#beryl guy

[nero-draco]

[kukuandkookie]

People keep claiming Chinese BL manhua really only have stories featuring toxic male leads, so I offered to give recommendations with green flags... Someone finally said yes, so here's what I typed up in response!:

I Ship My Rival x Me:

One of my personal favourites!

Based on the hilarious novel, commonly known as I Ship My Adversary x Me and also has an audio drama adaptation on MaoEr FM. Basically a story about two actors who are seen as complete rivals by everyone except the actors themselves, which annoys the main character (Wei Yanzi) enough that when he discovers there are actual fans who ship them instead of pit them against one another, he’s so excited he sort of starts shipping them too (in like, an abstract, theoretical manner lmao). This of course causes shenanigans as he actually gets to know the person who people ship him with/pit him against, Gu Yiliang.

Gu Yiliang is a true sweetheart and the greenest of green flags. He’s a complete puppy and I love him. And this means, naturally, the only misunderstandings in this story are of the hilarious kind (you’ll know what I mean if you read it lol). 😂

This one actually used to be available officially in English on the Bilibili manhua’s international app before it got shut down, but it recently got picked up by Seven Seas, the company behind a lot of official English translations of danmei (Chinese BL)!

Touch Your World:

A literally colour-blind boy (as in, he cannot see colour at all and only sees things in black and white) discovers someone who he can see colour on. This person is a designer who has suffered past betrayal and trauma that has caused him to shut himself up and grow much more on edge, but this chance meeting draws both parties out of their shells.

Pixiu’s Eatery, No Way Out:

Not a green flag top in the traditional sense, but here we meet the mythical Pixiu: an ancient Chinese mythical creature who now runs a restaurant. While he’s a penny-pincher with a temper and he doesn’t get along with his love interest at first (a ghost named Wen Xi who he finds suspicious due to Wen Xi’s ties to a past rival of his named Taotie), Pixiu and Wen Xi eventually grow, quite naturally—and hilariously!—into a found family.

The Wife Is First:

Based on a novel of pretty much the same name (and is written by the same author as the popular manhua and donghua, No Doubt in Us (a heterosexual body-swap romance, which also has a subtle gay side ship)). Here we meet Jing Shao just as he’s about to lose everything: once a royal and a powerful general, he has been betrayed by all those around him…except the husband he has never treated well.

As such, when we first meet him, we actually witness his—and his husband’s—deaths. But then he awakens and finds himself back in time to the night right after he was forced to wed this husband of his, and Jing Shao vows to treat him well from now on because he stuck with him through thick and thin despite everything.

Don’t Say You Love Me:

A high school romance with a supernatural twist: Lin Yutong was confessed to by his best friend, Qin Weiyun, at their graduation party. When he drunkenly freaked out and ran away, Qin Weiyun was hit by a car during the chase…

Devastated by his loss, Lin Yutong quickly wakes up to find himself back at the start of his high school journey, right before he meets Qin Weiyun… And this time, he wants to keep Qin Weiyun safe.

But his overly familiar attitude at first gets the wary Qin Weiyun a tad suspicious, because he’s actually quite an aloof person.

The author and artist of this one is also behind another popular manhua titled Your Dream Is Delicious, which is about a demon named Yi Kui who discovers he enjoys eating the nightmares of Lin You. This eventually leads to them—you guessed it—falling in love.

It’s Not That I Want to Wear Women’s Clothing:

Our main character is hired to crossdress to help this CEO get over his gynophobia (fear of touching women) without him knowing. Naturally, this leads to an awkward romantic journey of both identities of our main character getting close to this CEO…who at first glance seems like the typical cold and aloof CEO type, except he’s actually quite a sweetheart.

Salt Friend:

A slice-of-life high school story about the “school bully” named Tong Yang who’s actually a crybaby and the aloof person named Xiao Zhen who discovers him crying. While the two don’t seem like they’d get along at first glance, this quickly becomes a friends-to-lovers story that navigates family drama alongside the romance.

