#s: utsukushii kare

[jimmysea]

Honestly you don't understand me at all. No, I really don't. How can a normal guy understand a shning star like you? Why are you suddenly talking about space? Because you and I can never cross paths! We aren't on the same orbit or even in the same dimension. That's why stars can shine brightly. And if I try to touch or understand it, the star will be dragged down to my level. So what I want to say is that I don't want to understand you. So in the end, you don't plan on making a move.Hagiwara Riku as HIRA & Yagi Yusei as KIYOI 美しい彼 シーズン2 (2023) dir. Sakai Mai

[littleragondin]

Shaking in my boots let me tell you.

[braceletofteeth]

— Koyama describing Kiyoi's photographies taken by Hira (2x03)

Guys, do you have any favorite Quotes from Utsukushii kare?If yes would you mind sharing it??

[absolutebl]

Hey. Ty very much for your posts. As a woman in my 30s I got hypnotised by the beauty of the novelists and was wondering if you had similar high heat intense recommendations (also watched the samurai one "taboo"), bi or mlm with older leads and non fluffy storylines.. Moody atmospheric and venomous is my weak spot

Moody, atmospheric & venomous BL

Like, the Novelist? really?

AKA Pornographer movie series AKA The Novelist, Mood Indigo, Pornographer Playback (Japan 2018-2020) - emotional manipulation, cheating, obsession, seduction, May/December, kink, touch of necrophilia, explicit.   

Okay I got one right off the bat: seek ye....

The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese

AKA Kyuso wa Chizu no Yume wo Miru (Japan 2020) - obsession, cheating, breakup, reunion, then break up again, explicit, mature characters. 

Now let me think about some more:

high heat

intense

non fluffy

older leads

The last one is a doozy, so I'm not gonna use it as a qualifier. BL is most, well, about "boys" not men.

Some others that might work for you but don't meet all your criteria:

Your Name Engraved Herein (Taiwan 2020 Netflix) - this movie is fantastic but it is also seriously depressing, it’s a self acceptance journey, but if you wanna wallow in high quality acting and serious gay drama, this’ll do it. 

Innocent (Taiwan 2021 GaGa) - mental health, childhood trauma, actually kinda sweet. 

The Eighth Sense (Korea 2023 Viki - This isn’t in the KBL bubble, there’s sharp edges and lots of triggers. For a KBL the darkness of the content left me feeling unsettled but it's really damn good.

My Personal Weatherman AKA Taikan Yoho (Japan 2023 Gaga) - Basically: boys who fell in love in college end up living together but both are so repressed they actually don't realize they're in love. They're hot, young, in love, and total idiots.

I Feel You Linger in the Air (Thai 2023 grey or YT) - IFYLITA is an exquisite BL, elegant and classy… from Thailand which normally doesn't even try for classy. The main couple (both as a pair and individuals) were excellent, it gets hot more that explicit, but it does have sharp edges.

Tokyo in April is AKA Shigatsu no Tokyo wa (Japan 2023 Viki) - Two young men with a shared tragic past reunite and fall in love all over again, but the past will not stop hunting them. It’s Japan in full on soft focus which means it gets emo, abusive, and chewy. These two characters are giving parts of their souls away in a desperate attempt to shape themselves to the expectations they have of each other it's heavy and cutting.

Moonlight Chicken (Thai 2023) - I enjoyed this complicated little show, even though it’s spectacularly messy gay with lots of shrapnel and authentic pain. EarthMix turn in their most compelling performance to date.

Bed Friend (Thai 2023 IQIYI) - Office frienamies transition a flaming hot one night stand into a f-buddy relationship that is built on a puppy/cat dynamic (and kinks into it at one point). Our puppy is loyal, smitten, and protective with endlessly longing eyes, while our cat is snarky, prickly, and deeply damaged (ALL THE TRIGGERS). NetJames give lovely high-heat with excellent chemistry and tuned-in performances of surprising depth.

Big Dragon (Thai 2022 Gaga) - This is a decent execution of true enemies to lovers, these two spy on and bully each other, exploring darker themes and self worth issues. The way the leads transition between anger, resentment, titillation, and flirting (and the way, with kinksters, this can all be the same thing) is really well done. A pairing that proved itself to be a lot more sophisticated than I expected with excellent chemistry, but something went askew around plot, directing, and ending. Still if you're in it for the sexy, go to, they did.

