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absolutebl · 7 months

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This Week in BL - it was a pretty darn good time, frankly

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

Feb 2024 Wk 4

Ongoing Series - Thai

The Sign (Sat YT) ep 12fin - Everyone looked like they were having a lot of fun in the fight sequences. I’m very happy for them. I’m not surprised they shot Khem and Chart. A little shocked it wasn’t also Yai, TBH.

I found this final episode rushed. According to rumors, The Sign was originally slated to be 14 eps, and it probably should’ve been. And I don’t say that often about Thai BL. But we all knew it was getting too bloated for its britches, so I'm not surprised they fumbled the ending. For me personally, it just wasn't that bad. It was fine and I was fine with it.

Tho, Billy does not look good with facial fur, messes up those gorgeous angles.

I was ultimately amused that the solution to the mythology thread was simply to talk to the river god and persuaded him to give up... off screen. It felt very old school wuxia. Or like Aeschylus or something. I did adore the stinger, Saint was basically like “I want wings too”.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This show is literally everything (except straight) all at once. It's BL, queer, band of brothers, romcom, erotica, PNR, fated mates, police procedural, fantasy, mystery, suspense, and slasher. It’s the king of genre mash-up chaos. Sure, it's madness but there is genius in it. Was it a crazy unhinged mess +1 roll for damage? Yes. Yes it was. Did it manage to hold all those tangled threads together? No it did not. Was it also a charming, sexy, engaging, non-stop piece of entertainment? Sure thing. I think this show is basically my KinnPorsche, and frankly I’ve been chasing that dragon naga since KP aired. Is it perfect? No. But it was balls to the wall FUN and that gets a 9/10 from me.

I'm thinking of doing a full recap review (partly because I have so many great screen shots.)

Cherry Magic (Sat YouTube grey) ep 10-11 of 12 - Since this series is following the yaoi so closely, I knew these were the separation eps. (Also I knew with would be a soft non-doom ep 11, Japan rarerly does these.) I like that they used it to show improve communication and development in all relationships, but, frankly, TayNew are just best when they are TayNew together on screen. So yeah. Let’s keep them back together, please?

Meanwhile, TayNew gifted us a gorgeous loving sweet sex scene. Thanks OG for doing us a solid.

I wanna add, it sure is fun to see New play as soft and vulnerable character, I feel like he hasn’t done that since SOTUS.

(Read all about distribution issues here.)

Cooking Crush (Sun YT) ep 12fin - 1/3 of this is a sweet romance about a student doctor falling in love with a student chef, and the rest of it is utter dross. Look the OffGun bits were GREAT.. In fact, I think they’re better AS A PAIR in this show than in any of their other BLS. And I'm a hard sell on any OffGun being better than PickRome. Saying that, how can I review a show where I could only tolerate 1/3 of it? Because I didn’t like any other aspect of this show, no other pairs and no other plots. That gives me: 9/10 for the OffGun bits, 5/10 for everything else. Frankly it probably should be an 8 but I gotta go with my gut and it's upset about this so 7/10. Sorry boys. It’s GMMTV’s fault. Your heart was in this show, mine wasn’t.

City of Stars (Fri iQIYI) ep 4 of 12 - These two are so good at making heart eyes at each other. It’s ridiculous. They don’t need any cartoon images or noises. Moot crush but "I wanna flirt and court more" is so flipping awesome. I love this for them… and us.

1000 Years Old ep 2 of 12 - It’s very silly and we have been gifted with the dorkiest vampire ever. But... the smell thing makes me so happy. And I like that the vamp uses chan/nai or tan = v old fashioned. Nahlak. I love our ghost girl. Did you notice she wasn’t in the room with them but they left an empty chair for her? Also nahlak.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Perfect Propose (Japan Fri Gaga) ep 5 of 6 - Kai was pretty much just “you're a workaholic but I basically married you whether you like it or not.” SMOOCH. What can I say? I'm a sucker for this dynamic.

AntiReset (Taiwan Fri Viki/Gaga) ep 5 of 10 - How is this show so cute? How do they both love and hurt each other so much. They are both just scared of loosing each other. Gah.

Unknown (Taiwan Sat Youku YouTube) 1 of 12 eps - Youku dropped the first ep to their YouTube channel but I doubt we can expect that to continue. Still, it was nice to be able to watch it in a convenient way. I enjoyed it. But I am cautious about it. Of course this is possibly two of my favorite tropes of all time (stepbrothers or a variation + hyung romance). So I’m looking forward to the romantic thread, but from the gritty style, it feels a lot more like a Taiwanese short. Which means it could go very dark and may not end happy.

Although I Love You and You AKA Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro ka (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 7 of 10 - I just don’t know if the main couple should be a couple. But when they finally get around to talking to each other, they sure are lovely. Also how great is it to see a uke initiate a kiss? Even if it’s not a very good kiss.

My Strawberry Film (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 2 of 8 - I am still not sure about this one. I am not contesting its quality, just saying it’s not for me. Also I’m not wild about what amounts to basically a redo of everything that already happened in the first episode from a different perspective. I know it’s a tall order with Japan, but I would like (when it’s a short series) for each new installment to actually move the plot (such as it is) along in someway. Am I asking too much?

It's done but I have no time

What Did You Eat Yesterday Season 2 AKA Kinou Nani Tabeta? Season 2 (Japan Gaga) 10 eps - will binge when I have any spare time. 2024 is crazy busy for me so far.

The Servant and the Young Master - from Vietnam, it's on YouTube. I will give it a try when I have a window of time.

Began Beginning (Myanmar YouTube) - A Burmese BL? @heretherebedork vouched for it, so I will give it a watch.

It's airing but...

Dead Friend Forever (Thai iQIYI) - rumors are it's interesting but full of unlikable characters. I'm waiting to know how it ends.

Ossans Love Season 2 (Japan Gaga) - 5 years later, will anything have changed? This is Japan so… probubly not. I won't be watching this. I disliked Season one and actively hated the follow ups. No thank you.

Playboyy (Thurs Gaga) 14 eps - Dear Playboyy, it's not you, it’s me… I hate you. You’re about as deep (and as palatable) as a shot glass of cum. While I'm sure you’re someone’s kink, you're my weakest link. Goodbye. I DNFed this at ep 5. Frankly I'm impressed with myself for getting that far. Ends next week TF.

Time the series (Tue Gaga/YT) 10 eps - dropped it at ep 4.

A Secretly Love (Thai WeTV) - I tried but I can't get into my WeTV account anymore and I'm way too lazy to figure it out. Should I bother to go grey for it?

To Be Continued (Thai C3 Thailand YT) - High school sweethearts who had a bad break up reunite when both of them have full time jobs but coming out is still a problem. You can watch this on YT but it has no Eng Subs.

Next Week Looks Like This:

We're light on content right now, but frankly I'm so busy with work I don't really mind.

3/6 Born to be Y (Thai ????) 10 eps - 14 contestants who audition to compete in Born To Be Y, a program that searches for the best couple of the year to work together on a giant project. Described as semi-reality series. So I probably won't bother.

3/7 Deep Night (Thai iQiyi) 10 eps - Multiple romances set in a host clubs. Nice to see First back on my screen but this is not my favorite setting.

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

The eyes have it.

Your random BL moment brought to you by my ult-bias being a hyung smartass to his maknae.

(Last week)

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ineffable-opinions · 3 months

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MAME & BL Literacies (Part 4)

Other parts: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Contents:

MAME’s queer characters and their lives

Fetishization of queer men and profiting off LGBT community

Why other queer genres like gei comi struggle to get live action adaptation?

(bonus) What Did You Eat Yesterday sexy times

BL and rape culture

Everyday ethnocentrism & BL

This is the last part of this essay series. In this part, I want to discuss the response this review of TharnType by @waitmyturtles generated. As always, corrections and criticisms are welcome.

Here are the points @solitaryandwandering raised:

1. fans will get SO rabid for MAME’s stuff yet resist tuning in for more queer-friendly Taiwanese BL or lower heat fare

I think that the BL MAME creates is "queer-friendly". Moreover, her BL focuses on the intersection of queerness with local forms of gender, patriarchy & heterosexism, class, race, skin color, age, employment, location & regionalism, abilities and disabilities, education, health conditions and access to medical care, urban-rural divide, migrant status, culture, etc.

MAME's BL have aspects of Thai queer culture and praxis that are otherwise overlooked. Here's an example.

Through Techno’s interaction with Tharn in episode 1 of TharnType, MAME highlights an important issue: invisibility of androphilic “man”. Techno comments that Tharn is the first masculine presenting androphilic male he has met, even though he has several queer friends.

This is in part due to skewed presence of androphilic male characters in mainstream media. In Thai soap operas and movies, androphilic men are 'presented as effeminate, overreactive, with a passionate but unrequited interest in men'.

