Good Guy, My Loss

A Review in Two Letters

Letter 1. From James/Elyes to Me:

Dear Meng,

Forgive me for not writing sooner, but, something strange is going on. As you know, I left Auckland to take up a new position in Bangkok, and I was really looking forward to it. However, since coming here, my world has turned upside down. Completely. I fear I may have left the real world behind, and might now be the lead in a Thai BL. Is this a good thing? Or bad? Help!

Since I stepped foot in this beautiful country, people keep calling me handsome. It has never happened before. Men, women, children, pigeons... they all call me handsome. That was the first clue. I have also lost most of my body fat. You can now see muscles in my body that I did not know existed. Then there is my skin. You’d think that, even with sunscreen, my translucent skin would become more and more tanned, being this close to the equator. But, if you can believe it, I’ve become paler. I suspect someone has been applying a thick coat of make-up on me when I'm asleep, all over my body, and it refuses to come off when I shower. You’d also think that the humidity of Bangkok would mess up my hair into unmanageable frizz. But no, every strand perfectly falls into place, even when it's wet with lube or shampoo.

I am the head of a company whose name I do not know, and whose business I do not understand. I wear suits. It is 35 C outside and I wear suits. I do not sweat. For some reason, I also cannot button up my shirt. Every time I try, it keeps unbuttoning itself, sometimes down to my waist. I go up to my colleagues showing my nipples and navel. Is this sexual harrassment?

I have an assistant. His name is Pat. At this time, I’m pretty sure we have an abusive relationship. I think I’m still gay in this world, or at least bi, but I’m not allowed to say it. Everytime I try to, someone chokes my throat. Not sure who. (Also, all the men in this world seem to be gay, except for one friend of Pat’s. Who would have thought it? Gay friends are no longer the side-kicks, but straight men are. Progress?) Anyway, this assistant does not to do any company work. He just manages my sex life. Which, I think, takes up a good chunk of my waking hours. I know he’s in love with me, and I like him too, so it is only fitting that I treat him horribly, and make him cater to my every whim. I am obsessive, possessive, and controlling, and I'm pretty sure I'm gaslighting him too. I suspect I'll be stalking him soon, then abduct him, and keep him under house arrest. All very romantic. But he loves it... I think. Weirdly, I have this other fuckbuddy named Kim who’s much hotter, and way better in bed. Pat, by comparison, is stiff as a board, and resists me like a Victorian virgin. Yet, the BL gods have willed it that I must lust after this wet blanket.

I keep falling ill. Pat keeps falling ill. We both keep fainting, often from a cold, often caught from a single drop of rain. But we don’t go to the doctors. Oh no. We unbutton our shirts instead (in my case, there's just one button left), and we gently rub each other’s white-as-chalk chests -- and, weirdly, our knee-pits, which is apparently an erogenous zone here -- with wet towels. I suppose leeches and blood-letting are no longer sexy.

Am I the arsehole here? You don’t need to ask Reddit. I am. Yet I’m sure there’s a reason for it, and a past will be revealed which will perfectly justify my present behaviour. Until then, I’ll have to put up with everyone calling me a “red flag”. Which is fine, because I hate "green flags". Only, I’m not sure I want to stay here. I know, it’s a pretty cushy life I have right now. I'm rich, hot, immensely fuckable, and answerable to no one. Who’d want to give all that up? But it sits so oddly with the world of today, and the person I was, that my conscience might not permit it. We shall see.

I’ll write if I have any updates. Pray for me.

Love,
J./E.

*****

Letter 2. From me to Elyes

Dear Elyes,

You will notice that I'm no longer calling you by your birth name, because I've been waiting for a reply to my last three letters, and have received none. I must presume therefore that you have now embraced your new identity, and are completely of the BL world, with no access to reality whatsoever.

You lucky bastard. Couldn't you have taken me with you? I hate it here. You get to live in a world where homophobia does not exist, where the majority of men are gay, and where straight people exist just to support you. A photographic negative, in other words, of the real world. Worse, in your world, you are also apparently rich, handsome, and attractive to anything that can breathe, all of which makes me want to run to my GP and ask for a prescription for Ozempic and Rogaine. Only, I can't afford either, because, in this world, I don't even have a pot to piss in.

