I do think it would be kind of funny if Eridian media, like Earth media, sort of tends to go through phases. Like you know how sometimes 100% evil vampires are all the rage, and then sometimes they're sympathetic tortured antiheroes, and sometimes it's all vampire romances, and etc?
So like, with the stars dying, I'm thinking Eridian media might have gone on a whole "aliens are bad bad bad out there killing stars and wanting to eat Erid" and etc trend for their sci-fi. Long ballads about what are essentially evil Eridians with the equivalent of prosthetics doing terrible things to the galaxy and brave heroes like Rocky going off to stop them. Because y'know that's probably how you'd conceptualize a huge scary conflict like total cosmic annihilation in a way that makes it seem beatable: designate a bad guy you can just defeat in order to stop it.
But then Grace and Rocky get to Erid and that trend gets immediately flipped. Turns out that there were kind of bad aliens, the astrophage and all, but that's more like a natural disaster, and hero Rocky has returned with the weirdest, nicest alien ever. Erid media suddenly rockets back to a prior era of optimistic sci-fi previously considered intolerably twee and cringe after the solar disaster kicked off, where the aliens are always nice nice nice, incredibly weird and sometimes goofy as fuck but friendly and not the bad guys.
Of course you never get full consensus on these things, so there are also creative Eridians who are like. But what if evil humans question? Evil humans posing as saviors infiltrate Erid and replace Eridians with pods that hatch into creepy non-Erid rock monsters question? Evil human comes to Erid under guise of niceness and KILLS Eridians question???
Which is broadly considered like. Holy shit dude stop being gauche the nice alien saved the planet stop fucking writing stories where his skeleton cracks open like a nest of evil eggs and turns into a bunch of monsters! Rude, statement! Aliens very nice statement!
And like at first all the Eridian scientists are very sure to keep this sort of stuff away from Grace, they don't want to insult him or imply that he's being slandered in their media or anything. And again overall the popular trend turns a lot more to aliens-as-friendly, especially if they're expressly humans, and the sci-fi writers of Erid are having a total BLAST speculating about Earth and writing stories about it and etc, Grace seems to very much enjoy answering questions for the ones who want to keep things accurate and chuckling and enthusing over the creativity of the ones who don't. He's like, oh yeah they are definitely also doing this back on Earth, don't worry.
Researchers laughing and nervously just being like, yes of course, this is the full extent of it, not to worry! Normal thing which humans are also doing!
Until one day Rocky just brings Grace a recording of a full-blown Eridian horror sci-fi where Grace HIMSELF is EXPLICITLY a horrible monster that goes on a killing spree and tries to destroy Erid.
The other researchers are losing their shit. RoCKY?!?! WHY QUESTION??? Oh fuck Grace is going to be so upset! He's such a sensitive soul he doesn't even like it when one of his students gets distressed!
Anyway Grace thinks it's hilarious and Rocky gets to be smug about it for months.
Ryland Grace who has a swear jar in his classroom, and every time a kid swears, they have to put their name in and when he asks a question and no one raises their hand to answer, he'll draw a name from the jar. It's really discouraged his kids from swearing.
I think most of Tumblr's attempts at world building religion are absolutely terrible because:
1. They think that only stupid people are faithful, anyone who's 'enlightened' won't be religious
2. Religions are some sort of centuries long con/conspiracy used to manipulate people (therefore no religion is real ever)
3. Are trying to make pantheon ala Greek/Roman mythology, but their knowledge is exclusively from Percy Jackson and the Tumblr-ified/woobified versions online
4. Legitimately believe that religion is just an accessory, (ie. A person is a Christian if they wear a cross, a person is Muslim if they wear a head covering)
5. They have an inability to engage with or write from the perspective of someone who's different from them
And the sad thing is that this could be so easily resolved if they were just willing to research (and do it on a place that isn't Tumblr or another social media platform)
Also it would be really cool if they incorporated the weather and lifestyles of the people into a religion! Like, the Nile is fairly regular in when it floods so the Egyptian gods were satisfied with regular sacrifices. But the Yellow River and the Amazon flood irregularly and often catastrophically, so Chinese and Northern South American gods needed bigger sacrifices or more elaborate worship. (Obviously, this is a generalization, and is not true for all these religions, peoples and time periods. It's very broad.)
And certain pantheons emphasized different things, like a sea faring people relied on storms to leave their ships alone, so Zeus was important. Storm gods are also important in farming cultures. But in other cultures that didn't use boats as much, storm gods are less important.
Ancestor worship in different worlds can be really interesting, especially when you get into sci-fi where you have holograms of your ancestors. Or if it's a fantasy realm and you can actually summon ghosts.
There's so many fun aspects of religion and how they affect us and it's so sad when it's flattened to Greek Gods with a different layer of paint or Christianity with a figure other than Jesus.
YES!!!! YOU UNDERSTAND!!!! last night while sketching this out i was also looking up which materials would resonate the best (it was smooth materials like steel) because i was thinking of what would the eridian equivalent of hearing aids be and what they could do to make places much more accessible for eridians who are hard of hearing or deaf.
also reminds me of a scene in a fic i read before which had rocky naming him "grace" because he's clumsy which also adds on to the whole, eridian!grace not being able to hear as well :-)
plus the whole minimal tattoos thing!! i also think he would have a family crest but thats basically it. rocky wouldn't understand just how weird it is for him to be so unmarked as an eridian especially one that went on this mission till grace explains it to him ugh ;;
Oh, thank you! (I'm hard of hearing myself so I was looking for possible physical reasons for Eridian!Grace's disability.)
Your picture just gave me another idea - if Eridian!Grace is clumsy and has trouble with echolocation, maybe his ball isn't as well-constructed as canon!Rocky's. Like he'd be the molecular biologist, not the engineer.
I can imagine it's as lopsided as you're drawing here and Rocky has to push him around with a foot Miette-style every now and then to get him where he wants to go.
Or maybe it was Human!Rocky who had to build it ? Maybe Grace just gives him the xenonite and its fabricators cause again, he's not the Blip-A's Engineer. And the ball, while airtight and keeps Grace safe, is only Rocky's first rodeo with the stuff.
"Okay yeah I can fix that in the next version. Just gimme more time to play with this stuff."
omg yes!!! ive also seen people doing that in fics, where eridian!grace is very bad at working with xenonite so he makes rocky do it for him.
i can definitely see rocky being interested in working with xenonite and if they decide to use the hail mary's lab instead of the blip-a, he might also have to make a couple other things to make the lab equipment accessible for grace. (aka grace had to watch his poor attempt at using the lab equipment per his instructions till he snaps and pushes rocky aside to do it himself)
also if grace made the ball himself, the ball ends up being more boxy than spherical 😭 (less panels to work with, less room for error)
And then Rocky would put casters on it and let Grace use the flexible panels in the xenonite to push himself around on.
I've been thinking a bit about this swap, and I can see another thing that's the same and yet changes. If you flip Grace and Rocky, it had to be Rocky with the initial first contact. I could see him gently chasing Blip-A and wondering "Jeeze, this alien doesn't fly too well. I can keep up no problem. Wait. I gotta get a message to them! What if they're here for the same thing?"