How’d I Get a Heroine’s Script?:

A transmigration story with a twist. Chao Yi is wheelchair-bound but finds himself eventually as a young lord in what is basically a palace drama (court politics, intrigue, family drama, all that good stuff). His System, Qin Que, tasks him with wooing the difficult 7th prince, Gu Yunheng, who smiles on the surface but is quite cold in actuality.

Despite the two getting off on the wrong foot—mostly because Gu Yunheng is really hard to get close to—they soon end up as unlikely allies…especially since there’s a lot of secrets, such as regarding the death of the body Chao Yi’s occupying, the scheming princes, and even Gu Yunheng himself.

See You My King:

Zhang Li, a student interested in what is basically ancient Egypt, goes on an expedition to the ruined civilization and nearly loses his life. Except at the same time, he discovers an ancient tomb with a statue that actually comes to life and saves him…

And this statue even follows him home. This statue is sweet and loving despite its inability to speak, and Zhang Li grows attached to it (or him)… But then the statue falls apart and Zhang Li is devastated.

In wishing for a miracle to bring them back together, the statue’s stone heart sends Zhang Li back in time…to when this ancient civilization is still present. And that’s how he discovers his stone statue is the “tyrant king” of this region, and as cruel as he seems at first glance, both this king and Zhang Li eventually grow close and unfold the different sides to one another that makes them inseparable in the face of all kinds of threats.

Trapping the Foxy Doctor:

A doctor and a psychiatrist meet…except it doesn’t seem like a perfect love story at first glance. Not because the doctor is traditionally foxy (seductive and/or cunning), but because he’s so silly and on-the-nose that he initially kind of rubs the psychiatrist the wrong way. Except, of course, with the kind of sunny sincerity displayed by our doctor Zhi Banyi, you can’t resist him for long…

And the psychiatrist, Lin Li, is himself quite a polite soul despite his complex upbringing. As such, the two end up together through a series of cases where they have to collaborate and help clients, with a lot of shenanigans sprinkled in between (including the fact Lin Li has a side-job live-streaming as a woman—and “she” just so happens to be Zhi Banyi’s favourite streamer lol).

Pirouette Into My Heart aka Salad Days:

You know the “he was a skater boy and she did ballet” kind of set-up? Well here we have a boxer and a ballet dancer…and hey, “can I make it any more obvious”?

This one is basically a feel-good story of the century. It’s childhood friends to lovers, and it’s soft and cuddly and encouraging, as we follow the main character, Jiang Shen, in achieving his ballet dreams. And on every step of the way, he’s accompanied by the boxer Bai Jinyi, who’s also chasing his own dreams.

The draw of this one is that while there’s obviously conflict to drive the plot along, it’s ultimately a comforting story, so you get all warm and squishy inside reading it. Bai Jinyi and Jiang Shen are very supportive of one another, as is everyone around them.

There’s even extras at the very end that swap the classes of the two main characters, which makes for a similarly compelling AU. 🤭

Beryl and Sapphire:

Not always BL but often is. What do I mean by that? Well it’s a story that can switch to any universe even as the characters stay the same, and some worlds are just one-off gags while some are whole story arcs. The original manhua features stick figures, so if you really want to experience this one, I’d recommend the donghua. The first season also cleverly shows the main characters as actors in the OP, which explains all the world-switching pretty easily haha.

Don’t Pick Up Boyfriends from the Trash Bin:

Unfortunately I’m not sure the manhua for this one is still ongoing, but the original novel (all about transmigration and hopping multiple worlds) 100% features a green flag top.

The Guy Inside Me:

I know the title sounds sexual lol but it’s actually a joke about how it’s a body-swap story. 😆

The original Chinese title is “This Question Is Too Difficult”) and of course, the author also wrote Fake Slackers, which has two very smart students act like terrible ones due to not wanting trouble.

Falling to Where I Belong:

The thing about this one is that the top is 100% a total green flag... It's the main character that's more of a red flag, in the sense he at first only asks the top out to humiliate him due to a misunderstanding.