Admittedly, there is a Mephistophelean bargain here: you've been reduced to a mere stick figure without any psychological depth or complexity, upon whom is foisted the most boring of lives, and the most nauseating language. But who cares? I just want a happy ending -- in every sense of that word. So do you, and so, certainly, does the audience, most of whom will eat this up no matter how horrible you are, and no matter how "toxic" they find you. And when the show "redeems" you, which it doubtless will, all the people who once screamed "red flag" at their screens would now cheer for you and Pat. Where's the incentive then to be good or have a personality? Sod it. You do you, girlfriend!

I was, for a moment, sad for you, because you are now trapped within the confines of this world, and must live out the same segments of your new life over and over again. But I soon realised that's jealousy talking. You get to be perpetually young, perpetually rich, and perpetually happy, while others around you, including the man you supposedly love, get perpetually abused, insulted, or shoved aside. I suppose that that, at least, is a faithful enough reflection of the real world. But then, we *know* the real world is horrible. Otherwise, none of us would be watching Thai BLs now, would we?

That said, a large part of me is also quite angry. Not with you, necessarily, but with the writers. On the one hand, I have lost you as a friend, and that makes me sad. On the other, I'm angry that the writers have written you into this cheap, derivative, lifeless world, instead of creating for you, and for us, a fantasy that is more worthy of you, less demeaning to others, and had greater ambitions. But then the gods of Thai BL have decided that stories such as yours, which they keep churning out at the rate of one a week, is all that its audience deserves. And why not? We keep coming back, because, evidently, we are all masochists here, and we will put up with any amount of suffering to see an imaginary glimpse of happily-ever-after.

I don't want to end on a wistful note. I shall miss you, and I miss the best days of Thai BL. But I want you to be happy. Do us a favour though, will you? When you do get together with Pat, for the tenth time no doubt, have the decency to dick him down properly. I mean, dick him down so properly that he will never have cause to complain again -- except perhaps of having to limp to work. The poor lad deserves at least that, don’t you think?

Take care, my friend.

Love,
Meng.


Reader's Digest:
DO SAY: Blame it on the Bossa Nova
DON'T SAY: What's HR?

Leia Mais

Ten short sermons on how (not) to write (a BL)

1. If you're going to write a show wherein music is an important theme, the characters' fingers must at least touch the instruments convincingly. A few piano lessons (or guitar lessons) will go a long way.

2. A show about musicians must, well, be musical. No amount of autotuning, nor a liberal sprinkling of English words, can conceal a fundamental want of talent.

3. A rock star -- even a grieving washed-up rock star -- is allowed to age without unkempt unshampooed undeloused hair. It is unforgiveable to make Charles Tu look that ugly. Even more unforgivable to use a wig that looks like it was the sole survivor of a tornado that ripped through a FujoCon.

4. Bowl cuts are not markers of youth. Anymore than manbuns are markers of midlife crises.

5. Still on the subject of hair, are blonde mullets a thing now? Does anyone find them attractive? Orca, if you want to know why Reese resists, just look in the mirror.

6. Don't be a prick tease. If you're going to keep our lovers apart in the name of building up tension, you had better give us a good reason for doing so. Poor Reese. I still don't understand why he couldn't shag that idiot for so long, the one who thought it fit to add blonde extensions to his otherwise perfect hair, a stray strand of which, for the billionth time in BL, Reese felt the need to tenderly push away while he was asleep. (Sea did this too! In the same episode!) I know that blindness caused by a lock of hair is endemic to BL, and often fatal. But Reese, if you can tolerate that mullet, you must truly be in love. You do you.

7. If you're going to have more than a few supporting characters in a story, give them more individuality than a side-couple with no dramatic interest, a straight pair who are just supportive friends, and a dead brother whose main purpose is to be dead.

8. People don't need loud background music to tell them how they should feel. People know how to feel -- assuming that the actors and the script are any good. In a show where music is the main theme, it's just self-defeating.

9. Sassy secretaries are awesome. Use them more.

10. Don't worry about age-gaps or height-gaps. They are beloved for a reason. However, be subversive. Make the short twink the top, and the tall washed-up rock star the bottom. Then get a bowl of popcorn and enjoy the pandaemonium that follows. (But please don't save that bowl for another haircut.)

Reader's Digest:
DO SAY: If music be the food of love...
DON'T SAY: Play on.

Leia Mais

Hearing Gayed. Broken.