I figure Rocky's logical-minded enough to work out the atmosphere onboard the Blip-A once he studies what's coming through the tunnel, but I don't think he'd have the resources to replicate that much methane or crank it to that temperature for Grace. So I think it'd be half canon, half swapped to still make it work.
But man, I can imagine this clumsy somewhat goofy Eridian and Rocky being absolutely endeared by them instantly. And then Grace's molecular biology knowledge starts to shine through...
That's a genius way to flip that around for the swap!
Grace could be young and a fairly unproven scientist so the skepticism of him in a more practical-minded society like the Eridians' has to come from a slightly less Human angle. "Just another of them kids" would make sense for reasoning there.
Additionally it makes sense that they'd have a bias for their own planet when searching for other life: 2x gravity, super-close to their star, and certainly not water-based. We seek for what we know, and the unexpected and unknown throws us for a loop. Why not give the Eridians a similar bias? It'd explain why nobody in their society realized Earth had life until Rocky met Grace.
I think Human!Rocky would still be just as blunt socially which is why he's kind of an outcast among Humans, while Grace is weirdly polite for an Eridian cause he hasn't learned how to just be forthright with large groups of people. He finds it easier interacting with Rocky for that reason.
I liked that Grace was technically right and wrong about the Eridians too. The steam-powered muscles are such a cool idea. I also loved the 5 hearts, 5 vocal chords, 5 legs symmetry too.
But yeah, the Eridians for the most part aren't water-based save for just a few things. I'd imagine their bias would be towards life developing like them, but they'd have enough imagination to recognize the possibility of other life and speculate on it. (Like how we can imagine aliens floating in gas giant atmospheres like Clarke did, or Weir did with constructing Astrophage.)
For one thing, Rocky has to have had enough of that speculative knowledge for him to interact with Grace. Like, how would you interact if you didn't know aliens existed at all - and didn't believe in the possibility?
But instead, it's like Rocky and Grace both knew enough about the prospect of alien life that encountering it was (while mind-blowing) something they could reasonably wrap their minds around as time went on. That suggests to me the Eridians were probably near the Humans' level of consideration for life Out There. (Either that or the Astrophage forced them to take a very big cultural shift on the topic very quickly.)
rocky’s design notes from james ortiz’ instagram :) going insane at the reason rocky put two arms together when giving his name was to show his family crest
The Myth of “Fans Killing Shows”: Here’s the thing I fundamentally disagree with. It wasn’t the fans who “killed the shows.” It was the writers who killed it.
I came across this Tumblr post and here's why people blaming the fans for the writers fatal flaw is just wrong.
And now I'll get to the most unpopular opinion I've ever shared online - fully aware that what I've already said very few people on here would agree with: I don't think it's Rob Thomas who killed the show with his ill-adviced decision, it's the fans who did that. Not that they are not aware of it, but they still refuse to take the blame for it, as if there could not have been any other reaction. And clearly they don't regret it. After they paid to bring Veronica Mars back once before. They collectively decided that season 4 was a crime against the fandom and that it never happened. Therefore making it impossible for anyone who did not feel the same way to get more content and have some closure.
I know I don't get to be mad about that, but it is sad. And I've been on the other side of this a few times and stopped watching a show after a certain point, but that never triggered a cancellation. I've seen favorite characters killed off many times without it ever leading to a fandom turning hostile like that, sometimes even ripping everything else apart about the show. And it's not even like Veronica Mars was a cosy show where people didn't die. It was neo noir. It started out with her solving the murder of her best friend ffs. So, how did this happen? How did one character's death kill the show? Was it because he was the main love interest over more than a decade? Why does it now feel like he was more important than the protagonist? Or was it maybe because the fans campaigned for it's return and even funded the movie? Was it because they felt more invested in a way and later betrayed although they did not pay for the last season to get made?
I know this take circulates a lot: “The fans killed Veronica Mars. If they hadn’t reacted so strongly to Season 4, we’d have gotten more.”
But after watching this happen over and over, across shows I love, shows that shaped me, shows that built entirely new corners of fandom culture. I just don’t buy it.
Fans aren’t killing shows. Writers are breaking the emotional contract, torching the narrative spine, and then blaming the audience for the smoke.
And if Veronica Mars were the only example, maybe we could write it off. But this specific heartbreak, this implosion of trust, has now happened on too many shows, in too many fandoms, with too similar a pattern to chalk up to “one overreacting audience.”
It didn’t start with Season 4.
It didn’t start with Logan Echolls.
And it didn’t end there.
It’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
It’s Game of Thrones.
It’s The 100.
And on and on.
This is a cultural pattern. A breaking point between audiences and creators, and VM is just the case study where people still argue about who struck the match.
The pattern is the same every time: the writers kill the relationship they spent years telling us mattered most.
This is the part critics pretend not to understand.
Fandom doesn’t melt down because a character dies. Characters die constantly in television, and people grieve them, yell about them, move on. They melt down when a character dies in a way that breaks the story’s thesis. Let's take a deeper look:
Veronica Mars: Logan Echolls
Years of storytelling, marketing, PR, revival hype, and arc-building told us:
Logan is Veronica’s person.
He’s the love story that grows with her.
This relationship is the heart of the show.
Season 4 then kills him in the last 90 seconds as a plot device. Not a turning point, not a thematic evolution, just a twist that contradicts everything the show told us about her healing.
The Handmaid’s Tale: Nick Blaine
Four seasons of narrative work (and two books) told us:
Nick is June’s equal, mirror, moral counterweight, and match.
Their love is radical, raw, complicated, feminist, and central.
Then Seasons 5 and 6 decide:
Actually, punish him.
Actually, flatten him.
Actually, the story is about motherhood, not womanhood or desire.
Actually, June belongs with the safe man.
That isn’t a character arc.
That’s an ideological pivot.
Game of Thrones: Daenerys Targaryen
Eight seasons told us:
Daenerys is the heart of the myth.
She breaks chains. She frees people.
She’s the emotional and moral center of the show’s grand design.
The final three episodes say:
Forget that.
She snaps because… trauma? lineage? vibes?
The woman who liberated millions is actually a tyrant.
A series that built itself on emotional logic ends on plot logic. The single most disorienting pivot a story can make.
When the ending contradicts what the story was, fans don’t feel shocked. They feel gaslit.
Killing the love interest isn’t the issue. Killing the thesis is.
This is the part nobody wants to talk about, because it forces a reckoning with the power and legitimacy of fandom interpretation.
Logan wasn’t just Veronica’s boyfriend.
Nick wasn’t just June’s romantic partner.
Daenerys wasn’t just another lead.
These characters were:
thematic mirrors
emotional anchors
narrative engines
symbolic structures
the emotional grammar of the show
and the embodiment of the protagonist’s arc
You don’t just rip those out. Not without re-breaking everything around them. It’s like pulling the keystone from a bridge and then blaming drivers for falling into the river.
Why does this keep happening? Because TV writers mistake cynicism for prestige.
This is the actual disease that keeps killing fan-beloved shows:
Prestige = tragedy
Prestige = subversion
Prestige = women alone
Prestige = punishing love
Prestige = nihilism masquerading as maturity
It’s a worldview that sees romance arcs, emotional continuity, loyal love interests, or morally gray partners as “cheap,” “fan service,” or “too soapy.” And because of that mindset, writers keep doing one of two things:
1. They kill the love interest to seem edgy or surprising.
2. They rewrite the protagonist or their partner beyond recognition.
And sometimes both. Either way, the show loses the very thing that made it groundbreaking. The fans didn’t kill Veronica Mars. They mourned what the creator killed first. If a fandom was powerful enough to:
campaign for a return
fund a movie
keep the discourse alive for a decade
pull the show into the 2010s streaming era
…then maybe, just maybe, they had a point about the story’s emotional core.
