, and other visual arts.

Articles “A Pleasure of that Too Intense Kind”: Women’s Desires and Identity in Stella Gibbons’s Gothic London – Rebecca Mills Who Owns the City? China Miéville’s The City and the City as an Urban Gothic Dystopia – Ljubica Matek The Uncanny Afterlife of Dolls: Reconfiguring Personhood through Object Vivification in Gothic Film – Joana Rita Ramalho Injustice in the Ruins and a Disordered Post-Apocalypse: Gothic Ideology in the Digital Game World of Fallout 3 – Sari Piittinen

Book Reviews Queering Contemporary Gothic Narrative, 1970-2012. By Paulina Palmer. – Olivia Oliver-Hopkins Property and Power in English Gothic Literature. By Ruth Bienstock Anolik. – Nellene Benhardus

[ladyofpurple]

answer all of the questions!!

holy SHIT ok bless you omg

(sorry it's a full day late i took this shit SERIOUSLY. don't ask me how many hours this took, i was in A Mood™️ last night. removed the ones already answered xoxo)

angel; have you ever been in love?

yeah. didn't end too well, but i loved him.

petal; favorite novel and author?

this is like asking me to pick a favorite child. i guess favorite author would be stephen king, if only based entirely on the sheer quantity of his books i own alone. favorite book would probably be special topics in calamity physics by marisha pessl, and i'm only saying that because it's been my go-to response for years. i have lots of favorite books. ask me again in five minutes and i'll give you another one.

honey perfume; favorite perfume/scent?

freshly made coffee. lilacs. jasmine. cut grass. the ground after it rains. chocolate chip cookies in the oven. cigarette smoke on skin. my mom's shampoo. my grandma. my dog when he's just had a bath. thanksgiving dinner. acrylic paint on canvas. sawdust. that one cologne i can't name but can smell on a guy from a mile away. mulled cranberry and apple juice. vanilla. coconut. fresh laundry. peppermint.

sweet pea; what’s your zodiac?

virgo sun, pisces moon, scorpio rising ✨

softie; talk about your sexuality.

i'm biromantic asexual, primarily attracted to men more than women (but have had too many crushes on girls to consider myself het), generally sex repulsed when it comes to the thought of having it myself. i prefer to call myself queer in passing conversation, it's easier than explaining asexuality and the differences between sexual and romantic attraction. if someone asks more specifically, i'll usually just call myself bi for simplicity's sake, even though the ace part is a much more important (to me) part of my identity. monogamous as fuck.

i'm still struggling with internalized homophobia and a lot of "am i even queer enough" thoughts, which is super fun. took me a long time to even consider the fact that i might like girls at all. i'll probably never come out to my parents. not that they'd, like, disown me or whatever, but they're juuuuust homophobic/transphobic enough that my few attempts to educate them when they say something A Little Yikes have shown me that i should probably just stay in the closet unless i absolutely have to come out. like i'm getting married to a woman or something.

sugarplum; what’s the color of your eyes and hair?

i usually say my eyes are green because it's easier, and they mostly are, but i have rings of greyish blue around the irises and sometimes they're more hazel in the middle. they always have a green tint to them though, even if the intensity of the green varies.

my natural hair is brown, a little on the darker and slightly ashy side of completely generic. currently a former blonde, although i'm hoping to bleach my fucking YEAR of growout soon, and then go some crazy color as a last hurrah before i have to go dark again. being broke fucking sucks.

wings; coffee or tea?

tea!! black tea. chai, to be specific, with an irresponsible amount of milk and sugar. chai lattes are a fucking drug okay? coffee makes me sick (not a judgement, a literal fact. last time i tried some i threw up).

fairytale; are you a cat or dog person?

cat!! but my family has a chihuahua named sonny and you can pry that little monster from my cold dead hands ok i will fight you.

snowflake; favorite time period?

okay, i wrote and rewrote my answer to this about 10 times. then i tried to divide it up into categories (aesthetics, history, fashion, vibes, geographical location, etc), but that didn't help. so basically: i don't have one, because i have too many.

i like the american 20s-60s for the aesthetic, music/movies, and the fashion. i also like the european 1600s-1800s for the interesting history and also vibe. i love the french and russian revolutions — the fashion! the art! the wars and political upheaval! I FUCKING LOVE HISTORY. then, of course, we can't forget the rennaisance. or the witch trials (pick your continent). and ancient greece? the roman empire? hello?? did i mention empires? how bout we mosy on over to south america — can i interest you in the mayans? incans? aztecs? what about china and japan? korea? vietnam? and don't even get me fucking STARTED on the black plague.

ancient egypt? sign me the FUCK UP. vikings? yes please. the celts? oh boy. the MYTHOLOGY. the ARCHITECTURE. the LANGUAGES and POLITICS and LITERATURE and REVOLUTIONS and GOD HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO CHOOSE BETWEEN ANY OF THESE

i uh. might have gotten a little excited. basically i like history a lot. and mythology. and linguistics. and cultural practices. and the politics and prejudices behind wars and stuff. and learning in general. moving on.

vanilla; do you believe in ghosts?

let's put it this way: i don't not believe in ghosts??

listen. we don't know jack shit. we don't know what happens after we die, there are constant scientific revelations that turn our understanding of the universe completely upside-down, and there is literally no way to know which religions or myths or urban legends could have some grain of truth to them. like, dude, i've literally thought i was haunted before. psychology is bananas and the universe is infinite.

demons could be real. ghosts could be real. what if we just haven't invented the necessary technology to prove it yet? what if we never do, and they just fuck around alongside us, moving furniture and making shadow puppets on the walls just for kicks until the earth explodes? what if that one tumblr post was right and ghosts are actually real people from alternate universes or timelines that we see accidentally bc some cosmic wires got crossed? who fucking knows.

i love horror movies and scary stories and ghost hunter shows just as much as the next gal. but listen. psychics? mediums? people who accept every single creepypasta retold third-hand from their neighbor's kid's classmate's second cousin who "totally knows a guy"? doubt.jpeg

i don't understand the sheer amount of assumptions made willy-nilly about the nature of ghosts and demons and things that go bump in the night. the assumption that "oh this machine that totally doesn't look like a coathanger taped to a walkman will work because ghosts have this temperature and can always communicate like this and are electromagnetic" or whatever just baffles me. to a certain degree, following a general consensus is one thing — some basic things everyone can agree on? that's cool. ghosts can walk through walls and are probably dead people or whatever. but oh my god, taking every single story as absolute, undeniable proof?? taking these stories and expanding on them to infer intentions and scientific facts to something that by it's very nature is unknowable and assuming, like, every spirit is created equal?? and yeah, ghost hunting shows are fun and campy and kinda creepy but like. you really, genuinely don't think any of them have ever faked anything at all??? even if ghosts are real, it's fucking reality tv, my dude. it's the entertainment industry. at least maintain the slightest ounce of critical thought before taking zak bagans' word as the goddamn gospel.

and sidenote, maybe it's just my limited exposure as a white woman in the western world, but of all the shows and podcasts and movies and documentaries and whatnot i've been able to find and consume, there's the constant use of christian ideology applied to every situation that just really burns my bacon. what, there's never been an atheist ghost? if you see a shadow person and you don't know the lord's prayer by heart, are you automatically fucked? why are there never stories about, i don't know, viking ghosts? does your religion in life preclude you from becoming a ghost in the first place? is that why people never mention buddhist ghosts? i don't get it, and that's why even though i'm self-admittedly the most superstitious person i've ever met, true believers make me roll my eyes so hard they almost fall out. makes me come across as more skeptical than i theoretically am. I HAVE VERY STRONG FEELINGS ABOUT THIS OK

but like, you couldn't pay me to fuck with a ouija board. i'm not stupid.

delicate; diamonds or pearls?

both have their appeal and their place, but diamonds, i guess. i like the sparkle. but fake ones!! or synthetic. diamonds are overpriced and artificial scarcity is a scam and i don't need a dumb rock that some poor person in a mine somewhere was exploited and possibly died for. no blood diamonds in this house, thank you very much.

