Gay Rapture @ambientqueer - Tumblr Blog

My absolute hottest take is that, from a culturally relative perspective, no food is bad. None of it. It's an expression of culture, art, history, ecology, material conditions, subjective taste. It's all inedible pap to somebody and the taste of childhood for someone else. Americans be eating cheesed burger. Pea wet is as good as gravy in Wigan. The French eat snails and the Inuit eat seal, the Germans eat sauerkraut and the Russians drink kvass, the Inca ate cavy and the Romans ate flamingo. People around the world have been eagerly awaiting their serving of simple bread or thin porridge or fermented milk product or pickled whatever-the-fuck since we learned to cook food over fire. We all love the slop we grew up eating. Food is a reflection of millennia of culture and loving human artistic expression. Attempting to extrapolate largely harmless online food banter into actual serious comparative rankings or half-baked critical analyses of cultures based on how much you subjectively don't like what they eat is a miserable way to live. Live a little. Peace and love on the only planet with food.

ambientqueer

#nofoodisbadfood

absolutebl

10 High Quality & Cinematic BLs

Ones that are very well made with a tight narrative and no cringey dialogue. For example: Old Fashion Cupcake or His. Japan knows what tf it’s doing, okay? You don’t come from a tradition that gave us Kurosawa and fail at broad scope cinematography.

High Quality & Cinematic BLs + Comfort & Joy

These are the ones that I love even though they’re artsy, but they also end happily and didn’t hurt me too much.

1. Old Fashion Cupcake

(Japan 2022 Viki)

This show had me from the moment they broke the egg yolk with the chopsticks in the opening credits for episode one. It’s about a younger man with a long cherished crush on his boss (ten years older and going through a mid life crisis) who decides to save and seduce said man with pancakes. It’s wholesome, comforting, sexy, and a very necessary narrative about still having hope, interests, and openness to affection at any age. It’s coming of age/queerness packaged in a subtle critique of expectations around masculinity and love and loneliness… and it’s beautiful. Full review.

2. Restart After Come Back Home

AKA Risutato wa tadaima no ato de (Japan 2020 grey)

Atmospheric study in rural Japan meets complex family dynamics built on a romance framework of city boy meets country boy. It’s beautiful and icy sweet. Slow moving in places but ultimately worth your patience. Full review here.

3. Life: Love on the Line

AKA Life Senjou no Bokura (Japan 2020 Viki)

This is a beautiful movie and a good BL, if a bit adult and gut wrenching at times. Goes through young love, break up, and reunion - but it’s actually a saga of self acceptance. You want the director’s cut. Like His, LLOTL is an exploration of suppression and the limits we impose on ourselves when we’re dishonest about who we love. In high school, serious and self contained Ito fell in love with Nishi, the manic pixie dream boy of the dream he didn’t know he had. Nishi, emotionally and mentally fragile, struggled to fit into the world. Ito, however, found it all too easy, except for the whole - ya know - gay thing. This movie is about Ito’s willingness to sacrifice not just himself but his love (and even Nishi himself) to social and familial expectations and the misery that results. It has a hard fought happy ending that then follows them through the rest of their lives in a (slightly unnecessary but welcome) epilogue montage.

4. A Tale of Thousand Stars

(Thai 2021 GMMTV YouTube)

With great casting and cinematography this drama nods at BL tropes but manages to elevate them (and itself) with a strong mature story concept about a spoiled rich kid who gets a heart transplant and becomes a teacher it order to pay out survivor’s guilt. On the way he falls in love with a local park ranger and contends with his own classism and escapist tendencies. Everyone seemed to perfectly suit their roles and GMMTV made the most out of its stable. Combined with excellent production (and post production) values, 1000 Stars is without question GMMTV’s most mature, charming, and smart BL series. I think it should go down as one of the top BLs of all time. I feel safe recommending this one to friends and non BL watchers.

High Quality & Cinematic BLs + Work & Angst

These are ones that I watched but were really difficult for me for personal reasons. Some may not have happy endings. I tend to call these moody arthouse smackdoodle. They like to pretend that “ambiguous” is somehow unique and special rather than bog standard commonplace for narratives of this type. Hold onto your psyche, these dramas will test you. But they very well done.

5. His the movie

(Japan 2020 Viki)

His is about being a grown adult and still struggling with coming out as gay. It addresses the consequences of life choices disingenuous to identity. Nagisa turns up on Shun’s doorstep with his precocious daughter in tow. This is a touch confusing to Shun since they were each others first love. Shun has retreated from society, rejecting the world before it can reject him, already brokenhearted because without Nagisa he never had a reason to fight. Nagisa went the opposite way, tried to pretend to be something he was not and ended up with a daughter he adores and a wife who hates him. This movie is beautiful and the setting is unique and interesting but I’m not wild about the ending.

