Fandom Untamed: the Business of Boys' Love Graeme Smith 0:12

Fandom Untamed: The Business of Boys’ Love

Graeme Smith 0:12

Welcome to the Little Red Podcast from beyond the Beijing Beltway. I'm Graeme Smith from the ANU's Department of Pacific Affairs, and I'm joined by my co-host, Louisa Lim, former China correspondent for the BBC and NPR - now with the Centre for Advancing journalism at Melbourne University. We're on air thanks to support from the Australian Centre on China in the World.

Louisa Lim 0:36

This month, we're delving into the drama surrounding Boys' Love or BL dramas, known in Chinese as danmei.1 This is a type of online novel or television drama that revolves around male relationships. But the catch is it's often written by women, for women and Boys’ Love fans have become a formidable political and economic force, making, and destroying both brands and celebrities.

Graeme Smith 1:01

To discuss this, we're joined by Angie Baecker, a lecturer at the University of Hong Kong who specializes in the cultural history of China and is a massive Boys' Love fan. We're also delighted to be joined by a Boys' Love author, who for the past five years has been writing under the name Huanxiangzheng Huanzhe,2 which translates directly as One Who Hallucinates. She's asked that we call her this pseudonym for reasons that will soon become clear. Angie, let's start with you. Where did BL come from?

Angie Baecker 1:29

I think the standard kind of, like, narrative of BL's origins, would probably start in the 1970s, specifically with the TV show Star Trek and a lot of women who were writing fanfiction at that time, that was pairing Kirk and Spock. So, this was a romantic relationship that they didn't see fulfilled on the show, but they wanted to write stories that had it itself. So, I think that's one of the origin points. But I would say that BL, and specifically danmei, in the Chinese context is a really global, regional transnational phenomenon, too. And so, a lot of Chinese culture for it comes from Japanese BL novels - Taiwan, Thailand, places like that are all very well known for having dramas, novels, things like that, that explore male-male relationships and parents.

Louisa Lim 2:16

So, Huanxiangzheng Huanzhe, maybe you could talk about this from the point of view of an author, because I know that you write stories about these two characters who come from a Japanese anime Gintama, and it's basically fantasy fan fiction starring these two characters, right? Tell us about, you know, what makes your stories sort of Boys' Love stories, not gay stories. What is the difference?

HXZHZ 2:44

Yeah, that's, that's an interesting, quite good question. So, I personally do set the BL literature apart from the homosexual or the gay literature in general. I think for me, it might work that the characters themselves come first. So, it comes first based on the work itself, my passion for the work and for the characters themselves. And then the romantic relationship comes into place where I see these two characters to have this possibility, or I would like to see them to be in this relationship.

1 耽美, literally the indulgence of beauty. 2 幻想症患者, HXZHZ for short. And then that's where the gender context comes into place. It's almost as if they happen to be two male characters. I personally don't like this expression too much. But I think it's an intuitive way of understanding it.

Louisa Lim 3:31

So, you're taking established stories and just spinning off them, right? Is that correct? And I mean, how, how much do you use your imagination, are you kind of setting it in other times and other universes, I mean, talk to us a little bit about how you develop these ideas.

HXZHZ 3:50

The BL story space is very broad, so there are different types. You can of course base your work almost purely on the original work itself, based on its own universe, based on its own concept, and follow the storyline with only very small changes from the original background. You can also kind of play on it by just going into parallel universe and try to work something off on that, like some major instance in the story changes or, or people meet in different time and places under the same background. It's also possible to do a lot of parodies. I work mostly under parodies, so I don't usually work with the original background of Gintama itself, I work across like, I don't know, like more like more than background, sort of science fiction, a lot of fantasies, under different worldview experimented with different relationships, like different age gap, different backgrounds, put these two people into a lot of different contexts and see how this relationship might work out. So, it's, it's very flexible. It's very interesting to experiment with all of this.

Graeme Smith 5:00

And how did you choose these two characters in the first place? Like what, what drew you to them?

HXZHZ 5:05

I don't, I did not choose them, I watched this work, and I just fell in love with these two characters. That's- that's probably the right the right way of describing it. It's not my voluntary decision, I just see them to have this very, very strong bond just from these two characters themselves. They are- they met at a very early age, like when they're about eight, nine years old. They're together for about 10 years from childhood to adolescence. And their mentor, the most important person in their life is taken hostage by some enemy force, which is the whole thing of the background. And then their mentor got killed right in front of them, after 10 years of trying to take him back. And then they of course, they did not actually get over this trauma, and they got kind of went on separate roads. But they meet again, again, in this original work and meet each other again, in a different sense. So, I'm not sure if this makes sense. This is just- just to give you a general overview of how these two characters both like from a, from a concrete story perspective, they have a very strong bond, but also emotionally they have these very deep emotional conflicts which I, I do see this as something that can spark a romantic relationship as something that goes far beyond that. That's why, why I experiment with them a lot. Yeah.