if i ever get engaged, i don't want a diamond ring. i'd want something cool, a little unusual, like a ruby or a sapphire or some other sparkly gem that isn't literally shoved in your face every waking moment as the expected standard symbol of True Love. they're cheaper, they're cool-looking, as a ring they still hold the cultural symbolism of an engagement/wedding ring. and honestly, as long as it's well-made and durable, whatever hypothetical gem it is doesn't have to be real either. i'm a woman of simple needs and demonstrably low standards. no point in going into debt for a fucking piece of jewelry, regardless of ~tradition~.

lavender dream; favorite album?

oh lord. welcome to the black parade, i guess. or anything by panic! at the disco. there are dozens of possible options — my interests are mercurial and my memory is garbage. but i'll always be an emo little shit. black parade and vices and virtues were also the first two albums i ever listened to where i loved every single song on them, and i happened to listen to them for the first time at around the same point in my life (i got into mcr super late. like, 2012 late. rip).

silky; what’s your biggest dream?

it's cheesy but i guess i just want stability and, by extension, happiness. emotional stability, mental stability, financial stability, stable living situation, stable routines, stable relationships... you get the idea. i have ambitions and passions, of course, but my ultimate goal is happiness at this point in my life, and i'm pretty sure stabilizing all those things would go a pretty long way in achieving that goal.

a little apartment with walls i can paint because white walls make me angry. bookshelves and posters and fandom merch on every wall. a computer i can actually play games on again, and somewhere i can paint and draw and record my podcasts. someone who loves me, maybe. a cat, if i'm stable enough. space for people to come visit me, and a place for them to sleep if they need. a tiny balcony, if i really want to shoot for the stars. a job i don't hate. the spoons to hang out with my friends, and the money to not worry about buying little presents for the people i care about sometimes. i don't need much.

strawberry kiss; do you have a crush right now?

nope.

glitter; favorite fictional character?

another loaded question. like books, if you ask me again in five minutes i'll probably give you a different answer. but in this particular moment, caleb and jester from critical role (please don't make me choose between them). i won't go full shipping mode rn, but jester is so funny and silly and sweet, so much more complex than she seems, and she tries so hard to make everyone happy even when she's so sad inside. the healer who treats healing as an inconvenience in battle (she's so fucking valid and also mood), the glue that keeps the party together. and caleb learning to trust again, facing his trauma and coming out of his shell. he loves his friends so much he plays wizard as a support class and i love him so much.

i love the mighty nein in general, of course, and all the guests/honorary members they've had. pumat!! pls don't be evil reani!! keg!! shakäste and grand duchess anastasia!! cali!! kiri!!!! the brotps! empire siblings! chaos crew! nott the best detective agency! i still love molly and all his assholery to bits (fight me), and mourn his lost potential. i adore yasha, even when she's gone; fjord has grown so much; beau and nott and caduceus — i love all their flaws and disagreements and their character arcs and the excitement of watching them grow and learn. but if i had to choose, caleb, jester and molly have always been my top 3 since day 1 and, well, molly isn't really an option anymore.

but like i said, ask me again in a minute. i have a fucking list.

swan; share a quote or passage that means something to you.

a collection of things off the top of my head:

Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition. — Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen

a tired feminist Mood™️

"What I say is, a town isn't a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it's got a bookstore, it knows it's not foolin' a soul." — American Gods, Neil Gaiman

i got my love of books from my grandma — some of my favorites i got from her. sometimes, as a treat, she used to take my sister and i to bookstores and we'd stay there for ages, getting to pick one out, roaming the shelves, the mental torture of having to choose. the peace of being surrounded by thousands of potential worlds, so much information, so many stories just waiting to be told; being surrounded by strangers who share that same wonder. the anxious drive home so we could read them, being unable to wait that long so i inevitably start reading in the car and make myself sick. telling her in excited detail all my favorite parts. if we were lucky, maybe we got to split a bear claw, or she'd drive past starbucks and get us something there too (tall vanilla soy steamer with one pump of vanilla syrup, whipped cream on top that always melted too quickly and squirted out the hole in the lid, so hot it burned my tongue but so good i didn't care). i have never felt more at home than i do when i'm surrounded by books.

"There are a lot of different types of freedom. We talk about freedom the same way we talk about art, like it was a statement of quality rather than a description. “Art” doesn’t mean good or bad. Art just means art. It can be terrible and still be art. Freedom can be good or bad, too. There can be terrible freedom. You freed me, and I didn’t ask you to." — Alice Isn't Dead, season 1, chapter 2: Alice

as cringey as it is to admit it, this line made me cry a lot after my breakup.

"So you aren't American?" asked Shadow.

"Nobody's American," said Wednesday. "Not originally. That's my point." — American Gods, Neil Gaiman

[side-eyes white america real hard]

there's more, of course. there's always more. don't even get me started on song lyrics, we'll be here all day.

lace; what’s your favorite plant/flower?

lilacs and roses.

mermaid; do you prefer the forest or the ocean? why?

both, i guess. but in different ways, and in different circumstances.

the sea is wild. it is endless and deep and unknowable. it is beautiful and dangerous. i am terrified of the ocean, and yet my favorite place in the world is an empty beach on the oregon coast. i have picked sand from between my toes for days with hair crusted in salt, danced around bonfires and watched the stars while marshmallows burn, gotten pulled under the waves as a child and nearly swept out to sea. picked starfish and crabs from small pools in the rocks, and swum (accidentally) with wild sea lions. in a long skirt, too early in the year to be swimming, i once took off my shoes and waded fully clothed into the water to my waist and just... danced. splashed and kicked and laughed with a boy i barely knew until our throats were sore and our toes were numb, walking home hours later with our soaked clothes clinging to our legs, shoes squelching, dripping algae as we went. the ocean is freeing and overwhelming all at once. i love it and am petrified by it in equal measure.

the forest is beautiful in a different way. it is silent and dense and serene. you are surrounded by life and yet, somehow, completely alone. there is magic in the forest, and history, and even when all else dies, that will remain. the trees grow from the corpses of their ancestors, and some have lived dozens of our lifetimes — with luck, a few dozen more. it is quiet there, peaceful, even the tiniest wood in the middle of a city muffling the outside world through the trees. you can feel the ancient ways deep in your soul as you follow winding paths strewn with fallen leaves, the mystery and wonder and superstitions of your forefathers. you wonder what it would be like, to run your fingers over the moss, to take off your shoes and socks and just run, leaping and dancing over rocks and roots, hair wild and air filling your lungs in deep, pure gulps as you shed the responsibilities and struggles of modern life, for just a moment remembering what freedom tastes like. it is primal, this connection to nature, one we have nearly forgotten over time. and as the sky grows dark and the silence of night presses against you, shadows looming, every footfall deafening, perhaps you begin to understand why some believed in monsters.

honeymoon; do you keep a journal?

i used to. honestly, that's a good idea, i should start doing that again. lord knows i have enough empty journal-type books.

starlight; do you believe in love at first sight and soulmates? why/why not?

i want to. i want to believe there's someone out there for me, the love of my life, someone to whom i'll be the love of their life, and that when i meet them i'll just... know.

but when i met my ex, i didn't really look twice at him for a while — no love at first sight. and when we were together, when i loved him and he swore he loved me back, i thought he hung the stars in the sky and knew i would marry him someday. couldn't even consider the idea that that wouldn't happen. and then when he broke up with me, he ghosted me so suddenly and thoroughly that he even preemptively cut contact with every single one of our mutual friends he thought might side with me in the breakup, before anybody even knew we'd had a fight. so, not soulmates either.

i really want to believe that someday the perfect romance will just fall into place and i can have the happily ever after i've always dreamed of. but the reality is i might never even have another s.o. for the rest of my life. maybe i'll get hit by a car tomorrow, or my hypothetical soulmate moves to argentina to become an alpaca farmer on a mountain somewhere and we never even meet. maybe i'm so traumatized by the betrayal and lies that i'll never have the courage to even try again.

and even so, happily ever after doesn't have to include a fairytale romance, regardless of whether i want it or not. i still like to cling to that hope though, deep down.

princess; what do you value most in people?

i'm going to assume you mean "real people" as in people i have positive relationships with, and not random strangers on the street.

loyalty. kindness. support. humor. similar values. patience. being able to grow together and teach each other things, so we can make each other better. honesty. trust. compassion. confidence. emotional vulnerability. communication. intelligence, or at least a willingness to learn. strength.

