#bl trope game

[syrena-del-mar]

7 and 14

Thanks for sending these my way, Ben!

#7. Star-Crossed Lovers

Choco Milk Shake! I actually touched upon this trope in my response to Shan, but I love this little show, so let me rehash the pain. I know this might change, considering the fact that there is a season 2 coming out, but as it stands, they're destined to always only have 99 days together.

There's no growing old together, not even a future beyond a few months together. Both couples are always destined to be separated at the end. If Milk and Choco even try to stay beyond the agreed 99 days, they will cease to exist. No amount of love will keep them together.

The fact that Choco and Milk came back for a second time by their volition, for their own love...

I'm not sure that I'm ready to go through the pain of another 99 days, but I know if that's the route they go for season 2, it'll end up being bittersweet. I'll enjoy every second of it.

#14. Sunshine/Sunshine

Ingredients. Hands down. Was it a BL? Was it a long-form commercial? Probably.

I'm a sucker for slice of life, even more so when you can tell that they both are very much in love with each other. Marwin and Tops were both just forces of positivity, just on the different spectrums of the personality scale. Even if we don't truly know their ending, they left me confident that their relationship will survive the long distance.

Also, I feel like Sunshine x Sunshine is usually reserved to high school settings. Which is why I loved that in Ingredients, they were already a few years into being adults and just really starting to figure out what life meant living together. While I enjoy all the high-intensity, convoluted shows, Ingredients is a breath of, much-needed, fresh air.

Send me a trope and I'll answer with my favorite BL

[shortpplfedup]

for the bl romance trope ask game: 2 (Friends to Lovers), 4 (Long Term Pining), and/or 18 (Slow Burn). answer one or answer them all if you're up for it lmao.

p.s. thanks for bringing this back! big agree that life is crazy and I also want some fun.

Hyeoni. Sweetie. How dare you do this to me. All of my FAVOURITE tropes in one ask? I have THINGS TO DO.

Friends to Lovers

It's hard to think of a friends-to-lovers story that isn't also a long-term pining story. I genuinely think the only one I've seen is My Only 12%. Have Cake and Eiw been in love their whole lives? Yep. Did either of them know it until suddenly they knew it? Nope. I think it counts. This show isn't my fave, but it did some things extraordinarily well.

Long Term Pining

Is this the #1 most frequent QL trope? Quietly hanging onto your feelings because you're pretty sure you're alone in them is one of the queerest experiences as I understand it, so it's not surprising that this trope turns up SO often. Given that there are so many of these, I'm gonna give it to my most recent fave: Perfect Propose.

Slow Burn

The key to slow burn for me is that both people have to know they're attracted to each other but just let the feelings stew and cook until they boil over. So I'm giving it to Kan and Thua from The Eclipse. These two have been down horrendous for each other for years and they finally gave in in a tent by the beach literally surrounded by their sleeping friends.

[wontune]

� jimmy. ( ator ) lockscreen !

[wanderlust-in-my-soul]

BEFORE & AFTER coloring

Thank you so much for the tag @smittenskitten 🥰

I started giffing in 2018, then took a break in 2019 until the beginning of this year and since then I've learned so much. I love trying out tutorials and learn new ways to edit stuff and it was such a great feeling to see my progress and that at some point, I developed my own preferences and habits that shape my own style now. I try to stay realistic and natural but still vibrant in colour. I love those edits with different colors or even unrealistic colors I see on my dash, but I can't bring myself to do it myself. It always looks wrong 😅

And since I was a bit uncreative with scenes I wanted to edit, I just chose some for my tropes collections. Forehead kisses - my beloved (Part2/?)!

The Eclipse

Big Dragon

Bad Buddy

Ghost Host Ghost House

Eien No Kino

My Only 12 %

We Best Love: Fighting Mr. 2nd

Love In The Air

I am little bit late in the game and time wasn't on my side this week to keep up to date with tumblr, so I really have no clue, which of you has already done this! So please, just ignore me, if you already done it or if you just have no intention in participating🤗

I am tagging @gabrielokun @hanjiwoos @kaonoppakao @moonlightchicken @talays-portkey @machikeita @gaydongsik @gunsatthaphan

[wen-kexing-apologist]

1, 4, and 10

1- Enemies to Lovers

Ok, again there aren’t many, Semantic Error is probably the closest. But I think I am going to give a shout out to 