But it's still a heartfelt story filled with regret and growth, and I did really like the portrayal of Cheng Feichi. Personally I think the manhua humanizes him a bit more than the novel since we didn't really get his POV in the novel that often, but I did hope for even more emotion in the ending... Still, it was a satisfying read, and while I would like to comfort the main character, Zhen Yeming, over his regrets, I really want to just give all the good things to Cheng Feichi, who definitely deserves it after everything he went through.

More Than Brothers:

For the "non-freaks" out there, they're not actual brothers, don’t worry; not adopted brothers either. Just a guy who saw his younger friend as his bro…until this friend disappeared from his life and apparently got into a bad crowd… Except in reality he is being harassed and is struggling to leave his abusive family.

The Protagonist Just Wants to Fall in Love:

Kind of a classic in the transmigration genre, except now we get multiple worlds in multiple arcs. Our protagonists are Systems on their final mission, aiming to become human by the end of it, and their task is to guide their protagonists away from the path of "darkening" (essentially corruption).

And each and every one of these systems do so by getting their protagonist to fall in love with them lol.

Unsurprisingly, my favourite arc so far—in the manhua at least!—is the historical one between the advisor and the emperor, but the third—and currently ongoing as the time of me writing this—world between two university students who started getting close during military training and by playing games is also quite cute.

And okay, man I could really keep going, especially with the manhua that are based on novels, but this post is already really long asjakfl. It was, in fact, so fucking long YouTube wouldn't even let me post it at first until I cut it down AMFKGSJDFGS.

But I still want to at least give a shout out to some of the manhua with pretty healthy, green flag tops/gongs!:

Like Han Yuan, despite the characters not getting along at first and Yu Han being rather aloof to the spoiled Luo Linyuan, is still quite sweet at its core. Lovely Allergen is as well, even with their "brotherly" relationship being the forefront of the conflict between Song Yu and Yue Zishi.

Another kind I wanted to bring up is the ones where their worlds or stories are dark, but the characters aren't necessarily. Like The Film Emperor, He Insisted on Being My Patron has a very green flag gong (he's such a puppy!), but he and the main character are up against the reddest of red flags of a villain LMDFKGSJFD.

It's also not a manhua I think people who want green flag leads would necessarily enjoy, given that beyond being "darker," it also goes into the territory of fan service-y and "problematic" nsfw content, but again, the male lead is really quite sweet to the main character despite the shitty situation they're in.

And I thought of Bu Chonghua from Tunhai aka Swallowing the Seas (another one based on a novel), since the main character there, Wu Yu, comes to see Bu Chonghua as so good and just that he pushes him away because he feels like he can't dirty such a man with his own darkness, both in his past and personality. It's a trope I really enjoy.

I'll briefly mention some ⚠️ spoilers ⚠️but the reason I wanted to highlight it is because: the latest chapter of the manhua has Bu Chonghua overhear Wu Yu saying he likes Bu Chonghua, and this is after Wu Yu disappeared and Bu Chonghua is worried he skipped town for good. He follows Wu Yu, all while wondering if the like Wu Yu holds for him is the same as his liking of Wu Yu, and when Wu Yu is about to be gravely injured in an underground fighting ring, Bu Chonghua steps in to save him... The chapter ends with Wu Yu holding him back pleading with him to stop because it's not worth dirtying his hands with such a man as his opponent, and that's such a delicious flavour of angst because like...Wu Yu thinks it's fine for he himself to fight against such a person, but he doesn't want Bu Chonghua to. ;-;

Oops. I didn't mean for this to become a deeper ramble of Tunhai KMSGFKGHSJ. It's just interesting to me since Tunhai and its prequel, Poyun aka Breaking Through the Clouds, may not have what the people who prefer green flag tops want in terms of content, but its tops are technically not that much of a red flag either.

Which also get us to the kind of stories where plot can also sort of outweigh whether a top/gong is a green flag or not. Like No Arguing With Mr. Mo has two characters who struggle greatly in their relationship, with the question of "are they in love?" being an overarching issue for them, meaning it's not exactly healthy, and prevents them from being fully either green or red flags.