People didn’t walk away because Logan died. They walked away because his death dismantled the show’s moral vocabulary.
Just like:
People walked away from The Handmaid’s Tale, especially 6x10, because they dismantled the show’s feminist thesis and punished the very arc they built around love, agency, and liberation. (Ahem Hulu's TT because I will be shocked if it's not heading for a similar exit.)
People walked away from Game of Thrones because the finale dismantled eight years of character logic and replaced it with plot convenience.
This isn’t “toxicity.” This is narrative literacy.
Fans understood the assignment better than the people writing the final chapters. The truth is this: fans don’t kill shows. Shows kill themselves when they decide the audience was wrong about what mattered.
And here's the irony that never gets talked about: Writers taught us what mattered.
They built these love stories.
They crafted these arcs.
They centered these relationships.
They marketed these dynamics.
They put these characters in promos, posters, finales, interviews, season-long narratives.
They told us these bonds mattered.
So when they then turn around and say:
Actually, wrong.
Actually, silly of you to care.
Actually, this was never the point.
Of course people walk.
It’s not immaturity.
It’s not entitlement.
It’s not “fandom killing the show.”
It’s the audience refusing to be told that the story they meaningfully engaged with for years was a mistake.
"Why is it a problem if students use AI to get through college"
Because if you demonstrate to me that you're willing to set aside concern for truth, evidence, and verifying things with your own eyes whenever it happens to be inconvenient for you, I have a solemn responsibility to make sure you don't get into medical school.
Tumblr doesn't like to do this kind of ethics, so I have to phrase this carefully, but it's a question of character. And a person's character is clearest when they're being asked to do the right thing even when it doesn't matter to them.
I don't want to live in a world in which doctors and lawyers and politicians just ignore the responsibility to research and verify when it's inconvenient for them. When they're busy. When they have something they'd rather be doing. The world I live in is already too full of those people in positions of power. I'll be damned if I let there be more of them.
Some of the responses to this have been, in essence, "well, it's not our fault for being raised in a bad educational system that prioritizes grades over comprehension". And you're right, it's not your fault.
But you freely admit the system is bad. That it values the wrong things.
So why do you limit yourself to only achieving what it values? Do you not aspire to be better than a system you know is wrong? Don't you want to change the world?
Another question, how many times was swk kicked off the journey and why?
Wukong was kicked out of the group first in the White Bone Demon Arc, I would say that this was about a year or so into their journey together, and at this point, they have had only three adventures. The burning of the Abbey, the Yellow Wind Demon, and the Ginseng Fruit Arc. To me, it's important to know which arc has led up to the telling arc so that we can have a better understanding of where people might be with trust.
Wukong can tell White Bone Spirit is a demon right away and while he was going to kill her Sanzang tried to give her the benefit of the doubt as she hasn't actually harmed them in any way. Wukong accused him of just wanting to sleep with her.
So already not off to a good start.
This leads to the three killings and both of them butting heads over who is right and wrong. Is it right for Wukong to kill someone that has yet to harm them only because he knows she is a demon but his journeymates cannot tell or is it right for them to have to wait for a wrong to be committed to retaliate in the first place?
Also, I think that since neither Wujing nor Bajie has seen the Fillet Tighening Spell at this point they were not aware of its effects since they were only away of what it could do in the Ginseng Fruit arc, and even then I don't think Bajie believed it until now, similar to how he didn't really believe Bailong was a dragon under his horse disguise until the Yellow Robe arc when he first spoke.
That isn't to excuse their actions but the main reason I believe that Bajie was trying to get back at Wukong for the perverse uncounted where he was strung up in a tree by Guanyin at the start of the Ginseng Fruit arc and other deities due to Wukong's pushing for him to get married. At least I believe he thought this was a sting-for-a-strong kind of revenge.
Bajie was the one to tell Sanzang that Wukong might be lying for the sake to kill humans which sadly at this point isn't too far out there due to his persistence to kill humans at the Burning of the Abbey. Wukong doesn't kill humans because he has to, he has shown that when he killed those seven bandits that attacked him and Sanzang at the start of the book as well. He kills humans because he believes they deserve to die and he is the one to do it. It is not out of need, he wants to kill them if they get in his way.
Again I think that because of these past actions have clouded Sanzang's judgment to believe Wukong because he is 100% in the right that she was a demon trying to kidnap him. But he has seen Wukong treat humans and demons the same way, and with no help of Bajie, is making choices out of anger rather than logic. Needless to say, there hasn't been a lot of good blood so far, I really think that Sanzang would believe him if Bajie didn't keep making excuses.
This all came to a head when Sanzang really thinks that Wukong isn't going to change his stance on killing people, whether it be his own lack of ability to teach or that Wukong finds human life of little value he sends Wukong away. He doesn't even bother with the spell on the third killing just for him to go.
After that is it the Yellow Robe arc where Wujing is captured, Sanzang gets turned into a tiger and almost hunted to death, Bailong is out of commission and only Bajie is left standing.
And he has to be the one to get Wukong back. Which he does leading to Sanzang being very grateful and they move on to the journey.
From there about seven years pass or so, and they are about 8 or 9 years into the journey when the Six-Eared Macaque Arc begins, so a little over halfway with about 6 or 5 years to go. I think he has used the spell only once when the Hundred-Eyed Demon was pretending to be Sanzang as well and Wukong told him to recite it so he knows which one to kill.
From there it is a little bit more direct why he got banished it's more to do with how he treated both the living and the dead.
I think what people again miss is that when it comes to humans, Wukong isn't facing other demons that can fight with him toe-to-toe in magic. Wukong has so many abilities to subdue that he has don't with other deities and demons, putting them to sleep, making them immovable, tying them up, he can stop humans and scare them off without killing the for the sake of protecting Sanzang. But he wants to kill them because he thinks they deserve to die anyway, which goes against their whole thing about showing mercy.
Instead, Wukong explains how it's actually Sanzang's fault that he has to kill so many humans. That if it wasn't for him and this mission that there would be so many people alive, and who cares about some petty thieves or scum bandits, they would have died anyway so he was just speeding up the process. This is ironic to me because Wukong who was also sent to be executed was giving mercy to have a second chance as well but he wavers in some cases when he thinks others deserve a chance at redemption as well.
From there it is a little bit more direct why he got banished it's more to do with how he treated both the living and the dead.
They were staying at a family's house and they claim that their son has done great evil as a bandit, a bandit that the pilgrims have already met and Wukong killed their leader. When the bandit came home and saw them he wanted to get revenge and kill them in their sleep. His family let the pilgrim get away so that no one would get hurt but they were still chased after.
Wukong makes the choice of killing the rest of the bandits and I think that maybe, perhaps he wouldn't have been banished this time if he didn't go to the trouble of cutting off the head of the family's son and presenting it as a trophy. But Sanzang let his anger get the best of him and sent him away without trying to talk it out.