Louisa Lim 6:31

And Angie, what's your Boys' Love diet like? How did you get started? You know, how wide is the kind of, you know, dramas that you watch or read,

Angie Baecker 6:41

I think you mentioned this earlier. But BL, danmei, it's really fluid between kind of like mediums, not only as this creativity in terms of the different settings that you can put it in writing, but like it goes between film and TV and published literature, online literature, things like that, too. So, for me, I'm super interested in television, and specifically mainland Chinese television, because I find this negotiation of public space that happens on TV with these narratives to be so fascinating. So, I will often, like, watch a show first and then read the novel later. I've been like a lurker with fanfiction for a long time.

Graeme Smith 7:19

If I can ask you, HXZHZ: I mean, how spicy can you get with your writing given your main audience is in mainland China? And my sense is things have tightened up quite a lot in the last couple of years. So, I mean, what- what is not possible now that was maybe possible a couple of years ago?

HXZHZ 7:38

Short answer is it's possible always to write about everything. There's no boundary about what I can write or what I choose to write. However, there is the censorship in the system, of the Chinese system. So that, as you mentioned, has gotten tighter and tighter each year. So, I don't think it's really possible to do too, too. Like, I think, currently, almost all the literature are purely platonic. Like, it's very hard to write anything with physical contact nowadays. But Chinese audience accepts most of the things not like censorship in place, and people just gets angry when you write about things that are that are supposedly censored. But there are two, two layers of this story, depending on how you view it.

Louisa Lim 8:28

Angie, I was gonna ask you, I remember when we talked about this before, and we were just chatting about this. And you were saying this is, you know, some stuff on television, that's actually quite risqué, right? And that you were talking about this weird sort of dissonance where you watched a whole episode or something about a handjob. But they pretended it wasn't about sex. I mean, how- how does that work?

Angie Baecker 8:57

Yeah, so I think what I was talking about specifically in that instance, was the show called Addicted, which was like one of the first like mainstream popular Web TV series. It aired in, I think, I want to say 2016, it went on air, and it starred these two idols Huang Jingyu and Timmy Xu. Just really gorgeous, cute guys. And it's set in- in like a Beijing High School kind of like scene. So, it has this very kind of like nostalgic like studying Chinese families things like that. And yeah, I think episode 9 or 10, like literally the plot of the episode is one of the boys trying to convince the other one that it's not gay for him to give them a handjob. But the thing about that series is that that was the show that went too far. Right. So that show actually has like really clear like allusions to gay sex and sexual activity between men. They're shown in a bed, they're shown touching, right? They talk about their relationship and how they want to be more than just stepbrothers. That was the show that got pulled back because it did go too far. And so ever since then, you've had all these other BL shows that have been really trying to negotiate like, they're like, "Well, that was the red line, right? So that show went too far. But what's the space that we can explore? How can we still make it clear to the audience that this relationship with these two men has kind of other valences, right, but not get in trouble still maintain kind of like a plausible deniability for, for sensors or say your conservative grandmother, if she's watching the show with you, you know."

Graeme Smith 10:31

Angie, I mean the main audience for this is very much straight women. So, I mean, could you talk to us a bit about what the appeal is? I mean, is it about the breaking of taboos? Or is it something simpler? I mean, when I was in Anhui, I used to struggle to get served at restaurants, because all of the women would be watching Korean soap operas. And they'd be these beautiful, moisturized, manicured men that they would never meet in real life. I mean, is it partly the appeal of just seeing a type of masculinity that they're never going to come across? What's the appeal? Is it about taboos? Or is it about a different type of man?

Angie Baecker 11:05

I mean, I think that's a really great question. And one of the things that's so fascinating about this space is because it is a space where sexuality and masculinity are being explored in a lot of different ways. I can only answer personally, in terms of like, what I like about this, I think other people have a different take, especially depending on their different subject positions. But for me, you know, I think it intuitively makes sense to me. why some people why some straight women, why some women have different sexualities, some women who are presenting straight, but might be exploring, like other types of sexualities, why they would be interested in writing stories about relationships between two men. And that's because in so many narratives, women get the short shrift in the narrative, right? So, women are always like, supplemental kind of devices, or they are in service to like a central male figure. They're discarded, like their plot points, right? They're never the centre of the action themselves. And more than that, they don't have their own agency, right? And so, if you want to write like a story about a woman who's a warrior, there's always like a moment of incredulity, like, but how could she fight, right? Like, are her is her breast armour going to, like reveal the shape of her breasts? You know, like that? That seems to be like the question that we focus on when we talk about like, can women do stuff right? In these kinds of stories? And so yeah, it makes intuitive sense to me that you would simply maybe give up on writing limited characters in favour of exploring relationships between men, because they don't have this narrative baggage. They can do whatever they want. And that includes transcending sexual taboos. And I do think a lot of BL is about exploring taboos, too.