I also didn't bring up a lot of historical/xianxia manhua, which I'm sure some people may disagree with... Like the leads in Tianbao Fuyao Lu are arguably quite good, and while I haven't read Dinghai Fusheng Lu yet, I assume it's in a similar boat as something set in the same world.

And then there's the ones that develop into green flags... Like Mo Ran starts off awful, yes, but he does become much better later on!! But I don't think that's what those people after green flags want to hear lol. Plus I'd argue Erha is best experienced in novel (or audio drama) form over the manhua anyway—the manhua feels more like something made for established fans in my opinion.

Regardless, I hope this shows that with so many listed above, many manhua actually feature male leads who really do care for their love interests in a healthy, respectful way, whether they're 100% green flags or they develop into green flags or they're not even complete green flags. ^^

Edit: Oh I forgot to link my full list of danmei/baihe manhua recs HMSKFJSKS. I currently don’t have any summaries, tags, or content warnings in this list though, but there’s quite the range of stories!:

[derpderpi]

Ok

Im going insane

Bye

BABY TEAM A YOO AAAAA

Thank you nakatani-sensei ( From The Lostbelt mangaka)

i owe you so much *dies*

[yoyoyo-idk]

[bayetea]

if you asked me if i think a given pjo character is overhated i would say yes 99.99999% of the time (i like every pjo character and every single "I hate XYZ character and here's why!" post i come across is whiny/overdramatic/neglects the fact that most of the cast are severely traumatized child soldiers) but the remaining 0.00001% is reserved for beryl grace, who is frankly underhated. jason and thalia get behind me

[berylshores]

Headcanons - General

—

- Sunrise and Moondrop consider themselves to be “guardians” or protectors of the isles, rarely letting safe passage to any newcomers

- Moondrop’s venom can induce unconsciousness 10-15 minutes after injection, but isn’t lethal. Sunrise’s venom creates a jittery hallucinogenic paranoia similar to too much caffeine consumption that can be fatal if overdosed.

- Only very few ships are allowed passage, typically for importing foods and such, which they mark with little shapes on the bottom of the boat. Like dogs to routine mailmen - “give give give give OK GO GO LEAVE NOW NOW NOW IM WATCHING YOU GET THE FUCK OU-“

- Sunrise’s singing voice is much more high pitched and feminine, while Moondrop’s voice is deeper. Sunrise is naturally more talented at luring, and Moondrop is more talented at evoking emotion

- Sunrise is able to mesmerize prey similar to Cuttlefish and the Mesmer from Subnautica, using his glowy facial-fins!

- Moondrop and Sunrise both kill for similar yet different reasons. Moondrop primarily kills for entertainment and as fuel for his flesh addiction, and much prefers stalking and terrorizing prey individually, killing in a violent but typically quick fashion. Sunrise primarily kills to quench the thirst for ‘vengeance’ and when he feels there is danger, and takes much more enjoyment in luring prey to drown themselves and crashing ships in brutal fashion.

- The two enjoy singing human songs they’ve learned over the years

- Moondrop developed a taste for human flesh from an incident in which he was forced to consume a human corpse. Sunrise finds this a little morbid/disturbing, but not overly bad, more of just something to work on

[chrisrin]

ANOTHER GEMSTUCK DESIGN!!! THIS TIME, JADESOL!

[eggowaffless]

this is pretty random, but it makes me rlly annoyed when i see people mention jason drinking alcohol or like getting drunk bc like; did yall read boo? on pg40something it said “he promised to never drink alcohol again”

bc his mother was an ALCOHOLIC.

[0poolesketch]

OC posting again

[chaosduckies]

*Hurricane coming right over me*

Me: *sits under a leaf waiting for it to hit us* Where rain at?

[hijackedhoneybeeez]

GOT MY POWER BACK AFTER 6 DAYS OF NOT HAVING IT!!!!!!

[undertale-plays-dnd]

False Hydra

I actually made a little song inspired by the false hydra.