He goes to Guanyin because he didn't want to face the shame of going home but she tells him to wait until Sanzang has cooled off his anger to see reasons again and rather asked him with his powers why he couldn't have shown mercy to the bandits (like a good teacher does).
I think that is why the Six-Eared Macaque arc shows the real turning point with how not only Wukong behaves but Sanzang as well. Wukong is fighting his inner demons over here but Sanzang has to learn not to let his anger and emotions not to get the best of him. He is too quick to judge and needs to find out more about the whys in how people act rather than taking it at face value.
These are defiantly the worst point for either character as it highlights their worst traits and I hate to think of them as the most common examples whenever people think of Journey to the West when there are nearly 15 other arcs showing how they both change and grow throughout their journey.
There is a lot more to be said with how Sanzang is seen in more of a Confucianism mindset in later interactions to give Wukong more good qualities in comparison as the story of Xuanzang changes more and more throughout time. But also Wukong's representation of both control and freedom and the balance of the two to make a cohesive narrative within the story.
There is so much more that can be said but I think I'll wrap it up here.
…This picture basically sums up a lot of the in-story explanation for "Why a plot thing happens".
Understandably, most modern readers tend to call it bullshit, and suggest that it's nothing but a self-serving lie used to justify Ancient China's Bloodiest Bureaucracy Recruitment Program.
When it comes to adaptations, I, too, feel like it's a case of "Just because it made sense to the writers back then and they believed in this stuff, doesn't mean you, as a modern reader or adaptation maker, have to buy into the same ideas."
However, there aren't a lot of writings on the "Whys" behind the ubiquity of Fate Says So. As such, I'd like to offer my own amateur explanation.
Basically, it's because the novel's two conflicting themes and the author-compiler being really insecure about them.
Mencius
See, FSYY's view on rebellion is very much in line with Mencius, who suggested that if your ruler treated his lieges and subjects like shit, you, as a liege, were perfectly justified to respond in kind.
He also famously said in his own work, Mengzi, that "I only know King Wu's slaying of Zhou the Tyrant, not a vassal's murder of his lord."
Or, to heavily rephrase and simplify it:
"I only know the death of a tyrant, not the murder of a king."
Well, Zhu Yuanzhang, Ming dynasty's founding emperor, really didn't like these parts of Mengzi.
It was said that he tried to take away Mencius's officially sanctioned sacrifice, and he was behind the creation of a heavily censored version of Mengzi called 孟子节文, minus all the "rebellious sentiments", that were used as textbook for 17 years.
It didn't suceed at taking Mencius out of circulation, but combined with the elevation of Zhu Xi by the state, there is a turn towards conservatism and strengthening of imperial legitimacy in early Ming Neo-Confucianism.
Fate
By the late Ming times, there is a notable relaxation in the strength of the ol' Confucian orthodoxy. That doesn't mean its influence on cultural norms weren't still significant, though.
And FSYY, being a typical Ming work, also loves to get on the Neo-Confucian soapbox from time to time.
Which was not too uncommon for vernacular novels written by literati, who saw novels as another opportunity to moralize and educate the uncouth masses.
Like, even friggin' erotic novels like to defend themselves with "I'm writing all the explicit sex scenes to show you the detrimental effect of lust and how everyone involved get their karmic justice, not because it's hot!"
Which naturally poses a dilemma: How can you subscribe to Mencius's view on justified rebellion, while also being 100% sincere about your Neo-Confucian morality tracts where rebelling against your ruler is a no-no?
Apparently, FSYY's answer is 1) Fate Says So, and 2) Being really insistent that They Are Only Rebelling Because King Zhou Is the Worst, It Should Be Your Last Resort, Do Not Try This At Home.
Because Fate is connected to the Mandate of Heaven (a word I don't like to use, because I feel like non-Chinese audiences have some strange ideas about what it means), it essentially functions as a higher authority that can override standard Neo-Confucian morality.
"Normally, you aren't supposed to rebel against your lord, but Fate Says You Can because this ain't normal times."
And the idea of Fate is still based on that very morality, because human affairs and Heavenly Order are intricately connected.
A ruler gains the throne by being the exemplar of a set of moral virtues and guiding his subjects towards those virtues, and when people, especially rulers, Do Bad Things, it will create ripples in the natural world in the form of disasters, birth of mutated animals, yaoguai sightings, and unusual celestial phenomena.
Like, Heaven doesn't exactly pick a ruler and forms a personal connection with said ruler and his lineage.
It's more of a "If you Do X, Y will happen" scenario, where X is Immorality and Bad Statecraft and Y is Disasters, Rebellions, and Weird Shit (that may lead to the ruler's deposition and dynastic transistion).
And on the folk level, people might not know that much about the Mandate in the classical literature sense, but they did take Fate seriously, whether in the form of divination and taboos, or belief in karmic retribution.
Like, if you already believed that the time of your birth could determine your personality and future, that doing good stuff would beget you good things in this life and the next, and bad shit happening to good people was the result of karmic debts from past lives carrying over?
"Fate Says So" might be far less outlandish to you than it would be to a modern audience. And even then, one could interpret it in ways that subverted social order instead of reinforcing it.
You can see this in IRL sectarian cult rebellions, where they often portrayed their leaders as incarnations of celestial deities and appealed to the same "Fate/Mandate Override" rhetorics to legitimize themselves.
Back to FSYY
Which may be why, even while using the Fate Says So argument, the author-compiler is still afraid of coming off across as "Rebelling against the emperor is okay, actually!"
Well, the intended message is closer to "Rebelling against the emperor is okay only if 1) Fate Says So, and 2) the emperor is the Worst of the Worst, and even if the loyalty is misguided, it is still good and commendable."
(Technically, this is pretty close to Mencius's thought too: he's also of the opinion that you can only overthrow your ruler if he's a piece of shit who's dangerously bad at his job, and it shouldn't be a regular solution.)
Which is why you see Shang officials being loyal to King Zhou and hoping he'd see reason even after multiple gruesome executions, and Novel King Wen & King Wu being giant pushovers.
If King Zhou needs to be the Worst Guy Ever in order to justify rebellion, then the ones leading the rebellion also need to be the perfect Sage Kings and Neo-Confucian morality paragons who'd never rebel against their king out of their own volition.
"We would never rebel against our lord, honest, we just wanna knock on the palace doors politely and make him see reason with a long, boring speech, I don't know why JZY and the other vassals interpreted it as 'Topple the Shang and Make the Zhou lineage the new emperor'!"
Which is extremely annoying, even when you kinda get why the author-compiler is doing it.
Final Thoughts
I feel like FSYY is less of a morality tract when you compare it to other obscure Ming Shenmo novels that actually are morality tracts wearing a fake mustache.
In fact, its alignment with Mencius's view on rebellion, as well as the usage of Fate as a Deus Ex Machina override to conventional values like filial piety or loyalty, arguably makes it less stringently Neo-Confucian.
But the author-compiler's attempt to justify the rebellion with repetitive in-story speeches and stress that They Want to Be Loyal/Filial, Actually, They Just Have No Other Choices...does make parts of the book quite a chore to modern readers.
I do feel like you can take Fate seriously in a FSYY adaptation, both as an actual cosmological force and something characters genuinely believe in, and still create an engaging story.
