I love that Phu was wearing his teddy bear pajamas when he got blown by Cir
And I love it specifically because it flies in the face of a rather unfortunate trend that's always been present but that has been on my mind a lot lately.
A couple of months ago, I came across a post that referred to Teerak from Your Sky as "basically a child" and went in on the show for portraying him in any sort of sexual light and then went in on Muenfah and criticized him for wanting to do anything remotely sexual with Teerak and just—
Listen, I don't give a fuck how someone interprets a character even if I disagree on every possible level. Art is subjective. How someone sees the art they consume and what they get out of it is none of my fucking business.
But there's this awful tendency to conflate cuteness with immaturity and to infantilize any character that exhibits any traits or preferences that can be read as cute. Hell, sometimes even a character's appearance is all it takes for them to be infantilized.
And it's always the same shit. If a character is shy, soft-spoken, bubbly, cheerful, or sweet, they're seen as a child. If they have plushies and enjoy lots of color, they're seen as a child. Act cute? Child. Like cute things? Child. Shorter than their love interest? Child. Younger than their love interest? Child.
The person who made the post I referred to used a screenshot of Teerak hugging his Snoopy plush to somehow justify their interpretation and you know what? LIKING PLUSHIES AND CUTE THINGS DOES NOT MAKE SOMEONE """"BASICALLY A CHILD"""".
Whether or not a character (or a real actual person) likes cute things or happens to be sweet and soft-spoken and shy has nothing to do with how mature they are and it certainly says nothing about their sexuality and sexual desires. I turn 31 years old in just over a week and there are plushies on my bed. I put hearts all over my blog. Liking cute things just means you like cute things! That's all!
Teerak is adorable and colorful and sweet, and he's also a young man who's deliriously in love and HORNY for his boyfriend. He ALWAYS wanted to fuck that man and if he hesitated at first, it was due only to his lack of experience. Nothing else.
Which is partly why this scene:
Was so fucking great to watch. Not just because Teerak wanted to fuck his boyfriend and made his intent crystal clear and took the initiative, but because he was allowed to by the story. @iguessitsjustme wrote a great post about it, go give it a read.
More and more we're seeing BL's where both characters (THE CUTE ONES INCLUDED) are allowed and shown to want each other sexually and it's been amazing to see. Mutual horniness will never not be amazing to see.
Allll of that is why I love that Phukan was in his teddy bear pajamas in his love scene with Cir. Because like Teerak, Phukan is exactly the type of character that gets infantilized and that people get all pearl-clutchy about when he's portrayed doing anything sexual.
Phu is adorable and colorful and he likes being babied and he collects those cute little trinket things I can't remember the name of and he ALSO REALLY WANTS TO FUCK CIRRUS. To quote @poetry-protest-pornography , he was an active and enthusiastic participant in his first blowjob and that's exactly as it should be regardless of what he's wearing or what he likes! He's a full person with a functioning libido and I'm so happy and grateful that the story isn't infantilizing him.
TL;DR, some of ya'll have got to let go of the notion that a character being/acting cute and them experiencing sexual desire are mutually exclusive.
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