Bonus

[swiftsims]

hot girls are never cold

[dinolixe]

[yoyoyo-idk]

i love lelouch and his utter lack of chill. considering the setting of the story it's normal for people to be pretty intense but lelouch fucking flattens everyone. oh you're a resistant? ready to commit acts of terrorism to liberate japan? you want to fight and kill and destroy? lelouch looks at you and hesitates between cooing and clacking his tongue because you fucking SUCK at fighting britannia.

it's like he doesn't know what Chill is. the flashback/past scene with younger him? still no chill.

[secondsonaym]

"Nonsense." The Fox growled with a shake of his head. "I--"

It was then that Beryl stirred, coughing loudly. Flecks of dark ooze shot from her mouth and onto both the Fox's hand and the floor. Where they touched his skin, he felt an icy chill.

"Easy," He mumbled, putting a warning hand to her as she tried to sit up in his arms. "Try not to move."

"Remember what happened last time." Lapis chided, though Beryl wasn't looking in her direction.

"Sorry." Beryl mumbled, reaching up to weakly rub away the residue around her mouth and eyes. "I panicked, I didn't have any other options-"

"You're not in trouble." Lapis insisted. "We're just glad you're safe."

Beryl grimaced, but didn't try to say otherwise.

"Let's get you to bed." the Fox said, starting to walk to one of the cavernous hallways, but stopped when Beryl gripped the front of his shirt tightly.

"Don't leave me, dad." She said, starting to curl up into a ball.

Ah. Right. He supposed it wasn't exactly appropriate to just slide by what had happened without any sort of acknowledgement. Beryl had been panicked to the point of using her powers, after all, fearing he was in danger.

In some faint, relieving way, it was endearing. It was so similar to how she had been as a toddler, clinging to him or Lapis at all hours. Granted, the circumstances causing it weren't very nice, but...

It was also a bit discomforting, knowing she was more worried about him than herself--she had been the one to exert herself, and take a bite from that snake, after all.

"I'm perfectly fine, dear." He managed, reaching to rub her back all the same. "I'm not going anywhere."

"You are not." Lapis signed with a disappointed frown. "How many times am I going to have to tell you? You need rest, too."

"I can still move, can't I?" He growled back, ignoring the incessant ache in his ribs that begged to differ. In truth, he had been moving about in spite of the pain, but nobody had to know that.

"Ichigo."

That name, plain and clear, made him stiffen. She only ever used it to get his attention, to emphasize when she was serious, and it worked every time. It was his name, after all.

"You don't need to keep up the strong act." Lapis said, letting out a sigh through her nose. "Go take a nap with Beryl, please. Everything will be fine for a few hours."

He stood there for a moment, staring at her with a hard expression. He knew she was right. He knew arguing wasn't going to do anything. But he couldn't just sit and do nothing. As if he'd trust those old fools to handle the matter of the bishops and the Red Crown!

But... He also wouldn't be able to do much if his injuries got worse. Not to mention, Beryl needed him right now.

"Fine." He said, avoiding Lapis' eyes. "Fine, I'll go rest."

"Thank you, dear." Lapis signed, her expression relaxing.

The Fox leaned down and gently nuzzled her face, and she briefly stroked his chin in return.

He then made his way down a hall, off in the direction of the chamber they called their sitting room.

Much like everywhere else in the cave system, it was cluttered with various bones and trinkets that Lapis had accumulated over the years. Many large crystals were piled in the corners, emitting a gentle blue glow that bathed the room in a calming light.

With a loud exhale, he dropped down onto the layer of cushions that covered the floor, though was careful not to jostle Beryl too much.

He didn't need to get into any specific position to get comfortable--He could sleep pretty much anywhere, really. So he merely laid there on his back while Beryl shifted, settling for snaking under his arm to drape herself over his chest.

As much as he hated to admit it, he was actually pretty tired. All the energy from his earlier anger had left, and he hadn't had time to properly rest after first returning home.

So as he lay there, Beryl already snoring, he found his eyes steadily growing heavier and heavier.

And soon enough, he was asleep as well.