Yang and Phumjai, Love in Translation

I would consider Yang and Phumjai to be enemies at the beginning, even if that is not sustained for all that long. They exchanged blows upon first meeting, broke property, and then when stuck in a room together, regressed to adolescence to chuck oranges at each other until physically pried apart. I’m counting this because I do think that enemies to loves follows the general trend of, hates each other, forced together, annoyed, starts to form friendship, fucking in the grocery store aisles. I want more enemies to lovers and am very much looking forward to whenever I get to watch two boys (or preferably two girls) homoerotically trying to murder each other. (I don’t count Word of Honor cause my specialist little war criminal would never see Zhou Zishu as an enemy) 

4- Long Term Pining 

Togawa, Old Fashion Cupcake

Togawa has had a crush on Nozue since the moment Nozue comforted him after his interview, that was ALMOST TEN YEARS OF PINING. And then even after he finesses this de-ageifying process with Nozue, he has to just sit there, trying not to choke on a hamster cheek full of pancake when Nozue asks to pay Togawa with his body. Like this poor, love-stricken fuck just has to sit there being tortured with Knowledge about his feelings for Nozue and a firm understanding of what it is they are doing together, while he waits for Nozue to get wise and either break his heart or make all that time spent mooning over the Office’s Most Firmly Rooted Man worth it. 

10- Bodyguard 

I mean…the only bodyguard romance I’ve seen that’s worth mentioning is KinnPorsche because I hated the petulant child in Laws of Attraction and Never Let Me Go was meh…also because I have seen KinnPorsche fourteen times…..

BUT I’ve been having such fun talking about my unhinged, non-traditional definitions of these tropes. So:

Koichi and Michan, Eien no Kinou (Eternal Yesterday)

I know this trope is pretty much reserved for literal, hired bodyguards who are supposed to put their life on the line to protect their client. And well… whether we knew it or not, Koichi was always guarding Michan’s body and he died for it; right at the beginning of the show.  It was so clear to me that Koichi cared so deeply about keeping Michan safe, so much so that his own body continues until he feels satisfied that Michan will be okay. And Michan pays that body guarding back eleven-fold as he tries desperately to protect Koichi’s body, sewing his wounds, trying to make him warm, hiding his death. And more importantly, Michan fights tooth and nail to protect Koichi’s memory. With no body left to guard, he holds firm and fast to Koichi’s ghost. 

For the BL Romance Tropes Ask Game

[twig-tea]

For the BL trope ask game: 8, 9 and 10

Whew, coming out swinging! Ok here we go.

8. May/December

There really are not a lot of these where the age gap is truly significant. My actual favourite BL couple with an age gap where their ages are part of the conflict they face is The Pornographer/The Novelist though I acknowledge their age gap is probably not enough to fully be considered May/December. Rio becoming a mentor for Haruhiko does add to the May/December aspects so I'm just going to commit lol.

The concerns around their age gap came up in the sequel short more than the original series, but they definitely started their relationship in the original series at different life stages and it was one of the things that caused Rio to run from Haruhiko in the first place. To my memory there are some funny reversals in this one because Haruhiko gets his life together faster than Rio does but that means even as Haruhiko gets older they remain at different life stages and it continues to be a source of conflict.

Also just going to say, for anyone looking for old man yaoi, there is also a bonus fantasy/nightmare imagination scenario that Haruhiko pictures between Rio and his mentor that takes place in Continued Spring Life (though I would not call Rio's relationship with his mentor a romance!).

[NGL my favourite truly May/December romancecin BL is Choko and Maru from Ossan's Love and Ossan's Love Returns in which Choko is older than Maru's mother and it is a major source of conflict between her and her new mother in law until they find common ground.]

9. Fake Dating

I know I'm pretty alone in this, but YYY is one of my faves and it is actually a perfect example of the fake dating trope. For those who never saw this show, the central plot is that Nott and Pun are pretending to date in order to be allowed to stay in their apartment (the landlord loves BL). There are constant misunderstandings, pining, and it's compounded by the fact that one is also in a BGP with a different guy. There are real stakes tied to their fake dating, and the faking of the relationship becomes painful to the point that they become willing to risk those stakes (getting kicked out) rather than continuing to fake it. This show is absolutely wild and a LOT of nonsense happens, but the core is a pretty standard execution of this trope! And I love it a lot.