Louisa Lim 12:40

And what is it like for you as an author? Is there an element of sort of wish fulfilment that you're writing these ideal metrosexual, beautiful men into being when Chinese men have got such a rigid model of masculinity?

HXZHZ 12:59

Yeah, I agree with the point that I think a lot of BL is actually a very good space to experiment with a lot of taboos - or not taboo per se, but with the fluidity of sexuality. My personal opinion is I see BL itself as more like something similar to sexuality. For example, you're female, you're attracted to other male or other female, that's a sexuality, you're female, you're attracted to another male, but you'd like to watch the sexual relationship with two males, that's also kind of a sexuality. That's how I take it. It's a bit hard to understand. But I do see that from that perspective, in that I see that as a more as a instinctive, very natural attraction to- to certain to certain relationships. That's how I got into this place. And also, I don't work with feminized male a lot. So, I think there are, there are a lot of different variations of how masculinity can be described in BL work, it can be two very masculine male it can be two very feminine male, more frequently, one masculine, one relatively feminine male. It's very much based on personal preferences, and you can always push that boundary, whether you'd like to watch two very masculine male together, I think that's- that's also something that's very high value, but you can also push the boundary to another extreme. If a man is transformed to into a female, if it's actually a story between a male and female, but the female was or the female was originally a male in that work, does that still concept BL or is it actually something that's different? So, there's a lot of boundaries being pushed around in the BL work? I think the bottom line there is that first, as I said, it's about character. I don't care too much about their gender. I care about them as human beings first and second. For the BL work itself, the gender itself gets blurred. I think the experimentation, the fluidity and how much it can push the boundary around in BL itself is something that I do value.

Graeme Smith 15:07

I mean, I'm quite new to this, but I'm now addicted to the Untamed as I was telling Angie before I came on. But as a writer, I'm curious. I mean, the feeling I get from the Untamed is it's not just the two male leads who, who are queer. It's the whole cast in many ways - there's a whole variety of subplots. And it's, it's, you know, it's not just one couple, there's a whole bunch of couples, and it's very, very fluid the whole way through, it's, in many ways, it's sort of subverting even what you call traditional romantic genre in that there's just so many little, you know, sexual tension subplots going on. Is, is that common?

Angie Baecker 15:42

Yea, I think that's super common, and I think you're very perceptive to have picked up on that from as early as Episode Four. Yeah, like within fandoms there's a whole kind of like, I don't know if it's hierarchy, but like, kind of like you, you can distinguish yourself by the couples that you, the CPE that you support, you know, and so the most obvious one is always like the main couples, right. So, in the Untamed it's like Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian, and most people are into to them as a couple. But then some people are like, you know, I'm a little different. You know, I'm into Lan Xichen, and Jiang Cheng, you know, who are two more minor characters. So, I think this is this is kind of how fandom is, right. This is how people they could be more interested exploring this kind of like more minor spaces. But, but yeah, I think you're right to note that it's not just the main couple that might be gay. It's like everyone else. And in fact, the heterosexual relationships are the most disappointing in the Untamed. So ...

Graeme Smith 16:37

They feel a bit perfunctory, you know?

Angie Baecker 16:39

Yeah. Yeah, I know. So-

HXZHZ 16:41

Is there any heterosexual relationship in the Untamed?!

Angie Baecker 16:43

There are! So, in the Untamed, Jiang Yanli, Wei Wuxian's sister, she has this relationship with the heir of the Jin Clan. Yeah, and it's just like the most annoying relationship ever.

Graeme Smith 17:00

But they're pretty, they're pretty annoying characters, though. So that might just be that.

Angie Baecker 17:04

Yeah. And then heterosexual relationships, especially like in the older generation, like, those are the ones that are often the most stable. But when you do see kind of like in the Untamed, the only kiss that occurs on screen is actually between, like this - He's like, he's a bad character. He's a clan leader. He's kind of corrupt, right? And he kisses a sex worker, a concubine, like on screen, and that's the only onscreen kiss you get, but you often have this depiction of sexuality as like, debauched, right? And it’s usually heterosexual relationships that are depicted that way. And so, the gay ones are the ones that are actually like very chaste, and very pure.

HXZHZ 17:43

Just for your reference, because Untamed itself, it's- it's adapted from original danmei work. So, it's adapted from original BL work where there is a main couple there. So basically, if you try to break that main couple, it's- it's kind of weird. But in fanfiction, something different because in the original work, there's no main couple. There's not any two people who are supposed to be together who are naturally a couple together. So, you just do whatever you want to work. In general, not whatever you want.

