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stuffnonsenseandotherthings · 1 month

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This Is A Gay Asian Rant About BL Comments Made By Some Queer Westerners I See Sometimes.

So you know of those gays (usually white) that made dumb tiktok dancing to list of countries that legalized same sex marriage and list of countries that discriminate against LGBTQIA+ poeple as a way to say something racist. yeah i kinda got the same vibes from some comments regard how asian BL are homophobic just cause they don't live up to queer western standard. look, i'm not saying that some BLs and their creators don't deserve criticism regard how they capitalized/exploited queerness for an easy cash grab.

But people need to understand that Asian countries despite recent progress are still very much culturally conservatives. so when people says that thai bl is homophobic and all the characters looks like bunch of straight guys, which is true for some olders thai BLs i'm not gonna denied that. but after all this time and newer BLs generally being very queer and most of creators being out queer themself and poeple still making these comments, i'm annoyed.

And don't get me start on the actors. you don't know them! why are you making assumption and calling them queerbaiter just cause they acts in bl. like maybe they're straight, maybe they're not but what they're definitely doing is making queer content for you know, queer people here. so when you made halfass comments about their sexuality what do you think that made other queer people who still in the closet feels. and when you add the nationality to that, "these thai bl pair are this and that, this korean actor is so ungrateful for his bl past", etc. when our societies are still very much still in progress regard LGBTQIA+ acceptance. it make us living here feels fucking awful like somehow we're lesser queer than people in the west just cause we don't have citibank at pride or some shit.

And the shittiest in my humbled opinion are comments regard censored chinese bls. people do know like, that the creators making these bls are risking their livelihoods for this. that these shows getting make at all are miracles. yes it sucked that they're censored but they're still very much queer shows making by queer people who want to express thier queerness despite the chinese government being the chinese government. when people dimissing these shows as not belonging in queer media, you're also dimissing their creators and audiences as not belonging in the community.

Look what i want to say is that we're trying our best over here, and maybe our best are not up to your liking. the ways we talk and express our queerness maybe still can be perceived as problematic by western queer standard. but these media are our house and you're the guests. for people aren't shitty we appreciated that you're here engaging and loving our media, this is your home too and you're welcome in it. i can speak for myself that i very much love being here on tumblr and interacting with people from all over the world who love BL. but for people who are being shitty sometimes about asian bl.

YOU'RE THE GUESTS, BEHAVE!

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stuffnonsenseandotherthings · 2 months

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I really like you. I want to spend. I want to spend more time with you. I always want to see you. So can I walk you home today?

LIGHT ON ME (2021)

#light on me

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stuffnonsenseandotherthings · 2 months

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LITBC Part 4 Check In

I’ve been mulling over this book for the entire week, and even as I sit here to get my thoughts down I am still fighting back an intense melancholy that grips me. I know Young. I have loved Young. He is a beloved friend. He is a pain in the ass. He is someone I will always miss. He is someone I wish I could have been closer to. I am still thinking about that balloon.

I think what I’m happiest about is that Young seems to genuinely regret failing with Gyu-ho. I like that most of our time thinking about Gyu-ho is not spent on the mean things he wrote in his fictionalized version of Gyu-ho in his stories, and instead we’re hit constantly with small memories of their time together. There’s a passage from this section that continues to linger with me:

“Using all kinds of other methods to create Gyu-ho and write him as other characters, I’ve tried to show the relationship we had and the time we spent together as complete as they were, but the more I try, the further I get from him and the emotions I had back then. My efforts become something fainter and more distanced from the truth.”

I can’t stop thinking about the sadness of grief and what it means when we no longer have someone around. They stop being a person who interacts with us and shapes us, and they become only this memory in us, and the quirks left behind. It makes me sad because truly most relationships fail. A lot of us are going to have many loves, and a lot of them won’t work out. I love that Young is so bad about all of his relationships and we can see where he messed up with Gyu-ho. I hope that the next time I fall for someone I do a better job at recognizing what he needs.

I hope that all the other queers reading this book were able to find parts of Young they could connect to, and I hope that listening to his stories helps them.

I will be chatting about this book with others, and I hope Young’s sass comes through for them. He’s been one of the most engaging narrators I’ve gotten to read in a while. I love listening to him talk and the way he thinks. I just know he would get on my nerves in person, and I couldn’t deal with him all the time, but I do love him.