10. Bodyguard

I'm going to include censored projects in this because my ultimate favourite in this trope is Sleuth of Ming Dynasty. Zhou is at points of the story assigned to be a literal guard for Tang Fan, but he also just does it anyway off the clock because that's who he is. This show, to my mind, hits all of the important beats related to a bodyguard tripe including the person being protected balking at the protection and sacrificing himself so that his protector is not hurt (as well as at other times and being entirely blasé about his own safety because he trusted Zhou to protect him and had full faith he would).

Link to the original ask game post!

[bengiyo]

For the QL ask game, could I ask 7 and 13 please! -☆

7. Who is your favorite friend character in Asian ql?

Cherry Magic Anime Tsuge, my beloved.

This version of Tsuge is my favorite, because he and Adachi are a hot mess, and he has to work a lot harder to reach through to him. I also found the friend moments between them to be more heartfelt, because it came with the sense of "we're adults who don't get to see each other very often.

13. Which Asian ql tropes get you every time?

Crash Into You aka You Can't Fall In Love if You Ain't Clumsy

Earphones Sharing

PIggyback Rides

The Yin-Yang Lying Together Pose

Head Pats

For the Asian QL Ask Game

[absolutebl]

This is BL challenge for you (if you choose to accept them).

1.a) Please write your top 3 or top 5 favorite tropes in BL.

b) From each trope, write at least 3 BL that you love.

(Feel free if you want to write the reasons or not of why you love them).

2. a) What is the first BL that make you want to know more about and eventually love BL?

b) What is that one BL that have a special place in your heart (for whatever reason)?

The BL can be in in the form of manga, manhwa, manhua, books, tv series or movies.

Thanks so much if you want to answer this long ask.

1. BL Challenge Accepted!

a) Please write your top 5 favorite tropes in BL

Love Rivals to Lovers

Age Gap hyung romances (the younger character is the seme)

Stepbrothers and/or best friend's brother

Paranormal Take On Fated Mates

Whipping boy (specifically attack dog variant)

Remember: I am trash and I love a problematic trope that adds tension and/or kink to a narrative, especially it it messes with a power dynamic.

b) From each trope, write at least 3 BL that you love.

Love Rivals to Lovers

Hey Rival I Love You, Vietnam

That's it, that's all I got. There's been some illusions to this with side couples like in Jun & Jun recently, but it's rarely a narrative driver or they copped out (Hidden Agenda).

Age Gap hyung romances (the younger character is the seme)

Minato's Laundromat

Old Fashion Cupcake

Lovely Writer

Also: Oxygen, Private Lessons

Stepbrothers and/or best friend's brother

Addicted

Cherry Blossoms After Winter

HIStory 4: Close 2 You (sides)

Paranormal Take On Fated Mates

Until We Meet Again

Color Rush

La Pluie

Whipping boy (specifically attack dog variant)

Utsukushii Kare

Where Your Eyes Linger

Never Let Me Go

2. a) What is the first BL that make you want to know more about and eventually love BL?

Love Sick

b) What is that one BL that have a special place in your heart (for whatever reason)?

Love By Chance

Post dated September 2023, currently airing BLs not included. Not responsible for hits to this list after this date.

(source)

[emotionallychargedtowel]

For the BL trope ask game: 4 and 13

Thanks for the ask, dearie! (And for getting this ask game started to begin with.) These tropes are very much up my alley.

Long-Term Pining (4)

I’m a big fan of long-term pining, as I'm sure you know and as is probably abundantly clear to anyone who reads my tumblr or talks about QL stuff with me elsewhere. I’m not sure what’s so especially compelling about it for me. Part of it is how special it is for someone to be that loyal and committed. Staying constant over a long time without encouragement is one of the biggest indications of the strength of someone’s feelings you could have. I also relate to it in some ways, because when I have serious feelings for someone they don’t ever really go away. Not to mention all the hopeless crushes I’ve had in my life. 

A lot of my favorite BLs/QLs involve a significant amount of pining, so I had plenty of ideas for this trope—if anything, I had too many. I decided to go with my new blorbo, Ai Di from Kiseki: Dear to Me, because his pining takes a really interesting form. 

According to something Louis Chiang said in a behind-the-scenes video, Ai Di has liked Chen Yi since he was six or seven years old, which would have made Chen Yi nine or ten. By the time of the second part of the story, Ai Di is 22 and Chen Yi is 25. That’s sixteen years of pining.