Angie Baecker 18:18

Wait, are you talking about-?

HXZHZ 18:19

Yeah, I'm talking about fanfi-.

Angie Baecker 18:21

Are you talking about the work that Moxiangtongxiu3 based her work on? Or, like fan work based on the Untamed?

HXZHZ 18:28

Yeah, fan works. I think Untamed itself because it's adapted from BL work. So, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, they're kind of just naturally there. If you tried to break that couple, it does not make too much sense from- from the worldview perspective. But if, for example, Gintama it's not original BL work. So, it's originally just a couple of melted characters doing stuff. And you kind of make your own decision of what happens between them. So, I think that's the that's one of the main difference between for example, fanfiction of Untamed and the fanfiction of some work that is originally not BL. Yeah, just- I think just that difference is kind of interesting, maybe just kind of important.

3 墨香铜臭, the author of The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (魔道祖师) which the Untamed is based on. Louisa Lim 19:10

Yeah. And we've been talking a lot about the Untamed I thought maybe I'll just play a little clip from the Untamed. This is a clip of the main couple that Angie, you were talking about. And in the clip, you will hear, this very famous actor called Xiao Zhan, who plays Wei Wuxian and he's trying to get the other actor playing Lan Zhan to take off his clothes. So, you might get a sense of the dynamics here. So, for non-Chinese speakers, just listen for the word tuo,4 which means take off your clothes.

CLIP FROM THE UNTAMED 19:50

Louisa Lim 20:26

You can hear him keep saying, "Take off your clothes, take off your clothes, I'll take them off for you, I'll help you take them off."

CLIP FROM THE UNTAMED 20:40

Angie Baecker 20:43

The context in that scene is that this like teasing that happens like trying to get the other character to take his clothes off, there's always an excuse for it. And so, the excuse is that Lan Wangji has been injured, and he needs to cough up vile blood, and once he coughs up the blood, then he'll feel much better. And so, Wei Wuxian is like, conniving and coming up with this elaborate ruse to get him to be better. It's like he's actually trying to heal him, right. But I think that that's another trope that you see a lot in, in danmei and BL, is like, elaborate ruses to get characters to like to touch and to interact and to go on dates and things like that.

Louisa Lim 21:19

So, I mean, let's- let's go to that whole sort of economic mobilization that Boys' Love fans have done. And Xiao Zhan is like the most, he's probably like a prime example of this, isn't he? Because he does have sort of ridiculously beautiful, unwrinkled shining white skin and he's been a spokesperson and model for all kinds of brands including Estee Lauder and Olay - I'll play you a little bit of an ad from Olay.

OLAY AD 21:56

Louisa Lim 22:19

So that was for some kind of skin whitening products. And I did love that little English slogan at the end, "Time to play." Angie, talk us through how his fans mobilized in the beginning to boost the brands that he represented.

Angie Baecker 22:35

I think Xiao Zhan is notable because he's like probably one of the most prominent male celebrities in Chinese pop culture right now, and that is due in large part to the Untamed. The summer in which that show aired, he really just skyrocketed to, to fandom, to fame and racked up like one endorsement after another, you know, but in terms of the way that fans support him and the fan economy and how that works, it replicates for many fans, right? But Xiao Zhan just like happens to be one of the most popular ones. You know, I think fans are incredibly active and they find ways to

4 脱 support the idols that they that zhui,5 that they follow. I've seen this called doing data work like zuoshuju, the kind of tacit agreement is that because you, you chase this person, you support them, you take on this kind of like voluntary work where you're really just trying to boost them. So you create accounts on Douban, and like maybe multiple accounts, to upvote their shows and try to get their shows rated higher. You buy 75 copies, digital downloads of their songs, right. But there's always like the economies that they participate in to support them or, or you buy out the entire stock whenever you can of like a new product that they endorse, right? So there's all these, these ways that the consumer economy is like really structured, really dominated, or the way that a lot of consumer goods get sold is like through celebrity partnerships. And it's often marketed to women.

Graeme Smith 23:58

Could you maybe walk us through ... That was him at his peak. But then another group of fans sort of turned on him? I mean, how did that go down?