[kalis-scribbles]

Solomon Academy: Outside the Academies

Those Left Behind 

It’s an unfortunate truth that not all practitioners are lucky enough to be picked by scouts of the new inquisition and brought to one of the academies where they can learn the magical arts. 

There is great tension between the practitioners of the great cabals and those of the streets. Formally educated practitioner look down on their less fortunate brethren with disdain and anxiety. 

Orphans

Orphans are those who awakened to magic with nothing to guide them, neither practitioner mentors, or consorts able to connect them to the greater magical world around them. 

The life of an Orphan is a hard one, most come to awaken when at death’s door, or making an unlucky turn that leads them in the wrong place and time, forcibly dragging them into the occult underground. 

Orphans typically know very little magic, some don’t even know magic exists, they may only be aware of a singular phenomenon such as ghosts, or goblins being real and remain ignorant of the true powers they can wield. 

Orphan Example

Old Nan’s children know the streets of New York like no other, at one time they all wandered them, begging, stealing or fucking to survive after runjing away or being kicked out of their old families. 

That was until old Nan found them between life and death. With a a gentle ghostly smile, she promised them shelter, food, but most importantly; family. 

With eyes newly open, her children bound themselves with the spirits of those who hadn’t avoided death, becoming practitioners, not that they know the words and customs of the occult underground. 

The Children are hard to peg as any practices, most know little of magic save for the deals they strike with the ghosts of other runaways, and minor city spirits. 

OId Nan herself is an old and powerful Lemure, a kind orphanage matron in life. In death, she maintains her duties, caring for living and ghostly children equally.  

Cults

In an age of scandals and disbelief, many have turned away from conventional religion, often disgusted by the stains of dirty dealings or the rigid and outdated orthodoxies of centuries-old religions unfit for the modern age.

Some find faith in harmless new age beliefs while others fall prey to charlatans and scammers. They are the lucky ones. 

A great many things hunger in the dark; for power, souls, and adoration. Sometimes, by chance they find ways around the old seals and bindings keeping them at bay, striking a deal with mortals and elevating them to practitioners. 

Kept ignorant and drip fed only necessary intelligence, these newly minted practitioners are set about to recruiting more followers and gather power in their master’s name. Where a cult leader is left half in the dark, few in the cult ever get close to the truth, being nothing but pawns. 

Some cults are gentler than others, such as those of Genus Loci, Dryads, and Heroes, may be simply focused on the worship and care of a place, but those are rarer than cults of demons, goblins, and the fae. 

Cult Example

For over a decade, the Church of the Greenman has poached members from mundane neopagan covens and environement under the guide of being yet another mundane neopagan religion.

The truth is that under the harmless hippie facade, the Church is a cult dedicated to an old, slightly megalomaniacal dryad, each of the church’s rites dedicated to empowering it, using sex, blood, and faith to allow him to grow ever stronger. 

Only the inner circle know the truth, each initiated into a practitioner and bound to a servant entity of the Greenman himself. 

Hedge Magic

People have always been fascinated by magic, many have sought supernatural powers for themselves. For most, this search is fruitless, a quest for knowledge that leads them to nothing but charlatans and the deluded.

A few manage to find true power, finding old books holding a spark of truth allowing them to initiate themselves, or find someone who once walked the same path and succeeded to some level.

Hedges are most commonly found haunting places of the occult mainstream; occult bookstore, pagan hangouts, not-so-secret societies, and college clubs. 

Unfortunately for Hedges, most of the information available in the occult mainstream is rather terrible and inaccurate. As such, they typically only have a select few spells they can reliably cast.

Hedge Example

The Scroll and Tome Society has been part of the New York University life for nearly fifty years, kept a closely guarded secret and by invitation only. The members keep an eye out for prospect with talent, good grades, and a keen mind. 

The society meets every week in a private room of the library. The elders of the order are deeply inbedded in the school’s staff and function. Prospects are put through a series of trials before being initiated by the society.

Country Magic

There is a stereotype that magic is deeply intellectual, a thing for the rich and educated, but that is far from the truth. For a long time, magic has been the tool of the dispossessed.

In China, peasants created their own magic against that of the Imperial Wizards. Across the Americas, slaves mixed the practices of their ancestors with that of their oppressors. In Europe, Women learned to harness the powers of nature, divine and female biology to fuel magic when hermetic arts were denied to them. 

This pattern repeated across the world, families passed down their art from parent to children across generations, keeping their craft away from the eyes of society and the so-called greater practitioners who would subjugate them. 

Country Magic

For generations, the Washingtons have kept the flame of their ancestors burning, under a facade of good African-American Christians, they secretly feed their ancestors blood to keep them strong and content. 

And in exchange, the Ancestors have stood watch over them, granted them wisdom. When one of the daughter of the family was assaulted, the spirits drove the boy who did it to suicide. When the family store came in difficult times, they whispered advices on the way forward.

Theirs is not a magic meant for books and studies, it is lived and believed. Sacrifices are made, food is offered, animals slaughtered on the ancestral shrine, and when great need arise, the Washington sacrifice their bodies for a time, letting the ancestors taste the sweetness of life once again. 

New to Solomon Academy?

Solomon Academy is a Queer Contemporary Urban Fantasy YA web-serial available for free on Wattpad (Click here to go to the stories directory!).  Almost daily, lore entries are posted to this very Tumblr!

Find the Solomon Academy WIP page here! And Catch up on old posts!

[alvizbeldamarcos]

On Male K-Idols Looking “Gay” (And How They’re Not)

by Tricia Belda

source: BBC

Androgyny is a concept long existing in K-Pop that transcends the gender and cultural differences between idols and fans. It existed even from when the industry only had a small fan base consisting of local fans and a few foreign ones. Artists have always been freely cross-dressing; K-Pop boy groups may cover girl groups’ songs and vice versa, without receiving any judgment from their audiences. Androgyny has always been a part of their culture that their audience views it as nothing out of the ordinary. However, now that K-Pop expanded further to reach out to more countries, several problems arise. With more foreign eyes onto the industry and a now larger market, some people are quick to question the standards that K-Pop has set up.

The spite mostly comes from the non-fans, particularly the ones who are used to Western pop music culture. People outside the community are quick to point out what seems to them are “flaws” of the K-Pop industry. Most of the time, the misunderstandings are caused by the differences between the culture of K-Pop fans and non-fans. These misunderstandings consist of criticisms of the culture, not only limited to androgyny. The most pronounced “problems” that the non-fans often raise are the “fan wars”, the music for its “repetitive songs” with the “same melodies and concepts”, and the idols for being who they are— particularly male idols for being somewhat “effeminate”.

The effeminateness possessed by K-idols is known as “soft masculinity” among the people familiar with K-Pop culture, as Asher (2018) indicates. Soft masculinity is characterized by an interest in commonly feminine objects, such as makeup, and by the possession of feminine features. Shin (2013) translates this “soft masculinity” to “kkochminam”, which literally means flower boy in Hanggul. Kkochminam is a term used in K-Pop to describe males with flower-like or delicate appearances. However, a more convenient and common term used by people outside the community is the word “androgynous”. Androgyny, as Merriam-Webster (n.d.) defines it, refers to “the quality or state of being neither specifically feminine or masculine”; may it be in terms of physical features, in attitude, in fashion, etc. Among male K-idols, the more known androgynous ones, include Taemin of SHINee, Sungjong of INFINITE, Jeonghan of SEVENTEEN, Ren of NU’EST.