As for the adaptation, I am really looking forward to the sequence when Young and Hyung meet up with Hyung’s fake activist friends, and also the scene where he tries to strangle that man. I think I’m also really looking forward to the final scene where Young sort of collapses on a random porch in Bangkok. I feel like that shot is going to be incredible.

This book club has been a great experience. I want to thank all of you for sharing so much of yourselves and your experiences over the last month. I appreciate how everyone has taken to the spirit of the book club and kept up with the reading and adding on to everyone else’s posts. I can’t wait to react to the show and movies with you all, and I hope we find another good book in the future.

#litbc book club #love in the big city

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stuffnonsenseandotherthings · 2 months

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I'll (hopefully) be posting my thoughts for the final LITBC discussion soon but, for now, I want to just put a stray thought out into the world.

As someone who, for several reasons, has had an incredibly difficult relationship with sex and the role of sex in relationships, I really appreciated how nuanced the depiction of physical intimacy was in Gyu-Ho and Young's relationship.

In a world where sex and love are frequently depicted as inseparable from one another it was.... comforting to see a relationship where sex wasn't stigmatised but in which it also wasn't necessary. Gyu-Ho and Young do enjoy sex on the occasions they (can) have it but their relationship is separate from that, they have other ways of expressing their love for each other and of being physically intimate with each other that are no less meaningful. The lack of sex does not diminish their relationship nor does it lead to it ending.

I wish I'd seen more relationships portrayed like this when I was a teen/young adult but I didn't, it was one extreme or the other and it really mucked things up.

#litbc book club #personal #but it really hit me this second time round reading

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stuffnonsenseandotherthings · 2 months

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stuffnonsenseandotherthings · 2 months

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people pleasers trying to establish boundaries be like

#laws of attraction #thai bl

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stuffnonsenseandotherthings · 2 months

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#i have a list

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stuffnonsenseandotherthings · 2 months

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Adaptation Concerns

I found out about Love In The Big City through this book club, so the very first thing I knew about it was that it is going to be adapted into a movie and a series. Throughout my reading, one question has therefore been a constant presence in the back of my mind: how are they going to adapt this?

Already after reading Part I, I had concerns and wrote in my notes that “This seems to be the part they'll make the movie adaptation of which raises the question of if they'll be able to keep it as raw and unfiltered or if they'll romanticise it.” This is after reading part I, before we got into the truly heavy stuff.

When this week’s reading questions popped up, I realised that my concerns for how the adaptations will be done are clouding my expectations for both the movie and the series. Don’t get me wrong - I am very much looking forwards to seeing the movie and the series, to see how they handle the source material and to get to discuss it with you all, but when @bengiyo asks “What parts of the book are you most anticipating in the forthcoming adaptations?” I can’t think of anything. I can't think of a single thing, because what I am anticipating is disappointment.

Now, maybe I’m just tired and cranky and pessimistic. Maybe I’ve just been let down by one BL series too many in the past few months. I am feeling like a party pooper, but after receiving an ask on the subject from @archiveofmystuff (and this is your answer to that ask, btw), I realised I’m not the only one thinking of these things. I am honestly concerned about how the movie and the series will handle the source material, and the more I think about it, the more concerned I get. The reasons are many, so let me break it down a bit, starting with a couple of things that concern both adaptations and then delving into the movie adaptation and the series adaptation separately.

[putting the rest under the break because it's long and also spoilers]

Heavy (Taboo) Themes

As we’ve discussed in several posts in the past few weeks, the book handles a lot of really heavy themes. There is homophobia, terminal illness, attempted suicide, stigma and discrimination and HIV - and that’s just me rattling off the first few things that come to mind. All of these topics are not just complicated, but also sensitive. Some of them have been handled in Korean series and movies before (terminal illness and suicide, for example), some have not. Not that I can claim to have complete knowledge of what happens in Korean series and movies, but I have never seen themes such as HIV and the stigma and discrimination around it.

Would a mainstream Korean audience be ready for a movie/series depicting such themes? Coming from an outside perspective looking in, I do not think so. As we’ve discussed in part III (for example in this post by @stuffnonsenseandotherthings) many of these topics are still seen as taboo in Korea. I am therefore very concerned about how they’ll tackle these subjects in the adaptations - if they’ll tackle them at all. Korean series do not have a pristine past when it comes to representation of queer characters. Seeing that the author himself is the screenwriter for the series adaptation gives me some hope, but not enough to assuage my worries. They might make a fantastic job of it. They might make an honest attempt and fumble it. They might remove parts. I do not know, and all I can do is wait and watch the movie and series when they come out. But they are going to have to tread very carefully, and they are going to have to be very aware of what decisions they make in the adaptations.