Angie Baecker 24:08

I mean, the reason for his downfall wasn't because of his anti-fans, although he does have many, but like the reason he got in trouble was because he had fans who were offended by a fanfiction that somebody else had written about him. And so they thought that it was like, I don't know, that it embarrassed him in some kind of way that it was unseemly for him to be written about that the way that he was in that fanfiction, where he is depicted as a trans sex worker who was pursuing his high school aged co-star Wang Yibo. And so that was the fanfiction that fans objected to and they reported the website to the government. The website got blocked, but the website being blocked then kind of erupted into like a much larger like national issue. That was really difficult to escape if you were like online at all in the month of March in China. This website, AO3 just publishes just so much stuff right and to have the whole website blocks like really just shuts down everyone's ability to participate in this community. And so there became this freedom of speech kind of cause that was wrapped up around rallying against Xiao Zhan. And so people felt like the only way that they could express their dissatisfaction with the suppression of this website, and a limit on- on creative freedom, right was to return his goods, to call brands and say, We want you to cancel your partnership with Xiao Zhan. In some ways, it wasn't even about him at all. It was actually about this website being blocked and bad fan behaviour.

Louisa Lim 25:31

Oh my God. I mean, it sounds like he's the victim in all of this. As an author, how do you assess what happens?

HXZHZ 25:40

So, I would agree with what was said, I think it's- it's more of a phenomena that people just got angry about this banning of the website, and it erupt into a freedom of speech issue, which I think is also linked with the censorship getting stricter and stricter over the years. People won't be so reactive, if it's just like some website just for some reason being shut down and the other things are operating. I think that's because the website itself is one of the few international platforms that's

5 追 still open in China, for access for the fanfiction. It's a very purely fanfiction focused platform. It's English based, and I don't think it has gained too much notice or traction to get itself banned before that. That was not very good impact or emotional impact on people. That's why it erupted, I do see a lot of angry posts, I do see a lot of angry words against - not Xiao Zhan, but the banning or, or the censorship thing on the Chinese platform as well, in different forums. I think they're- they're mostly under the topic of freedom of speech, yeah.

Graeme Smith 26:50

And Angie, could you walk us through how Xiao Zhan tried to- as the victim in this, tried to rehabilitate himself and, and get back to the glorious days when he, you know, couldn't, couldn't go for a drive outside?

Angie Baecker 27:03

Well, I mean, he still can't go for a drive outside. And that's kind of the deal you make when you become a celebrity at this, at this level of renown. This controversy, like was timed with COVID, right. And so, everybody was at home, self-isolating during this time, and so nobody was going out. And I think that helped him ride out a lot of the controversy. But then, you know, it's a standard kind of like, celebrity rehabilitation stuff that he did when he first made started making public appearances again. So, one of his first public appearances was poverty relief events, I think in, in Hunan, and he did like an in-depth interview, he apologized for his fans around that time for their behaviour. And you know, the- the standard kind of like, idol image is like designer clothes, beautiful hair, you know, sometimes a little bit of makeup and jewellery and things like that. But for this he was very stripped down, right. So, he wore like a blank white t shirt and very simple, you know, not trying to look too ostentatious. But since then, he's appeared in a couple of shows: the CCTV miniseries about COVID. I think overall, this series turned out to be quite controversial because of the way that it treated women's contributions to the COVID crisis. But Xiao Zhan's role itself was I think, quite well-received. He's- he's really back in action. You know, he has a more kind of like, masculinized look: he's cut his hair, he's doing a military drama with Huang Jinyu and things like that. But I think he's- he's, he's back. He's, he's, he hasn't been taken down. But one thing I find really interesting actually, is the way that his studio has taken ownership of this kind of freedom of speech issue, and specifically around the idea of online bullying. So, they've hired this law firm that specializes in defamation cases online. And they're really trying to go after anti-fans, right, people who intentionally spread malicious rumours about celebrities in order to attack their ability to get a brand endorsement or to have their show on air, things like that. So again, it's very interesting that this kind of mantle of like good behaviour online, is legally happening through this kind of like legal front that he and his lawyers are spearheading.

Louisa Lim 29:09

And he's also got a new role as the Winter Olympics spokesman. Yeah, here's the ad. I can play it for you right here.

WINTER OLYMPICS AD 29:25

Louisa Lim 29:31

So, what is going on here? Is there a kind of political thing that he sees his rehabilitation also as by the state, as necessary in order to survive as a celebrity?

HXZHZ 29:48

I think it's a common reaction after celebrities to go through a scandal. I don't see this as too different from any other scandals that might happen to celebrities, just happens to be tied to the fanfictions community and it has some very bad outcome and impact. So just I think it's- it's, it's an interesting cross section how these two communities are this fan base of Xiao Zhan, of idols, and this fanfiction community are kind of linked together, these two have different dynamics, it has different environment. From our perspective, it's almost like the fan base of these idols of Xian Zhan has kind of invades into this more niche forum of fanfiction. That kind of invades in, leave some bad impacts, and then left. Because this not actually where they belong to in the first place. What I can say about this is I can just be like, yeah, that happened. It's like a natural disaster.