Shin (2013) states that kkochminam is often associated with the concept of metrosexuality; wherein men also pay close attention to their appearances and grooming. Aside from sharing common traits such as delicate facial features and skinny body types, the mentioned idols above (along with other male idols) also put high regards on their appearances with their distinct fashion sense, and their interest in skincare and makeup; similar to metrosexuality. However, a notable difference between the two would be the age group commonly linked to both. Shin differentiates that while metrosexuality mostly refers to “urban men”, kkochminam involves younger males (as the common age group of idols).

Due to its “feminine” nature, androgyny easily appealed to the female fans. Consequently, it is presently being used by K-Pop agencies as a selling point for products. Famous skincare and makeup brands these days have male idols as their endorsers. Visto (2018) even states that customers are “often lured into stores by men endorsers of make-up and skin care lines rather than their women counterparts”, showing both how powerful the industry is, and how such concept of masculinity is widely-accepted in South Korea. Male idols have always been very expressive in using skincare and makeup, stating that they believe men are free to groom themselves as much as women do.

image

NU’EST’s Ren modeling in skirts (source: Daily Kpop News)

image

EXO’s Kai performing in a crop top (source: Naver)

Likewise, androgyny is also “sold” as publicity in terms of fashion and performances. Ren of NU’EST garnered positive attention for modeling skirts and dresses for “VIP Shop” in China, and Kai of EXO received praises for wearing crop tops for their recent performances. Regardless of the negative feedback, these idols receive due to their unconventional fashion sense, a majority of the audience have been really accepting of the change. Fans have shown support for their idols breaking the norms that only women can wear certain apparels. The idols, in turn, make sure to meet their fans’ expectations by smoothly incorporating these unique outfits into their performances.

Taemin of SHINee also showcased androgyny in his performances; not through fashion but through his music. In his interview with Herman (2017), Taemin stated that he particularly used gender-neutral pronouns, and incorporated masculine and feminine movements for his choreography in “MOVE”. The artist adds, “I really wanted to break those labels, showing that dance is a form of art”, showing how idols are trying to boldly push the boundaries even further. Androgyny here is effectively used as a way to be a more versatile performer. Queerness actually widens the variety of performances an idol can show on-stage, for gender no longer serves as a limit to what an idol can showcase.

Androgyny breaking boundaries are not only limited to the stage, but also to the “real lives” of idols recorded by the camera; fancams (fan-taken videos), reality shows, variety shows, and music shows. In addition to the aforementioned comparison between metrosexuality and Korean soft masculinity (kkochminam), the former only refers to grooming while the latter involves the personas showcased by idols both on and off-stage. Jung (2011) calls this “manufactured versatile masculinity”, wherein idols are purposely fashioned to have an image of both manliness and softness or femininity. She states 2PM’s Taecyeon as an example of such, for both being “beastly” whenever he rips his shirt on stage to show his well-built muscular body; and for being “puppy-like” whenever he speaks in a high-pitched voice and makes sweet gestures when told to act cute (known in Korea as “aegyo”) in shows. Taecyeon, and other idols switch between personas depending on the environment to effectively appeal to the audience. Due to exhibiting such duality, the idols, and their performances cater to fans with different preferences.

The “real life” of an idol is also commonly caught on camera whenever fans take videos of them in concerts, fan meets, or other events outside of their performances. Often times, these idols act clingy and sweet towards their fellow members in front of the fans purely for “fan service” (an idol’s way of pleasing his/her fans). As a result, fans pair an idol with one of his members, fantasizing about their “relationships”. In turn, “shipping culture” (from the word relationship) has naturally made its way to be a huge part of the K-Pop culture. Fans have been really open and expressive about this in the media, to the point that some idols have admittedly stated that they are aware of the “shipping culture” in the industry. Although a few idols have already stated that “shipping” makes them uncomfortable, Iwacka (2014) states that their agencies direct them to fuel their fan’s desires by further being touchy and close with each other. To the fans, “every sign of friendship and closeness is seen as a sign of ‘burning passion’ inside the group”. This, in fact, is the content of most slash “fanfics” (fan fiction) that fans write, Iwacka explains.

Internationally, however, with predominant Western influence, the Asian standards of androgyny are looked down upon. To others, androgyny in K-Pop is seen as “gay”; whereas that should not be the case. As Oh (2017) explains, androgyny in K-pop is considered “neither an absence of masculinity nor homosexuality.” On the contrary, it is seen as a performance, to be “theatrical spectacles” for the audiences’ viewing. In these performances, the actors (or in this case, idols), are free to exercise queerness, without necessarily being branded as a certain gender. Oh also adds that “queer” is a verb, wherein the gender is practiced and exhibited; performed and not just part of an identity. The said idea of androgyny is unique to Western views as “queer is often understood as a Eurocentric concept with the implication that the non-West queer subject should follow Western models”, Oh says.

As a result of the generalization of queerness and androgyny being a specific type with fixed standards, several misunderstandings arise. K-Pop idols are usually the target for online harassments, cyberbullying, slander, etc. In the case of male K-Pop idols, they are usually subject to homophobia.  A long-standing problem in the K-Pop world is how people working in the industry receive years of training, sacrificing everything they have just to pursue their dreams, only to be faced with the harsh reality of a cruel and judgemental world. Now that K-Pop has grown bigger, although it equates to more attention and more profit, it also means more conventional eyes critiquing the idols for not complying to the standards of the West.  

One known instance of this would be when some people opposed K-Pop idols making the “Top 100 Most Handsome Faces of 2018”. Dong (2019) reports the Greek TV show host Katerina Kainourgiou and her guests making homophobic and malicious comments on their show “Eutixeite”. They made remarks such as "Is he a man?”, “I can’t believe there are women who voted for that thing to be No. 5.” Towards Korean idols like Kang Daniel and BTS’ Jungkook. Such comments show how some people remain unaccepting or uninformed of the differences between K-pop and their local culture.

Understanding androgyny in K-pop is not only a matter of understanding gender difference but also cultural differences, as ethnocentrism is involved. Baylor (2012) defines ethnocentrism as,

a term applied to the cultural or ethnic bias—whether conscious or unconscious—in which an individual views the world from the perspective of his or her own group, establishing the in-group as archetypal and rating all other groups with reference to this ideal.

The concept of such could be seen whenever some people call idols (and other eastern Asian males) “gay” simply because they have softer-looking features and are more concerned with their grooming, compared to males of their societies. Darling-Wolf, as cited by Eisend, Langner, & Okazaki (2012), explains that comparisons between the masculinity in different cultures cannot be outright made because the concept varies and develops differently in each society.

Each society also has its own standard of an ideal man, which members of other societies are not obligated to adhere to. With Caucasian masculinity as the most desired ideal, as per Tan & Shaw’s (2014) research, most people then tend to prefer men with either more defined facial features, more muscular bodies for the “Tough and Macho”, or the more mature and sophisticated for the “Cool and Refined” over the young-looking, vigorous, innocent, and delicate Asian masculinity ideal.  Having these ideals are actually normal because each one has their own preferences. However, having a certain standard, and employing that criteria to judge others’ behaviors, traits, identity, preferences, etc. is a mindset that, as much as possible, must be avoided. Particularly for androgyny in K-Pop, where both the topics of gender and culture is touched upon.

    A phrase to sum the ideas up may be “The concept of androgyny, it has been suggested, offers a means of transcending the duality of gender differences imposed by culture”, as indicated by Krishnaraj (1996). First, that gender is a spectrum which could not be quantified as either strictly male or female. Anyone could go from either end or prefer the middle ground (which includes androgyny), which is why the phrase “too feminine” or “too masculine” cannot always be applied. The case is even more applicable now, with the emergence of SOGIE and now that everyone should be more accepting of each person’s freedom of choice. Second, that each culture has its own set of beliefs, traditions, customs, and traits which should be respected by different communities. The standards of a certain culture could not be imposed on another, as a result of the disparity brought about by the history, topography, and other factors which may actually discern the two.  

    Currently, K-Pop has caused a radical shift in global culture. Aside from the aforementioned influences, it has caused, it also seems to be the meeting point between the concept of gender differences and societal disparities. K-Pop might just be the revolution of breaking through the barriers of heteronormativity and prevalently Western thinking that most people are accustomed to.