The thing I find most interesting about Ai Di’s version of pining is that it has a really paradoxical quality. Because of a combination of circumstances and his personality, he doesn’t respond to things in the way we would expect for someone who’s pining for someone else. (I guess it’s no wonder I got obsessed with Kiseki after watching it a couple weeks back, since I seem to have a thing for paradoxical relationship dynamics.) Basically, Ai Di is pining for someone while pushing him away and even rebuffing advances from him, things you wouldn’t expect someone deeply in love to do. 

Ai Di gives Chen Yi a hard time about how "his eyes gave him away" when he looked at their boss at this meeting, but what about this?

In the 2019 part of the story, Ai Di often pushes Chen Yi away and even pushes him toward their boss. He passes up invitations and complains about Chen Yi including him in things, repeatedly makes fun of Chen Yi for being a virgin (according to Ai Di) and says he’s impotent, and tells him again and again to confess to or hit on the boss, practically daring him to at times (albeit in a derisive way that wouldn’t be a great approach if he actually wanted Chen Yi to make a move). When Chen Yi kisses him, he bites his lip hard enough to make him bleed (after only hesitating for a microsecond). After he has sex with Chen Yi when he’s drunk, he distances himself in the biggest way yet. Partly out of guilt about this, and fear that Chen Yi will hate him when he realizes what he did, and partly out of his usual desire to protect him, he voluntarily goes to prison for four years in order to protect Zongyi (whose imprisonment is Chen Yi’s responsibility). 

From this point on, Ai Di pushes Chen Yi away even more than before. When Chen Yi comes to visit him in prison on their shared birthday and brings a cake like the ones he used to get for him, dropping massive hints that his eyes have been opened now, Ai Di is incredibly cold and tells him never to visit again. When he’s released in 2023, he continues to push Chen Yi away with all of his might. He avoids him, tells him repeatedly that they should cease all contact, and returns gifts Chen Yi sends him. The most hurtful thing he does is probably the way he talks about the night they had sex, claiming he did it “just for fun.” He goes on to rebuff two more advances from Chen Yi despite continued hints that he has come to understand and even return Ai Di’s feelings. 

If your prospective partner has to put you in a double kabedon, you're hardcore about avoiding them.

Chen Yi’s next attempt is successful. He ties Ai Di up, since he apparently has to be physically restrained in order to hear Chen Yi out. Chen Yi finally tells him more explicitly that after Ai Di went to prison he’d figured out how he felt and how much he’d done for him, that he knew it was him when they slept together (at least, after a certain point), and that he’d realized that he actually returned his feelings. 

This is an epic amount of avoidance for a long-term piner. In some cases, his avoidance is probably for the best. When Chen Yi first starts to put the moves on him, he hasn’t begun to sort out his feelings about the boss. Giving way could easily have made everything worse. But once Chen Yi starts to understand his feelings, it would have made sense for Ai Di to start to let his guard down. Yet he pushes back against Chen Yi’s overtures way harder at that point. 

When asked in an interview (translated here) about what advice he would give Ai Di, Louis Chiang said about Chen YI, “you have to go after him relentlessly, don’t let go of him, don’t let go of your own love for him, keep looking at him persistently, and make him look back at you.” Ai Di pretty much does the opposite of this, so there’s no wonder Chiang thought he could use this advice. 

Why would someone behave this way? There’s actually a good psychological explanation. It has everything to do with the adverse experiences he had as a child. We don’t know when the boss started taking care of Ai Di, but he was definitely with his birth parents or some other parental figures for some time before that happened, and according to him, his parents “went crazy because of drugs,” implying intense use of serious substances. Even if he was under the boss’s care at a very young age, his most formative years would have been spent in a very chaotic environment. It seems like he experienced severe neglect and he may have seen any number of things a child shouldn’t. Like a lot of people with this kind of early experience, Ai Di appears to have a disorganized attachment style. Which is something I could go off about, but that should probably be its own post. 

For now I’ll just say that I think the paradoxical way Ai Di behaves given his devotion to Chen Yi is one of the things that makes him such an interesting character. 

Grumpy/Sunshine (13)

I'm a bit partial to this trope, too. I have a few favorites. Ji Woo and Seo Joon from To My Star are right up there. But for this post, I’m going to talk here about another grumpy/sunshine pair I love: Mamoru and Issei from Kabe Koji. 