Maybe look into the historical Shang-Zhou transistion's effect on the view of Heaven, and the early accounts of the fall of Shang that weren't as Confucianized, and make it an actual epic war story with the characterization and worldbuilding that are missing from the Ming novel.
Or, better, take "Fate Says So" to its most ridiculous extremes and make it funny.
(Because gosh, the novel takes itself too seriously at times, and not in a fun way.)
Musing on Chinese Religion and Respect 2: Electric Boogaloo
...Sometimes, even mentioning the dumpster fire of discourse feels like you are adding more fuel and stopping it from dying out, which is why this unfinished draft has been lying in my folder for a long, long time.
Let's just say, I'm both angry enough to finish it because of recent stuff, and calmed down enough to try and write something at least a little productive and informational to casual readers.
---
In my previous musing, I've mentioned that vernacular novels are Not Scriptures, even though characters from vernacular novels did get worshipped in Chinese folk religion.
Well, the part of JTTW adjacent fandoms who don't make that distinction tends to reduce it to "You can't ship Buddhist monks and Buddhist deities"...but with the curious exception of SWK.
And honestly, the idea that 1592 novel Sun Wukong, who's completely uninterested in sex and romance because that's not his allegorical function, needs to experience Love and Passion and everything encompassed by the umbrella term Qing?
It's already there in the late Ming Supplement to the West.
Well, he needs to experience Qing in order to realize its emptiness and illusory nature for that particular novel. In a way, the modern SWK romances are our quirky continuation of that tradition.
But these folks aren't interested in symbolism and non-literal reading, just "I've been telling people not to ship Buddhists/monks, but SWK is also a Buddhist and I'm into a SWK ship, how do I reconcile my own arbitary, conflicting and frankly unnecessary standards".
(Oh, the Ming lewd monk jokes and "monastery = places of gay" association y'all have no idea of...)
Most simply handwaved it with "He's not a Buddhist in this adaptation" or "Well if we disallow SWK shippings we'll have very little popular pairings left".
Okay, you do you, though I dunno who has given you the idea that shipping needs some kind of Seal of Approval in the first place.
Maybe it's the tiny minority who take the enforcement of vows of celibacy over fictional Buddhists way too seriously, and believes that:
SWK is clearly part of the Buddhist pantheon
Calling him a fictional character = calling the religion fake and thus being disrespectful
If SWK is to be considered a fictional character, then one is also saying that every other member of the Buddhist-Daoist pantheon that appeared in vernacular novels are fictional.
There are so many holes in this argument, it's hard to know where to begin, but this is kinda symptomatic of the Dumpster Fire Stuff I'll be getting into later, so bear with me for a sec.
First: What kind of god is SWK in the context of IRL Worship?
Sun Wukong attains Buddha-hood at the end of JTTW novel, but outside of the story, he is not exactly a "Buddhist" god in the same way Bodhisattva Guanyin is.
Rather, he is an amalgation of vernacular fiction, Xuanzang's IRL pilgrimage, Chinese monkey legends, and monkey worship in Fujian (which didn't worship a specific god that's exactly like Novel! SWK prior to the novel, but a bunch of monkey deities).
He is best classified as a folk religion deity, whose worship is highly regional in nature, and mostly popularized by the Ming vernacular novel.
It is also perfectly normal and not too uncommon for IRL Chinese Buddhists and Daoists to think of JTTW as just fiction. In fact, there are Chinese Buddhists who personally find JTTW disrespectful because it turns historical Xuanzang into a caricature.
In the autobiography of Yang Jie, the director of JTTW '86, she mentioned that she tried to get a renowned Buddhist named Zhao Puchu to write calligraphy for the title, and he refused because of his rejection of JTTW's portrayal of Xuanzang.
(The crew also got barred from a temple on Mt. Jiuhua, whose monks were like "Your Party destroyed our temple and statue and forced us into hard labor during the Cultural Revolution, I'm not letting y'all in here if you won't even offer a single incense and pay your respect to the Bodhisattva.")
(However, in another temple on the same mountain, the monks are very curious about the filming process, helped the director when she nearly had a heat stroke, and welcome her warmly when she revisited the temple several years later.)
Heck, going back 400+ years, in Pu Songling's Liaozhai Zhiyi, he made it pretty clear that he doesn't believe in Sun Wukong as a religious deity, despite writing a story about the Great Sage!
Are the IRL Buddhist monks, who actually received ordination and lived in a temple, "disrespectful" because they don't believe in a folk religion deity from a vernacular novel and prefer to stick to the more canonical sutras?
Are you somehow "disrespectful" for liking JTTW novel and adaptations, just because some monks don't like it?
Clearly not. You can be a faithful monk, priest, or lay Buddhist/Daoist while still seeing SWK as a fictional character. You can just be one of the atheist/agnostic majority who enjoys JTTW as a good story.
You can be a lay practitioner who believed in SWK as a more Daoist god, or straight-up didn't care about what the Buddhists said, like folk religion had always done——"Care not for canon nor scriptures nor orthodoxy, only that your prayers and offerings work and your deity is pleased."
Heck, to use Argument #3 as an example, you are perfectly capable of thinking SWK is a fictional character, while believing that all the other Daoist gods and immortals are real, because the variant of folk religion pantheon you grow up takes more inspiration from institutional Daoism than JTTW.
Like, seriously, if you want to be really doctrinal about Buddhist canons, you shouldn't even be worshipping SWK or treating JTTW like sutras.
Conversely, if you want to worship SWK like his IRL folk worshippers, it will do you well to acknowledge the laid-back, diffused, widely diverse nature of Chinese folk religions and stop beating people with the "respect" stick.
Second: Again, what Does "Respect" Even Mean?
As my first musing has hopefully made clear, it sure as hell doesn't mean "No Fun & R18 Allowed at All Time".
But also, the more you get down to the village level of things, the more ridiculous the idea that there can be a universal expression of "respect".
Like, two or more villages may worship the same folk god, but essentially treat them as different "entities", for a lack of better words.
To use an example: Village A and Village B both have a temple to Guanyin. However, when you ask Lao Wang from Village A about the temples, he tells you: "Go to our temple, our Guanyin is more efficient than Village B's Guanyin."
Though Guanyin A and Guanyin B are not seen as two different goddesses, and may very well share the same iconography, there's still the sense that they are distinct from each other, kinda like…two streams that flow out of the same giant river.
And Lao Wang's commentary is similar to someone saying "Don't go get water from that stream, it's drying up while ours are still plentiful".
How, then, can you apply a single universal anything to all the streams and rivets of the river, other than "They contain water" (Arguably worship the same deity)?
And the difference betwen the "streams", gods/icons worshipped in individual local temples, goes beyond the matter of efficiency.
In more mountainous and geographically fragmented areas, two neighboring villages can very well develop entirely different rituals of worship around a single deity. What Village C considers as proper respect to Guanyin C may be completely unnecessary to Village D and never demanded by Guanyin D.
(And that's not even getting into the divide between officially-sanctioned state rituals of worship + promotion of a deity vs. the local customs and interpretations of the same deity.)
There are probably a few things that the majority will see as disrespect——clogging up the waterway completely with trash, building a dam that cuts off the water supply downstream, etc.
However, whether you believe in the legitimacy of a folk deity originating from a vernacular novel or personally worship him is NOT one of those things.