Mainstream Reception

How the movie and series are going to be received by the mainstream audience is another worry of mine. Especially because they (the producers, writers, directors, investors and everyone else involved in making these adaptations) have to be aware that, to some extent, these adaptations are going to be viewed by a larger mainstream audience. Why? First off, the source material is a prize-winning novel that has gained some attention. This alone could lead to a wider interest among the general audience. However, what really makes me think the movie and series adaptations are going to go mainstream is the choice of actors.

The movie is headed by Kim Go Eun. She’s got several main roles under her belt, perhaps most notably in the incredibly popular series Goblin from 2016 but she has also been the leading actress of several major productions since. Long story short: she’s famous. In the movie adaptation she’ll be playing Jaehee. With her, she’ll have Steve Noh who’ll be playing “her gay best friend” and Kang Ha Neul (I haven’t found who Kang will be playing, but my assumption is that he’ll be Jaehee’s boyfriend). Neither Noh nor Kang are newbies, and they’ve both been in large productions before.

The series seems to have Nam Yoon Su playing the main role of Young, and Nam isn’t a new face either. He gained recognition in the Korean series Extracurricular in 2020, and has since been busy. Alongside Nam there are several familiar faces, such as Lee Se Hee, Jin Ho Eun and Kwon Hyuk (who, interestingly, was also in the Korean BL series The New Employee). As with the movie adaptation, none of these actors and actresses are newbies - they are more or less known faces.

My point? Adding known actors and actresses to a movie and/or series production is going to bring interest from a larger mainstream audience. This brings me back to the previous point about the heavy themes in the source material - will a mainstream audience be ready for a movie/series with such themes? Will actors and actresses of some level of fame be willing to put that fame on the line, with the risk that the movie/series could be badly received because of the general view of such taboo themes? Will the production be willing to take the risk, or will they cater to that mainstream audience and aim to create a more palatable product? Again, I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see.

The Movie Adaptation

The movie is going to be an adaptation based on part I with Jaehee, which initially seems like a wise choice. There’s a lot going on in the book, potentially too much to do it all justice in one movie, so to choose one part of the book seems like a good idea. The focus, however, concerns me.

As mentioned above, Kim Go Eun who’ll be playing Jaehee in the movie adaptation is potentially the most famous person out of all the actors involved in these two adaptations. Kang Ha Neul who (I think) will play the husband-to-be is also quite famous, while Steve Noh appears to be slightly less so (please do contradict me if I’m wrong, this is based on my own impressions from watching series as well as the MyDramaList profiles). What does this tell me? The money and fame is invested into the straight characters of the story.

And the synopsis?

“The movie depicts the love and separation of the free-spirited young generation, the free-spirited Jae Hee and her gay best friend Heung Soo who share a house together.”

Am I just being picky, or is Jaehee introduced as the front and centre of the film?

My concern here, based on the choice of actors and various synopsis that I’ve read, is that they’re going to straighten out the movie. They’re going to make Jaehee the main character, which is going to make for a heteronormative story with traditional values. My pessimism is telling me that we’re getting “lost young woman living with her gay friend (le gasp!) finally settles down with a proper young man and finds happiness in marriage”. Young (in the movie renamed Heung Soo, another clue that they’re going to be changing things) is going to get sidelined and left behind, and while that is the theme and tragic end of part I in the book, it’s going to be proof that the gays don’t deserve to be happy and in love in the movie. This, for me, would be the worst case scenario and all the alarm bells in my head are going off and I do hope I am wrong.

Please, I beg, surprise me.

The Series Adaptation

As earlier mentioned, the series adaptation has the authors as the screenwriter, which is very promising! As mentioned above, the risks with famous actors and a mainstream audience applies here as well, but I want to address two additional concerns: genre expectations and narrative structure.

Genre expectations I am curious to see how they’re going to market the series adaptation. Korea has been putting out more and more BL series lately, no doubt catching on to the success of Thai BL series the last few years and wanting to cash in on the popularity, so they might decide to market Love In The Big City the series as a BL, which would come with certain expectations from the audience. Regardless of the marketing, large parts of the audience will not have read the book before seeing the series, and there’s the risk that they’ll approach it as one would a normal BL series. That is, I suspect they’re going to expect romance, BL-style kisses/sex scenes and a happy ending.