How much more grumpy/sunshine could they get?

When it comes to BL protagonists, Mamoru is about as grumpy as it gets. He approaches the world as if disappointment and provocation are so inevitable that he may as well get angry and resigned now and skip the part where he makes an effort. And it seems like he’s had his share of experiences that led him to have these expectations. He deals with homophobic bullying on a regular basis. His rare sources of happiness are really tenuous, like his vacillating popularity with readers of independent comics. And his selective, biased memory of what happened with Issei serves to justify his worst views of life and humanity. Yet in the face of all of this, he has a remarkable, stubborn insistence on following his dream, and though he compromises it at times, he usually listens to his creative voice in an admirable way. 

Issei, meanwhile, is such a sunshine boy that he dances right up to the line where toxic positivity starts. But he doesn’t cross it. He's not always great at sitting with his own negative feelings, though he manages to grow his capacity for that as the story progresses. But it comes pretty naturally to him to sit with other people’s negative feelings. It’s one of the reasons he keeps winning people over wherever he goes--he's able to join with people in their fear and distress and still hold on to a thread of sincere positivity and compassion.

The trouble with Mamoru is that the negative filter he applies to everything is too extreme and he applies it so rigidly. It’s wild to see how much his brain is able to twist anything into something bad. Studying psychology and doing some training placements as a therapist definitely showed me firsthand that human beings have a remarkable capacity to twist things to fit their existing beliefs and expectations, so the fact that I was frequently blown away by Mamoru’s negative filter is really saying something. 

In his gentle, good-natured way, Issei forces Mamoru to look at things differently and open himself up to new experiences and relationships. It’s amazing gift to be able to do that. I don’t think I could pull off being as sunshine-y as Issei in a million years, even though I have some low-key Pollyanna tendencies. But I wonder if I could learn from the way he relates to people. Sometimes he handles other adults in ways that remind me of things I’ve read in parenting books. I guess this is because he makes it a priority to validate others, and that’s an important parenting skill. I don’t think he infantilizes others, though. It’s more that Issei is the kind of person who would treat a kid with as much respect as an adult. And really, the things that kids need from interactions with their parents are almost always the same kinds of things we all need from one another. 

And again, so grumpy, so sunshine.

It’s interesting that Mamoru is able to provide something to Issei that he can’t get elsewhere. It’s been a while since I watched Kabe Koji so I could be off here, but I think it has to do with the one little idealistic piece of himself that Mamoru has guarded with all of his grumpy defense mechanisms–and the fact that Issei ended up as a sort of patron saint of that part of him, a symbol of hope in the world. If he only saw Issei this way, that would be a big problem. But he’s still able to see him as a person–if anything, he understands his personhood and respects his feelings more than anyone. I guess he’s cynical enough that an idealized image of Issei as a perfect ray of sunshine wouldn’t be believable or appealing to him anyway. Sometimes his image of Issei gets a bit disconnected from reality, like what happens when he doesn’t interact with him in real life for a long time and just sees him doing idol things on TV and stuff. But as long as he’s around him sometimes, he continues to really see him in a way that few people do. 

It really doesn’t get better than someone who really sees you for who you are and still thinks what they see is exceptional. Or when someone you think is truly exceptional sincerely loves you back.

[syrena-del-mar]

7 and 18 for bl tropes

Hey Shan! I honestly thought this would be easier to answer than it actually was.

#7: Star-Crossed Lovers

This may be stretching the trope a little bit, but Choco Milk Shake. I know the premise of this one is a little out there, but once you look beyond the reincarnation (or is it incarnation here?), it's a story about grief, loss, and acceptance.

Now this may change, considering there's a second season coming out soon, but currently where season 1 left us, they will always be destined to leave each other. Even at the end, when they choose to come back for a second time, they're still only allowed the 99 days. There's no true future where they could all truly be together.

It's been over a year and honestly the end card after Choco and Milk both crossed back to heaven will always get to me.

When Choco arrived to heaven, he sat down and started crying, and Milk had to comfort Choco for a long time.

#18: Slow Burn

Where do I start with Plus and Minus? First off, I will always have a love for the fact that they were divorce attorneys. This show really went all introspective in understanding why some relationships succeed and others are bound to fail; divorce attorneys are the ones that see that ending. Some relationships in pure shit shows, while others just fizzle out without any true reason. While I don't think I necessarily loved it because it was a slow burn, I do have to admit Fu Li Gong was playing the long game here.