Countering this perception is the hegemony of masculine aesthetics in urban Thailand’s queer culture. 'The English word “man” has been borrowed into Thai gay-speak to denote acting in a masculine way. Man describes a masculine presentation of either gay-identified or heterosexual males and contrasts with the Thai term phu-chai, which also translates as “man” but is used in the specific sense of denoting the gender role of a heterosexually identified male.

'Many Thai gays believe that effeminate gay men, or gay sao, will experience discrimination and prejudice because of their feminine characteristics and behaviours. Thai gays also think that performing gender-normative forms of manhood are useful in establishing sexual and romantic relations with other gays. These expectations are associated with the culture of images, known in Thai as phap-phot, by which many homosexual men feel compelled to act in accord with normative male gender roles.'

This is in contrast to Techno’s queer friends who blur the lines between the masculine and feminine domains. His use of the word kathoey is case in point.

Moreover, the need for social conformity for Thai gays in terms of their gender performance is an urban phenomenon. Ethnographic study by Wijngaarden traced the rapid adoption of more masculine gender performance by gay men who moved from rural setting to urban for the purpose of education and employment. Ambiguity in gender performance is more accepted in rural setting where there is gender-based understandings of homosexuality. Also, gay dating scene in urban areas seem to assign value to masculine presentation.

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I don't really know what @solitaryandwandering mean by "queer-friendly" in the context of Taiwanese BL.

Support of fu-people (BL fans) for queer works in Taiwan is well-known. When the play 《愛情生活》 Life of Love by Xu ZhengPing was staged, they had BL version shows too.

The play has a short film adaptation which is available for free on GagaOOLala.

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Fu-people have also shown their support for series like Breakfast by 想再見你.

2. Fetishization of queer men in yaoi

By that standard, is Minamoto Kazuki fetishizing straight women through his works?

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Minamoto Kazuki is a gay mangaka who creates straight romance and smut.

Arguably, his most famous manga, at least in BL fandom, is Wall Circle’s Doujin Artist Nekoyashiki-Kun’s Desire for Recognition Grows which got live action adaptation: KabeKoji in 2022.

Apart from creating commercial BL and yaoi (self-published BL like the ones in the image given above), he has also authored an autobiographical work titled Shoujo Manga Artist Minamoto-San Comes Out and a manga exploring queer life and homophobia titled The Gay Who Turned Kaiju.

Moreover, many scholars, mangaka, fans, etc. from Asia and elsewhere have already spoken/written plenty about the issue of fetishization. Here's a compilation of resources.

3. zero critical consumption and leveraging of abusive concepts

I wonder why it is assumed that BL is consumed without critical thinking. It is true that BL, especially MAME's BL, are not didactic. TharnType is a BL with odo (royal road) narrative progression. It is not one of the sweet BL that GMMTV produces. Due to a general lack of BL literacies, there are off-the-mark expectations associated with BL, particularly Thai BL. Hence, odo BL seems to violate a lot of these misguided expectations.

TharnType is a well-done odo BL, in my opinion. "Leveraging of abusive concepts" is not a failure but a feature.

When it comes to depiction of abuse, there are those who think that it always gives the wrong message. There are variety in opinions on what is the right way to go about it. BL being an accommodating genre has space for all sorts of treatment. Even in live action, there is good variety in terms of how the theme is treated. But nothing is everyone’s cup of tea. This being the case it is understandable if someone like how MAME handles abuse, just as it is understandable if someone doesn't.

Assuming that fans don't engage critically with the theme and are mindlessly consuming it, have the implication of infantilizing the audience - as though they are without faculties of discretion and are incapable of making judgements. It also has the added implication of demonizing all media concerning queer people that deals with abuse. If MAME’s approach is deemed “unsafe” for queer population, based on that judgement, where does BL and gei comi that offer erotic treatment of abuse fall? What about queer people producing and consuming them?

That brings me to the points @nieves-de-sugui has raised.

4. how much all of these tropes where used (and still are). I believe that when things are made for tv they should take all the things you mentioned into account more than they do.

I believe that makers of live action queer content are very cautious. Thanks to that we are yet to get live action adaptation of any gei comi.

I have seen mainstream media ignore Gengoroh Tagame (probably the most popular gay mangaka creating content aimed at androphilic men) and his works for years in spite of his tangible influence on East Asian queer men. And then suddenly creating a live action adaptation of his all-ages manga My Brother’s Husband.

Who will dare to adapt his works Gunji or Fisherman’s Lodge or Pride? How can we show rape, trauma and taboo involving queer people on screen? What message will it give to the queer population? To the non-queer population?

A scene from Fisherman’s Lodge. Image courtesy of @finalatomicbuster.

If MAME was not involved in producing her BL, it is doubtful if it would have ever happened the way it did. Almost all BL adaptation is a censored adaptation, with notable exceptions like Sei no Gekiyaku. Recently, 25 Ji, Akasaka de (2024) removed complicated sexual content (including a dub-con episode) from the volume 1 of the manga, which was critical to the story and the couple’s development, in adaptation. Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro ka (2024) went as far as removing the more sexual second couple from the live action adaptation probably because makers thought it was better not to go anywhere near cruelty.

The first ever anime adaptation of a gei comi, Shin Yaranai ka based on Junichi Yamakawa's Kuso Miso Technique, is *sigh* disappointing to say the least.

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I wanted to quickly mention What Did You Eat Yesterday yaoi version since @waitmyturtles mentioned the series.

5. What Did You Eat Yesterday

I want to highlight that What Did You Eat Yesterday was not a BL in publication. It was published in Morning, a conservative magazine for middle-aged men. This is what got a live action adaptation.

Fumi Yoshinaga has created a proper BL doujin series that includes content that couldn't be part of publication in Morning.

Here are some panels from the two latest volumes of the yaoi. I wonder if audience would have had the same impression of the show if they had incorporated the doujin bits too.

6. One piece of the puzzle that's missing here is Thai rape culture that blankets all of their society.

This is an important point @yousaygoodbyeandisay raised and it applies not just to Thailand.

Sexual assault as a theme in BL, handled in a myriad of ways, has been the case since the inception of the genre. I have discussed the history in the context of Japan here.

It was during the publication of JUNE magazine that the importance of depiction of sexual assault in BL became clear to the editor through response letters from readers.

June is a place of therapistic rehabilitation for those women who had experiences of mental and physical abuses as a female. Mr. Sagawa said that he cannot ignore that there are not a few readers who had such experiences during their childhood.

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MAME studied BL and its production academically (you can find her research output by searching her name: อรวรรณ วิชญวรรณกุล) before she entered live action production. She not only know what she is writing/creating but also is willing to deal with difficult themes without taking sweet, fable-like route.

Now onto the points @mikuni14 raised.

7. my shock seeing so much SA related stuff (the show covered just about every problematic sex thing there is, and finally forgave the heinous criminal instead of putting him in jail. I don't know how MAME can create for example AePete and also somany vile things

For those who don’t know, MAME is a unique Thai BL creator. Thai BL creators on average lack BL literacies for various reasons. MAME is one of the exceptions. This is because:

she is a BL author & hence, one of the creators of BL literacies

she studied BL and its production academically [you can find her research output by searching her name: อรวรรณ วิชญวรรณกุล]

then she started producing live action BL

In an industry which is lacking in BL literacies, what she brings to the table is fu-culture (BL fan culture) in all its glory. Unfortunately, the live action audience who are fans of sweet BL, have a hard time adjusting.

Here are some typical narrative progressions for a (Japanese) BL:

あまあま – sweet

ユニーク – unique

シリアス – serious

邪道 – evil road (jadō)

王道 - royal road (odo)

Any theme/one-line plot can choose to take any of these narrative progressions. Moreover, Thai BL usually originates online which allows for innovation.

MAME employs different narrative progressions for different ships. AePete follows the typical sweet BL progression. KengklaTechno follows jado and TharnType odo.

TarTum is a sweet BL, complicated by them being step-brothers. While their pairing is barely on odo, Tum as a character has a complicated odo progression within their ship.

Since TharnType is an odo BL all wrong-doings are not punished. Take for example KinnPorsche, another odo BL, where the ending can’t be 'organized crime gets the main characters in jail'. In odo BL involving crime, most of the victims are usually cannon fodders. So, characters are not bothered much by the crime. But in MAME's universe, Tum is an important character, someone designed to make audience root for him. Hence the audience can’t dismiss the crimes against him. It is not wrong to want the narrative to have Lhong jailed. If TharnType was a sweet BL, it would have gone there.

8. selective memory

Selective memory is indicative of preferences and it helps to fine tune BL consumption. MAME's storytelling incorporates diverse elements. Those who enjoy her works also might find that there something or the other that isn't to their taste. This is an important part of BL literacies.

I enjoy dangerous characterizations over subdued ones and prefer a meriba more than a happy ending. While there are plenty of BL media with those, they are super rare in live action. So, I appreciate MAME for taking into account fans who want something different from sweet BL.

