#history 5: love in the future

[respectthepetty]

Give your boss just a smidge of love, and this is how he acts ON THE CLOCK!

All professionalism goes right out the damn window.

Forgot about those work trips.

Men are so messy.

Thank God for Nozue who at least waited until he was in the alley after the workday was done.

[chicademartinica]

That scene in Bed Friend is really hitting me in my COLORISM RUINS EVERYTHING BECAUSE LOVERS WITH CONTRASTING SKIN TONES ARE THE SEXIEST THING ON THE PLANET spot. Let the melanated characters (and actors) get loved on ON GOD.

[wanderlust-in-my-soul]

You're the light, you're the night | You're the colour of my blood | You're the cure, you're the pain | You're the only thing I wanna touch - Love Me Like You Do by Ellie Goulding

Moonlight Chicken

HIStory 2: Crossing The Line

Utsukushii Kare Season 2

Gaya Sa Pelikula (aka Like In The Movies)

The Director Who Buys Me Dinner

HIStory 5: Love In The Future

Tinted With You

The New Employee

Favorite "Let-me-watch-you-while-you-sleep-moments" (Part 1/?) as part of my favorite bl-tropes collection.

[bengiyo]

Hello, for the 5 things.

This just popped up in my mind for some reason. Choose 5 shows you watched but didn't enjoy and say one thing they did well. It can be whatever.

Rose💜

You want me to be nice to shows I didn't like. Hmm....

"Oops!" from Dangerous Romance

I like Chimon a lot. I stuck with this show way longer than I should have because of this line delivery.

Vincent's Simping from HIStory 5: Love in the Future

This man's facial expressions when he was overwhelmed with feeling for Wynn were incredible.

Fifth and Zeke from My Story

These two had some of the best chemistry of the year.

The Demisexual Awakening in Naked Dining

Ichijou Souta is one of the most important characters of the year.

Sunshine from Low Frequency

I actually liked this song a lot.

Ask me Top 5 BL Anything from 2023

[dribs-and-drabbles]

Watchlist Tag Game!

Thank you @waitmyturtles for tagging me!

Currently watching

A Boss and a Babe - cute, easy to watch

Bed Friend - cute, easy to watch HA! who am I kidding. Despite the icky trauma I love this one. Let's hope it sticks the landing.

Chains of Heart - I was going to wait to watch this one (like Big Dragon) but I got SO DRAWN IN and now I'm obsessed.

The Eighth Sense - I knew a kbl would be gorgeously made but this one is knocking all other kbls out of the park. It's also stabbing me in the heart. But I love it.

Future - a little cringeworthy, a little slow, but it's light and easy.

The Promise - I have to watch this a week behind since I don't have a subscription hence I miss the analysis and discourse, which is needed because the characters' motivations can be frustrating. Plus colours!

UMG - I wish this could have had a midnight museum level of depth, even a 10 years ticket, but it's slapstick crack. Which doesn't make it bad per se but it's a little too light and throwaway whilst also trying to be sort of a character study. I also wish they had given the aliens a blurred focus because they're much less menacing when you can see it's just prosthetics and make-up.

3 Will Be Free - I started this a while ago but stalled mid-way through ep 3. I'll get back to it soon but I find Joss a bit wooden.

Looking forward to watching soon

New shows: 

Our Skyy 2 - I might end up having to watch each ep later than everyone else (and thus hiding the tag for the whole series sadly) because Wed and Thurs evenings are the WORST time for me. But SO EXCITED!

Double Savage - I might also have to wait and binge this one later because it might be difficult to squeeze this in with all the above.

Older shows:

The Director who buys me Dinner - the eps are only short, so I could binge it at some point.

HIStory 5: Love in the Future - the ep lengths daunt me, so maybe I'll binge it during my next long break from work?

Big Dragon - not sure when I'll get round to this but it's been on my list since before Christmas.

Ai Long Nhai - this has also been on my list for a while, maybe too long now...

Remember Me - ditto (I can't even remember what this one is about).

To Sir With Love - starting to think I won't watch this though...

Would like to watch but can't for region locked/subscription reasons

Our Dining Table - it looks so soft and domestic!

Destiny Seeker - the colours!

Also - any gl recs gladly taken! It's harder to keep track of what's airing and when with gls...

Tagging some peeps whom I haven't interacted with much recently (it's me not you) and some who have popped up in my notifications recently: @seeking-moonscapes @jemmo @markpakin @elnotwoods @youdontloveme-yet @airenyah @ablazenqueen @wen-kexing-apologist @vegasandhishedgehog @colourme-feral @kyr-kun-chan @lurkingshan

[heretherebedork]

I am here to let hands destroy me in 2023 and let's see how far they've gotten...

Oh yeah, the hands are gonna rule this year.

[the-conversation-pod]

These three shows are the stuff of HR nightmares, but we suppose the course of true love never did run smooth. Ben and NiNi talk GAP the Series, The New Employee, and HIStory 5: Love in the Future.

[madeinchinataiwanhk-blbambeyond]

MADE IN TAIWAN

SEAN CHANG

LINUS WANG

ANSON CHEN

JASON TAUH

[aliceisathome]

HiStory 5: Love in the Future was... um, average I guess? Was fairly meh about the main couple but loved the sides until Wun-sen just buggered off without a word. Couldn't he have made some excuse rather than just up and disappeared on the boy he's been crushing on for TWELVE YEARS? Anson Chen is rather cute though and I spent the entire show thinking of Huai-en as a baby Shao Fei - something about his expressions, eyes and mouth.