My Beautiful Man AKA Utsukushii Kare (Japan 2021 Gaga - One of the most Japanese BLs to release in the last decade, as weird and as messed up as any 2000′s yaoi: emo af and hella warped, entirely true to itself with no attempt made to modify its POV for modern sensibilities or current BL fandom. It used seriously old school problematic and kinky tropes, like whipping boy, for a truly uncompromising piece that also manages to hit up themes of communication, consent, and self acceptance. It’s a wonderful BL but uniquely dirty and harsh, in the best possible way - Japanese cinema, uncompromising.

End of the World With You

Junjou: Pure Heart

The Egoist

No thoughts on those three, not my thing.

You also might consider some of the stuff on this list:

Hope that gives you some options!

[emotionallychargedtowel]

Why hello! I don’t see why we can’t keep the Top 5 trend alive in the new year so…

From one chronic rewatcher to another, what are your top 5 most rewatched scenes?

Sorry this took so long, @wen-kexing-apologist! I'm just now getting back to posting a bit more regularly after the holidays got me totally off track, and this question brought up a lot of Thoughts so I've been chipping away at it for weeks.

So, um, this is the best question ever. Except it’s the meanest question ever, because I'm terrible at choosing between things like this.

I am a massive rewatcher, whether you’re talking about whole series, episodes, or scenes. Scenes especially. Why watch an entire thing when you can go right for the best part/s and watch them over and over? This is also one of the reasons I have way too many gifs saved on my phone.

I thought about coming up with a list that was based more on what would make a good post, and/or what would make me look less uncool, than what I actually rewatch the most. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. I wanted to be honest instead. So at the risk of seeming even more like an Utsukare obsessive and overall one-trick pony, I'm going to talk about the five scenes I think I've actually rewatched the most, even though four of them are from my perennial obsession.

The four Utsukushii Kare scenes are in the order they occur in the series, not from most rewatched to least. Then I'll talk about a fifth scene from another series that I've been pretty vocal about appreciating, and I'll mention some runners-up.

“who do you like, him or me?”

If gif posts are any indication—gifs are the smallest increment of rewatching, after all—some of my favorite scenes to rewatch aren’t that popular with other rewatchers. This one gets gif’ed, sure, as you can see. But it's not as popular a choice for this kind of treatment as a lot of other Utsukare scenes.

There are a few reasons this one is a favorite of mine. One is that I tend to like some jealousy in my romance. I have my theories about why it’s so appealing to me specifically, but I’m not entirely sure how to explain it. I also love a good aggressive shirt-grab. (Utsukare certainly delivers these regularly.) But the main reason I keep coming back to this moment is that in just a few sentences, a bunch of character development happens. Well, I guess it would be more correct to call it character revelation. This is the first time we really see this side of Kiyoi, and in that respect, it foreshadows the big perspective shift that’s just around the corner. The viewer picks up a lot of hints that Kiyoi has feelings for Hira prior to this point (even if Hira remains stubbornly oblivious to them). We’ve even seen Kiyoi kiss Hira already (even if he did push him to the ground a split second later). But this is the first time we see such direct evidence of the strength of his feelings for Hira. Kiyoi is so unguarded for this brief moment. The mask slips and what’s underneath is total desperation.

Hira, of course, misses the real meaning of what Kiyoi is saying despite how obvious it is. Which means it's also the viewers’ first indication of how intensely Hira clings to his favored view of reality in the face of evidence to the contrary.

"sorry I like you"

This is another scene where so much is happening in a short span, all because Kiyoi got desperate enough to talk about all of the unspoken bullshit between him and Hira. As usual, Hira doesn’t get it. But he might be starting to. 

This scene is pretty rough watching in some ways. When this episode first aired and it ended with this scene followed by each of them on their own and feeling terrible, I was a bit of a mess. It was silly of me to worry. There were plenty of favorable signs in the preview for the finale. I knew the novels had a happy ending. But it was just so sad and so real that it got to me anyway. But I also enjoyed it, because for an obsessive analyzer like myself, seeing these important relationship dynamics finally come to the surface in such concentrated form was fascinating. It was also a relief to see things out in the open.