Here are the points @bengiyo raised:

9. What Did You Eat Yesterday v/s Old Fashion Cupcake

This has nothing to do with MAME but has to do with BL literacies more generally. Old Fashion Cupcake is more appealing to BL fans because it is a BL and hence not sanitized to continue run on a conservative magazine. So, it permeates moe (affect). Moreover, creators of Old Fashion Cupcake are better informed than creators of What Did You Eat Yesterday in terms of BL literacies. So, the direction and acting works better in the former than the latter.

9. The Effect feeling like the first huge volley leveled at BL from within the genre.

I am always amazed at the takes on the Effect. Somehow it is assumed to be a critique of BL genre. That's not the case. The Effect is a proper jado BL.

What audience are picking up on is the 'I can do it better' spirit that motivates a lot of BL creation. It is natural for audience to feel like the depiction of complex themes, such as sexual abuse, bullying, delinquency, identity theft, murder, infidelity, pregnancy, etc. are not dealt with well. Creating BL that fits one's taste better is one way authors and artists go about addressing the issue. That is how we end up with same theme dealt with in numerous ways. When that expands, we end up with sub-genres and BL categories.

Jado BL are rare, particularly in Thai BL.

It is difficult to sell BL with jado and other narrative progressions. It becomes even more difficult to sell branded pairings when the characters they play are not impeccable. It is unlikely that actors playing bad guys can sell products for advertisers. (Imagine the characters from The Effect being in ads together!) It is even more unlikely that fans would go broke behind wicked characters and would want to attend fan-meetings and concerts featuring them in some way.

This is also so as not to trouble the average audience’s worldview (世界観) and is clearly a low effort and low skill (in terms of BL literacies) approach. But since a lot of audience don’t appreciate villain-like characterization, it is clearly low risk, no chance of a backlash from angry audience and the best method for assured money making.

@respectthepetty has also flagged the next issue:

10. History3: Make Our Days Count.

Gays were being buried and put in prison in Taiwanese BLs in the same year it legalized marriage equality.

There is a lot of ethnocentrism in the hate that MODC gets, apart from lack of BL literacies. While I understand where that take is coming from given American media history in the context of Hayes code, AIDS crisis, etc., I wish media from elsewhere would be looked at independently.

Queer narratives everywhere have their own over-used tropes and historical issues. Malayalam media, for example, has the issue of having one of two queer characters having varathan vibe (Rosy in Ponnaranjanam, Kiran in Sancharram, Antony's boyfriend in Mumbai Police, Kiran in My Life Partner, etc.) that makes them look odd in Kerala's rurban landscape. Even Kaathaloram played into this trope. The problem is that it perpetuates the belief that queerness is an import of sorts.

Mindless application of media critique learned from the west leads to the brushing aside of pertinent issues with media of the region in favor of finding legitimacy via commonality with the west. That way we end up with crits accusing Moothon of employing bury the gay trope while ignoring that:

Moothon is a gangster action flick like Kammattippaadam

It is rare for romances irrespective of the gender of the main characters and genre of the movie to have happy ending in Malayalam. In fact, almost all great love stories in Malayalam movies are tragedies. This is unlike in Hollywood where heterosexual romances usually get happy endings.

more importantly, every queer character, including Latheef, is infused with varathan vibe.

Taiwanese BL has issues worth exploring. Issues of their own media - not varathan queer trope from Malayalam media or bury your gay trope from American media.

MODC was an dealing with well-established BL tropes (like any other show in the History franchise). It explored bereavement (a tribute to Lan Yu, first ever danmei live action adaptation) and substitute lover trope.

The series introduced a doppelgänger of Yu XiGu (Xiang HaoTing’s white moonlight), a perfect candidate for substitute lover trope. But instead of pursuing it, they subverted the trope.

History franchise, which was build to grow BL and BL literacy in Taiwan, ended up victim to prejudice since it failed to measure up to foreign standards. MODC offered something rare. The audience didn't appreciate it. They dismissed it for not measuring up to expectations colored by experiences which danmei is not connected with for historical reasons.

By that standard, would tongzhi literature from Taiwan too have to make amends for sins of the west towards its queers? Imagine stripping of death as a theme from tongzhi author Chiang-Sheng Kuo's works! Then there is also difference in how death is perceived in different societies.

Why must BL be arm-twisted to fit into norms from elsewhere and correct the wrongs of someone else?

11. BL profit off LGBT community

This is really interesting. There are many questions that I can think of that is linked to this take:

Is BL really profitable? Short answer is no. Long answer here.

Is it really LGBT community that BL profits off?

Probably not. It is moe that BL sells. That imo, is the main difference between BL and other queer genres.

Anyway, BL predates LGBT acronym. It predates de-pathologization of homosexuality in many BL creating regions. Fu-people were creating BL before mainstream media started representing queer people in media. Fu-people battled state and its censors everywhere along with queer people. Live action BL surely is commercialized. But that is capitalism reaping the dividends of decades of fu-people's labor of love.

@he-is-lightning-in-a-bottle raised the following point.

12. 2019 saw significant increase in quantity and quality of BL. Since then, live actions smoothed out the rougher edges of the source material (like what happened with Kinnporsche and Love in the Air).

While I understand the rational behind toning down dangerous characterization to appeal to the largest audience, I think that kind of censorship for commercialization limits potential of the genre. The impact is most visible in case of GMMTV BL such as Only Friend (where it could neither be sweet BL nor could it embark properly on jado).

Compare it with adaptation of the ero-BL Sei no Gekiyaku. It stayed true to the content and pushed the boundaries enough to bring about convergence between gay pinku cinema and BL. When BL is allowed to explore its potential freely, it not only imparts BL literacies but also makes it possible for other queer genres to gain new audience, which in turn encourages production houses to venture into different queer genres.

jjsanguine raised the following point.

13. I don't even hate toxic characters or plotlines, actually I love them. But like even if the characters don't know they're doing it, the show should. And it really really doesn't. And neither do the fans. Kind of alarming.

This is in relation to Lhong and San.

Lhong is a yandere in a odo BL. (for detailed discussion see Part 3) It is a matter of the world view and less about show's self-awareness (which I believe it has). If TharnType was an jado BL, Tharn could have ended up with Lhong and Type would be the stalking horse.

@jjsanguine later commented about how Lhong felt "goofy" by way of his over-the-top actions which made the show's convictions questionable.

San and Tharn's relationship was, to an extend, the most realistically depicted. I remember starting to learn about Thai queerness and realizing that a lot of elements in their relationship reads like ethnography. Consider for example Tharn being only fourteen at the time of sexual debut and San being older. This is not too different from the average age of sexual debut in Thailand. Despite it being a compoundable offense, average age of sexual debut is declining. Tharn's discovery of what he likes and dislikes and shedding cuteness (which San comments about) and adopting manliness (which Techno comments about) too is in line with what is observed among urban queer youth. Contrast this with Sky in Love in the Air whose sexual debut and exploitation are tied to his migration to urban landscape. Sky's backstory too read like ethnography and his vulnerability a reflection of the many others' in his society.

@absolutebl raised the following points:

14. Rape - as plot device - doesn't make good stories - lazy & bad writing: Feminist critique and modern narrative analysis.

Feminist and queer BL scholars from Akiko Mizoguchi to James Welker have discussed rape as a plot device in BL. Since experts have written plenty, I'll spare my effort discussing this misconception.

15. rape is an act of sexuality (or worse, sexy), it is NOT - it is an act of violence. But that is only the start to the way it’s chronically mishandled, especially in commercial fiction (of which romance makes the largest percentage).

Akiko Mizoguchi's two decade of work have addressed this in relation to Japanese BL which I feel holds true for BL more generally. Moreover, BL is not a romance sub-genre. BL is a genre in itself. A lot of BL is romance. There is enough overlap between those genres to give the impression that BL is a romance sub-genre. But there are plenty of other works too. Like One Room Angel and Social Reform Season. Similarly, BL is not a porn sub-genre. A lot of BL is porn. But come on!

16. [MAME] produces consistent highly-profitable narratives by-and-about queer folks but utterly disingenuous to the queer experience and that defines exploitation in the ET industry... Right, just adding that yes BL does not represent (in any way) the reality of being queer in any of these countries.

I have already discussed how MAME's works are intersectional reflections of queer experience. BL has been reflecting different queer experiences in Japan even before the term boys' love emerged. But narrow, ethnocentric ideas of queerness doesn't lend itself to honest understanding of other forms and representation. Consider characters being addressed as เมีย ‘wife’. It is a Thai queer practice. One can always dismiss that since it sounds heterosexist in the culture one comes from as absolutebl does in this post. That, imo, is 'disingenuous to the queer experience' of Thai people.

The question is what are westerners missing in their own countries' queer media that they feel they must just judge everything with no care for the cultures and people producing content for themselves? Seriously, what have the westernization done to some in the audience that they emerge so desperate for queer content that they watch BL yet remain blind to the cultures (fu-culture in particular) that produce them and splooge vitriolic ethnocentrism?

