The dark night was never this dark to his memory. The city had fallen asleep, apart from some dim lights in the middle of faraway, looking like fireflies flying to save their last lights. The man walked alone, looking tired but cautious. He had perfect hair, his broad shoulder somehow made you wanted to lay your head there for a while, and he would be exactly what you would want in a guy... precisely a century ago.
It was only a few miles from his modest home when a few other men showed up. They all wore spectacles, no exactly your average athletic guys, but you could tell that they brought danger. He gasped and the ran away to the other directions, but the men managed to chase him using the jet packed to their shoes. He knew he was doomed when he ran into a dead-end - or was there exactly where the three other guys had lured him to?
He turned around, waiting for God-knew what could happen to him, then solemnly closed his eyes upon stumbling the laser gun the three guys had brought. For solid three minutes, nothing happened - he slowly opened his eyes just to find that the three guys had been knocked down. He gazed around: nobody was seen there, he walked slowly out of fear that the bullies would wake up, when he heard a voice: Go home, dude.
A masked-men inside his fancy car - or a plane? - was looking at him, before flew out to the dark horizon. He whispered his gratitude, then ran home, with thousands of questions: who was that guy? What was his purpose? And more importantly, was he the answer to the problem the city had faced? He didn't know much, he was tired, but that night he knew he went to sleep with a slight hope that it would get better.
It was 1 AM and I couldn't sleep as I have just gotten into a fight with my boyfriend - to think about it again, the fight was really a bit a small un-important matter. So that midnight I browsed through youtube and several webs about gay culture, trying to seek some comfort that gays could be happy and whole as well.
Then I stumbled this article by queerty.com, posting about a really heartbreaking video that went viral. And my, watching a really heart-breaking video alone after a fight with your boyfriend is not a good idea.
The youtube video was about a guy, named Shane, who has just lost his loved one, Tom, due to an unfortunate accident. They were together for six years, they came out together after the first anniversary, and they shared a mortgage and they were business partners. Shane's family was very supportive of him, but Tom's was not just quite welcoming. After going back to his hometown for Christmas, Tom had made clear: he didn't want anything to do with his family anymore as now he found his home with Shane. At their fourth year, Tom decided to give Shane a promise ring: that they'd get married to each other once it has become legal.
There I stopped and I cried like a baby.
The accident for sure was devastating for Shane. But that was not the sob story. Tom's family had denied Shane's right to attend the funeral, and they had taken everything that belonged to Tom and did everything to their power to deny Shane's existence in their son's life.
There I stopped again, and I cried like a baby.
The message was clear: it could happen to any of us. Shane has dedicated his video to promote equality, and to promote love, so what has happened to him will become a part for better future for all the gays in the world.
Suddenly I felt so small. So selfish.
In my country here in Indonesia, gay is still living inside the closet, including me. There's no way I could come out to my family, because they wouldn't accept me the way I am. It pained me, but I think even when the things I can contribute to help Shane with his cause are very limited, I still could do something about it.
I've been engaged in one soap opera lately. Well, as you can already tell, any soap is full of drama, sometimes you can even find so many flaws in the story-line, and let's be honest: acting is the last you'd expect to be good. That's exactly what i had in mind until several weeks ago.
It was one lousy afternoon in the office when my boyfriend told me that there's this list of 100 hot guy, issued by afterelton.com. I can tell you that normally I am not a fan of such thing, but since this was issued by afterelton, a prominent gay site focusing on the pop culture and my boyfriend told me that most likely the voters were gays and their friends, one could very well expect that there'd be gay and bi men all over the list - and this was true if you took time to read the introduction. Needless to say, soon after i found myself drooling over the list - Adam Pally of previous post scored a spot in the list - and stucked at number #18... (Go see and click the youtube link. You'll agree with me). The guy's Thore Scholermann.
Then my journey began.
The soap was entitled Verbotene Liebe, a German soap opera literally translated as Forbidden Love. Lame, but steamy, dont you think? Given the worldwide fanbase, and of course my curiosity from the kissing scene, i began to search. What is this series?
It didnt took me long to see the storyline - a soap isnt supposed to be all complicated, is it? A guy named Christian Mann (Thore Scholermann) was in a growing relationship with Oliver Sabel (Jo Wiel); they were owners of a bar named No Limits. It was not a brand-new soap, as it is now currently at 4000+ episodes since its first airing in 1995 - but Chris and Olli's stories were only as early as 2008. Involved in their love-dovey scene was a big aristocratic von Lahnstein family, tackling several issues as we know now, for example drug addiction, incest, rape, murder, HIV, and of course sexual confusion and LGBT culture.
It was easy to fall in love with Christian - for me - and after constantly talking about it to my boyfriend, i have been successfully infected him with the addiction as well. Which is fun, because we get to talk about it every now and then, and he himself has told me that it helped him seeing clearly what he wants in our relationship.
Although there were a lot of queer series (The Lair, QAF, The L Word, etc) and LGBT characters (Modern Family, Grey's Anatomy, Brothers and Sisters, and a few other soap in USA), I dare to say that Chris and Olli's stories were of different taste. Despite the drama, you could say it somehow reflected the real situation any gays would face - or at least that's what the worldwide fanbase and I thought. I often find myself wondering the same thing like Chris or Olli, and sometimes it's interesting to see how they reacted to their problem, coming down to commitment, and finally, most importantly, staying together as long as possible. In a way or two, I think Chrolli's story could be some kind of reference to gays out there: how to be supportive like Olli and how to be manly and protective like Christian. You might think i am a bit delusional here, but hey, hope always dies last, doesnt it? So let yourself be hopeful. Sure, you could expect the drama to be a little bit exaggerating, but let's be honest: we crave for drama. We're a drama queen in denial ourselves.
So enough with the chitchat. You must be getting a bit impatient. Here's the complete playlist you can find in youtube: PLAYLIST1 , and dont worry, although it's German, the uploaders (nick ichglotzutube), has been kind enough to provide the english subs. Several of the videos have been blocked due to the copyright matter, but my boyfriend has tried to use Proxytube to download the blocked vidoes. Proxytube is an add-on for mozilla firefox and it's free to download. So what are you waiting for? Go. Spread the words. Be happy.
An 180-cm-82-kg Asian guy who seeks comfort by running towards his own writings. Could be a loner most of the times, cryptic and difficult, but also try to remain as humanly as possible.