That is not Love In The Big City.

There is romance, yes, but it is tragic romance. It doesn’t work out. Young does not get to skip happily into the sunset with his partner - not to mention that there are several partners and failed relationships, which does not happen in the world of BL. And the sex? Most BL-fans will likely expect a sweet/passionate kiss, some will hope for an expertly composed bed scene of deep sighs and romantic lighting, intimate touches and blissed out expressions transitioning to some cuddling and pillow talk. Now, I’m not trying to throw shade, but that’s not how sex is depicted in the book.

In the book?

“We’d gone at it a little too hard - there was bleeding.” (134)

Yeah. Not happening in your regular BL-series.

As I thought already after reading part I, this book is unfiltered. It is raw. It is real. There is no romanticisation to be had. And I am worried that the production will choose to filter it to cater to the expectations of the audience, or the audience will react negatively to the rawness of it and reject it. Again, I hope I’m wrong.

Narrative structure Judging from this post that @my-rose-tinted-glasses put up, they’re going to cover the whole book in the series adaptation. As already mentioned, that’s a lot to cover, but this is a series and so they have more time to cover more ground.

But the book is not written as one story, it is deliberately written in four parts that are connected but not structured as a single narrative. I have been reading it as parts of the author’s own life, or at least more or less inspired by the author’s own life. They’re bits of reality put on paper, written as looks into a life lived. While some editing and adding has surely been done, the parts are not structured with the clear narrative arc and conclusion that stories tend to have - because it’s not a fictional story.

I think the book is better for it. I appreciate how real it is. But how will they carry it over into a series? Will they follow the book closely and let the eight episodes correspond to the four parts? Or will they weave it together into one cohesive story with a narrative beginning, middle and end? If they change it, it’ll be at the risk of losing some of the real rawness of the book. If they don’t change it, it’ll again risk alienating a large portion of the viewers.

I obviously do not know what they’re going to do with these adaptations. With what I know of the audiences - both the larger mainstream audience in Korea and the more specific BL-invested audience - I think that large portions of the audience will be unable to appreciate Love In The Big City, so I believe that the production will choose to make changes in the adaptations. What those changes will be and what the final product will look like, only time will tell. In my worst moments, I've been convinced they're going to pick out the “good parts” and piece together a perfectly generic romance, offencive in its inoffensiveness, all smooth where the book is crinkled with the raw complexity of real experiences. As I’ve said before: I hope I’m wrong.

Final thoughts lifted from my notes:

I am equal parts overjoyed that they're really investing in these adaptations and worried that they'll scrub it clean.

They're either going to create a generic romance that's not worthy of the name, or they're going to make history.

#litbc book club #movie adaptation #series adaptation

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stuffnonsenseandotherthings · 2 months

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#to watch #Love of the Sea (2023)#khmer ql

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stuffnonsenseandotherthings · 2 months

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Spoilers for CityBoy_Log S1 ending so look away if you're wanting to watch I guess:

With all the discussions about CityBoy_Log and how it blurs the boundaries between fiction and reality I think it's very important to address the fact the final scene of s1 implies one of them is a vampire.

I don't know if that's going to turn into a "hahaha gotcha" moment (quite possibly) or they're actually going down the supernatural route (I'm down for vampires with vlogging and it would be a very good way to show everyone this is in no way real) but either way, that's how the show has decided to end for now and I feel like I'm going crazy because no one is talking about it.

#cityboy log #did I misunderstand the scene #i watched it multiple times #i did not miss-see the biting or the blood #where does this leave us and where the fuck are we going?

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stuffnonsenseandotherthings · 2 months

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CityBoy_Log: Blurring the Lines Between Fiction and Reality.

I was doing my daily scroll through YouTube one day when a thumbnail (this thumbnail) caught my eye:

Now, at first glance I'll admit there's nothing exceptional about it. In fact, it's so perfectly run of the mill that I actually thought it was a vlog from a new K-pop band that I hadn't heard of before at first. The name, the picture they chose, the title.... all of it checked out and I had no reason to be suspicious that it was anything other than it seemed.

Anyway, I was bored, it had been a while since YouTube had recommended me anything K-pop that wasn't a group I was already subscribed to and I was feeling nostalgic for a good K-pop vlog.

It was only 5 minutes

What harm could it possibly do?

So I clicked on it.

And then I feel down a rabbit hole.