Graeme Smith 30:54

And I'm curious as an author, I mean, what's your relationship with your, with your fans? I mean, do you? Do you face any pressure from your fans to write about your characters in a certain way? And have you ever had sort of bad feedback when you portray them in a certain way? Do you do you feel that as an author? Or is that something you're relatively free from?

HXZHZ 31:13

That's definitely something that's quite real. Whatever you try to publish on the internet, there are going to be people who read about it, people who comment, the- the feedback I've received so far, are mostly very positive. But that's usually that's mostly because I work in very niche fan base. So it can almost imagine this as a very close knit society, where people just kind of support and like each other. So- so I'm very blessed in that sense. Most of the comments I receive have been positive so far, if you go to a less niche, fan base, for example, a very, very popular Japanese anime, or you go into some more popular Chinese work, or, for example, the fan fiction of actual real Chinese idols, that becomes more complicated. And I do think there are a lot of dynamics going on. Well, one interesting one that might be interesting, there's this couple of things going on. So, CP, which basically refers to the couple you actually support. So, there are a lot of dynamics between people who support different couples - you support A and B, I support B and C, what happens? Can we just be on good relationship good term with each other? Or are we are just kind of fighting? That's- that's a very important question that decides like the dynamic of, of fanfiction world, yeah.

Louisa Lim 32:36

But you- you just talked about the fallout as a natural disaster. Why did you use those words? Is it the case that the closure of that platform has meant that it's much harder to write? Or is it that now fanfic users have to register and verify their ID and so the sort of space is shrinking? I mean, talk us through what has happened in the fallout that has been so disastrous for the community as a whole.

HXZHZ 33:04

I think I would view it in two aspects. So, first, the website itself, it's not closed down. It's just banned in China. So basically, means you need a VPN to actually get to that if you're in China and that creates some barrier for people who actually want to go to that website and read other words or the works of the works on that website. So that's, that's the- the physical impact. It shrinks the space a little bit especially for people who have less access to internet VPN or something like that all. The second thing, I think it just has quite negative emotional impact. So there as I mentioned, there are a lot of angry posts a lot of angry things going on- on the Internet at that time. I think first the fanfictions community itself is kind of hurt by that angriness and people, people fighting over this. I would- I would rather- I would rather prefer to be like a positive community where people are just doing constructive things than of spending time like just fighting each other and fighting external pressures. And also, I think it draw unnecessary attention to this fanfiction world. The fanfiction about Xiao Zhan itself is very niche as you can realize from the topic, usually not too many people will notice it or will read about it. People don't read about it, people don't think too much about it, people don't actually judge it. I personally don't think that type of contents should be judged I think if you if you view it as a self-expression. Of course, it's a bit problematic because you're using Xiao Zhan's name. If you, if you take the name out of the context and view this as a form of self- expression art, I think that's fine with me. But it draws unnecessary attention to this type of work to the fanfiction, so it draws people who don't actually read this, people who don't actually understand the dynamic of fanfiction, and people try to judge this community without actually learning or reading or understanding too much of it. I haven't seen that too much. But I think that's definitely one of the one of the negative impacts that has happened or might have happened. It's just I'm personally a bit more distant from it, yeah.

Angie Baecker 35:18

I was gonna add to that and say that I think there's a really interesting tension between the fanfiction community, and its presence online. And then a lot of these web novels getting adapted into more high-profile spaces. And it's precisely this tension that we were just talking about, right? This idea that people who don't belong to this community and understand kind of like the norms of this community, including, you know, how much tolerance there is for people to explore their own interests, their own fetishes, their own fantasies, right. When those things get interpreted on to bigger screens, and are much more prominent nationally, you're going to have a lot of this kind of tension created to and so that's one of the really interesting aspects of seeing so many BL shows that had only been circulating in these web spaces, adapted to television.

Graeme Smith 36:09

I mean, it's part of the appeal of BL originally, the flexibility that you can write in different genres, and in very different modes, if you like. But are there any genres that are kind of off limits to BL? Well, I mean, could you have a BL revolutionary drama? Or a BL Japanese war kind of drama? Or is anything possible?

HXZHZ 36:31

What do you mean exactly by drama? I don't think I quite get the question.

Graeme Smith 36:38

So, could- could you- could you set your story in, say, the Chinese Revolution and include characters from the Revolution? Or could you have it set inside the Anti- Japanese War? Or those kinds of no-go areas?

Louisa Lim 36:52

What he's asking is, could you have like a Chairman Mao and Zhou Enlai romance?

Graeme Smith 37:00

I didn't want to go there. But yeah, you know, could- could say Chairman Mao, and Zhou Enlai, kind of steal furtive glances at the Ningdu Conference in 1927. You know, when they were both pretty hot, you know? HXZHZ 37:16

Yeah, that's, that's, that's a- that's, I think that question. It has quite a simple answer. It's something you can write about, but I don't think something you can publish. Yeah. So that's, that's just a short answer. You can, you can definitely write about. And that would be like that, that might work. Just psychologically, but definitely, I don't think first probably not very appropriate, just from- from whatever reason, people might know. And second, I don't think you can publish it.