6. I Told Sunset About You

(Thai 2020 grey)

I don’t have a ton to say about ITSAY because I’ve never managed to finished it. This one was too close to my own queer journey and it seriously messed with my head about 2/3 of the way through, so I stopped watching to protect myself. However, I can tell you that the production values are unreal for Thailand, using a soft lens, diffuse lighting, and a nostalgic atmosphere, paying close attention to framing, and forgetting neither background nor close-focus expressive detail. It’s a remarkable piece of work. I caught no mistakes in makeup, wardrobe, body positioning, reflection, or boom mic placement - so they clearly had continuity eyeballs during filming and on final product (which most Thai BLs don’t spring for). So yeah, the filming, directing, and acting is insanly good, but what’s really stand out in ITSAY from a film perspective is their smooth as butter invisibly perfect editing. Post production on this series must have been a BEAST.

7. Your Name Engraved Herein

(Taiwan 2020 Netflix)

This movie is fantastic but it is also seriously depressing, it’s a self acceptance journey, but if you wanna wallow in high quality acting and serious gay drama, this’ll do it.

8. Goodbye Mother AKA Thua Me Con D

(Vietnam 2019 Netflix)

Like YNEH or Dew, this is a great movie but it deals openly with homophobia, bashing, family trauma, and social acceptance.

9. His the series

AKA His - Koisuru Tsumori Nante Nakatta AKA I Didn’t Think I Would Fall In Love

(Japan 2019)

Boy goes to visit his absent father, ends up kinda homeless on the beach, gets adopted by local family, falls in love with the boy working and living with them. Lots of long drawn out glances.

10. I Want to See Only You

AKA Kimi no Koto Dake Mite Itai (Japan 2022 grey)

This is a beautiful piece of cinema well acted, about two boys who are opposite personalities and grew up together. Gifted and serious Sakura (Kura Yuki from His the series) and outgoing eccentric manic pixie dream boy, Yuma. It is very pretty and this is the kind of atmospheric elegantly performed BL that only really comes from Japan (complete with dead fish kisses - what you though Korea invented them? oh no). For me it was lovely but slightly unmemorable. Full review here.

More Like This From Japan

The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese AKA Kyuso wa Chizu no Yume wo Miru (Japan 2020) - obsession, cheating, breakup, reunion, then break up again, explicit.

Does the Flower Bloom? (Japan 2018) - May/December romance about an artist student, the house he inherits from his dead parents. and all the people around him who are obsessed with him, including an older man.

Junjou: Pure Heart (Japan 2010) - I shoudl probably rewatch this one, it’s been a while.

Silhouette of Your Voice AKA Hidamari ga Kikoeru (Japan 2017) - It’s not as good as any of us wanted given the beautiful glory of the original manga (I Hear the Sunspot). Also it doesn’t really end happily. Disappointing.

Eternal Yesterday AKA Eien no Kino (Japan 2022 Gaga) - After Mitsuru’s cheerful outgoing boyfriend Koichi is killed but stay’s walking around, everyone else begins to forget about him. Mitsuru recalls their romance while trying to understand what’s going on, hold onto his love, and come to terms with loss and identity. Sad and creepy but somehow still beautiful, Japan spending all its pennies on pain.

Darker BLs and more thoughts on Moody Arthouse Smackdoodle here.

Tangential blogs posts:

10 Best Uses of Cinematic Storytelling in BL

Top 10 Highest Production Values in Thai BL

Some Noodling on BL Production Houses & Studios

This post the result of an ask from @theklutzymaniac, updated end of 2022.

(source)

queerafricans

The photographer spent two months living among the inhabitants of the House of Allure – a safe space for the queer community of Lagos

darkestcinema

renaissance in the 21st century

holythefirm-deactivated20200829

I don’t. I just don’t. Do not compute

holythefirm-deactivated20200829

This is like mind numbing but actually heart breaking the more I think about it I hate that. I hate that rich influencers are reposting this to circle jerk

gayhex

imagine having such a shit system where a guy feels like he has to vote for the person who denied his appeal.... this country is barbaric

rock-fish-deactivated20201231

and there are people just replying "good, HE can get over it!!" as if this isn't torturous and indicative of what a huge problem there is "avoiding fascism" in this next upcoming election

ororomunroedontpullout

Because people don’t actually care about issues.

twitblr

They got her back in the middle of the turn up

atlas-prime

Renaissance painting energy

politijohn

Yes, this is really a thing...

solitarelee

Yep, because baby formula is one of the most shoplifted things in America. Which should ALSO radicalize you.

girtheemoninja

Or... We stop shoplifting? 🤔 Are we demonizing acts to stop crimes now?

demonius-darkblade

ill tear your head off your shoulders you dumb fuck

jana-the-clown

I'm all for radicalization like the government and society are fucked. But they put baby formula in locked cases because it is used to make meth. The store does this to keep an eye out if someone is buying way too much. Like waaaaay too much.