This show really brought forth the idea that 'love isn't this end-all, be-all magical fix' to reality. No matter how much you love someone that doesn't guarantee a 'successful' relationship. Which is exactly why Zheng Ze Shou and Fu Li Gong end up breaking up in the penultimate episode. Yes, Li Gong has love and pinned over Ze Shou since their childhood, but that wasn't enough. Instead of communicating and asking Ze Shou what they should do, he just makes a decision for the both of them. Their relationship was never going to work if Li Gong was never going to fully communicate with Ze Shou.

I think the writing was clunky at the ending, but honestly I love the questions about love it was bringing to the forefront. I honestly don't think those questions of love have been fully tackled in any other BL since this one.

Send me a trope and I'll respond with my favorite BL

[shortpplfedup]

For the bl trope ask game: 5, 7, 10? If possible please. This seems really cool to do. Have a wonderful day/night!

I love when I get repeats because I get to consider different shows! My initial answers for these were:

5. Second Chance Romance: His

7. Star-Crossed Lovers: Until We Meet Again and I Feel You Linger In The Air

10. Bodyguard: KinnPorsche

Lemme see what else I've got in the tank...

Second Chance Romance

I will always prefer a second chance romance that is truly about regrets, forgiveness and trying again to one about never having taken the leap in the first place. The End of the World With You (Bokura no Micro na Shuumatsu) is one of the best I've seen. Ritsu is seeking absolution and reconciliation before the world ends, and Masumi is equally determined not to forgive. The journey they go on...well go watch it if you haven't already.

Star-Crossed Lovers

The problem with star-crossed lovers is that BL as romance is indexed toward the happy ending. Tragedy is NOT what the girlies come here for, so the stories have to find a hook, like time travel or past lives, to smuggle the tragedy in while still allowing a happy-ish ending. I'm gonna round out my star-crossed trifecta with He's Coming To Me, because a living man and a ghost falling in love is the very definition of stars being crossed.

Bodyguard

For all its flaws, Never Let Me Go made a solid attempt at the bodyguard romance and I really enjoyed it in parts. Jojo really swung for it with this one and while I don't think it was entirely successful, it was for sure discussable.

[wontune]

� pavel phoom. ( ator ) lockscreen !

[raikantopenis]

4, 6, and 14

Thank you for the ask, Sarge! Ofc I blanked and forgot every drama I've ever seen the moment I saw it :(

4. Long Term Pining

Ok, this kinda cheating since we haven't gotten the live action drama yet, but Heaven Official's Blessing/Tian Guan Ci Fu is the definition of Long Term Pining!!

I mean, 800 years is 800 years. Talk about fatal devotion.

These two have dealt me so much emotional damage, I cannot think too hard about them in public. I will tear up.

6. Coming of Age

180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us is, amongst many other things, a story of Wang's coming of age, and his separation from his mother. This is an insanely good short series, with strong acting/writing/cinematography overall. So much time has passed, but I am still insane over lines separating and connecting characters. And some quotes found a permanent home in my notebook.

14. Sunshine/Sunshine

Gotta say, Sunshine/Sunshine isn't really my thing. I guess I just enjoy it when a character is hissing and clawing as they are being dragged into love. But.

But.

I cannot not love them. Our Dining Table/Bokura no Shokutaku has healed me in ways I didn't expect. The whole show is really cute, but also surprisingly deep for the fluffy feel-good setup. As expected of Japan.

BL Romance Trope Ask Game

[wen-kexing-apologist]

Hi!

For the trope ask game

8. May/December & 12. Forced Proximity

Rose💜

8- May/December

So there are actually quite a few age gap romances in BL but hmmm this one is a little difficult for me because there are a couple that I really really love. I like the idea of the May/Decmber trope being not only a significant age gap but also two people in very different stages of their lives, so as much as I love Wataru and Daichan I feel like they are both settled, domestic, and while generationally different, they are both working adults. 