Angie Baecker 37:46

Graeme, I think you should write it. It sounds like you have a work in progress.

Graeme Smith 37:50

I'm really, really quite keen. Here's a question to throw at all of you. If you, if you have the time to write a BL drama, all of you. Who would you which two characters would you pick? Who would be your, you know, if you as an author, you could start again or Louisa or Angie, who would be your BL couple of choice to write stories about characters or real people?

Angie Baecker 38:24

I don't know if I haven't answered that question. I need to think about it more. But I do want to say that in reference to your earlier question. I have seen a little bit of fanfiction about like recent political events. And so, when the Sunflower Movement happened in Taiwan, there was a little bit of fanfiction that was like parents and other prominent student leaders together. And then I've also seen a little bit of that for Hong Kong protests as well.

Graeme Smith 38:47

Interesting. Louisa?

Louisa Lim 38:48

The couple that I want to know has anyone ever written about would be Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

Graeme Smith 38:55

Oh, that's perfect.

Louisa Lim 38:56

I don't know if that works. Would that work?

Graeme Smith 39:05

If you could choose another couple who would you choose?

Louisa Lim 39:07

She's already got a couple!

Graeme Smith 39:09

They've been there for a while, she might wanna change!

HXZHZ 39:13

I work with not only one couple, I work with like multiple couples. I work with like two two digit couples. So, like people for like knowledge people who might know I do works with Thor and Loki in Marvel. I do work with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, which is very, very popular. And just in that space, I might watch Star Wars and try to fish something out of our initial conversation. But yeah, I work with I work across different works. So yeah, it's very interesting. It's- it's a lot of possibilities there, yeah.

Louisa Lim 39:54

Angie, I want to ask you something-

Graeme Smith 39:56

Sorry, can I- can I get my one in? You know, I've asked this question just so I could get it in there. So, I'm curious as an author, have you ever come across anyone doing BL about Liu Xin Hua Yuan?6 Particularly Daoming Si and Huaze Lei? Surely that, I mean, that really only requires about a two- degree shift to make that BL, I think.

HXZHZ 39:56

That, that definitely exists. I have-

Graeme Smith 40:02

Just write the girl out of it, she's not really needed in the original drama anyway.

HXZHZ 40:11

That's a very common pattern. I- I'm pretty, pretty sure, I'm 100% sure that exists, I haven't come across it myself just because I don't watch too much Chinese drama, so maybe Angie knows about it.

Louisa Lim 40:25

So, I mean, Angie, I've got a question for you. I mean, to what extent does Boys' Love because the way that you guys have talked about it, it's clear that it's actually subversive on all kinds of different levels, sort of culturally subversive. But also, it is awakening sort of consciousness about freedom of speech and expression. I mean, to what extent is both the writing and the reading of BL a political act, especially in this age, where content is increasingly sanitized, and increasingly state controlled? I mean, do you think there's a sort of political edge to Boys' Love?

Angie Baecker 40:06

BL is and can be an extremely subversive space. But I also think BL can replicate a lot of structures that are not subversive. And so, I also want to draw attention to the fact that many people in the LGBTQ community, some enjoy BL, some read it, some don't, some hate it. And when you have, like largely straight women writing, writing romances about gay couples without having much access, to knowledge about what those relationships are, like, like, I think that there is a huge space for a lot of misunderstandings about queer identities, and the LGBT community that can come out of that. You know, I think sometimes when you watch shows that really centre male-male relationships, it can be really freeing to see how wide of an expression you can have for different types of male

66 Meteor Garden, the first live-action adaption of the popular Shojo manga series Boys Over Flowers. First released in 2001, it has since been remade multiple times in Japan, South Korea, and China. relationships to explore not just like homosexuality, but also homosociality and how much more depth male-male relationships can have. But at the same time, when you have such an emphasis on the male relationships, like everyone in the Untamed is like a gay man, right, or, or in a, in a man- man relationship, but that often comes at the cost of erasing a lot of female characters, right. And so you have this drama that may have started in some ways from the lack of agency given to female characters, but then it replicates a lot of the erasure of women as centres of agency within stories, too. So, I think it can be subversive, yes. And it could be very unsubversive, actually. And I also want to add last that, you know, we've been talking about BL, but there's other types of relationships that are depicted in kind of online literature and fanfiction as well, too. And so, GL or Girls' Love is definitely also a thing. And other types of couplings as well.