The following conversation took place this week between me (a gay man) and a friend of mine (a straight woman who’s hard of hearing). We sometimes watch BLs together. (Note: This conversation was first posted on Reddit, but felt more appropriate here.)

ME: So, what do you think (of Hidamari)?

SHE: What do *I* think? With all this praise from everyone, everywhere, all at once, you’d think this was the second coming of Christ!

ME: Tell me about it. I think there has been a sprinkling of healthy scepticism on Reddit, but it’s out and out war on the pages of MDL.

SHE: Let me guess. Between those who think it’s a disability drama, and those who think it’s BL?

ME: Bingo!

SHE: Are there any who think it’s bad at both?

ME: Ummm… you?

SHE: Bingo!

ME: There is also that other, internecine war on MDL: between that group of mostly young, mostly female population who want a chaste, aching BL, and the older gays who, understandably, don’t want the sex erased from homosexuality.

SHE: Well, you know whose side I am on.

ME: Mine, I hope. Anyway, do spill.

SHE: As you know, I don’t think art needs to be representational at all. It is not anyone’s duty to represent anything. But, insofar as people think that this show ‘represents’ disability, it is a miserable failure. Not least because it is primarily a plot device, whose purpose is to sow misunderstanding and miscommunication between our boys. As if Japanese characters don’t do enough of that to themselves already. Apparently, deaf people can’t communicate because… well… they can’t hear well. Get it? How original! Have you ever known me to be non-communicative?

ME: If only.

SHE: Might I remind you that you gave me your number? Anyway, I know I'm oversimplifying matters... but not that much. The idea that people hard of hearing cannot reach out, or do not reach out, out of fear, failure of confidence, or low self-esteem, is just so old and tired, I'm quite sick of it. Our lives are richer than that. There is nothing we want more than be part of the world, and we are often better communicators for it. I don't know if Kohei's syndrome was more cultural or physiological, but either way, he made me quite angry with all that self-pity. A highly unattractive trait in a man. At least Taichi brought a measure of joy and innocence into the drama -- and Kobayashi is an amazing actor -- but soon I grew weary of his naïveté too. He's so dense that even light would bend around him. I was patient enough of all this for the first few episodes, but then they brought in Maya...

ME: Who, by the way, has a lot of defenders.

SHE: Of course she does. Another straight, evil woman who comes in between the boys in a BL? It's revolutionary, I tell you.

ME: She transcends that trope, apparently...

SHE: By, let me guess, being deaf and having a sad past? Yay! Deaf people can be evil too! I feel seen! That’s true representation! Trope? What trope?

ME: I get it. I get it. Also, it's not as if either of us are against tropes, when done well. I seem to remember you did love Heart and Li Ming in Moonlight Chicken.

SHE: Oh, that was wonderful. I was swooning over them, and wondering where the fuck was my Li Ming. Was it good “representation”? No. (Let's face it, nor is Hidamari.) Was it “realistic”? No. (Again, nor is Hidamari.) But was it full of joy? Yes! Was it full of chemistry and sensuality and longing? Yes. Did it show that deaf people can be fun and joyous too and want rampant sex and can make fun of ourselves? Yes, yes, yes. It didn’t even have a proper kiss, and yet managed to be so full of physicality. Which emotionally starved fuck-up wrote this script?

ME: I’d rather not go into it.

SHE: Was the person who wrote the manga hard-of-hearing?

ME: I don’t know. I didn't think it mattered.

SHE: Good. Better that way. Because if I found out that they were, I might be tempted to cut them some slack, and I don't want to. I want to preserve my unrighteous indignation.

ME: When did you first become suspicious that the show was going to be a damp squib?

SHE: Shall we say it together?

BOTH: The kiss!

ME: Yes!

SHE: What a cop off!

ME: People tried to justify it, you know. Everywhere. The pearl-clutchers came up with all sorts of explanations. I just couldn’t accept it. At all. This is 20-fucking-24! It smelt too much of cowardice to me. If not institutional homophobia.

SHE: Thank god I can still smell.

ME: Indeed, and my tastebuds are thankful for it. But yes, it was a symbol, a symbol of oncoming failure of imagination, a lack of daring. I knew at that point that they were going to take the easy way out. I mean, the show had so many good things at the beginning. The set-up, the acting, the natural fluidity of presence between Kohei and Taichi. What happened?