Bibliography

Asher, S. (2018, September 20). Flowerboys and the appeal of 'soft masculinity' in South Korea. Retrieved from BBC News Asia: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42499809

Baylor, E. (2012, January 11). Ethnocentrism. Retrieved from Oxford Bibliographies: http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199766567/obo-9780199766567-0045.xml#firstMatch

Eisend, M. L. (2012). Current Insights and Future Trends. Advances in Advertising (Vol. III), 276.

Herman, T. (2017, October 25). Taemin Talks 'MOVE,' Gender Stereotypes & Pushing the Boundaries of K-Pop. Retrieved from Billboard: https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/k-town/8014100/taemin-interview-move-gender-stereotypes-pushing-the-boundaries

Iwacka, R. (2014, January). There Will Be Blood – the Darker Side of K-pop.

K-Pop Idol Boy Bands and Manufactured Versatile Masculinity: Making Chukgojeok boys. (2011). In S. Jung, Korean Masculinities and Transcultural Consumption: Yonsama, Rain, Oldboy, K-Pop Idols (p. 165). Hong Kong University Press.

Krishnaraj, M. (1996). Androgyny: An Alternative to Gender Polarity? . Economic and Political Weekly, 1.

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Androgyny Definition.

Oh, C. (2017). Unmasking Queerness: Blurring and Solidifying Queer Lines through K-Pop. The Journal of Popular Culture, 9-13.

Shaw, P. &. (2014). Race and Masculinity: A Comparison of Asian and Western Models in Men's Lifestyle Magazine Advertisements. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 118-138.

Shin, J. (2013). Male Homosexuality in The King and the Clown : Hybrid. Journal of Korean Studies, 98.

Visto, C. (2018, October 15). Beauty and the boys. Retrieved from Business World: https://www.bworldonline.com/beauty-and-the-boys/

[bookclub4m]

Episode 145 - Anthropology Non-Fiction

This episode we’re talking about Anthropology Non-Fiction! We discuss culture, society, linguistics, and more! Plus: Teeth, teeth, teeth!

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | RJ Edwards

Things We Read (or tried to…)

The Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston

Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo by Mary Douglas

Sapiens: A Graphic History: The Birth of Humankind, vol. 1 by Yuval Noah Harari, David Vandermeulen, and Daniel Casanave

Gods of the Upper Air: How a Circle of Renegade Anthropologists Reinvented Race, Sex, and Gender in the Twentieth Century by Charles King

Other Media We Mentioned

The History of Eastern Europe for Beginners by Paul Beck, Edward Mast, and Perry Tapper

Bury Me Standing by Isabel Fonseca

Cafe Europa: Life After Communism by Slavenka Drakulić

The Anthropology of Turquoise: Reflections on Desert, Sea, Stone, and Sky by Ellen Meloy

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (Wikipedia)

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Wikipedia)

Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond

Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex edited by Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith

From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow

Evolution's Bite: A Story of Teeth, Diet, and Human Origins by Peter Ungar 

Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas by Jennifer Raff

Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo by Mary Douglas

Links, Articles, and Things

Four-field approach (Wikipedia)

“known jocularly to students as "stones", "tones", "bones" and "thrones"”

Anthropologie (Wikipedia)

Lidar (Wikipedia)

Episode 144 - What is a Book?

I read all 337 books in Skyrim so you don't have to | Unraveled

Franz Boas (Wikipedia)

Data dredging (Wikipedia)

Ella Cara Deloria (Wikipedia)

15 Anthropology Books by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) Authors

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

The Power of Style: How Fashion and Beauty Are Being Used to Reclaim Cultures by Christian Allaire

Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China by Leslie T. Chang

Dakota Texts by Ella Cara Deloria

Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life by Karen E. Fields and Barbara J. Fields

Say What Your Longing Heart Desires: Women, Prayer, and Poetry in Iran by Niloofar Haeri

Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica by Zora Neale Hurston

Indigenous Methodologies: Characteristics, Conversations, and Contexts by Margaret Kovach

Amphibious Subjects: Sasso and the Contested Politics of Queer Self-Making in Neoliberal Ghana by Kwame Edwin Otu

Blanket Toss Under Midnight Sun: Portraits of Everyday Life in Eight Indigenous Communities by Paul Seesequasis

Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples by Linda Tuhiwai Smith

On the Margins of Urban South Korea: Core Location as Method and Praxis edited by Jesook Song and Laam Hae

Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science by Kim TallBear

Desi Hoop Dreams: Pickup Basketball and the Making of Asian American Masculinity by Stanley Thangaraj

From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai'i by Haunani-Kay Trask

Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods by Shawn Wilson

Give us feedback!

Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

Check out our Tumblr, follow us on Twitter or Instagram, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email!

Then on Tuesday,  March 15th we’ll be talking about Bookish Food & Drink (Mixing Food, Drinks, and Books)!

Join us again on Tuesday, April 5th when we’ll be discussing the genre of Contemporary Fantasy!

[031cinephile]

QUEER CINEMA RETURNS WITH THE DURBAN GAY & LESBIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2018

The 8th annual Durban Gay & Lesbian Film Festival will be taking place from Friday 21 until Sunday 30 September 2018 at select pop-up venues around the city. Now in it’s seventh year since opening in October 2011, the festival will screen 57 titles over a 10-day programme.

“Earlier this year our team decided on taking advantage of the Heritage Day long weekend in boosting the number of days patrons who work full time can enjoy our programme. So the decision was taken to position the Festival around this important holiday on 24 September.” says festival director Jason Fiddler.

“2018 is proving to be a financially challenging year for many South Africans, and we found it particularly hard as a cultural event to secure sponsorship. Fortunately, thanks to the invaluable ongoing support of Alliance Franchise of Durban and venue help from commercial property urban regeneration specialists Urban Lime, the DGLFF can confidently screen films this year. This is the first year we won’t be able to screen at our beloved KZNSA gallery, owing to a full exhibition calendar, but we certainly look forward to bringing some films back there next year.”

The format of the festival continues its eclectic tradition of including a tremendous diversity of subjects and film formats. The Opening Night film on Friday 21 September is a truly remarkable feature-length documentary, ‘GEORGE MICHAEL: FREEDOM – The Director’s Cut’. Directed by George Michael himself, and co-directed by David Austin, audiences can look forward to nearly two hours of celebrity interviews including sir Elton John, Mary J Blige and Liam Gallagher, whilst the man himself tells his story, his way.

With frank revelations interspersed with the songs and music that made him a global pop and soul phenomenon, George shares an enthralling autobiographical journey that doesn’t shy away from unpleasant truths, nor does it sensationalise seminal experiences in his life and career. He simply and effectively shows how a gay boy found fame, excess, love, painful loss, contractual battles alongside his career defining music.

The DGLFF is proud to have secured the rights to show this incredible film, and audiences should note that there is only one screening of the film at a cost of R80 per ticket. Our pop-up main venue is at the top of vibrant Florida Road, at 344 Florida Rd, Durban. Ticket enquiries can be made via our website.

There are 7 feature films this year including ‘BREATHE’, a French coming-of-age drama about two young women and their relationship twists and ‘TIME IS UP’, a gay drama from Greek filmmaker Nicolas Pourliaros that poignantly looks a through monochromatic palette at the contemplation of life’s value.

Johannesburg-based South African filmmaker Sean Steinberg will celebrate the world premiere of his 55-minute ‘(S)HE’ at DGLFF this year on Saturday 22 September. Breaking important ground for an under-considered community, ‘(S)HE’ tells the story of Penny Kemp, an intersex teenager who, after qualifying to compete in the 2016 Olympic trials, is forced to undergo gender treatment in order to keep her high levels of testosterone at bay. Only, she doesn’t want to. Made with a micro-budget the films explores a very difficult subject with delicacy.