40ouncesandamule

No. They lock it up because hungry babies need it and there is a thriving market for stealing baby formula because people will pay good money to guarantee their babies don’t starve.

You can’t make meth out of baby formula. You can stretch some drugs by cutting it with baby formula but “Drug dealers sometimes use the powdered formula to dilute heroin and methamphetamine or to stretch the product when supplies run low. However, experts say that more often than not, formula is stolen because of its high market demand among consumers rather than drug dealers.”

This is what imperialism and capitalism and the “war on drugs” does to people’s brains. You can see that people are so desperate to feed their babies that the people who rule your lives keep baby formula under lock and key but rather than that radicalizing you and making you want to fight for a world where no baby ever goes hungry, you justify this draconian bullshit because you’ve fallen for the propaganda that baby formula is used in some nebulous relation to “drugs” and drugs are bad so whatever inhuman monstrosity that occurs must be justifiable.

rumman

patti and dolly harmonizing to an acrylic nail beat

rob-walks-deactivated20210614

childrenofsemina

THE 13 TENETS OF FUTURE FEMINISM

1. The subjugation of women and the earth is one in the same.

2. Future Feminism requires the participation of all people.

3. Enforce a global standard for the rights and ethical treatment of women.

4. Identify biological differences between the sexes, and draw individuals into greater accountability on the basis of their predispositions.

5. Relieve men of their roles as protectors and predators.

6. Redefine the societal roles of women and men in response to present conditions.

7. Advocate for feminine systems in all areas of governance.

8. Build political structures using a circular model.

9. Repattern societies to nurture the resurgence of biodiversity.

10. Feminize male-centric language.

11. Deconstruct the mythology of male spiritual supremacy.

12. Restore the female archetype as central to creation.

13. The future is female.

Anohni - Kembra Pfahler - Johanna Constantine - Bianca Casady - Sierra Casady

ithelpstodream

goremaedchen

change my mind lads

lesbianpeachs

Like, people who identify as Queer know the word is used like a slur. Trust me, we know.

So when we say “queer is a slur” was started by terfs, maybe use some critical thinking and try to understand what we mean. That is, if you actually care about queer people and the damage terfs do, rather that just screaming “queer is a slur!” and ignoring the actual point.

Terfs did not like that queer was reclaimed. End of. This is a fact. Queer was too broad, too accepting, and embraced all the people they wanted gone. And I know y'all exclusionists feel the same but get pissed when we point it out so you deny it, but sit down and listen for a minute.

Queer was the preferred term for poc. For bisexuals. For trans people. For people with multiple identities. It neatly encapsulated everything, and was a friendly community to those who felt thrown under the bus by mainstream LGBT activism. It was a political and social statement, “you treated my like I was different and weird, and guess what? I am and that’s something to be proud of.”

So the response? “You can’t use that word. Its bad. Its a slur.”

And at the time, a lot of people rolled their eyes. Everyone knew why they didn’t like the word and brushed that off. It was fine.

So they started more subtly. “Just so you know this word is very harmful and is a slur so be careful how you use it :))) in case you didn’t know :)))) its a slur :))) friendly reminder :))) for the sake of other people of course :))))” type shit on every post involving the word, including and especially posts simply mentioning self identification.

Always worded in friendly, concerned ways, like the derailment was meant to be nice and considerate, and not about normalizing their rhetoric.

And what happened because of that was a younger generation of community kids growing up with these statements being thrown at them and absorbed on every. Single. Post. That. Mentionioned. Queer.

The result? That same generation of kids cutting it all short, removing the meant-to-be-palatable niceness, to just say “queer is a slur.”

Exactly how it was originally intended. “Queer is a slur.” People drop on posts where young queer people talk about it being a self identifier that actually fits them. “Its a slur,” they comment, with nothing else, on posts they clearly didn’t read past that word, written by people twice their age who had reclaimed it before they were even born.

Its nasty. Its disgusting. It’s plain old bigotry, whether the people saying know it or not. It is a terf tactic, plain and simple.