Both leads turn in such great performances here. Yagi Yusei really steps up. It’s even more impressive given his relative lack of acting experience. His performance is so raw and affecting. If he had been less vulnerable, Kiyoi’s point about how contradictory Hira’s actions and statements are could seem like a kind of “gotcha” moment designed to win an argument--like he was pointing out that Hira was hypocritical in a bid to score points. Instead, Yagi shows viewers how deeply being caught in this double bind with Hira has hurt Kiyoi. 

Hagiwara Riku, in contrast, portrays Hira as so confused that he’s basically dissociated. Hira has a really strong tendency to see the world in whatever way suits him, regardless of the truth. Kiyoi’s words force Hira to set his usual narrative aside and see how much clinging to it is hurting the person he claims to love, and it throws him off to such an extent that he seems to be experiencing a form of psychomotor slowing. He looks like he’s moving through molasses. He can’t form sentences, or at times, even words. His normally expressive eyes seem like they’ve shrunk to half their normal size. He’s really come unmoored, and it shows. The more I think about Hagiwara’s work in this scene the more impressed I am by the insight and physical control he had to bring to bear in order for it to work. 

Of course, if I watched this scene on its own habitually, this level of blorbo distress might take a toll on my mental health. Which is why I usually follow it up with…

"I'm not going to kiss you for a while"

I’m busting out the bullet points for this one because otherwise it might take me all day.

This scene works on so many levels!

Well, the main ones are:

Relationship progress! Character growth! 

The whole kiss fakeout thing is hot

Hira gets some payback and frankly, he deserves it

The other highlights for me are: 

Even after repeated viewings and knowing very well what happened in the story, I still feel kind of relieved to see that Kiyoi came back, especially right after rewatching the scene prior to this one. 

When Kiyoi asks Hira why he thinks he came home and he says, “to punch me?" he does it in the most weirdly cute way.

Kiyoi’s absolutely lethal snotty face/voice when he responds to the possibility of punching Hira with ���maybe” is so perfect that it's hard not to think that Hira might have a point about this whole King deal. 

Hira apologizes and it’s actually sincere and not just some knee-jerk bullshit. 

The way Hira closes his eyes and waits for Kiyoi to smack him is a rare case of him actually letting go and putting himself in Kiyoi’s hands instead of his usual topping-from-the-bottom thing.

More about the kiss fakeout:

Hagiwara does a great job of telegraphing Hira’s expectant response. In scenes where two characters are going to kiss but get interrupted, it's not uncommon to see a kind of hesitation or other subtle signal that the actor knows the kiss isn't going to happen. But there's none of that here. Hagiwara even does this sort of gulp/swallow thing like he thinks the kiss is going to start any moment. When the kiss doesn't materialize, he nails an absolutely pitifiul sad puppy expression.

Kiyoi’s vulnerable voice and facial expression when he explains about the kissing boundary thing is so sincere and cute. Could he be any more different from season 1 episode 1 Kiyoi?

I’ve written about how the no-kissing-until-Hira-takes-Kiyoi-seriously policy might seem like a controlling move or an inappropriate ultimatum to some viewers but it actually better resembles what Harriet Lerner calls a “bottom line,” resulting in a boundary that is not only justifiable but downright healthy…or almost healthy, at least. It's a bit on the extreme side, and the fakeout part remains a little mean. But they're understandable given what Hira has put Kiyoi through. 

Here's my s2e4 writeup that includes that discussion:

“sorry, Kiyoi”

So, I’ve already written quite a bit about this scene. In one instance, I wrote a propaganda blurb when it was in bl brackets’s kiss bracket.

Here's the original blurb I wrote for @bl-bracket when I nominated the scene, as used in the post where people voted:

Hira and Kiyoi Final Kiss: "It’s an important plot point (because Kiyoi has said he won’t kiss Hira until he stops putting him on a pedestal and now Hira is making progress on that front, and because Hira hasn’t initiated physical stuff in the past, and initiating is itself a way of treating Kiyoi more like an equal). It’s also just a really well-acted and effectively shot kiss, and as a result it communicates so much about the characters and shows a side of their relationship not portrayed elsewhere in the show. And of course, it’s super hot. That includes the kind of weird but suggestive details that are typical of the show, like Hira passing candy/candy spit to Kiyoi through the kiss and then switching into this really distinct sexy voice that makes it sound almost as if he’s changing personalities."

