Honglou Meng

You make such an eloquent appeal -- by which I'm both touched and honoured -- and you're right, my going away will do nothing at all, and I wouldn't have found some wonderful people. But, having lost friends to suicide due to societal homophobia, anything that hints of it makes me very angry and upset indeed. Part of my anger also comes from people in the comments section who are homophobic, and say the same nasty things as your in-law.

Not speaking of whom, I'm so sorry to hear what that person said and did. My husband completely understands why I watch BL, and even encourages it if it helps me process through some painful adolescent homophobia and bullying. Equally, he thinks it a wonderful way to explore new cultures, and encouraged me to use it to learn Japanese, which I have been. You need supportive people in your life, who see why you do the things you do -- if they harm no one and they help you. Otherwise, why bother?

I'll be around, and you can talk to me all you want. I'm glad you felt safe enough to be vulnerable with me, and so openly here.

P. S. This also applies to all of you here who feel this resonates with you.

Ah, Etoks. I can't tell you how others do it. This is how *I* do it.

First, assume that, with most BLs, you're not going to see "All About Eve", but "All about Steve." In other words, Mankiewicz ain't the screenwriter. (I hope, as a good gay man, you get all the references.)

Second, I start all Thai BLs at 1.25x speed. The slow speech is a TV convention, as far as I can see, and most Thai BLs (esp. since 2020) come with so much bloatware that I assume that the writers must suffer from IBS. If the bloating seems particularly severe, I go to 1.5x, and, if by the end of second episode, the symptoms don't stop, and the show is nothing but a pain in the arse, I take imodium and go to bed.

Third, I give the benefit of the doubt to all Taiwanese and Korean BLs, and start normally. I seldom watch either on 1.25x. However, if, within the first five minutes, only five lines of dialogue are spoken, against shots of men slowly walking around in a schoolyard, with sepia lens flares against their head, I prepare to skip generously. If this is an interior monologue about their past love, I pour myself a shot of rum.

Fourth, with JBLs, I never speed up. Just as they are bipolar, and do either "soft fluffy no-kiss" BLs, or the hard-core BDSM BLs, I too either watch it, or quit. (Takara is once again an exception, because it was so exceptionally bad as to be amusing.)

Fifth, it's not as if BLs aren't repetitive. It's like learning a language. You learn the basic grammar (tropes), basic expressions (I'm only gay for you), and a basic vocabulary (basketball), and you become fluent in it. If a plot point is important enough, it'll come up again. And you can always go back if something becomes confusing -- which, funnily enough, is a problem I've never had.

Lastly, and most importantly, if the script and acting *are* in fact good, you tend to know within the first 15-20 minutes. That really helps. It has been my observation that while quality may dip in the latter half (when you run out of patience, or ideas), it seldom improves later if the beginning is a trainwreck. (I mean, how do you put it back together?) For example, Old Fashion Cupcake, Gohatto, No Regrets, Happy Together... you know within the first few minutes you are in good hands. With Sunset Vibes, say, or, dare I say it, First Note of Love...

Good rules of thumb, don't you think?

Well put! Thank you!!

But jpny01, you do realise that we are now the same person, right?

You say all the right things! :)

Hmmm... I see what you mean. I see two possibilities: one is that Zhao Xi is in the closet, whereas his "partner" is out and proud. So, not wanting to spill the beans, he might potentially use that female teacher as a beard to boost up his straight credentials... until, of course, it all comes to a head, and he acknowledges his love for Bei Ting. The other possibility is that it sows the seeds of misunderstanding and jealousy between Zhao Xi and Bei Ting, whereas the female teacher knew all along that they were a couple. Both, of course, are well-worn tropes, but I don't see what else they could do with this set up. Either way, I don't see Zhao Xi being straight or bisexual -- not in this universe!

I'm afraid I cross your morals all the time, etoks! I'm very impatient, and apart from Japanese BLs (Takara no Vidro does not apply), most of them struggle to keep my attention. The old school Korean LGBT films did; the side couple in Moonlight Chicken was the last time a Thai BL did. But I can't remember the last time a Taiwanese BL held my attention unflinchingly like the BL cut of Love is Science. I do find most Taiwanese BLs charming enough that I'll give them a go, even if I generously skip portions of them -- and when I do, it's usually because I can't bear the sudden intrusions of loud piano music, which sound as if Liberace died on his piano, and was sent to the Department of Ironic Punishments in hell...

