Genuinely how are Holywood execs so stupid (and also STILL ALIVE? How does this system still exist. The Weinstein generation should've died out ages ago and I don't see Hollywood films resonating with younger audiences AT ALL and foreign audiences either A.) support their own indigenous entertainment industries (necha 2 sun Wu Kong game etc) or content which more correlates to their values/cultures like K-Drama. I read an article about how for ages and ages before Hallyu became popular w/ westicles obc it was popular in southeast Asia + Nippon (Winter Sonata, anyone?) ALSO OH MY GOD IM SO SORRY THIS WILL CIRCLE BACK TO HR AND FUJOSHIT) but also in Northeast India due to Northeast Indians, which ethnically are more connected to Northeast Asians, identify with it, and also in Western Asia because the conservative confuscianist values of Korea mirror Islam more than Hollyweird. SO THIS TANGENT RELATES TO HEATED RIVALRY IN THAT,,, My opinion regarding "Why is HR popular? HOCKEY???? GAY???? THE GAY AUDIENCE ISNT BEING REPRESENTED?? REPRESENTATION MATTERS" It's neither! This isn't representation, gay men aren't watching heated rivalry and gay men would never write or consume ya romance novels. There's actually an entire documentary about a western convention for m/m romance novels, where most authors and literally all congoers are het women. Also this con had nothing to do with otaku slash culture or even western slash and was entirely spearheaded by E.L. James-esque repressed middle American Mormon moms who probably don't even know what SasuNaru is. I feel like that was an antecedent to the specific strain of BL HR is. My biggest issue with western bl and slash is that the media perception of it is "representation (for gay men) matters" and not "female sexuality has never been represented or treated with respect. Female audiences have are disillusioned by the male gaze (TikTok should READ VISUAL AND OTHER PLEASURES and not mistreat this critical lens by tying it to Sabrina Carpenter's music being "for the girlies") and how female characters are objectified, abused, and court male participation in female spaces (TANGENT ON TANGENT ON TANGENT IM SO SORRY ANONNA but this reminds me of something that goes on in otoge and blge where while there exists a massive substrait of nsfw blge, there's a very select few for otoge because the pornification of female bodies, especially using anime aesthetics is so alienating to us. And even between otoge, you can see how games which focus more on the male character oshis, like lads, have very predominantly female fan base and you can identify that in socmed discussions and participation while games that lack romantic focus and primarily focus on female characters, like love Nikki,,, venture onto inifitniy nikki's subreddit and every post is moids patting themselves on the back for enjoying the game, and a whole lot of r/egg_irl overlap on user profiles. (caveat; there exists gender demograhic data for both lads and infinity nikki's player bases and it doesn't suggest that there's too too many males playing but I don't remember correctly because I lost those caps and the recollection for the details many a fujo anti fujo infight thread ago also I AM BEING SO OFF TOPIC SORRY) I feel like this has something to do with the prevalnce of and rejection to the results of a misogynistic pornified culture, such as onlyfans body dysmorphia inducing plastic surgery and porn influenced makeup becoming mainstream over sexualized and impractical clothing going mainstream, esp only fans because I feel like it relates to being some sort of western (porn consumption is global I know but only fans as a western company) form of... male otaku Oshikatsu and how the appeal to male otaku and Oshikatsu that female anime characters tend to induce and how male otaku perverted the young female characters of shoujo like minky momo to develop the lolicon subculture influenced the direction of year 24 Mangaka in developing BL and doujinshi on male-targeted media as a form of female-exclusive media lacking the-

(I WROTE TOO MUCH) misogynistic portrayls of women in Japanese culture and the gaze of male otaku and male otaku's oshikatsu corrupting female-centric spaces and media, and how this resonates to modern global female audiences who are seeing women pornified to parodic extents and being consumed like subhuman objects by males, and finding gratification in how BL just doesn't attract males at all and to the contrary is specifically rendered by women 4 women to appeal to our sexualities and propensity to enjoy slow-burn romantic narratives

And aaaaalso I think it;s related to the recently mega popularity of Thai BL (Taiwanese BL also being super popular but specifically Thai BL in this case because it's interesting how Thai BL started off as if my knowledge isn't failing me adaptations of BL manga/web novels in the early 2010s and how it was sort of ground zero for the mainstreaming of BL in mainstream East and southeast Asian media like it's fucking ridiculous seeing westicles talking about how "groundbreaking" and "important" and "uplifting minority voices stunningly and bravely" as a SEAsian where every male actor ever acts in BL every woman consumes BL from BL dramas to BL webtoons to slash fics about stray kids like girl. It's really important to factor in regarding the "hockey is popular now" stuff that BL stemmed from doujinshi and the source material, the source material is ANYTHING and it honestly ODESNT MATTER; yaoi means "plot, no climax, no meaning" (not a direct translation but you already know the gist) for a reason like oh my God how can you say that the reason heated rivalry is popular is bc of hockey when shipping and slash is so ubiquitous and covers literally every subject ever. HR could and would be about Mongolian horse breeding and we'd still be watching bc a hot wasian guy is getting finger blasted. There are the sheep detective fujos. FUJO GLASSES IS A TERM FOR A REASON.

I both agree and disagree with this article about the subject that got linked in a reblog of the femalegothic post you shared. A quote like this:

It’s hard to overemphasize just how much of Heated Rivalry’s success is owed to its queerness—not just because it was hot, but because there is genuine audience demand for it. According to UCLA’s 2025 “Hollywood Diversity Report,” shows featuring “underrepresented stories,” including LGBTQ-themed narratives, have higher median ratings and more social media discourse than shows that don’t. "The evidence is clear that audiences today are hungry for both diverse stories and diverse storytellers,” the report’s coauthors Ana-Christina Ramón and Michael Tran tell WIRED via email.

Is retarded as fuck to me. I don't give a SHIT about "diverse and underrepresented stories" when I'm reading Kiribaku smut on ao3. I am not consuming 12 years a slave the same way I'm consuming Junjou Romantica and I'm not reading QPR puppy girl polycule drama in the way I'm reading bungou stray dogs slash fic. Also this statement is absolutely discounting the contributions and impact of fujos by calling BL and slash stories "underrepresented" THEY AREN'T like how I said, literally every drama with budget being created in SEA and even East Asia is BL, every popular actor in Asia is making BL dramas, all women in SEA are consuming BL and I absolutely am sure evry woman in East Asia is doing so as well, look at damnei look at kpop shipping look at bl webtoons do we even have to mention Japan. And there's a reason why on platforms like AO3 99% of the fics being made are slash fics of white or Asian charcaters because we aren't performatively "celebrating diverse BIPOC (kek) queer voices" we're straight women attracted to attractive guys being attractive to each other. Without FUJOS, not "queer BIPOCs being represented" there wouldn't be a heated rivalry and FUJOs are not consuming or "celebrating" "diverse LGBTQ-themed narratives" we don't give a fuck about GL and Yurishit we don't give a fuck about transwomen we don't give a fuck about grey-ace QPRs WE LIKE BL! NOTHING ELSE!

The reason I specifically liked Heated Rivalry is how much it differs from other failed bouts of fujobait disguised as "celebrating LGBTQ audiences" by giving us WHAT WE WANT. Kpop shipper fujos want a hot hapa. We all want steamy smut. We don't want pandering like heart stopper and uwu soft beans holding sweater paws while asking for each other's pronouns