You know what's disrespectful, though? Acting like a fundamentalist and not just refusing to engage with something, but demanding the ban of things that don't fit your narrow conception of canonical doctrines.
Or, alternately, saying that anyone who don't believe in your niche popular deity and your personal taboos regarding their depiction is somehow disrespecting the religion as a whole.
(Pop Culture SWK is the GOAT, but religiously worshipped SWK is very much tied to Southern Coastal China + SEA. And even in Fujian where his worship is A Thing, he's more niche than Mazu or Nezha.)
And whereas taboos exist in folk religion too, you really cannot separate these taboos from the everyday practices and individuals and communities around those deities.
Respect or disrespect is often about how you conduct yourself in front of altars and icons or inside temples, the inclusion and exclusion of people from certain activities or spaces, and the presence of "dirty/impure/unlucky" substance and objects.
Like, some Daoist ceremonies take place in a closed environment where all participants are priests, lay worshippers and visiting strangers are not allowed entry, and photography is prohibited.
These ceremonies are also often set in the larger context of religious festivals, where they are parallel to other religious activities that lay worshippers, passerby, and visitors outside of the community are engaging in, which have their own set of rules and procedures.
Here, even within a single event in one location, what is considered "proper" and respectful can vary according to context.
These very same Daoist priests, after finishing that particular rite, are likely going back to the lay worshippers to provide more services for them.
Whereas the expectation for their conduct may still differ, they are no longer following the same set of rules specific to that ritual environment. An act that would be extremely disrespectful while they were performing the rite, like some journalist taking a photo, might not be that big a deal once they left and joined the parade oustide.
As you can see from the scenario above, "Respect" has far more to do with, well, what you say and do IRL than what is and isn't "canonical" when it comes to artistic depictions and beliefs. And, again, very few practices are universal.
Using my temple-touring experience as an example: there are temples out there that will let you take as many photos as you like. There are temples where there's a "No Photography" sign, but neither the vistors nor the temple staff take it seriously.
There are also temples without "No Photography" signs, but the staff will loudly tell you to stop the moment they see you reach for your phone.
If you can accept "It depends" as a valid answer for whether certain activities are allowed in a place of worship, what's so hard about accepting that there is no stories and depictions of a popular deity that's True and Correct and agreed upon by all Chinese people, religious or not?
If you or your Chinese friend doesn't accept a particular story or version of a deity, or has personal taboos regarding that deity: perfectly understandable, carry on with your day/respect their approach and be a good friend.
But neither you nor them have the authority to claim these personal taboos as cultural + religious universals for all Chinese people everywhere, or attempt to enforce it in online fandom spaces of all things.
Third: Fuck, There's No End to This Bullshit, Isn't It?
Which brings me to the flaming, rotten heart of the dumpster fire, the reason this draft stayed unfinished for so long: The dreaded "You can't ship a Chinese deity because _____" discourse.
On first glance, it's a classic case of people being unable to distinguish between "Depiction of a deity in popular culture" and "The deity worshipped IRL" and treating other people like crap over it.
But I feel like it's also built on a different conception of how deities function in general.
Using Nezha as an example: it's not like we Chinese folks don't have our own squabbles over different versions of Pop Culture Nezha.
Like, there are absolutely Nezha purists who only accept the FSYY version of the character as "valid" because that version is what inspired most subsequent depictions of Nezha and the most influential on his iconography, and view all modern adaptations with disdain.
Or people who only like the Nezhas in modern adaptations and vehemently reject the premodern depictions of Nezha, because these depictions are a product of their times, and thus saturated with premodern values that they find oppressive and backwards.
But still, the argument is about which "version" of the character is the best, with the implicit recognition that 1) there are multiple versions of Nezha, and 2) these versions are fictional characters, distinct from the Nezha worshipped IRL.
To use a rough analogy, it's kinda like arguing about which incarnation of Batman or Optimus Prime is their favorite/most compelling portrayal of the character.
Which can get quite heated and nasty, as those discussions often do. Oh, and the shipping wars + top/bottom debates, can't forget that. Rare is a fandom that hasn't experienced one of those at some point in time.
But the underlying logic is still noticeably different from the English Nezha discourse. Like, even when they aren't conflating Pop Culture Nezhas and Religiously Worshipped Nezhas, there seem to be the ideas that:
There's Pop Culture Nezhas, and there is the One Mythical Nezha
The One Mythical Nezha's iconography and backstory are ancient, timeless, and set in stone
The Ming vernacular novels that these iconographic traits and stories derive from, by virtue of inspiring later folk religions, are like the Bible or something
You can say that "Oh, his depictions differ between media adaptations", but that's still not the One Mythical Nezha, who is Authentic and Sacred, and certain divergences from it are Unacceptable Blasphemy
And if I were to further narrow those beliefs down into two assumptions, it would be:
The Books Define the Deity, Literally
Once a deity is "defined" via text and art, it becomes their One True Form, and deviating from the text/art = Disrespect
...Assumption #1 is particularly funny because most haven't even read either the original Chinese books or the English translations, which both differ from the pop culture version and leave plenty of ambiguous blank spaces.
Also, I can't help but look at both assumptions and go "Chinese descent or not, it's very hard to take your claims about Chinese culture and religion seriously when you are going Bible Literalist on vernacular novels."
But, to bring the subject matter back to Chinese folk religion: deities having multiple forms of varying appearances and functions aren't just A Thing, it's kinda the norm.
I've brought up Bodhisattva Manjusri as an example of a deity with both adult, elderly, and child forms before. Though the idea of multiple, co-existing manifestations are more common for Buddhist deities, especially esoteric ones, it's far from exclusive to Buddhism.
Even if you disregard the classic folklore trope of Daoist immortals and gods turn into children, old guys, women, and people of all trades to teach or help out mortals, the phenomenon is well and alive in Hokkien + Taiwanese Mazu worship.
These are known as the "Pink-faced", "Dark-faced", and "Golden-faced" Mazus, each with different symbolic associations and functions: Mazu as a gentle, merciful lady (based on her pre-ascension form), Mazu as demon-vanquisher and rescuer, and Mazu as the Divine Heavenly Consort.
They are distinct, but still very much the same goddess. None of these are her One True Form, because all three forms are equally true and venerable and, well, Mazu to her worshippers.
It gets even more complicated when you bring the "Division of incense/spirit" (分香/分灵) into this, where individual worshippers and temples go to a renowned, well-established temple, participate in a rite, then take an incense burner, icon, or tablet back for worship.
This representation of the deity is seen as an avatar/divine copies of the deity, with roughly equal efficiency, but must be taken back annually to the "main temple" to replenish their power. (And these divine copies can absolutely have different temperaments and specialties too.)
In this context, the different iconographies aren't just symbolic, but can also be a visual marker of "temple lineage". If you invite a Mazu from Big Temple X, then your Mazu icon is likely gonna share similar features to the one in Big Temple X.
Now, if you can accept everything I just said as valid for Mazu (and many other Hokkien gods), great! Because the same applies to Nezha too.
Much like SWK, he's closely tied to Southern Coastal China and the Hokkien diaspora. As a member of the regional pantheon, he can also serves as Mazu's attendant deity——here's one such Nezha I saw in Quanzhou's Tianhou Palace.