‘STILL WAITING IN THE WINGS’ follows on two years later from their last visit to the DGLFF with a familiar cast of characters breaking out into original song as they busk their way ‘off-Broadway’ and battle their way through backstabbing musical theatre. Durban audiences will recall Canadian filmmaker and gay film star Charlie David and he continues his support of DGLFF with ‘SHADOWLANDS’, a darker and occasionally disturbing, if not exquisitely shot, homage to the bygone queer eras of the 30s, 50s and 60s that explores love in three separate stories – a couple renegotiating a relationship, a narcissist grasping to comprehend it, and star-crossed lovers mourning its loss.

Joseph Adesunloye, a British-Nigerian award-winning filmmaker premiered his ‘FACES’ at DIFF this past July to much acclaim. “Joseph and I felt that the film needed to be seen by more LGBTIQ people in Durbs and the producers kindly agreed to allow us to make it our Closing Night film on Saturday 29 September with an encore screening the following afternoon” says Fiddler. “Weaving such a powerful storyline with a predominantly black UK cast, Joseph is able to tell Durban audiences of all persuasions and backgrounds utterly human and relatable stories, some that will shock, others that will make one cry, but ultimately that reinforce the beauty of love and friendship, especially between women who have endured great pain and suffering.”

There are a dozen other fascinating documentaries that explore transgender stories from Tonga to Chile to Pakistan, a gay Israeli man’s struggle for familial acceptance whilst HIV-positive and the acceptance he finds in a gay men’s choir in ‘WHO’S GONNA LOVE ME NOW?’, haunting stories from Zimbabwean gay men in ‘GIVE A MAN A MASK…’ and drag queen, and king, cultures from China to the United States.

The Festival programme continues to embrace and celebrate short film as powerful means of telling a diversity of stories, with high production values. 34 short films from 18 different countries across 5 continents have been packaged into seven feature slots that include lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer comedies, dramas and even stop-animation films. Audiences can again look forward to an entertaining, thought-provoking, disturbing and ultimately fun film selection in 2018.

On Heritage Day afternoon, and throughout the week of 24-28 September at 2pm and 4pm, the Festival offers patrons free screenings of a number of short films and documentaries, including acclaimed South African short films in the ‘MZANSI MIX’. Also continuing with is the effective Festival Ticket Pool that includes donated tickets for underprivileged, senior citizen and student patrons. Requests for tickets can be made directly with the organisers.

Those interested in supporting the Festival and the Ticket Pool, can use the Zapper code on display on the DGLFF website or Facebook page to facilitate card payments via the phone app, and even make donations to the Festival.

Normal screenings are R40 each with 50% concession to students and senior citizens with card – these are however not applicable to the Opening and Closing Nights that cost R80 per ticket. Patrons can also buy Silver Festival Passes for R250 that include 10 screenings and are transferable. Gold Festival Passes this year are reduced at R500 that includes all screenings.

The main Festival Hub venue will be at POP, 344 Florida Road, Berea, a former art gallery space ideal as a pop-up screening venue, where most screenings will take place in 2018. Alliance Française will host two weeknights in Morningside. On Friday 28 September there will be a pop-up ‘T-DANCE’ social fundraiser at the German Club in Westville – details will be on our website and Facebook page.

Details of events & downloadable programme are available at www.dglff.org.za Instagram/Twitter @dbngayfilmfest and Facebook @DGLFF

[sobdasha]

i got caught up with this not because i did better but because i’ve had no time/watched some tv

War for the Oaks, Emma Bull I began reading this book at the same time as The Innkeeper's Song, listed below. I started out dragging my feet on this one and racing through TIS. But one book got progressively more amazing while the other book got progressively less impressive and my better book is this one. This was the roomie's first brush with urban fantasy, and one of her friends got her a second-hand first edition paperback, and so she talked about it a lot until I finally picked it up and she said "Uh but also I haven't read it in forever so I uh. Don't know how it holds up." (She rightly fears me because as you will have noticed I am a Very Particular Reader.) Reasons I disliked this book at first: - fashion choices that scream "1980s" and fashion choices that scream "lesbian" are incredibly similar and guess which of the two I am not getting, seeing as this was published in 1987. - Eddie is breaking up with her garbage boyfriend which is good but she has an incredible amount of chemistry with Carla which is disheartening given that I know I won't get sapphics and Eddie will end up dating some other boy with whom there is no chemistry. - This is a book about rock-n-roll bands I don't know any of these songs (okay I might know these songs but I don't know artists or titles so I may as well not know any of these songs) it's kinda wasted on me. - oh boy I'm so excited to watch her and the phouka fight like Kagome and Inuyasha or any other pair with this dynamic yaaaaay /sarcasm Reasons this came to be a Good Read: - Everyone dresses so goddamn queer in this book that you know what, everyone except that jerkass Stuart is queer. He's garbage so he can be straight or whatever. It's my reading experience I do what I want. There's no way these people aren't bi. Also it's canon because everyone takes one look at the phouka and assumes he's gay. …………………………with slurs but still. - Good supporting cast. - I both failed to give the phouka a deep voice and also to sustain a Stereotypical Gay voice (which, the dialogue will totally 100% support), but I did accidentally voice him with Tatum's dub of Tomoe from Kamisama Kiss which was completely appropriate in the "vaguely gay vaguely British unambiguously prissy" department, and also entertaining because it reminded me of the dynamics in that anime but, y'know, better. - I almost gave up when the romance hit hardcore but it turned out later that was actually a fake-out that was meant to be garbage and set us up for the endgame much later, by which point Eddie and the phouka actually had the same level of chemistry as Eddie and Carla, so I could actively enjoy the ship. A win! Anyway it was fun. It may not have aged the best in the sense that it strove to be accurate to time and place (see: homophobic slurs), but the character dynamics held up pretty dang well. I would definitely read this again and enjoy myself; in fact I plan to.

The Innkeeper's Song, Peter S. Beagle I was very excited to read this because I was so blown away by The Last Unicorn but the more I read the more disappointed I got. Half the time I feel like that weeb who is like "hello I only like your fanfic you wrote when you were 13 and high on pixie stixs, all your stuff now sucks", and half the time I tell myself, "Maybe there is a reason I've only ever heard of The Last Unicorn and had no idea he'd actually written other books." As you have probably picked up by now, I have a knee-jerk dislike of first person PoV where it must prove itself worthy to me first, despite the fact that I like plenty of things written in first person. I also have a knee-jerk dislike of "I will change the narrator every chapter and announce loudly who it is instead of doing it subtly but unmistakably in the content of the text itself." This book had both. Despite all my harsh judgment, it would be incorrect of me to say that this writing choice is not valid. That this writing choice cannot be used to amazing effect. I do not believe that is what happened here. I did not feel it was adding much to the story to begin with (other than being the shortest and straightest path to advancing a narrative with many fronts), and I was definitely unimpressed when we got to the string of chapters, all of them less than a page and some no more than a paragraph, during the orgy scene where the 3 women have sex with 1 teen boy who's been thirsting after them, and they pay him a lot of worshipful attention in the orgy even though none of them actually like him, and also this is when we reveal one of the women is a man in disguise in the most confusing way possible so my cringe got even deeper as I waited for Beagle to fuck up a trans storyline. (It was literally just "I'm on the run so I'm magically dressing as a girl" but it took a really long time to clarify that after.) In addition to not liking the narrative structure, I just wasn't interested or invested in the actual plot. It didn't feel very urgent or important and at the end I was like "what even happened and also why did it happen." I was underwhelmed. I was definitely the wrong audience for this book. Oh also because I was not enjoying myself I started to get really irrationally annoyed by the way fantasy fauna and flora would have fantasy names and they would be italicized. In a first person PoV. Where the narrator is literally speaking the language that this word is native to. It half felt pretentious, and half highlighted what felt like a loose thread: everyone is literally narrating to someone (presumably collecting the story, after everyone has gone their separate ways) and this has all been woven together into a proper narrative, but our story collector is absent despite addresses to such a person. What purpose does this serve? Does it make it more ~authentic~ fantasy? Because I don't buy it. Now my suspension of disbelief is snapped; I'd have preferred it was either left out entirely, or made into a brilliant framing device like in The Name of the Wind.