I think I want to actually throw this to 

Fan Ze Rui and Bai Zong Yi, Kiseki: Dear to Me 

What I appreciate with their relationship is that unlike some of the other May/December relationships, they meet when they are relatively older. What I mean by this is that Lian and Kuea from Cutie Pie grew up together, Wataru has known Daichan since he was twelve. Bai Zong Yi meets Fan Ze Rui when he is 17, in what I would call a truly unhinged first contact. I loved watching their relationship develop from utter annoyance to tolerance to friendship and then to love. I think what I love about this relationship is that there is a clear attraction between them for awhile, but Fan Rui is trying to be responsible. He knows Bai Zong Yi is a minor, he has a dangerous lifestyle, sure he definitely wants to be with Bai Zong Yi but he is not trying to encourage Bai Zong Yi’s feelings for him, even if they are reciprocated. 

Part of why I am choosing these two is a) because the tension in Fan Rui knowing that this relationship is not responsible and Bai Zong Yi’s clear and obvious interest in him creates one of my favorite first kiss acting moments and b) because I think Kiseki actually managed to handle this relationship responsibly by having Bai Zong Yi be the pursuer, by having Fan Rui try to distance, by having Bai Zong Yi initiate. 

Their reunion scene was beautiful and that lap sit during their first kiss was smooth as butter. 

12- Forced Proximity

Bokura no Micro na Shuumatsu 

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT. IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT. IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT, AND I FEEL FINE. 

What an incredible example of a forced proximity second chance romance with such fucked up relation dynamics that I absolutely got to obsessed over. I mean, be honest, how many shows do you see where your characters are forced together on a road trip to try to get their recently acquired, superhero seventeen year old child back to his family before the world is destroyed by a giant meteor? This plot sounds ridiculous, and it is, and yet the character dynamics are so compelling, and there is an incredible emotional core that operates throughout. Good job!

For the BL Romance Tropes Ask Game

[twig-tea]

Hi!

So I'll only ask one so you can answer with how many you want. Be free!

5.Second Chance Romance

💜

Thank you friend, this is true bestie behaviour!

5. Second Chance Romance

To break this down a bit, I think technically a second chance romance requires there to have been a relationship in the first place. So as much as I absolutely love Our Dating Sim, Tokyo in April Is..., and a Breeze of Love, for example, they never did more than kiss or hook up once before circumstances forced them apart, so I'm discounting them for the purposes of this post (but watch all three of those shows they are excellent).

I honestly think the best example of this in BL is His (the film). Shun and Nagisa dated for years, broke up, and the film is all about the two of them re-learning one another and finding how they fit together now. They need to work through both the things that caused them to break up the first time, as well as the hurt from that break-up, before they can get together again in the present. Their getting together in the present is informed by (as well as hindered by) their first romance.

Runner up goes to To My Star 2. TMS2 isn't quite as perfectly aligned to the trope because only one of them wanted to be broken up and there isn't a ton of time between the break-up and the should-we-get-back-together dance. But there is a lot of working through the things that broke them up the first time in order to allow for them to even potentially work this second time, which is a key component of second chance romances.

Finally, I'm going to mention Until We Meet Again. This is definitely not a standard Second Chance Romance by any stretch; the second chance is from their deaths in their first lives. But it's clear that even if their memories from their lives as Korn and Intouch are not conscious, they have been influenced by their subconscious memories all their lives. Pharm was desperate to learn to cook because In never got the chance; Dean had a tattoo because he felt like he was constantly searching for something. Dean learned to be direct because Korn spent so long not being direct with In; Pharm was hesitant to trust Dean because In felt betrayed by Korn's suicide. They had to work through their past life trauma in order to be able to work in the present.

Link to the original ask game post!

[harborpointeblvd]

This is BL challenge for you (if you choose to accept them).

1.a) Please write your top 3 or top 5 favorite tropes in BL.

b) From each trope, write at least 3 BL that you love.

(Feel free if you want to write the reasons or not of why you love them).

2. a) What is the first BL that make you want to know more about and eventually love BL?

b) What is that one BL that have a special place in your heart (for whatever reason)?

3.) Who are your top 5 (or top 3) seme & uke from your favorite BL media (both can be from the same BL or different from each other )?

The BL can be in in the form of manga, manhwa, manhua, danmei, books, tv series or movies.

Thanks so much if you want to answer this long ask.

Challenge accepted!

So lately I've been watching a lot of Thai dramas, but I started with manga/manhwa, so I'll be talking about both.