SHE: Multitasking never works. Trust me. Not even for women. The show was vacillating from theme to theme, character to character, without knowing what it wanted to say, or show. In other words, the definition of a bad script, which no acting, however good, can redeem. It had no focus.

ME: And the focus should have been on love.

SHE: Yes. Why else are we here?

ME: You mean on earth, or in the BL world?

SHE: What’s the difference?

ME: I’m going to block you now.

SHE: Don’t. Then I have to talk to my husband. I'm just saying that if they wanted to marry the idea of love and hardness-of-hearing, they shouldn't have resorted to such cheap tricks as introducing Maya, or just make misunderstanding the whole machinery of the show. I could practically hear the plot creaking. Ironically...

ME: No wonder you bought me lube for my last birthday. When did you throw in the towel then?

SHE: An episode or two after Maya came in. You?

ME: The episode where Maya came in.

SHE: You quit sooner? That almost never happens!

ME: Yes, but I have been keeping up with discussions on MDL — you know I’m a masochist — and Reddit, and it has been going exactly where I thought it would go. I knew the romance would disappear, I knew that there would be no further intimacy, I knew that Maya would occupy too much time… it all came true. I have developed a sixth sense for turgid BLs.

SHE: And you call me harsh.

ME: I'll do one better and call the ending now. There will be a time-jump, there will be another almost near-miss, there will be an “I’ve loved you all along” realisation, and then the worst bad-angle, fish-eyed kiss imaginable. You know, with the kind of chemistry that causes asphyxiation? Or death by proptosis? That is, of course, if there is a kiss at all. Maybe they'll end it with a low-five.

SHE: What is a low-five?

ME: Where they just hug, or briefly hold hands, and as soon as their hands move downwards, they go: Ewww... gay.

SHE: I've taught you well. And I bet they’ll try to redeem Maya too.

ME: Like Tong in whatchamacallit.

SHE: My Stand-in?

ME: Sorry, I’m too busy.

SHE: What are you watching now?

ME: Happy of the End. Terrible title, but it is sooo good! I'm hoping it will redeem JBL for me this year. You?

SHE: 4Minutes, mainly to see Fuaiz being a power-bottom. I'm hoping that, in the finale, he'll be railed to death by Win and Korn, and maybe have a Great Tyme too.

ME: I’m still waiting for a Thai power couple named Gang & Bang.

SHE: One can only hope. On which note…


Reader's Digest:
DO SAY: What's your love language?
DON'T SAY: What's love in sign language?

Leia Mais

WikiHow: How (Not) To Do A Remake

Step 1. Think hard. When was the last time people thought a remake was better than the original? If you are going to remake a show that is justly (or unjustly) famous (or notorious), know that people will always compare your show to the original. If it falls short, you have only yourself to blame.

Step 2. Know your audience. BL is a niche community, even in Japan. Many of us have heard of and seen the original LITA. We may love it, we may hate it, but we know of it. A lot of us will watch the remake just in order to see how it compares. If you forget this, again, you have only yourself to blame.

Step 3. Ask yourself why. I mean, why? For god’s sake, why? Why can’t you leave well enough — or bad enough — alone? What possible reason might you have, apart from a presumed reluctance on the part of the Japanese -- a reluctance that I don't think exists -- to read subtitles? Or if that isn’t the problem, what have you to offer us that’s different? If nothing, why waste time and money on this, when you could have given us something better?

Step 4. Consider the source material. Here, you potentially have two. The (cough) novel. And the TV show. If you did read... the novel… more power to you. If you just watched the TV show, welcome to our world. But don't forget. This is Mame. Storytelling isn’t her strength. Sexual… ummm… proclivities, I guess? are what gets her off. As, of course, does calling your dom top “Daddy”. Well done, Noeul.

Step 5. Rip the bodices. Isn’t that what got you into it in the first place? If you’re going to be coy around it, leave it alone. Some of us return to LITA not for the… story… but for something else. And that something else was *hot*. If you can’t handle the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Which, given the number of gastronomic BLs Japan puts out each year, is perhaps impossible.

Step 6. Speaking of cooking, test for chemistry. People who cared for LITA fall into two camps. They were either in it for the dom-bottom pair, or for the peat-bog -- I mean, peat-fort -- pair. Either way, it is the chemistry between them that sold the show. This one has all the chemistry of mildew on a damp cloth.