CityBoy_Log: The Drama

So it turns out that "CityBoy_Log" is not, in fact, a K-pop group's travel vlog series, nor is it a vlog series at all...

Well, it is...

But not really.

It's actually an 11 episode BL drama.

Summary:

Idol Lee Jae Jun, model/actor Lee Ji Han, actor Seo Byuk Joon, and rookie model Ahn Hyo Sang start a vlog channel about their trip to Okinawa, Japan for a photoshoot. The four meet for the first time (aside from JaeJun and Byuk Joon, who are longtime friends) when they learn they will be sharing a home during the trip. Though Ji Han's introduction caused some tension within the circle, the group's feelings towards each other start to change and grow as they keep vlogging. The vlogs show how their individual friendships develop by the end of their stay and after coming back to Seoul, some even beyond just platonic. (Mydramalist)

On the face of things, "CityBoy_Log" is a pretty straight forward drama (some might even call it mundane). Four friends navigating their relationships with each other on a trip. There's a main couple and a side couple and plenty of pining and love squares to keep the audience and the characters on their toes. Really nothing standout in a world where Semantic Error, Love for Love's Sake, and Eighth Sense exist, right?

Except the format.... the format is something else.

Because when the summary says "the vlogs", it really means the vlogs.

"CityBoy_Log" is a BL drama told entirely in character.

Like your typical k-vlog, the majority of the content comes from hand-held cameras carried about by the characters, only occasionally interspersed with aesthetic shots from their "camera crew". The characters talk openly to the audience, updating them on what's going on and what they're thinking and feeling; transitions between scenes are choppy and periods of time are missed due to "unfilmable" moments that we either only catch glimpses of or are told about later (or in some cases, have to fill in the blanks ourselves); dialogue is choppy and sometimes even awkward (especially as they're still getting to know each other) and voice cracks, nonsensical lines, and awkward pauses are all over the place.

It is feels messy, lightly edited, unscripted, and, for the most part, very very real.

Blurring the Boundaries Between Fiction and Reality.

Seeing how far the creators of the show have gone to make this drama feel realistic is fascinating. All the episodes are posted as vlog episodes on the show's YouTube Channel, they post additional shorts that follow the latest trends, and even have celebratory lives where they talk to fans. And all of this is done in character.

They also have an Instagram page and on MDL there is very little information about the actors (who use their real names for their characters) and no information about the team behind the scenes (although I suspect they're linked to whoever made Semantic Error because that show gets name dropped a lot and they even "audition" for the upcoming drama made by it's creators) .

Given how much effort has gone into making "CityBoy_Log" pass as real it shouldn't be surprising that there are quite a few people who believed it was real for a time.

Now personally I am a huge fan of innovative storytelling techniques and "CityBoy_Log" has really hit it out of the part creatively (it reminds me a little of SKAM in that respect). I applaud the actors for just how realistic their characters feel (I actually can think of anything harder than having to pull off "act like you're not acting" and they do it flawlessly at least 90% of the time) and whoever came up with and executed the show really did something special too. It's an incredibly compelling watch (I binged it) and I immediately felt connected to all the characters in a way it normally takes a drama a few episodes to set up.

Do I have my doubts about how wise it is to blur the lines between fiction and reality so much? I won't lie, yes, especially as this show is rooted so heavily in 2 fandoms where those boundaries are already heavily blurred but for now I'll trust that they know what they're doing (perhaps more so than many other shows that draw heavily on fan service). It does seem like, at least for now, while everything feels real and in character, that it does exist in its own little bubble and that the actors involved are able to leave it behind when they get off work.

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how it progresses, given that a second season has been confirmed and there was.... a very interesting reveal at the end of the last episode. I'm looking forward to how they continue to play with the format and getting to spend more time with Jae Jun, Ji Han, Byeok Jun, and Hyo Sang

🔗Here's a link to the channel if anyone wants to check it out:

https://youtube.com/@CITYBOY_LOG?si=CKqz8QdfzySCqRyL

CityBoy_Log: The Vlog

Team Hyo Sang all the way. All this puppy wants is for his hyung to notice him and he is adorable about it.

Tagging @lurkingshan @twig-tea @respectthepetty and @rocketturtle4 because I don't know if you guys have seen the show yet!

#it's a tricky one isn't it?#but I'm currently intrigued #and omg yes GMMTV CANNOT hear about this #I don't want to know what would happen if they attempted a series like this omg #they can't draw any fanservice lines at all they'd probably make the pairings live in character for the rest of their lives

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