And here's an additional, longer propaganda post I wrote to lobby for votes:

One of the points I tried to make in that post about why this scene is special was that it really does represent a leap forward in how both leads portrayed intimacy in this series. Prior to this scene, viewers had seen a dead fish kiss on graduation day, a more intense makeout situation in the season 1 finale that was shot so impressionistically that it was often hard to tell exactly what the actors were doing, and some interrupted kisses earlier in season 2. And then this happened. Here's a quote from what I wrote previously:

Personally, despite being a fan of both actors and thinking they did amazing work on the series, until I saw this scene I really didn't know if they had it in them, if they could actually pull off something that felt real. But they brought it. They're not holding back. As opposed to more stylized kisses you see in BLs and other romance dramas sometimes, I found it very naturalistic, like the way a couple of real kids in their early 20s would kiss.

So, yeah. I thought it showed real growth on the part of the actors as individuals and as a pairing/team.

This scene also caused me to dig deeper, with the help of some very knowledgeable mutuals, into what “persistent” and “cute” mean in a sexual context in Japan. My main post about that is below.

Noticing Hagiwara's use of Hira's "persistent voice" also helped me to notice something else when I checked out his other work, and that is that he often uses his voice in very different ways in different roles. I recently watched a drama he did before Utsukare and I was struck by this all over again. Again, it shows a really impressive degree of control.

And now, for our one non-Utsukare scene in the top 5:

"I'm trying to seduce you"

I also wrote a nomination blurb about this scene for the kiss bracket. (If you're seeing a pattern here, well, yeah, it's a pattern.) The original voting post here but I'll go ahead and quote it in its entirety since it's pretty short.

This kiss is ridiculously hot and is a culmination of so much that’s been simmering beneath the surface for the entire show up to that point. Togawa has been pining so hard for Nozue for so long that when Nozue gives him a glimmer of hope and then tries to leave, everything he’s been bottling up comes surging out. Kimura Tatsunari exudes a level of desperate lustfulness in this scene that’s as intense as anything I’ve seen in any genre. We’re all familiar with the idea that people look at a person’s mouth when they want to kiss them, but Togawa looks at Nozue’s mouth like he dreams about it every night and sees it every time he closes his eyes. No wonder he feels a need to stick his thumb in there. Takeda Kouhei also communicates so much in this scene. Nozue is shocked and confused but he can’t help but respond to Togawa’s kisses. You can see the gears turning—and refusing to turn—as he tries to make sense of what’s happening—and keeps kissing Togawa back even though he still can’t process it. Togawa’s declaration, “I’ve been trying to seduce you, with everything I have,” is the cherry on top.

There's another bit of subtle physical communication here that I find interesting, and I think you might too, @wen-kexing-apologist. Just recently I've been thinking about the meaning, in kissing scenes, of what for lack of a better term I'll call the head-bonk. By this I mean the thing where one person puts their forehead against the other person's, often with at least a tiny bit of an impact that renders it a bonk rather than, like, just touching them together. Togawa kisses Nozue once, then a second time, and then goes in for a third that Nozue avoids by sinking toward the floor. The third kiss doesn't happen, but when Togawa starts to initiate it he does an absolutely sublime head-bonk. I'm still figuring out what I think about the head-bonk thing. All I know is that, from my vantage point, that little move on Kimura's part practically screams "I've been holding this back for five goddamn years and I can't wait one more second to kiss this person."

Runners-up and honorable mentions:

Semantic Error:

Their first kiss in the restaurant after Jae Young calls Sang Woo "hyung" - I have watched this so much that if I had been asked for my top 6 this would have been #6.

Jae Young demonstrating the features of the "free trial"

Minato’s Laundromat (season 1, of course):

Shin freaking out about Minato being alone with Hanabusa

The washing machine kabedon

The “smelling the sheets” scene

Kiseki (I just watched this for the first time a week or so ago and I have already done so much scene-rewatching it's ridiculous):

That incredibly angsty sex scene with Ai Di and a drunk Chen Yi, you know the one

Chen Yi's confession to a physically restrained Ai Di

The scene at Ai Di's bar where Chen Yi puts him in a double kabedon

Ai Di and Chen Yi's conversation after Ai Di gets out of prison, where he says he fucked Chen Yi "just for fun" and offers to let him do stuff to him as "revenge"

Ai Di trying to scare Chen Yi by stroking his chest and asking him if he wants to "play" and then getting weirded out when Chen Yi asks, "What if I say yes?"