1. I'm gonna do top 3 favorite tropes, because I can't think of 5.

Hidden Agenda. Not like the Joong/Dunk series. I'm talking about when a character comes onto the scene with a secret personal mission but foils their own plan by falling in love. This, of course, leads to a snowball of lies, followed by the inevitable dramatic fallout. For example:

Not Me - Honestly, just fucking outstanding. I love this series so much. The guilt that White feels the longer he keeps the lie going, and then Sean's confusion and refusal to accept when shit unravels is just devastating. It's what I live for.

Tale of Thousand Stars - What makes this one extra devastating is that we the audience can see the full picture. The villagers only know what Tian tells them, and Tian's own perspective is clouded by survivor's guilt. So while we can see where everyone is coming from, it's clear that Tian doesn't deserve the punishment that's being piled on him.

Unintentional Love Story - There is a manhwa and a K-drama adaptation, but I'm talking specifically about the manhwa. The dynamic between the leads is so cute, it's almost like the author is trying to make you forget the relationship was built on a lie. Until, of course, it all comes crumbling down.

Third Act Breakup. I know, everyone hates this trope. But something you should know about me is that when I get into a story, I want it to ruin my life. Okay, not really, but I might like angst a little too much. I find it extremely cathartic to experience heartache vicariously through fictional characters. Admittedly, this trope often relies on characters acting in ways that don't make sense. But when it works, it works.

Blueming - The simplicity of Blueming is what makes it beautiful, and that includes the breakup. It's not some convoluted drama or people acting out of character, just humans making human mistakes and needing time to reflect on them.

Dark Blue Kiss - Speaking of convoluted drama. I can't even defend myself on this one.

Last Twilight - Oh god, this is gonna be my most controversial pick. I liked the breakup scene in Last Twilight. It was gut-wrenching, but it felt necessary. Like, they both needed time apart in order to grow independently. I mean, they kind of squandered that opportunity for growth, but we're not here to talk about episode 12.

Unrequited Love Reversal. There is just something so satisfying about watching the pursuer become the pursued. The character who initially took the other's love for granted suddenly has to work to get it back. I think it's a wish fulfillment thing. It's probably unhealthy how much I like this trope.

The Best Smell - This manhwa is kind of a hard sell, but trust me, it's so good. It's about a boy named Kanggo whose sense of smell is so powerful, he can smell emotions. He despises the smell of lies, so he initially hates Kamin, who is very withdrawn and secretive. But Kamin has a secret crush on Kanggo, and his affection smells so sweet, that Kanggo starts to do anything to be near Kamin. But the closer Kanggo tries to get to him, the more Kamin's guard goes up.

The Third Ending - The first season, specifically, because I didn't like the second season. Yoonseul reconnects with Jun, a guy he rejected in high school, believing it will fix his karma. When the two become closer, Yoonseul becomes confused about his feelings for Jun. After rejecting him for the second time, Jun pulls away, and Yoonseul realizes too late that he's fallen for Jun.

A Shoulder to Cry On - Specifically the manhwa. While I thought the drama was a pretty good adaptation, my favorite scene played out much more satisfyingly in the manhwa. After rejecting Dayeol and pushing him away, Taehyun regrets his decision and tries to make up with him. But Dayeol decides his life is easier without Taehyun in it, and he tells him, "I can handle my feelings for you, but I don't think I can handle you." And it's on their graduation day, so he just straight disappears from his life after that.

2. I first started reading manhwa in 2020 when I was in quarantine and needed a distraction. I'd been reading Haikyuu or something, and someone on YouTube recommended Someone Else's BL Manhwa. I instantly fell in love with it and to this day it's still my favorite BL manhwa.

I transitioned to dramas when I watched Blueming, which is one of the few k-drama adaptations that I thought was much better than the manhwa it was based on.

Aside from those two, a BL that holds a special place in my heart is Bad Buddy. It was the one that started my great GMMTV binge-watch, and I've watched it three times since then. It's my comfort watch.

3. I don't really like the seme/uke labels, but I can just tell you some of my favorite BL main characters.

I tend to be drawn to two kinds of characters. The first are those who are not very smart, but very passionate and sincere.

Gun - My School President

Heesu - Heesu in Class 2

The second are those who are stubborn and kind of bratty. Even better if they're only bratty to the love interest, because that's good stuff.

Seunghee - Someone Else's BL

Team - Between Us (Between Us wasn't very good, but Team can stay. And no, I haven't watched UWMA.)

Day - Last Twilight