That concludes this discourse series. I want to sincerely thank everyone who contributed to and inspired this 🙏.

Other parts: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

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hamliet · 1 year

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It's A Boys' Love Story, Your Honor: Be Gay, Do Crimes

This review is often satirical and sometimes facetious. Or is it?

Anyways I got dragged into watching HIGH&LOW, a Japanese action show full of pretty boys punching each other. Aside from me wondering how all of them don't have CTE and screaming CHEST COMPRESSIONS when one character codes and the nurse like... walks away (he's ok the power of friendship is stronger than any defibrillator), it turned out to be a surprisingly excellent, enjoyable, and even poignant watch.

The plot is vibes at best and the narrative ideas are less formed than, say, those of Kinnporsche. But, what it does have down pat is characters. Pretty much every character is compelling from their introductory scene (except for the Mighty Warriors who exist purely to suck). The characters may not necessarily be the most complex or psychologically challenging, but they come across as intriguing enough, flawed enough, to carry series on their own. Like, I would honestly watch a full series based on any one of them.

To be honest, this show does more to establish who a character is, what they want, and make them interesting within a character's first 30 seconds than some high-brow directors do with three hours of film. I would honestly recommend it to anyone trying to understand how to characterize.

Also, it's basically a yaoi but with fighting instead of f*cking. It's just dripping in homoeroticism that they infuse with just enough plausible deniability that insecure straight guys can watch it too!

Although, being straight in this 'verse is pretty much a misery sentence for everyone except Kizzy and Kaito. I haven't seen such flagrant use of bury/break up your straights since Togashi.

But:

It's not a yaoi! you say.

To which I shall respond with numerous examples of what the f*ck is this then? The power of (b)romance?

Doubt. (Heh ifkyk.)

Cobra + Murayama

The same episode we get a girl having a crush on Murayama he's shown as completely disinterested because he's too hung up on Cobra. This leads to him seeking Cobra out. And also to him having realizations about himself. He's then kind to the girl, but not romantically interested. The framing of this Cobra-Murayama realization about himself with the episodes opening with a girl pining and ending with his kindness to her is clearly to get the audience thinking about romance and the other interactions in light of that.

Murayama embarrassingly asks to join Cobra in front of all the other gangs.

Murayama calls him Cobra-chan and sides with Cobra when all the other leaders of SWORD refuse. All three others have left but Murayama still tells Cobra he has his vote, even though it's not going to do anything, just so Cobra knows Murayama's on his side.

In End of Sky Murayama literally going behind Cobra's back to get Hyuga to agree to join Cobra's alliance to protect him, at personal risk to Murayama, even though Cobra will never know what he did for him, when even those most loyal to Cobra have abandoned him, is literally a romance trope as old as time. And it's literally set to inspirational music.

At the end of the movies, Murayama gets a motorcycle and is implied to join Sannoh eventually with clever color symbolism as @eatprayworm points out.

As if we didn't get it, The Worst literally shows us Murayama calling Cobra-chan on his phone and tells us that he frequently drunk calls Cobra by having him say that he's not calling about bikes... this time. This phone call shows 0 narrative purpose besides reminding us that Murayama's endgame is with Cobra.

Chiharu + Yamato

Yamato saves his life and then is told he has to "take responsibility for" Chiharu, which is totally not a reference to the common idea of a guy taking responsibility for knocking a girl up--

except it is explicitly because even Yamato's mom directly asks if he knocked someone up when she hears that he has to "take responsibility" for someone.

When they finally reconcile after Chiharu confesses to drugs Tetsu tells them "you look good together."

Chiharu then takes a bullet for Yamato. I mean, not actually, because it was a blank, but no one, not even the person firing the gun, knew it was a blank.

Tetsu + Dan

Whenever Dan expresses interest in a girl Tetsu gets mad at him and when Tetsu cuts off his dreads to be more appealing to girls Dan gets mad at him. They're in love your honor.

They'll leave a gang for one another.

They exist only in proximity with each other.

Tatsuya/Kohaku/Tsukumo

These old men are so gay. They started the fall. And by old I mean they're supposed to be like 26 but they are clearly played by actors in their mid-40s and so I'll just pack off and head to the Villages then.

Smok(e)y + Hiroto

Ah yes when you're wandering around Nameless Street looking for your older brother and he's not there so you and your other brother decide to leave but then! then! a sickly man wasting away everywhere but his hair (which remains luscious) walks in front of you, barely glances at you, and you instantaneously walk away from your brother and your life to go follow the twink. Much straight.

Rocky + Koo

Here.

They also use "anata" for one another. Which means "you," but also is frequently translated as "dear" because it's what married couples often refer to each other as.

The manga also implies they live together.

Yasushi + Kiyoshi

Everyone in canon refers to them as "Yasukiyo." They exist in a state of symbiosis with weird hair and insanity.

If anyone implies Yasushi was involved with drugs Kiyoshi will fight to defend his honor.

"He sacrificed himself for me!" ?????? That's a love trope, Your Honor. Don't worry, though. They're gay, so Kiyoshi survives his sacrifice.

Odajima + Todoroki

Fellas is it gay to spot a man across a battlefield and be so in awe you run over to him right away?

Is it gay if you then ask said man "you're different from the others. Want to play with me?"

Tsukasa + Fujio

Tsukasa mopes around like Bella after Edward left after Fujio moves away for like a week.

Tsukasa takes a bus ride across the country for the chance to fight his BFF again in the rain (wet, what is symbolism) and then tells him "I'll be waiting for you." And also "I should move here because it's boring without you."

Tsukasa might be held as a hostage but he knows Fujio will come for him. In fact his relationship with Fujio is explicitly paralleled with Amagai and Suzaki's.

Amagai + Suzaki

The redemptive power of love, as beautifully written by @eatprayworm here.

I mean Suzaki literally can barely stand and limps over to protect Amagai when Amagai is experiencing the consequences of his actions and then saves Amagai from himself.

At the end of the day all he wants is to be boyfriends with Amagai.

Probably my favorite ship because it's everything I love, meaning one of them is too good for this world and one is a bastard.

Nakagoshi + Nakaoka

Nakagoshi sacrifices himself for Nakaoka even in a parallel to Yasushi and Kiyoshi (don't worry, they're gay, so they live too).

Tsuji + Shibaaan

Do I even need to comment here?

And I didn't even get into Sachio's sunset conversation with Fujio, in which you visibly see the twink fall and then they, not knowing who the other is, subsequently meet and recognized each other on the battlefield like Mr and Mrs Smith.

Themes Too!

High&Low isn't exactly an uber-deep thematic exploration of what it means to be gay and do crimes, but the themes it does do it does pretty well.

One of those is indeed the redemptive power of love, which involves being seen and known. Y'know, that mortifying ordeal. Because love itself leads to freedom. It's true for Chiharu, it's true for Noboru, it's true for Arata.

Rocky and Kizzy/Kaito's story is kind of one of the best examples of the redeeming power of (platonic) love leading to freedom, and it takes like... 3 minutes? of the story. And it's not left unexplored; it's just succinct. Kizzy and Kaito are trafficking women and Rocky comes to stop them, and when fighting, notices that Kizzy is actually a transwoman. He stops the fight and says that he doesn't fight women. That's enough for Kizzy and Kaito to follow Rocky, giving up their life of cruel crime and atoning--truly atoning--by spending the rest of their lives doing exactly the opposite of their crimes: fighting to free women from traffickers and protect them.

The significance of that moment is that by seeing Kizzy as she really was, Rocky pointed out to Kizzy that she was engaging in self-harm, keeping herself trapped (symbolically) and never able to live as she could. But for Kizzy, to be truly free to be herself means helping other women also be free. It's also, even if unintentional, a good twist on the transphobic trope and conservative talking point of a transwoman trying to harm women (cough, she who shall not be named).

Kizzy also never styles herself super feminine even after gender confirmation surgery (as implied by Rocky that she received), but she still is a woman, and her being herself leads to redemption and freedom for everyone around her. We stan Kizzy and her loyal boyfriend (husband?) Kaito in this house.

Another theme, and connected to the idea of self-discovery and freedom and love and all that, is how to handle the past, a question everyone is always asking because as long as we're alive, we're evolving. Obviously we see that with the Amamiya brothers and the Mugen backstory, and we also see that in the present with Murayama and Todoroki. But we also see this most sharply highlighted in the conflict between Cain and Smokey.

Cain is not subtly named after the first murderer in the Bible, who kills his brother. Cain, of course, kills Smokey in cold blood, with Smokey asking him "did you come here to kill me?" and Cain affirming that he did indeed because if he doesn't, he won't be able to completely erase his past.