So tell me, friend: is there any good reason you think what's true for Mazu——all her distinct forms and "divided spirits" are still Her and equally important, even though one may be more popular in a particular time and place——somehow WON'T be true for Nezha too?
If, say, someone only recognizes the Pink-faced Mazu as the One True Mazu, calls her other forms wrong and inferior and disrespectful, and starts attacking her worshippers over it...without actually being religious or Chinese, they'd be rightfully viewed as a Fucking Clown.
And if you go to an actual Buddhist temple, point to the existence of Child Manjusri and the few ritual texts that refer to him using the "Child" epithet, and demand that they replace all of their adult Manjusri statues with the Five Buns Child Manjusri because the Bodhisattva is clearly an Eternal Child?
You'll be laughed out of the temple door.
Yet most of the Nezha Discourse are following that exact line of logic, where folks:
-See only Child Nezha as the One True Nezha.
-Dismiss Adult Nezha or Multi-armed Wrathful God Nezha as a mere "disguise" or "battle technique", instead of an equal, yet different aspect with their own historical roots.
-When Chinese people point out they can co-exist in both IRL folk religion and media adaptations, call them nasty names.
-Don't realize Nezha existed long before JTTW and FSYY.
-Or, believe that Child Nezha's popularization via vernacular novels means that folk religion practitioners must treat the books like sacred scripture.
-Overly literal interpretation of both texts and iconography in a manner that's starkly disconnected from their historical, cultural, and symbolic context.
-Just, trying to apply modern ideas of childhood and human development to either supernatural characters or IRL gods that are hundreds and thousands of years old.
-Insist that Nezha is a Chinese God and not just a character...while treating him exactly like a character defined by a single piece of "canon".
It's never about "respecting Chinese culture" or even genuine desire to learn about Chinese myths and religions, but using them as a "Shut Up You Should Feel Bad" button in shipping wars.
Which is, ironically, the most disrespectful thing you could've done——treating living, breathing religions like online fandoms and fandom discourses like religious wars, where all your preferences must have a Moral Justification and serve a Righteous Cause.
Final Thoughts
I cannot give you a list of "Dos" and "Don'ts" when it comes to something as complicated as folk religions and respect, as this post has hopefully shown.
(Mostly because there's always gonna be an exception, and I, too, am still learning. This post is hella long as a result.)
In fact, the obsessive need for there to be One Right Answer, one foolproof way to never accidentally hurt people or come off as disrespectful, is how you end up with the aforementioned jackassery going unchecked and the Dumpster Fire That Just Won't Die.
I will say that "Stay on the safe side and just don't write/draw it" is nowhere as helpful as 1) asking questions, 2) asking more than one people who has experience with the subject matter and not just the loudest, angriest one, and 3) learning to do your own research, though.
TL;DR: You can't really divorce the definition of "Respect" and "Disrespect" from the community of worshippers, regional differences, and ritual context.
Also, the whole "Media adaptations might vary, but the deity worshipped in IRL religion is always ____ and you are wrong to think otherwise!" argument is almost always bullshit.
Like, when it comes to Chinese folk religion, these folks are so off the mark, it'd be hilarious if they aren't being giant asshats about it.
As someone who wrote a thesis on this very subject a few years ago, here is the short version of how BL has evolved throughout the years. For the new comers ❤
a minute of silence for the original form of this post that tumblr decied to not save right after I saved it
I am going to go with a chronological approach. Unfortunately, I cannot put everything in one post so if there’s any questions about this or that aspect of the history of BL that you want to know and it’s not talked about here, you are welcome to ask me directly :)
Context and influences - Japan in the 60′s
Before the US forced Japan to open its borders to the outside world in the 1800s, homosexual practices were common place between budist monks, samurais and kabuki actors. During the Edo period (1600s to 1800s) there was a very rich amount of poetry, art, books (such as Nanshoku Okagami (The Great Mirror of Male Love) by Ihara Saikaku) and codes of conduct about how to have a good master/aprentice relationship, kinda like the greeks if you know what I mean. However, with the arrival of western influences, in order to become a more “civilized” country, it was all put in the closet.
Yet, in the 60′s Japan started to pick it up again through literature about young androginous beautiful boys (aka bishounen). On one hand, in 1961, the novel Koibitotachi no Mori (A Lover’s Forest) by Mari Mori was published. It tells the story of a young and beautiful 19 year old worker and a half french half japanese aristocrat, and their tragic romance. On the other hand, Taruho Inagaki wrote Shounen ai no Bigaku (The esthetics of boy-love), an essay on aesthetic eroticism (of which he wrote a lot of). All this was know as Tanbi (lit. aesthetic) literature. It generally refered to literature with implied homosexuality and homoeroticism such as works by Oscar Wilde, Jean Cocteau, etc. And of course, Mori and Inagaki.
In chinese tanbi is read as danmei (term used to refer to BL novels in china today, ie: The Untamed it’s all connected friends).
From the birth of Shonen Ai to Yaoi - 70′s to the late 80′s
Around the beginning of the 70′s, shoujo was being revolutionized by the Year 24 Group, a generation of women manga authors (mangaka) who started to explore new themes. Among them, their interest in tanbi gave birth to a new subgenre: Shounen ai.
Their most known manga were:
Kaze to Ki no Uta (The Ballad of the Wind and Trees) by Keiko Takemiya, and
Toma no Shinzo (The Heart of Thomas) by Moto Hagio
Their stories are characterized by having suffering eurpoean bishounen in boarding schools, living an idealized perfect love (meaning passionate) that, despite the tragic end of one of them, lives forever in the other.
As this genre starts getting popular, more and more fans of these stories start making their own self published manga, aka doujinshi, of the genre. It is around this time that the term Yaoi is coined. Meaning “YAma nashi, Ochi nashi, Imi nashi” (no climax, no fall, no meaning). Basically PWP fanfiction, for the most part. Doujinshis could be considered an equivalent of fanfiction in manga form. It is also here that the term Fujoshi (aka Rotten Girl, for liking rotten things) starts being used to refer to women readers of yaoi.
With this rise in popularity come the start of the commercialization of the genre. Which meant the publication of magazines dedicated solely to yaoi/shonen ai/BL. The most popular yaoi manga magazine at the time was June. The common trait of their stories being the therapeutic power of the love between the mains. The traumatized character would heal throught this newfound love.
Most of the stories at this time happened in the West (Europe or the States) as the exploration of these dark themes intertwined with homosexual romance and homoeroticism still feel safer to explore as a foreign concept. One example would be Banana Fish (1985).
Commercialization and Yaoi Ronso - 90′s
As more publishing houses pick the genre up, the term Boys Love is used to include every type of manga about homosexuality made for women.
The increasing amount of BL series sees a changes in its themes:
the start of the “gay for you” trope where one mantains their heterosexuality despite being in a homsexual relationship,
the uke/seme dynamic (mirroring hetero realtionships) also relating to physical appearence (one being more feminine, the other being more masculine),
the use of rape as an act love (sexual violence has always been present but here it becomes a staple),
anal sex as the only type of sex,
older and more masculine men start to appear
they now happen in Japan
Good examples of the presence of these themes in manga are Gravitation (1996) or Yatteranneeze (1995).