We're the ones with an agenda? My favourite BL ever is "Old Fashion Cupcake." Does it have a sex scene? If so, please do tell me, for I'll rush to watch it.

You're the ones with an agenda. To desexualise us, and to erase the 'sex' from homosexuality. And then to vote down very good shows simply because they show gay men having sex. I'll call it out: it's homophobic. And yes, people who watch BL can be homophobic. And people who are gay who watch BL can be homophobic too. (Especially those who, it seems, have had the privilege of growing up in places where their sexuality and love are accepted -- thanks to the hard work of LGBT people who came before them.) Hate, like love, does not discriminate.

Last time I checked, gay and bi men were sent to their deaths not for NOT kissing or having sex with each other, but for daring to do so. We didn't come all this way once again to be desexualised.

Meanwhile, if there is a show with no kiss whatsoever, I'm fine with that. There are perfectly good BLs without any. What we object to is being told that we are perverts for wanting to see men kiss in shows that are actually about men in love. I'm sick of it. The kind of language that is thrown at us... "Grandpa", "Groomer", "Pervert"... That, apparently, is not hatred. But when we come up with valid criticisms of a show, and call out lack of intimacy, that *is* hatred. Because puritans always get to set the standards. (We still live in a world left behind by Plato and Confucius, not by the quietists or the Daoists.) It is alright to call a show here *cute* because it's your opinion, but if we say, "no, it's NOT cute", or ask why they censor gay kisses alone, then, that is invalid, and constitutes hatred, just because the opinion is ours.

By all means, please be my guest and stop engaging with me. (Do you hear me? DO NOT REPLY.) I never asked you to. Your homophobia infuriates me, and worries me. It's like we're going 20 years backwards, and it gives the lie to the myth here and elsewhere that BL is doing some kind of service to LGBT rights. If anything, it makes us feel once again that we are the playthings of straight people, who construct us in the image of whatever they want us to be, be it the perpetrators of crime and carriers of diseases, or, the cute dolls that give them feelings of warmth -- so long, of course, as we don't do anything that makes them uncomfortable. Enough.

Oh, I forgot about the childhood connection! I should add it to my DIY kit above.

Haha, I did create a whole DIY kit for Thai BLs once. Choose your recipe:

Option 1: Engineering school (maybe medicine, other faculties not invited), bleached white shirts (often with blue jackets, which, in the heat of Bangkok of course makes sense), intrusive fujoshis, screaming femme fudanshis, offensive stereotypes of trans characters, comedy soundtracks, gurgling sounds of hunger, basketballs, beach trips, gentle towel-drying (often for fever), application of ointment over a bare scrape, early declaration of love (and 8 filler episodes afterwards), awkward accidental fall kiss that should normally result in a trip to A&E, versatile straights differentiating into *cough* well-defined tops and bottoms, "I'm only gay for you", entire scenes written for product placement, bottoms who don't know how to put on a helmet, and the all important 11th episode curse. Toss together in a thick spicy sauce of hot men and serve immediately.

Option 2: Reincarnation plot. Optional bury-your-gays. Gather, rinse, repeat.

Option 3: Guitars (or bands with guitarists). Knowing how to play is optional. Gather, rinse, repeat.

If the sauce is not spicy enough, throw in a few sex scenes in very slow motion, set to lounge music from circa 1980. Take care not to disturb a fibre of hair on their heads, and make sure their bodies are suitably dehydrated and painted *white*. Spice levels may vary. Heat not guaranteed.

I have already written to the admins for an answer. I'll let you know if/what I hear.

But, if I found out that any such policy exists, officially or unofficially, I'm leaving the site. If it's hosted on American servers, I'll also see if it can't be reported to the FCC for discrimination.

Is this really true? Can you give me a source for this?

If so, I'm quitting it instantly. I won't give a dime of my time or money to a website with such an explicit policy.