But the thing is, you can't kill your past without killing yourself. You have to embrace it and let it live. And something as precious as a life won't be so easily destroyed. To live, you have to live with all of yourself, the past and the present and the hope of a future. It's a struggle, it's a fight--but with people beside you, it's worth it. Almost like the fights in the series are a metaphor for struggling through life or something.

And then we have gentrification. Let's just say the horrors of it are not exaggerated. Smokey's death--and life--offer poignant social commentary on what happens when people treat others like they don't deserve to live, like they are forgotten, like they don't exist. Because they do exist, because they love.

When Cain kills Smokey, Smokey tells him--in all sincerity, despite being abandoned by his parents, living in a homeless slum, and being terminally ill his entire life because the rich poisoned the people in the slum--that he lived "the best life." Why? Because the scenes flash back to him meeting his adopted sister Lala, caring for Eri, meeting his gang. He had a family, and he loved them, and they loved him. When he dies, he's buried in that same slum and Takeshi comments that "to Smokey, this [place] is heaven." And it is, because heaven is love.

(Also, the "rich poisoning people by being careless because these people don't matter" is hardly unrealistic. Bhopal would like a word with you, Dow Inc, you sh*theads.)

In Conclusion

Things you'll have to endure: multiple Mighty Warrior music videos.

Things you get to enjoy: Hyuga being a Barbie girl in a Barbie world who shows up to fights with all the Durama Ikka and planned choreography and bespoke songs.

Things you get to enjoy: multiple twinks needing rescue from being dragged into the drug trade to save their loved ones only to get whumped in true hurt/comfort fanfic fashion before sobbing in the arms of their friends who welcome them home.

Things you have to endure: Noboru trying to convince Cobra et al to join the Mojo Dojo Casa House Kuryu Group.

Things you get to enjoy: The power of friendship saving Noboru from himself, Rocky from dying alone, Smokey from having no meaning to his life, Amagai from himself, Murayama from himself, Todoroki from himself, Arata from himself, setting captives free, and rich bastards who trod all over the poor getting what they deserve.

Things you have to just not think too hard about: gangs seeing drugs as the biggest taboo which I'm pretty sure is not usually the case but hey, hoodlums have standards, and also the evil guys keeping their secrets in a folder literally stamped with the label TOP SECRET.

Things you have to endure: Smokey dying. I'm not over it. Someone fight me to bring him back. But also it's one of the most beautiful death scenes in fiction.

Things you get to enjoy: Generally no one, unless you're Smokey, straight (Takeru), or yakuza (no one cares).

Things you have to ignore: why no one ever studies at these high schools and why they all look like they're in their 30s-40s.

Things you get to enjoy: pretty great rep of a trans woman that directly counters some of the most harmful tropes.

Things you have to endure: Noboru being resurrected by the power of True Love's Handholding, because the nurse literally RAN AWAY from a coding patient to "get the doctor" but it's okay, his friends beg him to live and he does.

Things you get to enjoy: a series that founds its premise in action and violence that offers a surprisingly wholesome, kind message on relationships, humanity, redemption, and love... whether that love is platonic or romantic.

But, I mean, Final Mission literally ends with the gangs defeating the evil corporation with a rainbow-colored smoke that takes over the sky of the city. So it's gay.

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nieves-de-sugui · 1 year

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The Story of Live Action BL in Japan

This is an extra post to accompany the history of BL post I did earlier.

Japan has had live action BL long before Thailand entered the picture. It was however mostly melancolic stories or manga adaptations, until their own particular boom happened. I make a difference between what I would call LGBTQ+ representation and BL Live Action, because even though they have existed parallely they are fundamentally different in their conception. Here is an interview with the curator of an exhibition that was held in Japan about the history of Japanese Queer Cinema.

The evolution of Japanese BL Live Action has been very slow, and mostly influenced by manga. It is still not a big market, but it has improved a lot in the most recent years. This is my attempt to put it into phases:

The indie like movies and bad manga adaptations

Let’s start with Boys Love (a movie), shall we?

It is the year 2006 and up to this point there has been a small boom of gay stories in the 1990′s (the first Tokyo International Lesbian & Gay Film & Video Festival was held in 1992 me thinks this might have sprung the yaoi debates). In the 2000's, we're at the start of a new little boom on BL type movies being made. Many of which would be directly released in DVD, with a constant melancholic and tragic approach to love stories between young men.

Homosexual love is only attarctive to the mainstream if it’s painful. Like typical japanese imposible loves that are explored because of the passion and innevitable tragedy (it’s a japanese trope of almost any kind of romance movie, up to these days). its the intensity of feelings and the poetry of it all. In Boys Love we see those elements that are now very common in BL manga. Straight men falling in love with beautiful young boys and loving them until their tragic end. The movie was released in theatres and was successful enough to get a sequel. Here is a very good review of the movie, to know more about it.

A number of similar movies (with happier endings) follow through. Then enters the Takumi kun series. Based off one of the most popular yaoi novel (and potentially the first live action novel/manga adaptation of BL), it has all the June tropes: Traumatized feminine Takumi, raped by his older brother when he was young, has developped an abberation to human touch which prevents him from making friends. He goes to a boarding school for rich kids where he shares a dorm room with Gii, the most popular kid on the premises, who has fallen in love with him. And it is through that love that Takumi gets over his illness and heals from his past. It was such a success in the BLsphere that it got 4 more movies. I believe it is the bane of @absolutebl existence.

After the first Takumi-kun movie, the production of BL type movies, or adaptations of manga gets a boost. We go from no more than 3 movies a year to 8 in 2008, ie:

Kindan no Koi Ai no Kotodama Taiikukan Baby

And so it continues. When a manga is popular enough it either gets a Live Action, a drama CD (voice actors record the manga dialogues) or/and a series of OVAs (Original Video Animation). Because that’s how they do marketing in Japan. I believe most, if not all, of these movies go straight to DVD. It’s a treat for the fans.

The beginning of the shift

As the manga source starts to evolve, so does the live actions. Japanese society starts being more aware of the LGBT (as the term is used for business startegy purposes). As it’s all about what is going to sell, slowly, a slight neutral realism starts to be felt. Melancoly starts to be replaced with happier moods.

The first adaptation I genienly enjoyed at the time was Seven Days, 2015. A 2 part movie, adapted from the manga, with a very simple story (still no characters properly defined as gay, but maybe they could count as bi?)

While more LGBTQ+ movies get made, the BL Live Action movies remain in the same vein. Adpating what is popular and sticking to the tropes of the time. For example, in 2017 we get simultaneously:

BL - Hidamari ga Kikoeru. A loud and energetic college student becomes friends with a hearing impared classmate, as he helps him take notes for class.

LGBT - Close Knit. An 11 year old girl gets tossed aside by her mother and goes to live with her uncle, who is dating a transgender woman.

The Middle Aged Man Phenomenon

Have you wondered why office settings are so popular in japanese BL? Well, it is mostly Ossan’s Love fault in my opinion.

Besides office romances being a staple of japanese tv dramas, in 2016 two major mainstream actors (Tanaka Kei and Yoshida Kotaro) participate in a small short film about a salaryman who discovers his boss is in love with him. A simple comedy filled with misunderstandings and funny shenanigans. As the response to it was very positive, they decided to turn it into a full flegged series. And so, Ossan’s Love comes out on prime television (TV Asahi) for all to see. It is the first time we see a story like this being shown in a mainstream channel, for all and anyone to see.

A year later after the success of Ossan’s Love we get the wonderful Kinou Nani Tabeta/What Di you Eat Yesterday? (2019), which would not have been possible without Ossan’s Love. There was confidence that there was a market for such a story. Followed by the OL movie: Ossan’s Love: Love or Dead. Which was later followed by a horrible horrible second season that nobody wanted. On this year too, Mood Indigo comes out. A sequel to The Novelist/Pornographer, which would secure it’s popularity. It later got a second season.

We are now in a second boom of interest in queer stories. And the number of movies and tv shows grow. Some of the most known:

Novel adaptation - Fujoshi Ukkari gay ni kokoru LGBT Movies - His Dramas - Life: Senjou no Bokura

Queer voices have been increasingly loud and, in 2015, two municipalities put in place a partnership to acknowledge same sex relationships (not recognized outside of those municipalities unfortunately).

And so, start mixing the homophobia free idealized stories, with more diverse queer content, with the harsh realities of LGBTQ+ people, and the cinematic interest of the filmmakers/directors.

The rise of the salaryman and the thai breakthrought

Thanks to the appeal of middle aged men, Japan now knows there’s a market to be had in producing BLs, so the adaptations sprout like mushrooms. The ground is ready to bear fruit, and so enters thailand with the big success of 2gether at the beginning of 2020.

Japan got to have the movie screened in their theatres. Thailand has broken the Japanese market barrier, as soon as the borders open after the pandemic, fanmeetings are held there one after the other.

And then, we get Cherry Magic in late 2020, which continues to cement that the current japanese BL boom is still going strong.