Giant Bones, Peter S. Beagle This one was short stories "set in the same universe as The Innkeeper's Song", which basically meant some city names were reused, as well as all those italicized fantasy names and the "I am narrating my story to an audience in-story" frame. You know, all the things I didn't particularly care for. I pressed on to see if there was anything I might like, but since I can't remember, I assume there wasn't. Because this left me wanting, and the title was Giant Bones, I went to reread Conservation of Shadows by Lee instead, starting with "The Bones of Giants," which was greatly preferable, so much more my speed. That's when I did the write-up for the last round of books lol.

Nimona, Noelle Stevenson This has been on my list for Forever but I'm bad at reading new books. Anyway! Nimona was very good!! It felt, hm, very self-indulgent in the way that is amazing, where the creator gives themself whatever they want and the work turns out brilliantly because of it. I didn't think I was into friends to enemies to lovers but apparently I love it wen Stevenson handles it (see: She Ra reboot). Speaking of She Ra, I probably would have figured out where the end game was going if I'd read Nimona before looool. I know people referenced it when they talked ships but I just….didn't...pay enough attention. There was found family stuff I enjoyed, dad stuff, I'm finding that I am liking a lot of takes on monster girls, etc. Anyway it gave me a lot of feelings, it was funny, it was good, I need to get a copy.

The Dragon Pearl, Yoon Ha Lee The first time I talked about this book I mentioned something about the pacing and suspending disbelief or whatever, but I want to note that this time the pacing felt perfect and the plot didn't seem weird at all, it flowed very smoothly. I don't know if that's because it was a reread and I knew where it was going, or because I just read it awkwardly the first time. Anyway. Something that stood out to me this time is that, near the end, I realized this story is a bit animated Disney Mulan. There's even the "you broke this you broke that you impersonated a soldier but also you saved China so thanks" bit. Where The Dragon Pearl is wildly different from other Mulan-type stories that I like (see: Monstrous Regiment) is that it is entirely ungendered. (There are some mentions of gender in the book. These amount mostly to, "most foxes choose to be female because Tradition but one of my cousins decided to be male like my brother and no one mocks him for it" and "official name tags also include handy signifiers of which personal pronouns a person prefers.") What I'm trying to say is, a lot of other stuff when dealing with/trying to deconstruct gender stereotyping, ends up reinforcing it in a way. In order to illustrate why the stereotypes are wrong, they end up repeating the stereotypes a lot in order to argue against them. The Dragon Pearl, on the other hand, is genderless in a way that doesn't reinforce the gender binary. There are no gendered clothes. There are no gendered bathrooms. There are no gendered hairstyles or accessories. There are no gendered actions or emotions or stereotypes. There are no gendered bodies (the differences highlighted between Min and Jang-who-she's-shapeshifting-into are of build ie, height, center of gravity, not of private bits). No plot points revolve around the maleness of the person Min is impersonating; no plot points revolve around the femaleness of Min. And they/them? It's never explained why any person uses that pronoun. They just do so that's just how it is. I just think this is amazingly neat and I wanna applaud Lee for this finesse.

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue, Mackenzi Lee I put this on my list because Queer and people were recommending it, but it was not well-advertized to me. I was expecting shallow teen romance, but dressed in historical clothes and unsubtly, unabashedly, unashamedly GAY. So I was expecting some gay. I was not expecting gay pining I actually enjoyed, I was not expecting call-outs for privilege of wealth and class and sex and color, I was not expecting the drama of the romance to not be stupidly fabricated misunderstandings but instead be driven by the need for character development and personal growth, I had forgotten I was expecting people of color, people with disabilities, badass women, I was not expecting a nuanced call-out of ableism ("I don't believe I need to be well to be happy", etc). I was not expecting a reversal of gender stereotypes that avoided saying "X gender is bad." Like, Monty is the team weakest link. Monty faints at the sight of blood. Monty is romantic and emotional and swoons at the slightest provocation. Monty uses his wiles to seduce people, that's the main skill he actually brings to the party. Monty cries. Aside from probably Monty's asshole dad who hates him for being gay, no one else nor the narrative calls these traits out as being Feminine (And Therefore Bad). Like, haha, We All Know These Are All Stereotypes Of Women At The Time, but no one says it. I find there's something really nice about no one saying it. Meanwhile, Percy and Felicity are competent and cool and I heart them. (What the hell, I heart Monty too. He really grows on you. He's so soft and in love and pathetic.) Anyway going back to the privilege thing, I love that Percy and Felicity and others constantly call Monty out on his privilege and refuse to coddle him over it. But they also care about him and they are very tender to him, not because of his privilege, but because he is a person who deserves basic person things, when he has his own issues. Your issues don't excuse your behavior, but yikes we deeply underestimated the sheer depth of your PTSD and we're gentler with you because of it. So try to stop being an ass. This book is just super wholesome and I can already tell this will be one of my new go-to's when I need a comfort book. Like Ancillary Justice etc.

The Gentleman's Guide to Getting Lucky, Mackenzi Lee This is not a fanfiction in the sense that is it written by the author and not a fan, but you need to understand, as part of me selling this to you as earnestly as I can, this is a fanfiction set after The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue which involves hijinks as Monty and Percy try and fail hilariously to have their first time having sex together, Felicity tries to wingman, there are miscommunications and nervous breakdowns and tender resolutions and it is absolutely a perfect indulgence. Because it was written by the actual author everyone is 100% in character and the narrative voice is spot-on. Kudos!

The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, Mackenzi Lee Ace/aro Felicity???? ACE/ARO FELICITY!!! TBH I only vaguely remembered the descriptions for this one, ie "this time it's lesbians," and I was reading this going "there is a suspicious lack of lesbians but so much platonic vibes and also…..maybe…..maybe…????" and like I got both lesbians AND ace/aro Felicity????? Lee wrote this book? As a gift? For me???? I cannot believe I was blessed with "not like other girls"!Felicity as a vehicle for calling out the internalized misogyny inherent in the Not Like Other Girls mindset, and it is glorious. You can like pretty dresses and running around doing science, or you can hate dresses and only love science, or you can only like pretty dresses, or you can like whatever the heck you want in whatever combo, doesn't matter you're still a girl you're still valid and this shit isn't mutually exclusive. Much as I don't wear makeup (I've slowly learned to wear dresses again) in real life, gosh I love Johanna for being like "I love dresses and I love science and what if I was a badass adventurer but also got to be rescued a lot" because that was bitty me. Gimme a princess dress and a sword and a bow and arrows but also a tower to be rescued from and then various adventures. I want it both ways! And that's okay!! Also this is a critique I have apparently wanted since at least 3rd grade, see this proof from my daily journal prompts, I apologize for my lack of attention to spelling and forming letters: "Girls are what ever girls are. Girls like different things so I con't judge them all. Some girls like barbies. Just becaus you my not like barbies dosn't mean those girls aren't girls, it means they like more things that hove barbies. I like nintendo and I'm a girl." Apparently I was a Not Like Other Girls who thought Other Girls were still extremely valid. (that's kind of hilarious though because like, child, you had Barbies and didn't hate Barbies, you are just bad at playing with dolls and props. You're also bad at playing Nintendo.) Other stuff specifically, hm, it was refreshing to not have "I am skinny and perfect and clearly ugly" or even "I am legitimately ugly." Instead we have, "You do realize my torso is a solid rectangle, it laughs at this corset which I guess we are going to put on anyway, also my football player shoulders are going to literally pop the sleeves off that dress" and "I am built like a corgi dog, this is simply a fact of my proportions." Like, Felicity definitely has Issues with her traditional femininity and lack thereof, but I feel like it was never specifically tied to "my body shape is ugly." Also to go back to this book being written for me personally. You know they always say to write things that only you could write, that are self-indulgent, write what you want to see? It's really hard to do without a template to follow. Right before I picked up this book I realized that maybe The Thing Only I Would Write would be saying "a Skadi-and-Njord marriage is in fact a valid happy ending," but I've never seen that before and I don't know what it would look like even if I kind of understand the concept. All the media I consume, if not ending in romantic soulmates, is at least found family. If you are a loner, if you like being alone, your happy ending is to get a manic-pixie-dream-anything (girl, grandson, grandma, dog, whathaveyou) and integrate back into being social. There are no happy endings where a loner stays alone, where you get married but live separately and see each other very rarely because you love them but can't stand to live with them and you need to be alone to exist as you. And Mackenzi Lee just up and wrote it. It's valid to want to live in a house by yourself filled with bookshelves and have friends. It's valid for a girl to marry another girl who is a pirate and sails around most of the time and only comes to visit on occasion so you don't get sick of her and you keep loving her. This is an okay thing for an ace/aro to want, and it's valid to be happy with this. I can't even, y'all. I'm still marveling. I finally have seen a picture of the life I know would make me happy, and it's finally been acknowledged that I can be happy. (The amount of time I've spent, knowing I hate being social, and wondering--how many years down the line, when I'm living alone and content, will the switch suddenly flip? How many bridges will I have left behind when it turns out that I actually feel loneliness, and I'm miserable and unable to make friends and it turns out there are no manic pixie dream whatevers in real life and I fucked myself over forever because I was wrong and I should have been maintaining these social ties now and turning into someone I'm sure I'm not? What if people like me, who don't really get lonely without people, don't actually exist??) Anyway representation matters. Also Felicity being blindsided with Callum's proposal was, wow, okay I should have caught on to ace!Felicity then because that was so very accurate to my life experience minus people cutting fingers off. Look I was quoting stuff at the end to a friend and she was like "maybe that's why there's aces on the cover" and I am a very stupid ace okay. Felicity and Johanna's intense queerplatonic friendship that they keep trying to take up again in among the same sort of "you need character growth" drama that Monty needed re: Percy is also just, chef kiss, god I love this book. I need to buy this book. I haven't yet so what I did is I renewed all the books so I could immediately reread them after I finished them the first time.