And no one wants to deny that it is indeed used as a slur (right along with all the rest of our identities.) No one wants to be insensitive and force it on people who haven’t reclaimed it.

But invading queer people’s posts to spit “queer is a slur” is flat out queerphobic. You do the dirty work of terfs, of cis straight oppressors, by saying in one simple sentence: “its a dirty word, there is no pride in it, you haven’t/can’t reclaim(ed) it.”

And regardless of your actual intentions, when you do this, that is EXACTLY what you are communicating and doing.

“Queer is a slur” is a terf movement. Stop fucking supporting terfs just because you want to pretend like it isn’t.

oodlenoodleroodle

This is why I block people who say ‘Queer is a slur.’

You quack like a terf, I block you like a terf.

aristoteliancomplacency

This thing was so weird to me when I first encountered it on tumblr, because like… in academia

queer studies

is a thing. Queer Theory is a thing. If I search my Uni’s library for ‘queer’ I get 138,481 results. Here are some of them:

Queer in Europe : contemporary case studies / edited by Lisa Downing and Robert Gillett.

Queer Phenomenology, Sexual Orientation, and Health Care Spaces: Learning From the Narratives of Queer Women and Nurses in Primary Health Care, / Cressida Heyes, Megan Dean, Lisa Goldberg.

Playing With Time: Gay Intergenerational Performance Work and the Productive Possibilities of Queer Temporalities / Stephen Farrier

Postcolonial and queer theories : intersections and essays / edited by John C. Hawley.

Queer Dickens : erotics, families, masculinities / Holly Furneaux.

Showing Your Pride: A National Survey of Queer Student Centres in Canadian Colleges and Universities / John Ecker, Jennifer Rae, Amandeep Bassi

Mad for Foucault : rethinking the foundations of queer theory / Lynne Huffer.

Do those look like queerphobic texts? And do you think that most of the writers writing about queer theory are straight? Lols. If you don’t want to be personally be called queer, that’s cool. You don’t get to stop other people using the word though. It’s ours now and we’re keeping it.

akamine-chan

Did I reblog this already? If I did, doesn’t hurt to blog it again. I usually unfollow people who use the tag (or the equilivant) q-slur. Because fuck you, I’m queer. Have been since like 1986.

anarchistettin

queer was mlm slang/code in the 18th and 19th centuries, turned into a slur in the 20th century

when we say it was reclaimed, we mean it was reclaimed

libtard-blazkowicz

Alright. So I’ve seen this several times on tumblr, and once on Facebook. It’s also viral on Twitter. If you’ve seen it, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. Basically some white lady named Joanna with a “may I speak to you manager” haircut detailed the alt-right pipeline that many young white men often find themselves in (admittedly well).

Her proposed solution to how you should deal with it as a parent though SUCKED. She basically said to stalk their social media to make sure they’re not posting or sharing those edgy memes that dogwhistle far right talking points and force them to sit down and watch John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, and other corporate hack comedians who are often clueless and out of touch. I guarantee that if you’re a parent with a son having these issues, it will backfire. The communities on reddit and 4chan that they go on in private browsing when you aren’t monitoring them will tell your son that the (((media))) you are making them watch are cultural marxists and that cultural marxism is actively killing white people and western civilization.

You will not convince them otherwise. The alt-right kids become emotionally attached to their beliefs. They not only believe with their hearts that what they’ve been told online is true, they think that the cherry picked and out of context stats that they have confirm their worldview. If you try to argue against those bad stats yourself, they will just believe that your own (((sources))) are biased. You and the corporate media do not have the optics or the capability to deradicalize them. It’s a harsh and disappointing truth. That doesn’t mean it’s hopeless though.

I’d highly recommend that you introduce them to people like Twitch streamer Stephen Bonnell who goes by Destiny. He’s also got a YouTube channel that uploads replays and clips from streams that he does. Destiny is socially very progressive and “woke”, but he at the same time, he has a personality and can use language that an edgelord kid can relate to. He’s debated many internet celebrities such as JonTron and Lauren Southern whom your kid probably knows about and with great success. He’s very good at defeating alt-right arguments.

Another person whom I’d recommend for similar reasons is YouTuber Streamer Vaush. He’s not as famous, and has not debated famous people. But again, he is very good at engaging and defeating alt-right and reactionary viewpoints, and he does so with extreme charisma, and he uses language and optics that your kid will relate to. Eh. Hope that helps.

oatmealaddiction

So it’s 2020 can we talk about how Avatar portrays femininity as well as just gender in general? You have Katara, Toph, Suki, and like 800 other amazing female characters who are out here being warriors and making a point that women can be incredible fighters too, and there’s an episode that addresses this explicitly where Katara duels Pakku and basically explodes his reductive view of women (best scene in the whole thing is when everyone carts her in to apologize to him.) And there’s a lot about women being encouraged to take part in traditionally masculine spaces, particularly again with Toph and Katara. Katara is great too because the show doesn’t draw a dichotomy between a fighter and a healer. Katara can be gentle and motherly and a good shoulder to cry on, while also being a hundred percent badass.