The Aftermath

The production of BL shows and movies reaches its peak and we get 26 (shows and movies) in 2022. Movies, specials and second seasons are being made.

From Utsukushii Kare 2021 to Strange 2023. Old and new manga gets an adapation and more queer representation grows in media overall.

The story of LGBT representation in shows in Japan

As an extra, I want to put here a few examples of how queer characters, and stories have entered the mainstream of japanese tv dramas. Many mainstream actors have also taken upon portraying such characters.

Pretty Proofreader (2016) - featured a gay side character, not relevant to the plot. My Brother’s Husband (2018) mini series - adaptation of Gengoroh Tagame’s manga about a man overcoming his homophobia through getting to know his bother’s husband Life As A Girl (2018) mini series - the life of a lesbian trans woman Ie Uru Onna S2 (2019) - one episode features different types of LGBT people who want to buy a house and the difficulties they face. Also had some type of side gay stoyline (a little queerbaity)? Ore no Sukato, doko Itta? (2019) - a gay man who dresses as a woman becomes a teacher at a highschool and helps with his is student’s problems.

Special mention to Residential Complex (2018).

A drama that featured 4 families living in the same residential unit, each with their own fundamental problems. The father in the traditional japanese family was unemployed, the man engaged to a younger second wife who wanted no children ends up having to take care of his son from his previous marriage, the young newlyweds that are eager to have kids can’t concieve and the single architect is actually living with his boyfriend. It was a show that had worked with an LGBT organization to make a faithful protrayal of LGBT realities.

Final Thoughts

Here is a list of all Japanese BL and Queer media, Japanese BL list. I recommend to check it out to see the variety of adaptations being made today. It is intersting to see the differences in plot in the shows that are adapting current manga (Our Dining Table) and those adapting older manga (Candy Color Paradox). There is also a lot of queer movies and shows worth checking out. Here are my recommendations:

Kamisama no Ekohiiki (series)

Both Me and Him are the Grooms (movie)

I think it is great that Japan is intergrating queer stories and voices to their BLs, as well as adapting more content to the screen. It is a very exciting moment to be living through, but it still feels like it might go away just as fast as it came. Japan is a very conservative country, that embraces change so very slowly. Queer vocies are making noise, but they have yet to manage to make their government listen. Japan is very setback in this sense.

I do no think Japan will be able to have a BL market similar to Thailand for its live action adaptations any time soon. They stick to what they know, which sometimes can be very good and others, bad.

I do hope for BL to keep on doing what it does best for society: subtly normalizing queer lives so that conservative people start welcoming the idea that they're just regular people (who deserve rights, come on Japan).

Hopefully we’re headed there.

#history of bl #bl history #history of japanese bl live action #this was the quicker one to make #the yaoi debates require more research #but it will be the next post in this series #I hope you had a fun read #I hope I did a good job #I don't know as much on this subject but I did want to make a post to give some context to why japanese bl is as it is

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monsterkissed · 2 years

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look i love fandom and fandom history as much as the next autistic queer but some of the “fandom elder tells you about how it was in the good old days” posts are straight-up historical revisionism. “back then fancreators and their readers/fans had healthy relationships where we respected free labour and didn’t harass people over what they made or liked and we had healthy communities uwu” literally what are you talking about. where. when.

i’m not even talking about the rampant bigotry (do you remember the reason “this contains yaoi m/m don’t like don’t read!!” was a common refrain?) i mean the entire comms that existed solely for insulting bad fanart or “sporking” bad fic. these weren’t just people outside fandoms mocking it, those calls were coming from inside the house and those comms were Popular. going thru ff or deviantart to find some poor kid’s mediocre work so you could put it up there for scores of other people to laugh at was a bonding activity. people put “no flames plz” in their descriptions and summaries because ye olde fandom loved to burn people to the ground for shits and giggles, c’mon

and it wasn’t one-way either. aside from fancreators picking on their peers, writers and artists could be plenty shitty to their fans. whenever i see those posts about how authors love comments on ao3 i am reminded of being back in the day on ff where certain BNFs would be openly hostile to the “wrong” kind of reviews. “don’t just say ‘i loved this!’, that tells me nothing, which is an insult to all the hard work i put in. but don’t leave long reviews trying to sound smart about it either, you don’t know my work better than me.” in fact the entire BNF ecosystem in general was an absolute toxic cesspit on fandom as a whole, as any given scandal from that era makes readily apparent. there were cliques and harassment campaigns and discourse and drama comms and tracing and plagiarism and suicide baiting and literal fucking cults and also the aforementioned rampant bigotry

there was no golden era that got ruined, you were just too young back then to realise how fucked up so much of it was at the time and now you’re old enough to see how fucked up the current stuff is. stop lying to children on tumblr dot com.

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atamascolily · 10 months

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Every single sentence of this Anime News Network review of Thunderbolt Fantasy 2x9-10 by Gabrielle Ekens is GOLDEN:

It's finally happened guys – Thunderbolt Fantasy has fully outed itself as a Chaos Dragon spinoff. Ever since the Funky Monk-ey's destiny became apparent, it was only a matter of time before Xie handed the blade over to her dopamine-deficient acquaintance, sending Dong Li into hell in the process. But I didn't expect that Di(ddy) Kong would turn out to have the exact same name – Lou Zhen Jie – as his D&D prototype from all those years ago. You know, Gen Urobuchi is really living the dream. The man is being paid to write high-profile puppet shows starring his goth qi-channeling swordsman OC. That's like the ultimate goal of anyone who has ever created a DeviantArt account. I'm green with envy.

You know, this explains so fucking much about S2, and I am HOWLING. I kept saying that Thunderbolt Fantasy reminds me of a wuxia-themed D&D game, but I didn't expect that to be LITERALLY TRUE. This is even funnier than the fact that Urobuchi started writing for Pili in part because they killed his favorite character off in their main series, lololol.

(For context: Chaos Dragon is an anime adaptation of Red Dragon, a six-session D&D game with Urobuchi and a handful of other well-known Japanese authors, in which Urobuchi spent most of his time trolling his compatriots and killing as many NPCs as he could get away with. The original Lou Zhen Jie--inexplicably gender-flipped in the anime version--is a warrior monk armed with a sentient sword and obsessed with death. Sound familiar yet?)

Ekens also calls Lou "the big bad Buddhist boy, Dong Li's worst therapist, the perpetual walking Evanescence song who's just renounced his vow of celibacy to a sword" and I cannot decide which of these epithets is my new favorite, so I think I'll go with ALL OF THEM.

Also, nothing will be able to, ahem, top, this passage:

... The middle of this ninth episode delivers some weirdly late setup for what's going to go down between Vape Wizard and Glasses Cop. At least Urobuchi takes the opportunity to slip in some Hot Yaoi Content™ in the form of Xiao leading Lin on a leash. (He could slip out of those ropes at any time...but he won't.) ...For all of [Glasses Cop's] bluster, it looks like the Enigmatic Gale has taught him a lesson in topping from the bottom. ... Grade: A

DAMN STRAIGHT.

#thunderbolt fantasy #wuxia fantasy puppet epic #lou zhen jie #lin xue ya

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daz4i · 1 year

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watching rowan ellis's video abt omegaverse makes me want to kill youtube and its censoring rules. this is a perfectly fine educational video but it mentions sexual things so she has to bleep out words, misspell captions, and omit article names or talk around certain topics and that's honestly lowkey (or highkey) fucked up

i don't understand why youtube just doesn't have different rules for videos with adult topics, honestly kind of like the tumblr community labels, where certain advertisers can focus on as well (like ads for alcoholic drinks. all the yaoi app ads I've seen ppl post abt. sex shop sites. stuff like that yknow??) like basically make it like the opposite of youtube kids, and people can choose in the settings whether or not they want to be recommended videos from that section of youtube on their feed or search results

no straight up porn, but like. educational videos such as this one that talk about sexual topics. sex toy reviews or guides. trans healthcare resources that talk about genitals. these are things that SHOULD be easy to find and that the people making them SHOULD be able to receive money for even if their channel isn't big enough to get sponsorship deals yet, and people should be able to read accurate captions for these videos (or at least uncensored captions in the automatically generated ones. on god i hate google for replacing swear words with underlines) i don't understand why this is such a difficult concept to grasp

#am i crazy. this seems like such a simple solution to me. it actually solves multiple problems even #like the violent videos accidentally marked for youtube kids by the algorithm for example #if the creators can just say in advance ''hey this video has violence'' without their video getting nuked immediately -#- it'll also help keep kids safer. this is literally a win-win idgi #and yeah most advertisers might not want to get involved with those videos. but not all!!#esp with the violence stuff. think how many sponsors true crime channels get for example #i couldn't find a place in the actual post to talk abt this topic but yeah. that too!#I'm tired of 'unalive' 'k-word' 'did a not so nice thing'. youtubers having to do hand motions bc they're not allowed to say sex. etc

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down-the-yaoi-hole · 2 years

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Lucid's comics are the gold standard of boys love and I will fight anyone who says otherwise: a review of Avialae

For all 2 of my friends who read this blog, I want you to know that I debated for weeks about which comic to review first. Should I start with the "classic" yaoi manga from the 2000s/10s that sparked my obsession with boys love media in high school? Maybe write about the current trends on popular sites like Lehzin and Tapas? Or perhaps just dive straight into monsterfucking with my one true love, HamletMachine? Well, my questions were answered when nearly $200 of @misslucid comics showed up at my door last week. Thanks, Mom & Dad, for letting me shop for my own Christmas presents and not asking ANY questions about my purchases. May you never learn that I spent all your hard-earned money on porno comics and Chinese boys love novels.