Step 7. Cast the right actors. In a bodice-ripper, they must be game, and willing to go all the way. The actors in the original did. That’s why we bought it — even those who hated it. You did well enough with Shoma here, and there is a reason why he did two segments of Kiss x Kiss x Kiss in one season. The man is hot, and he's comfortable lashing his tongue against another's. But you really oughtn’t have cast the rest of the gang here. Hamaya was certainly a bad choice. When one of the actors refuses to open his lips, while the other one licks them like a cat does the last drop of milk from a bowl, it is not sexy. It looks non-consensual, and makes us cringe. (While I’m not staying for the other couple, what I have seen so far hasn’t been encouraging. I doubt they’d even kiss.)

Step 8. Find the right size. For the series as a whole and for each episode. Here, the length and duration do not feel right. Sometimes, less is not more. Compression is not always a virtue. Size matters. The original… story… was narratively... challenged... as it was. Don’t make it incomprehensible. Remember: The theory of special relativity only works near the speed of light. And Einstein already taught us that length contraction was the same as time dilation.

Step 9. Identify areas for improvement. The "story"… and the "writing"… in the original weren’t exactly stellar. You could have made the story tighter, more coherent, and much more integrated, especially given the limitations on time and length you have imposed upon yourself. Isn’t this what JBLs are supposed to be good at?

Step 10. Or, you know, just stop. The “market”, unlike colour in Japanese cinematography, is saturated enough as it is. We have the Thai BL meat factory releasing a bodice-ripper every other week, but at least there the actors know how to kiss. Taiwan releases a step-brother storyline once a month to titillate us, and KBL is ever at hand to give us the white-and-blue-jacket no-kiss-guaranteed school lunch once a season. We have enough to keep us going. If you have nothing original to offer, why bother?

This review is dedicated to Selbee, who had love enough to ask me for one.

Reader’s Digest:
DO SAY: There’s a new Love in the Air.
DON’T SAY: It's a hole in the ozone layer.

Leia Mais

[Updated] A JBL Bingo: School Edition

I have created, for your pleasure and displeasure, a bingo card for Japanese school BLs. I wrote these down before I started watching Miseinen (I promise!), and I’m going to see at which episode I yell “Bingo!”. Feel free to play along, shuffle the table, make it your own, and then tell me at which point you win. (For ratings, I’ll start with 5.5 throughout, and adjust them at the end depending on how good the show is.)

Column B:
(Psychology 101)

1. Overbearing mother
2. Absent or abusive father
3. Inability to communicate (except through inner monologues)
4. Panic attacks at the very thought of intimacy
5. Noble idiot

Column I:
(Tropefest)

1. Time jump, usually for trips abroad
2. Beach trips
3. Random and wildly inaccurate equations on blackboard
4. Corridor crossings in slow motion
5. Roof-tops, usually fenced-in, against a hilly background: ideal for unrequited confessions
[Bonus point: Bangs for girls. Bowlcut for boys.]

Column N:
(Love Languages)

1. A wide-eyed "kiss" that reminds you of the girl from The Ring
2. Kabedon, because... door banging is sexy?
3. Free Space
4. Wound tending... even sexier.
5. Standing in the rain, kissing in the rain, getting cold & fever from the rain... just a lot of rain.

Column G:
(Lines of dialogue)

1. “But we’re both men…”
2. “Kawaii!” or “Kakkoii!”
3. “Ikemen ne.”
4. “Hendayo!" (usually after the first non-kiss)
5. “Suki da.” “Eh?”

Column O:
(War of the Positions)

1. Seme: Nipple-revealing bleach-white shirt. Uke: Buttoned-up black coat.
2. Seme: No real friends. Uke: Really bad friends.
3. Seme: PTSD survivor. Uke: Florence Shitingayle
4. Seme: Rebel with(out) a cause. Uke: Mathlete.
5. Seme: Six feet, tops. Uke: Five feet under.


Notes:
1. Gang, it happened! At the end of Ep. 5, Bingo!!
2. "Infect me!" has to be the sexiest and most romantic thing anyone has ever said in a BL.
3. If my sampling of JBLs is correct, at least a third of all Japanese fathers must be in jail for child abuse.
4. Can someone explain to me why Minase cannot call the police?


This review is dedicated to jpny01, the final word and authority on all things BL.

Leia Mais