But then also the show is really good (albeit a bit subtler) about the value in men embracing traditionally feminine traits and activities. Our main character is pacifist vegetarian soft-boi who wears flower crowns and makes jewelry and spends a lot of time talking about his feelings and he is by and far the most morally sound character in the series who is completely at ease with who he is.

Then you have Sokka who a lot of people have pointed out has an arc that’s basically “chug respect women juice,” and part of that arc includes him wearing the Kiyoshi uniform, something he feels emasculates him, (and which the show makes a joke about tbf) but then they turn it around and make the ensemble genuinely badass.

And then sweet Zuko who is absolutely someone who is portrayed as caring and sensitive in his childhood (by no small part due to his mother’s influence) who is raised in probably the most toxically masculine environment in the show. The Fire Nation might have women in its ranks, but feminine traits like compassion, mercy, and basically any emotion that isn’t a desire for destruction are seen as disgraceful. It’s notable what gets Zuko banished is his refusal to fight his own father, and how that is labeled disrespectful.

It’s also notable that the people and places that change Zuko are more feminine in nature. He works in a shop, cleaning and preparing tea. He meets two young women who drastically change his view on Earth Kingdom civilians. He spends time helping a family with children. And through all this he’s there with Iroh, a guy who enjoys music, culture, and natural beauty, who’s sensitive and dedicated to humble acts of kindness for others, and who Ozai dismisses as an embarassing failure.

And the show ends with Zuko ditching all this toxicity and just being the guy he wants to be. He even hugs Aang at the end, something Season 1 Zuko would never do with anybody. Our boy hugs!

Like the show doesn’t just empower women by letting them fight, it also shows the power and value in emotional vulnerability and compassion that is usually only reserved for women. It empowers women to fight and kick ass while also deconstructing toxic masculinity.

Tl:dr: Avatar says let women fight, and let men be emotionally open with each other and hug!

gahdamnpunk

This pandemic is really proving that government has the means to solve all problems they just choose not to

bemusedlybespectacled

I studied abroad in London in 2014 and my British Politics professor literally brought in a former homeless woman who had been made not-homeless when, during the 2012 Olympics, she and everyone else were given temporary housing to keep them off the streets. and while some people returned to being homeless afterwards, most people didn’t, because it turns out it’s easier to get a job and be secure if you already have the house thing taken care of.

the government could absolutely fix homelessness today, and it would solve homelessness not just temporarily, but for the long term. but the government chooses not to, not because it’s expensive (it’s more expensive to have homeless people than it is to give them homes), not because it doesn’t work (there are a lot of studies confirming that it does), but because some people think that being poor is a moral failing that can only be solved by shitting on them some more.

mysharona1987

ralfmaximus

My dad was a straight-ticket Democrat, gave money to the ACLU, and left the Catholic church when his local parish prioritized a new, bigger church over hungry parishioners. He was VERY liberal.

He voted for Al Gore in 2000.

In 2004 (when he was 75yo) an injury forced him to spend time at an assisted living facility for rehab. The TVs there were all tuned to Fox News.

All it took was six months.

Upon his release that’s all he watched. He obsessed over Fox. Became convinced liberals were out to destroy HIS America.

From 2004 onwards I watched my liberal dad – the guy who imbued me with my beliefs and values – decline into a ranting, angry, hateful person.

He almost died alone because I told him I simply could NOT stand to hear any more about how Obama was ruining the country. He relented, and I said goodbye to him in 2011 at his hospice, only because we agreed not to discuss “politics”.

Fox News is pure 100% brainwashing. I’ve seen it up close, and it is evil.

sniperct

It wasn’t Fox News with my dad, it was another evil. Talk Radio. The far right has pretty much taken over talk radio and monopolized it, and through it radicalized a lot of people. My dad worked nights, driving, so he listened to a lot of this crap. Rush Limbaugh and even worse people. There’s like, nothing on the left even close to the amount of ears these people can reach, every day and every night, spewing their hatred and their vile thoughts. Talk Radio is Fox News on steroids and both are evils that need to be addressed.

sonneillonv-deactivated20220218

It’s important to recognize the way people are radicalized and find ways to counter it.

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Gay Rapture