The reason I say Lucid serves the gold standard of boys love is because their work touches on all these factors: they draw on the comics language and visual humor of yaoi manga, publish on the popular webtoons sites on a weekly basis, and of course the crème de la crème: they've got monsterfucking in every. Single. Comic. Have I died and gone to heaven, or did I just fall asleep on my open copy of Avialae volume 4? They're really the epitome of porn WITH plot, my absolute favorite type of erotica. My friends who prefer one-shots laugh at my desire to be strung along by a story--sometimes for months on end if it's a weekly webcomic like some of Lucid's work--but I always say it's like emotional edging! When you've seen as many illustrated dicks as I have, you need a little extra somethin' to make it worth your while, a carrot and stick situation, to use an appropriately phallic metaphor. And let me tell you, Lucid's work is worth the wait. Ultimately, I'm starting with a review of Lucid's comics so you can get a sense of my taste--this is what an A+ perfect boys love comic looks like on this blog.

First, some links! Lucid has one completed webcomic, Avialae, that you can read for free on their compilation site, yaoi.biz (the funniest URL I have ever bookmarked). That's going to be the focus of this review, since I just re-read it in print. They're also posting weekly pages for The Hunt (the Sterek fan comic of my DREAMS) and River Street (vampire x grim reaper pretty boys in NOLA) on their site and all the buzzy webcomics sites. I would highly encourage subscribing to their Patreon and/or purchasing the print comics from their online store. I've done both, but I'm a real sucker for the print books and their printed editions are totally worth the splurge. Glittering foil letters on the covers, creamy heavyweight paper, and bonus comics printed in the back, not to mention the glow-in-the-dark details on the The Hunt: it's book nerd paradise.

OK, got all that? Gave them all your money because we pay artists for their craft around here? Great, now let's dive in.

ART: Even in the very earliest pages of Avialae, you can see that Lucid is a professionally trained comics artist whose attention to stylistic detail elevates the emotionality of this series. This image comes from the very first chapter, in which Gannet wakes up to discover he's sprouted bloody, shriveled bird wings overnight. The golden-hearted bird-watchin' boy next door, Bailey, helps him patch up his back and hide his wings in the early days of the comic, in which the characters are trying to hide this monstrosity (read: queerness) from others in their conservative, midwestern high school. Lucid wrote a wonderful note about their artistic journey with Avialae in the back of volume 6, explaining that this comic was a way of reconciling their formal art school training with their personal preference for the pure camp of boys love comics. The gray wash, they explain, was considered an acceptably artsy fartsy medium for an indie comics artist to work in, even though they could hear the siren's call of full color webcomics over the horizon, and would eventually return to color with The Hunt. They clearly had to make their own way with their art, to find a balance between high art and high camp, and you can watch this journey unfold throughout the Avialae books. They start with a lot of edgy concepts and painterly line work (as you can see in the background work above), but noting readers' responses they slowly started camping things up with more yaoi tropes and visual jokes that really punched up their 'comics language' (Scott McCloud, step aside-- there's a new game in town, and they understand that comics should involve manga gags and hole pics). Their anatomy is impeccable, their backgrounds are nuanced and diverse, and huge credit to them for drawing these elaborately detailed wings for years on end. I'm a huge fan of their other comic, The Hunt, as I am apparently stuck in the year 2012 and read Sterek fanfiction once a month at a minimum, but I think the art of Avialae is my favorite. From their personal writing, I sense that this art style might not have felt the most true to their webcomics origins, but I love the subtle beauty of the gray wash. You can really see the stroke of the artist's pen in this medium: ink blooms in the background around the characters, gestural line work creates movement and fuzz that makes it feel more handmade, and the lack of color focuses one's attention on the emotions of a scene. And just look at how their skill has grown over the years! From this first sketch of a bird boy having his wings wrapped by his offscreen boyfriend, to the refined intensity of this page from chapter 6 where Gannet saves Bailey from falling out of a tree, Lucid has really honed their craft and it's been a joy to watch.

2. STORY: While the art of Avialae is probably my favorite part, Lucid's writing certainly does not disappoint. Sometimes when someone is SO artistically talented I think, ah well their writing just isn't going to be as good, there's no way someone can be that perfect, but nope! They've got it all. They have a great sense of narrative pacing across individual pages, chapters, and the total collected work; their plots make SENSE; and their dialogue is both realistic AND fuckin' funny! I think the exchange between Gannet and Bailey around ~swapping roles~ in chapter 4 is some of my favorite writing, and Lucid so smartly invokes both dialogue and the language of comics to make their joke. When Gannet's question, "Have you ever thought about bottoming?" is following my the SCRRRCCH of the car skidding to a halt, I yelped with laughter! Later in bed, Bailey asks if he should be "feeling it" more since Gannet always looks like he's "melting" when he bottoms, Gannet's response of "Oh, that's because I'm a slut" is met with the perfect little aside-expression of Bailey's exasperation. It's a comedic beat pulled from the pages of BL manga, where showing a little chibi emotional reaction face is commonplace, and it made me CACKLE. In summary: suspense, humor, and compelling emotional moments between our two male leads make the writing un-put-down-able.

3. CHARACTERS: Well folks, as you might have guessed by now this is a no-holds-barred Lucid stan account, so yup, rest assured their characters are just as much as fun as the technical elements of their comics. First of all, I love a gay monster metaphor--you can never go wrong with a character struggling to discover literal monstrosity alongside their very gay feelings for a friend, as far as I'm concerned. Second, who doesn't enjoy a sassy slut and a boy-next-door pairing? It's as classic a combo as peanut butter and chocolate!

Our two leads, Gannet Sharpe and Bailey Gilbert, have a whirlwind romance (or should I say whirl-wing--get it? Oh you did but you're just not laughing? Alright BE that way) going from frenemies next door, to co-closeted monsterfucker high school classmates, to interspecies lovers exploring the hidden world of the Avialae bird people deep in the Appal-GAY-chain mountains (I'm not sorry and I will never stop). I assess characters based on writing, design, and pure n' simple fuckability, so here we go.

First up we have Gannet, who evolves from an angry gay teen stuck in a small town to a lovestruck fool who would do anything for his partner, even abandoning his title as long-lost prince of the bird people in later chapters! He's defined by his biting humor and indefatigable slutiness, and I absolutely adore him. His character design is gorgeous--he's a strawberry blonde covered in freckles that blend into the dappling on his wings. We watch his dyed black hair grow out through the series in a gesture of subtle realism that speaks to Lucid's incredibly patient and thorough artistic vision. He's got a splendid little collection of body piercings but I won't spoil the surprise for you here--you'll just have to read the books to see more. An incredibly fuckable character, indeed. Personally, I'd say I lean more into identifying with Gannet rather than wanting to fuck him myself, but that's just because I'm also an edgy strawberry blonde, and am not usually attracted to people who I think look too much like me. But I'll be honest, if I ever landed in the world of Avialae and saw this cutie in his angel costume, I might have to make an exception.

Bailey, on the other hand, makes me go absolutely FERAL. His BLUSH, his TEARS, his EMOTIONAL SINCERITY--god DAMN I am sprung. He's got this tight little track star body and an ass that Gannet is often admiring from afar, and wow do I get it. Not too tall, glasses, normcore in the streets and a begging bottom in the sheets: I love a man who can do it all. Bailey is funny in his own right, the naïve "straight man" (but gay) who is constantly comedically surprised by Gannet's outrageous advances. He's obsessed with birds despite an allergy that leaves him constantly sniffling in the first 2 chapters, but he gets new allergy meds and through it all supports Gannet in his trial of self-discovery. He's sweet and simple but also a raging monsterfucker, and I would absolutely DEMOLISH him in bed.

4. HORNINESS: Ah, the most important category on the list: how spank-bankable is this comic? Well, let me tell you: you're going to want to lock this one in the vault and throw away the key. Your sexuality will be forever changed for the better by these loving little twinks screwing each other 6 ways to Sunday. I'm not going to post any explicit pictures because Tumblr, ugh, but you should know: Lucid's artistic training really pays off. It's an uncensored salve to all the white-out lightsaber dicks splashed across Webtoons right now. Holes, poles, mouths, and feathers a' flyin'--you're gonna wanna see this.