Graeme Smith 42:59

What's the future of Boy Love? I mean, is it gonna go the way of real estate dramas and time travel dramas? Are they just gonna say, look no more of that, this is too problematic? Or do you think writers will always find a way to kind of subtly insert these storylines into different genres?

Angie Baecker 43:17

Okay, so I'm going to speak specifically about my interest in television adaptations of BL, right. And I think in terms of watching the mainstream culture, space, and pop culture, and how it all becomes represented in pop culture spaces, we're only going to see more and more of it. I think the Untamed, shows like The Guardian before that, like really proved that BL could be commercially successful and get past the censors, right? And one of the secrets of BL shows like within the industry is that for a rising actor, a BL series is one of the best ways to turbocharge your career, right, as Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo have shown? So yeah, I think we're seeing a lot of directors, a lot of producers, a lot of actors, being very interested in being in BL shows. And I personally have been tracking a handful of BL shows that are in production right now and are going to be on air in 2021 and 2022. And every week, there is only more shows that are being announced. So, I think it will be really interesting, in a year or two to see, you know, a whole glut of shows is going to go to air. And it'll be really interesting to see how these shows depict these relationships. What ends up in the show how they navigate this line with the sensors, and then what kind of conversations we have within mainstream society to around these relationships. I am a little worried that there might be some kind of like a foreclosing of this space because there's always this kind of Icarus phenomenon of when something gets too popular, right, it gets clipped back a little bit. So, I do worry about that. But I feel like right now we're really on the cusp of a rising trend in terms of seeing BL represented in pop culture.

Louisa Lim 44:52

And as an author, Huangxiang Zhenghuanzhe, how do you see the future of BL? I mean, are you as positive as Angie? Or do you think there could be a fear that that kind of commercialization ends up, and the attention that brings ends up kind of narrowing the spaces for people like you. And this sort of, you know, is just a kind of blip of a phenomenon rather than something lasting?

HXZHZ 45:27

Yep. So I guess - can I just insert something to- to your last question from authors perspective, or from a purely fan fiction author prospective, who does not work too much about commercial, commercialized works, I would be very, very careful to link any of the BL work with any of the LGBTQ cultural work with any of the gay work, I would be very, very careful to analyse anything that's related to real sexual health issues analysing about like females psychology, I would be very careful about it, not that it cannot be done. But please don't do that before like, before you have finished like 100, 200 BL novels or something like that with like a full understanding of the space. I- The last thing I want to go into this type of fan fiction realm is any of the political correctness any of the political influence and discussion of what is politically right or, or even what is right and moral in general, because as I said, one thing of value most about this type of work is its fluid nature, and all the possibilities that lie within it, and any introduction of correctness, or morality even out of protection, will kind of hinder that process and in answer to your question, how I view the future, I think that the fears that I have just said, or the fears I have just voiced are some of the barriers I see for BL to advance further in China. Because I think with the commercialization was a draw in more and more public attention, people tend to, for example, link it with LGBTQ link it with its political influence, link with commercial influence.

Now, I think that automatically limit the potential for BL to experiment, to extend the boundary of how this kind of work, because I feel like these types of boundary can only be pushed with minor or with more niche works, once it goes into the view of the public, it necessarily draws attention, that becomes more and more difficult, it's just inevitable. So, for me, I think my view of the future of the BL it will split into two different spaces, it will split between - it has already split, it has already split now. One is a commercial space where the BL storylines are trying to get all into all these commercial works into these TV dramas into this web series. And again, more voice in the public forum, which is, which is good, or at least fine with me. I'm quite neutral on that. The other space that it's split off is the space I'm working in, which is more niche, pure fan fiction non- commercialized with a smaller audience. I think in here, we're still trying to push a lot of boundaries, we're still experimenting and what we write or what we create are only for the works that we like, and only for the passions for those work. It's quite independent from anything else. I think for that space, it will still exist. But I do see a trend in China to actually for that space to shrink with the censorship going into place. So, I'm relatively negative with pessimistic with that space where people work in more niche genres and trying to push the boundaries. I'm generally more optimistic with the commercial space. But I- the least I want to see is how the commercial space actually ease into this more niche market is that having a more positive influence and they kind of just fight over each other and finally, censorship kicks in and kills everything. It's hard to predict which way it will goes from my perspective. So, it's just my personal opinion, yeah.

Graeme Smith 49:17

Angie, Huanxiangzheng Huanzhe, thank you for joining us.

Angie + HXZHZ 49:20

Thank you. Thank you.

Graeme Smith 49:27

That was Angie Baecker, a lecturer at the University of Hong Kong who specializes in the cultural history of China and the author Huanxiangzheng Huanzhe. Our editing is by Andy Hazel. Our background research is by Julia Bergin and Xu Chong. Our theme music is by Suzie Wilkins and our cartoons and gifs a courtesy of Seth. Bye for now.