Couple of decent sex scenes but the handheld camera swooping around was intrusive (and not in a good way).

Still, not the worst thing to spend 10 hours on although I don't think I'll be doing a rewatch.

[lgbtally4ever]

HISTORY 5: Love in the Future

Highlight reel from GagaOOLala

[respectthepetty]

Dear Taiwanese BLs, never stop giving me the "blinding light of love" moment.

I love a good old fashion color exchange but something about a blinding light appearing out of nowhere to signal the feelings are out in the open, people are thinking clearly, and the love is exposed just hits the spot.

Or you can give me that sweet sweet heart bokeh effect

[orangemocharaktajino]

I think I learned how to make gifs    :D

[chicademartinica]

I’m reading the My beautiful man /Utsukushii Kare book and discovered that Hira in fact sucked his toes ?!! Japan just japaning. ( The show did amazing translating that on screen. Also Togawa SIR ?!!

Delicious adjective, /dɪˈlɪʃ.əs/- used to describe a situation or activity that gives you great pleasure (Part 1/?)

Utsukushii Kare

Old Fashion Cupcake

Bad Buddy

War Of Y

Bed Friend

Love At The End Of The World

History 5

Summerdaze

Part of my favorite bl-tropes collection, as always in no particular order.

[ayane2355]

I remember when you said you would do all the things you really did, because promises meant, something to you, where they usually died in men. I know that because I've begun to be confused by little but you, and I'd lived a long time Trying to break the cycle, only to be reminded where I was birthed and to who. Everything becomes miniscule when life becomes routine, when two people without parents are separated, so a couple can be made, and time broken, but they're doing Mundane things. Like falling in love, and forgetting everything else.

[respectthepetty]

I am currently hooked on Past-senger. I don't know how possibly may have a happy ending but I am enjoying its lightness and humor. Did you notice Bamee house is the house of Tonhon in TonhonChonlatee?

I have tried Love syndrome III because I like its protagonists but it's terrible. How can the acting be that bad? I know from other series they are not that bad.

How the Koreans manage to give us such a steady string of wonderful stories such as Unintentional love story and The eighth sense? They always leave me with a nice aftertaste I don't get anywhere else.

Anon, Taiwanese BLs are my favorite, but I appreciate Thai QLs because so many are produced compared to the ZERO I've gotten from Taiwan in 2023. ZERO! The last BL Taiwan offered was HIStory 5: Love in the Future, which shared the time travel theme with Past-Senger, and as much as I love Taiwanese BLs and the HIStory franchise, I think Past-Senger did a better job with it.

Quantity does not equal quality, so Thailand having over fifty QLs a year doesn't necessarily equate to great stories or production value, but, much like Vietnamese and Filipino QLs, there is always a solid foundation with some heart at its core. Also, Thai series are easily available, for free. I haven't nor will I watch Love Syndrome III because I will hate it, and not in a fun hate-watch way, but some who watched it liked it because that's the beauty of variety; we have more to pick from based on what we like and there is something for everyone.

Past-Senger, with its Tonhon Chonlatee house, has its issues, and there are plenty including spotty sound, a clumsy final quarter, and odd pacing, but as you mentioned, it does humor well, and it takes the time-traveling aspect seriously compared to HIStory 5. When Kiew lands in the future, he is constantly reminded that he is out of place and not meant to be there, while HIStory 5 spent the first episode on that idea, then quickly moved along.

Korea tends to go back to the past (Tinted With You and Once Again) or for reincarnation (First Love Again and The Director Who Buys Me Dinner), but there is always in underlying melancholy to these since the narrative makes it clear these are "right person, wrong time" stories. Korea loves a time skip like Japan loves to make its guys run. But the issue most people as well as I have with Korean BLs is they are too short to properly develop the plot, the characters, and the resolution. For me, something is always rushed or lacking.

Yet Our Dating Sim has done the best "left him because I love him" plot out of all the QLs I've watched, and I think Star Struck might do well with it also. Both also demonstrate the Korean staple of "right person, wrong time" with time jumps that I just complained about, yet they are done well here.

As much as I stay rooting for Taiwan, I appreciate a range of queer media because every show is doing something different; therefore, each show has the possibility of doing it better.

Gameboys and Hello, Stranger, both Filipino offerings, gave us love stories about the pandemic DURING the pandemic, but unlike my Taiwanese See You After Quarantine?, I feel like some dismissed them simply because they were Filipino even though Gameboys was one of the biggest BLs of 2020 with its mask-off scene.

I have trash taste. I didn't like Bad Buddy overall and I have intentionally never watched a MAME series, so you don't have to trust one word I wrote here, but all of this is really to tell you that as great as Korean dramas are, I encourage you to continue dabbling in other countries' offerings every now and then. I'm a HIStory 4: Close to Me whore first, and a human second, but I loved being surprised by how Bed Friends handled healing from trauma through a sexual relationship, how Moonlight Chicken presented generational and economic differences through a queer lens, and how Kabe Koji and My Beautiful Man showed how distorted views of self-worth can drastically harm the people who love us.

Gems are everywhere. We just have to be willing to shuffle through some dirt to find them. Consider Love Syndrome III your dirt, but perhaps a Mame series will be your gem.