However in 1992, Masaki Sato (a gay activist/drag queen) wrote a letter in a small scale feminist magazine attacking yaoi and pointing out how it “represented a kind of misappropriation or distortion of gay life that impacted negatively upon Japanese gay men”. The female readers of yaoi responded, defending the genre as a means to escape gender roles and explore sexual themes that was never meant to represent the realities of gay men. This is know as the Yaoi Ronso (Yaoi Debates).
The debate ended with both sides understanding more of each other, with mangakas starting to include queer views in their works. It also started the academic reasearch of BL.
Yet, it is a debate that has been restarted more than once, as it is still relevant despite the evolution of the genre.
more on this on another post
Globalization and coining of BL - 2000′s
By the beginning of the 2000s BL is being sold all over the world (like all manga), and has become a stable industry. We could say it has finally become it’s own genre.
Some of the most well known manga series, to us (in the west), of the time are:
Junjou Romantica 2002
Koi Suru Boukun 2004
Love Pistols 2004
Haru wo Daiteita 1999
all of these have anime adaptations for the curious ones
We also start seeing short anime adaptations or special episodes of the most popular series, with questionable themes, such as: adoptive father x adoptive son (Papa to Kiss in the Dark 2005), father x son’s friend (Kirepapa 2008), etc…
However the themes remain more or less the same. Junjou Romantica’s love story starts with a non-con sex scene by the older one (masc, seme) to the younger one (more feminine, uke) addressed years later in the manga btw. Koi Suru Boukun’s love story is triggered by aphrodisiacs and rape. They’re still very present in the stories but slowly going away. A mangaka that represents this era could be Natsume Isaku (Candy Color Paradox 2010).
Change is slow in Japan. Even though the voices of LGBT+ people started to be taken into account in the genre it is not until later that we see it reflect in the mangas themselves. However, we can already see the start of this in Doukyusei (Classmates) (2006) by Asumiko Nakamura. Also Kinou Nani Tabeta? (2007) which is actually part of a more mature genre: Seinen.
It is my personal (subjective) theory that the BL of this era was the one that got popular outside of Japan, which is why we see lots of references to the themes, tropes and dynamics of this time in today’s BL series.
The LGBTzation of BL and the rise of webtoons - 2010′s to 2020′s
Slowly but surely LGBT characters and themes enter the scene of BL. Existing simultaneously with the previous tropes and themes, we start seeing a shift in these stories. We now see:
characters that identify as gay or some type of queer
discussions about homophobia
more mature themes about life and romance
At the same time as we get the usual love stories with the usual themes, a new trend starts to take over. And we get simultaneously, cute, sometimes questionable but light love stories:
Love Stage 2010
Ashita wa Docchi da! 2011
Kieta Hatsukoi 2019
More profound stories and darker or more complex themes:
Blue Sky Complex 2013
Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai 2011 (mafias)
Given 2013 (suicide)
Hidamari ga Kikoeru 2013 (deafness)
And others that adress the queer experience in a more mature way (which might actually fall into the Seinen genre)
Itoshi no Nekokke 2010 (slice of life, queer characters)
Smells like Green Spirit 2011 (two ways to deal with a homphobic society)
Strange 2014 (relationships between men)
Shimanami Tasogare 2015 (an LGBT group helps a closeted gay)
Old Fashioned Cupcake 2019 (you know this one 😉)
Bokura no Micro na Shuumatsu 2020 (the end of the world)
As queer stories are explored, BL mangakas and mangakas from other genres start to consider more stories about queer people such as the Josei Genderless Danshi ni Aisaretemasu (My Androgynous Boyfriend) (2018) by Tamekou, or the Shoujo Goukon ni Itarra Onna ga Inakatta Hanashi (The story of when I went to a mixer and there were no women) (2021) by Nana Aokawa.
Still, we can see two realities live side by side. Doukyuusei gets adapted into an impactful animated movie in 2016, meanwhile Banana Fish gets an anime adaptation that keeps the homoeroticism but not the homosexuality.
For those who might be interested. Here are some of the authors that represent the first half of this era, where they start to include newer points of view:
Scarlet Beriko, HAYAKAWA Nojiko, KURAHASHI Tomo, OGERETSU Tanaka, Harada, KII Kanna (Stranger by the Sea), etc…
And authors that while keeping classical themes break the stereotypes in a subtle manner:
Mangakas also no longer stick to one genre only. They explore whichever of them they want, from BL to Seinen to others.
ie: Tamekou,
or Asumiko Nakamura
The curious case of Webtoons
With the digitalization of mangas, throught Renta and Lehzin, it has become easier (and more expensive) to access these stories. Korea makes and appearence with their webtoons. Through the lack of piracy protections and the majority of them being digital, manhwa (korean webtoons) sees a rise in popularity. Through the digital medium the influencee can be the influencer.
However, like many other East Asian countries they have consumed BL, without hearing about the conversations about BL. So they end up mantaining the older themes and stereotypes that newer BL is trying to leave behind. Therefore, we end up with a mix of old and new, ie:
Killing Stalking 2016
Cherry Blossoms After Winter 2017
Painter of The Night 2019
Additionally, it is also thanks to the easy access to internet that Omegaverse, with its higher dramatic stakes (that parallel hetero dynamics), enters the mangasphere in 2016. It has grown in popularity ever since.
With the Thai BL Boom of 2020, Japan rediscovers its own BL market and starts investing in it more. Which is why we get live action adaptations of BL manga that was popular years ago (Candy Color Paradox was a manga from 2010), the more recent ones (The End of the World With You) or new anime adaptations (Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai in 2020).
more on this in my japanese live action BL post
What has it become now? is it BL? ML? or Seinen? Or is it all just gay manga?
It is clear that Shoujo manga (with BL, Josei and Seinen) is exploring queer themes such as gender and sexuality more and more. Japan is interested in this conversation, not only in manga (Genderless fashion). Which brings up the current question in BL studies: Does it make sense to keep these categories?
As a response to BL, ML (Male Love), which is made by gay men for gay men, started happening (around the 70s too). And Bara (gay manga porn) in response to Yaoi. However both gay men and women read BL and ML. We also see other themes being explored through BL, such as friendship (in BL Metamorphose), food (in Kinou Nani Tabeta), male relationships of all kinds (in Strange), and different queer views on life and its challenges (in Shimanami Tasogare). More and more what is LGBT and what is BL is merging, the line is blurred.
Conclusion
BL has been in my life for longer than it hasn’t. It is through shoujo and BL that I have come to understand people and romance.
It is flawed, like everything else this life, but it’s flourishing in many ways.
The genre feels old and new at the same time.
We can still find shounen ai/tanbi elements in more modern manga (All About J). Or the gay for you in a new light (Itoshi no Nekkoke). Or more educational manga on queer issues (My Brother’s Husband by Gengoroh Tagame). BL has around 50 years of existence but it is also being born anew in Thailand and Korea.
BL manga will continue to evolve in acordance to Japanese tastes, as it is still a local market. Hopefully the korean webtoons that get popular will be the more daring ones in their themes. Who knows where it will go from here? The only thing we know for sure is that it will continue to change. Isn’t it exciting?
A post on the evolution of live action BL in Japan is coming, to complement this post. As well as a more detailed explanation of the Yaoi Debates and gay manga.
multi-fandom blog @fablevii - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