[weeniitze]

LGBT Communities Impact on Social Gaming

Video games are never just about pastimes. When we try to observe it, we can found that people can cast a different perspective: there is a perspective on culture, and a perspective on technology; There may also be a perspective about the person who plays the game, and a perspective about the person who develope the game; There is even a perspective on media, and a perspective on the industry; There's also a perspective on social change and game history. They are like an indispensable two-voice, playing a cultural piece of music called Recreation.

Remembered when I first installed the Internet at home, I played a bunch of mini-games online, then I bought some PC games from a few shops. Among my favorite games were Plants vs. Zombies, Gold Miner Vegas, The Sims 3 and 4, Adventure Quest, and Chinese MMORPG 倾世情缘(Qing Shi Qing Yuan). In the past, I used to play games to pass time. And as time grew, I found that knowledge is also increasing through these games, it could also affect our minds. For example, some story-based games can actually reflect the problems happening in our modern society. By playing games, not only can increase interpersonal relationships but also refresh our perspective on life. Maybe by this, I became more open-minded.

In the 1980s and 1990s, influenced by feminist and LBGT movement, many mainstream media forms, such as TV series, movies, music, etc., were more or less affected by the queer style. They began to try out the temperament of non-heterosexual Gender in their perform, fashion, or storyline design. For example, ‘Sex and the City’ appeared a gay friend, Stanford of the first heroine, Carrie, later appeared in the TV series ‘Will and Grace’ and ‘Queer as Folk’ on the theme of urban gay and lesbian.

Now in the 21st century, some popular idols have coming out publicly, and under the influence of fanart or fanfiction, fans are willing to take the initiative to participate in the idol's behaviors into their desire of LGBT, imaging their idols becoming a same-sex couple with another. So, is there any LGBT element in the game world? I think there are few, but still are. It can be seen that in recent years, with the social trend and the development of the LGBT affirmative movement, the number of LGBTQ characters in video games has gradually increased, as has the number of LGBTQ-friendly players.

Last week, I found an online video game called 'A Gay's Life', An independent Chinese role-playing game about a Beijing gay teenage boy, Ling Hao (凌浩), navigating everyday life illustrates the "harsh realities" of the dating scene, judgments, family pressure, and discrimination against LGBTQ people in China.（Huang, 2018）.The game was designed by 27-year-old Gaole Huang and established as a hobby with the support of a team of gaming enthusiasts, influenced by his own experiences as a gay man who grew up in the region of Shandong before moving to Beijing.

Below will be some pictures and GIFs of the game’s screenshots.

(Game’s splash screen)

(When he first come out to his best friend.)

(When he get married to a women he doesn’t want to.)

(He feels excluded in society as a part of LGBT communities.)

Ling Hao: “My Grandma said, must wear a red scarf in wedding, looks festivity“

“I hope through an easy-to-read, immersive, emotional, and interesting interactive story, I’ve created concrete figures to show some of the awkward situations that gay people around me still face in today’s society,” Huang said.

Most of the comments for the game A Gay's Life are positive. On Weibo, one of the most highly rated words on the game was "real", and most of these comments came from LGBT communities. As for heterosexuals, a 30 years old author stated, he played to the end of the game, and his strongest feeling is: "as a heterosexual, I seem to get these things easily, but it is so difficult to get it here." 

A comment from a straight man, the game gave him the information which is different from what he thought in the past. For example, he used to think that the LGBT community itself is very complicated, they don't want to have a fixed relationships, but after he played and he found that it is because the resistance is very large when "homosexual" been together, their love is not accepted by the mainstream, which makes their feelings to be more fragile.

Another example, he felt that as long as its real love,  it doesn't matter if the state allows the marriage or not. After playing the game, he found that marriage can play a certain role in protecting the interests of partners, such as the partner can obtain benefits when they purchase a house. But "gays" cannot marry, means that there is no way to enjoy the protection and welfare brought by marriage, this is also a form of implicit discrimination of the society.

After I played A Gay’s Life, it gave me a better layer of understanding of the LGBT group's psychological. In its several endings, some of them make me touched, some make my heart breaks. Our country, Malaysia, is not legally recognized for LGBT, the same as China. Malaysia, in fact, there are groups of LGBTQ people, but to protect themselves, most of them won't coming out to the public, some not even dare to tell their families, because these groups easily receive a peculiar look from others. Some of them might be despised, judged, scolded, bullied, they can't even do something they like or love someone they want, they seem like a criminal in others' eyes, feeling the groups of people are disgusting, weird, sinfull. I was really disappointed to see these phenomena, I'm not sure how can I help them, and I think now all I can do is to mentally support them as I can. And I hope the people who don't like LGBT groups of people, they can at least respect them. However, through many positive reviews that I saw in the game’s forum, I can feel that the societies of the younger generation are slowly accepting LGBT communities. By the way, this is a very good game to play.

"As in real life, having a variety of characters and their personalities and backgrounds helps to build a richer and broader overall fictional universe," Steven Choo, a spokesman of Blizzard Entertainment, told The Post's Comic Riffs (Cavna, 2016)

In recent years, the LGBT community displayed in the game might become less popular,  they become more ordinary, just like the passers-by who pass by in our life. But because of the injection of these characters, it makes the whole game to be more complete and real.

Reference List Cavna, M. (2016). The wildly popular ‘Overwatch’ says a main character is gay. Will this be a step forward for video games?. Retrieved 3 December 2019, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/comic-riffs/wp/2016/12/23/the-wildly-popular-overwatch-says-a-main-character-is-gay-will-this-be-a-step-forward-for-video-games/

Huang, Z. (2018). Indie game offers stark insights into gay life in China. Retrieved 3 December 2019, from https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/2178329/gays-life-indie-web-game-offers-glimpse-harsh-realities-faced-lgbt

Wilkie, A. (2018). Video game ‘A Gay’s Life’ provides insights into life of LGBTI people in China - Star Observer. Retrieved 5 December 2019, from https://www.starobserver.com.au/news/international-news-news/video-game-a-gays-life-provides-insights-into-life-of-lgbti-people-in-china/174616

Yijun, Y. (2018). The Indie Game Decoding the Gay Male Reality. Retrieved 2 December 2019, from http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1003330/the-indie-game-decoding-the-gay-male-reality-