Hands down, though, the best part of Gannet and Bailey's dynamic is that they SWAP ROLES. You almost never see this in boys love comics, and I think it's to the detriment of the genre as a whole. I say this as queer cis woman who identifies as an S&M switch--real gay people swap roles in bed all the time! Sure, plenty of folks identify as only a top OR bottom, or only ever play as a dom OR sub, but a lot of us live in shades of gray; it's all about the dynamic with a specific partner. When I first read this comic online about a year ago, I think I actually screamed out loud when I got to chapter 4 and realized that it wasn't just a joke in the car--Gannet was actually going to top Bailey after 3 chapters of the opposite dynamic! And holy shit was it hot. There's something so satisfying about watching a boy bottom for the first time, and adding the unexpected surprise of having a theretofore tomboy top confess to wanting to be controlled, dominated, entered by his far more femme partner? I was over the goddamn moon with giddy horniness.

The monsterfucking is also excellent, especially if you're more into light fantasy monster lovin'. Personally, I love me some wild ass monster dicks in my porn, but the human anatomy in Lucid's comics is so well done that I don't even mind if no one is getting gaped or cum-dumped! Gannet and Bailey have a really tender, loving sexuality that shines through all their kinky adventures, and I have happily jerked it to their beautifully realistic sexual exploits many, many times. Also, major points to Lucid for including condoms and lube in every single sex scene! This ain't your mother's magically pre-lubed yaoi hole, folks--this author actually knows how human buttholes work. Their characters speak openly about STD testing in the epilogue wedding, and when they finally do it RAW it's with full informed consent. I really loved this little condom PSA in a BL world that seems typified, these days, by buckets of cum spraying everywhere, on everyone, all the time. Don't get me wrong, I love a cum shot as much as the next pervert on the internet, but Lucid's subtle attention to reality makes their comics feel emotionally organic and satisfyingly original.

FINAL VERDICT/TLDR: 10's across the board, Lucid's Avialae has it all: great art, humorous writing, sexy & believable characters, and kinky ass sex scenes. Porn with plot made for all you sentimental monsterfuckers out there, this comic is sure to satisfy if you're looking for a longer read that'll really suck you into its fantasy world. Highlights include: a killer sense of humor, beautifully rendered bird wings, a swapping sexual dynamic, and an evergreen gay-monster-metaphor that feels familiar but still fresh!

I truly love all of Lucid's work and hope to write in more depth about their ongoing webcomic, The Hunt, in a future post. Monsterfuckers unite! Thanks for reading.

#boys love #humor writing #comics review #boys love comics #yaoi #manhwa #i don't know how tags work i'll be honest #lucid #avialae #just WINGING it get it #sorry not sorry #monster fucker #monsterfucking #swapping #bird people #i think that's enough right? just read the goddamn review #mine

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rebbystuff · 1 year

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Opinion Piece About Sexualizing Characters (I also hope female peers can analyze my review because unfortunately they face the most harassment due to sexualization and are more knowledgeable about the subject)

Apparently I heard about an incel group doing some particularly messed up actions, and this brought up my opinion about sexualizing characters. I find it ok to sexualize characters, male, female, nonbinary or some form between, as any gender as long as the author themselves and the characters consent.

A male person can sexualize some character who is female, as long as the female character is aware and ok or gratified with the sexualization. On the other hand, while I appreciate Male on Male for existing in spite of it's taboo nature seen in mainstream society, I am not ok if one of the characters does not consent. Basically sexy fanart can exist as long as both characters AND the author clearly consent about this.

I personally hate demonizing straight and gay sexuality for all genders as long as it's consensual. Let straight men be straight and let gay men be gay, though unfortunately the latter is more taboo than the formal.

What I am NOT ok with is when someone decides to sexualize some character WITHOUT the character's or author's CONSENT. The unfortunate truth is that straight males are more prominent in sexualizing female characters WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT because it is normalized within society, though don't attack any dudes who just like boobs and does it with respect and not in a gross way.

I also unfortunately must clarify that MINORS CANNOT CONSENT. DO NOT SEXUALIZE ANY MINORS UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

Finally I must mention my sexuality, though in my personal (and potentially flawed) thinking this is redundant. I'm a bisexual male who prefers females but wouldn't pass up on a good yaoi from time to time. I'm hypersexual but I wouldn't post it on main unless as a joke or I consider it SFW enough. I avoid sexualizing real people like the plague even if they are ok with it because I find it gross for myself.

I accept and even invite criticism on my post or even my hypersexuality, but I will not accept attacks upon my character or sexuality unless you can point out a serious flaw, at which I will do a community analysis to analyze if this is legit criticism or toxic manipulation.

#opinion #opinion piece #sexuality #tw sex mention

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absolutebl · 2 years

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Hi, absolutebl.......Do you mind if I ask you some random thing? I used to love shoujo/josei manga and het romance kdrama equally....But ever since I found BL manga 3 years ago, my interest in shoujo and het romance decrese a lot, and what I search for is just the dynamic between mc (male) and male lead...I don't want to read or watch mc (female) and male lead or mc (male) and female lead...

What do you think happen to me? (Sorry for this weird ask)

Really love your blog....Thank you so much, for sharing your BL analyses, reviews and recs. I learn a lot from you. Some of my fav BL series, I found them from you.....Thanks.....

Do you mind if I ask again for BL recs? Because I know here are users that did not want to receive different asks from the same person.....

Also, have you watched dmbj or read orv? Both series based on a novels that have very strong bromance vibe.....

Do you know that sotus, manner of death and 2together are adapted into manga? Before I found your blog, BL that I read are from manga and manhwa, and I was surprised when I knew that the series above are from thai drama (I know the manga first, sorry).....

Last ask, what do you think about BL or GL that make it better than het romance? Do you feel that too?

Sorry for this very long ask, if you mind, I will not ask again......Hope you have a wonderful day.....

Honestly I don't know. But I can say it happened to me with manga a very long time ago. I switched from reading bodice rippers to yaoi and pretty much stopped reading anything het romance after that. (I still read scifi & fantasy that's not primarily romance, although not as much as I once did.)

Fortunately for me, the M/M self publishing revolution, and then BL, came along.

That said, I did pick up Kdramas (via Kpop), and they are now the only het I watch.

I've gone through phases where yaoi or m/m or BL was ALL I was consuming for a couple years. And then just stopped. Stared reading more widely for a while. (I'm making the comparison with books because I have never had the opportunity to do this level of obsession with cinema before, there has never before been enough on screen queer romances for me to just watch those and nothing else until 2020. Now there is.

Honestly, I don't know why this happened or me, or anyone else.

To understand why we like a thing, let alone obsesses or fixate on a thing, is so complex. Maybe it's because I come out of kink but I've learned to just go with the fetish... as it were.

It's like trying to understand why you like a particular dish, song, fashion, color, painting, architecture, even a plant or animal. I mean we can come up with explanations, flavor profiles, childhood formation of taste, family backgrounds, and so forth. Or academic analysis to do with disenfranchisement and the psychological appeal of narrative and beauty.

But sometimes often we like a thing because we like a thing.

I know, for humans, the "why" is our most powerful question. (Marketing also knows this, incidentally.) One of the reasons we tell stories AT ALL (to ourselves, to others, around a campfire in ancient times) is our search for the eternal why. It gave us mythology. It gave us religion.

But sometimes, especially with art, I feel like it's better just to dwell in wonder and grey spaces. The awe and the enjoyment itself, without understanding, it part of the experience.

Worship at the church of BL? Is that what this is? Maybe?

Some kinda thoughts anyway?

Generally these narratives provide a sense of comfort. Perhaps our love is something to do with characters who normally struggle (and usually are marginalized, tortured, killed and/or miserable) getting their happy evers? Perhaps it's because it's pure fantasy in terms of relationship. (I think for a lot of straight women there is something profoundly alluring in a gay relationship that they had/have no chance of every experiencing or being part of, the otherness itself is part of the appeal.) Perhaps its the lack, we never before had enough content to get obsessed over it to this level. (Let's not talk about the number of times I rewatched Latter Days after I got it on DVD, okay?)

I mean it's worth putting yourself through a thought experiment. Write down a list of ten things you like about BL that make it differnet from other kinds of media.

But you may find it's just like "why do I eat at Wendy's instead of Burger King?"

Because I like it better. They do the thing I like. (Spicy chicken sandwitch, FYI).

Perhaps it's something more profound, a kind of narrative sexual identity. It's the thing you desire. Then again, I'm pretty fluid in my desires, so I am comfortable with the idea of being attracted to different people at different points in my life. Just like being into different kinds of media at different times in my life.

I wouldn't worry about it if I were you, so long as:

It's not to addition level (damaging your emotional/financial well being)

You're comfortable with the notion that your tastes may change again