I think there is a Spin The Wheel somewhere of Thai BL plots.

Engineers (rivals to lovers) -- Boss & Employee -- Racing -- BL about a BL writer -- High School (rivals to lovers) -- Engineers (friends to lovers) -- Guitars -- Basketball -- High School (friends to lovers) -- Mafiosos (really bad at their jobs) -- Engineers with Guitars -- High Schoolers with Guitars -- Reincarnation -- Haunted House -- Engineers.

Have I missed much?

Yeah, it's like buying a Victorian terrace in London, and opening the door for the first time, only to find out that your in-laws have already moved in and want to live with you. My libido has already called an uber.

I think the female teacher is meant to be a supportive fujoshi -- hence all that ham-fisted reference to the rainbow flag. The two guys do talk about being a couple in the bar earlier, I think. (Don't they own that bar together?)

On the step-brothers-not-being-step-brothers, it's a Taiwanese BL, etoks. It has become as indelible to TBLs as the word Taiwanese itself. I'm not sure it feels transgressive anymore.

Many of us -- I should hope most of us -- are big fans of kisses. It is a basic expression of human desire, and one of the most intense expressions of it (if done right). A great philosopher rightly said: "it's there in his kiss". You might find that the hot kiss in Time of Fever was more than a little bit responsible for its popularity.

There is a Japanese anthology series called kiss x kiss x kiss. It is a compilation of nothing but kisses between people (of all persuasions), and is one of the most erotic shows I have seen. With all due respect for people who identify as asexual and demisexual, who are apt find their own expressions of love, kiss x kiss x kiss is one of the few shows where the physicality of love speaks for itself without the need for a 10 episode build-up. Each kiss tells a whole story. If it was more widely available, I should hope it'd be even more popular!

But worry not! Mou Mou seems to be getting increasingly popular by word-of-mouth. And I have yet to see a proper (that is to say, loving) kiss in it. But, caveat spectator: them boys do have boners!

P. S. Yes, I know that this is a Taiwanese BL, and not from mainland China (though with some investors from there, I believe). I'm just being ironically sardonic, or sardonically ironic, whichever you prefer.

If only TBLs would lean less on loud music, and more on their actors -- who *are* good -- to move their audiences to tears... Otherwise, what's the point?

The ending of Ep. 8 was lovely. "Welcome Home." A beautiful moment.

Why did they then have to ruin that moment by playing a godawful soundtrack at such volume that the SARFT office in Beijing can hear it?

Even then, the kisses in Mood Indigo and The Novelist took my breath away. And I've seen a Pinku Eiga or two in my time!

Thank you! I hadn't the heart to go back and confirm. I get quite piqued by non-kisses, or dead-fish kisses with proptosis, and it is heartening to see that even people here are growing fed up of it.

Just out of curiosity, why are you so obsessed with whether or not etoks and I are the same person? Does that make any difference to the argument itself, or the substance of what we (or I, if you prefer) say?

If you can, engage with the ideas, and not with our (my) identity. It just shows that you have nothing substantive with which to attack us (I mean, me).

This made my day! Thank you!!

I'll message you privately about my background!

I was chatting to @etoks21 today, and I realised that it is indeed the ending that ruined the film for me. I couldn't quite articulate yesterday why I felt so disappointed, and so attributed it to tropes. But tropes, when done well, can be brilliant. Although the romantic tension was quite lovely in the first half -- if somewhat derivative -- I couldn't deal with the artificial separation at the end, and how it was handled. Without it, I might have enjoyed it a lot more.

I'm also someone for whom a single scene, or the wrong ending, can ruin a whole show. Cherry Magic and MODC are both in my worst BL list for that reason!

Haha, yes! There is a scene, early in the novel, where Lady Deadlock recognises Hawdon's (I think that's his name) handwriting, and asks about it to Tulkinghorn. "Why do you ask", he says. And she replies: "Anything to vary this detestable monotony. Oh go on, do."

Something about that concatenation of words -- which I'm probably misremembering -- stuck with me. So, whenever I watch something, and I need things to speed up, I find myself saying: "Oh go on, do." Hence the reference.

Also, another person who disliked ITSAY? Where have you been all these months?