Jheruei and Zongyi's first real kiss and subsequent A+ lap-sitting moment

And as a bonus, here's my most-rewatched non-QL moment:

There's a scene I'm obsessed with in Something in the Rain where Jun Hui comes to Jin A's home and sees her ex-boyfriend there with her and her parents, lobbying to get back together and manhandling her, and he reacts exactly the way you'd expect as someone to who's in love with Jin A. It is tattooed on my brain. If I ever learn to make gifs I am gif'ing the fuck out of that scene.

[renm1nt]

Since I love both japanese BLs and jpop I have wonder how many jpop idols/japanese artists have acted i BLs for quite some time now. So here’s a list of jpop idols/japanese artists i j-bl. This list was so hard to make so apologies in advance if I missed anyone.

List of Jpop idols in BLs (updated as of June 2024)

2016- Kasa wo motanai aritachi wa (role: Maruta Keisuke) - Kato Shigeaki (NEWS)

2019 - Shujin-ko (role: Ikeda Yujiro) / 2024 - Love is better the second time around (role: Miyata Akihiro) - Hasegawa Makoto (the rampage from exile tribe)

2019 - His-Koisuru Tsumori Nante Nakatta (role: Igawa Shun) - Kusakawa Naoya (One n’ only)

2020 - Love stage (role: Sena Izumi) - Sugiyama Mahiroi (JUNON SUPERBOY ANOTHERS)

2020 - The corned mouse dream of cheese (role: Otomo Kyoichi) - Okura Tadayoshi (Kanjani8)

2021 - Given (role: Sato Mafuyu) - Sanari (solo)

2021 - Utsukushii kare (role: Kiyoi Sou) - Yagi Yusei (Fantastics from Exile Tribe)

2021 - Utsukushii kare (role: Koyama Kazuki) - Takano Akira (solo/ex-Dream5)

2021 - My love mix-up (role: Ida Kousuke)- Meguro Ren (Snow Man)

2021 - My love mix-up (role: Aoki Sota)- Michieda Shunsuke (Naniwa danshi)

2021 - Zettai BL ni Naru Sekai VS Zettai BL ni Naritakunai Otoko aka Zettai BL (role: Takimoto) - Kusachi Ryono (ENJIN)

2021 - Zettai BL (role: Usui) - Kondo Yohdi (solo)

2021 - Zettai BL (role: Ryouta) - Yabe Masaki (DISH//)

2021 - Zettai BL (role: Mayama) - Wada Hayate (Da-ICE)

2021 - Zettai BL (role: Toma) - Kobayashi Ryota (ex BOYS AND MEN)

2022 - Mr unlucky has no choice but to kiss (role: Shinomiya Naoya) - Sato Yusuke (lol)

2022 - Old fashion cupcake (role: Nozue) - Takeda Kouhei (ex PureBoys)

2022 - Minato shoji coin laundry (role: Minato Akira) / 2020 - Cherry magic (role: Rokkaku Yuta) - Kusakawa Takuya (Bullet train)

2022 -Amagi-kun and Takara-kun (role: Amagi Taichi) - Oriyama Nao (Shonen Ninja)

2022 - Amagi-kun and Takara-kun (role: Takara Shun)- Sato Arata (IMP.)

2022 - Candy color paradox (role: Onoe Satoshi) - Kimura Keito (Fantastics from Exile Tribe)

2022 - Candy color paradox (role: Kaburagi Motoharu) - Yamamaka Jyutaro (M!lk)

2023 - I cannot reach you (role; Ashiya Kakeru) - Haru Kasiwagi (Bullet train)

2023 - Tokyo in april is…(role: Ishihara Ren) / 2024 - Love is is better the second time around (role: Shiraishi Yuto) - Aloha Takamatsu (Bullet train)

2023 - Tokyo in april is… (role: young Takizawa Kazuma) - Takeno Sena (ICEx)

2023 - My personal weatherman (role: Tanada Yoh) - Atsuki Mashiko (Genic)

2023 - If it’s with you (role: Kaido Amane) - Okara Takato (Genin wa Jibun ni Aru.)

2023 - Takumi-kun series 6: nagai nagai monogatari no hajimari no asa (role: Hayama Takumi) - Morishita Shion (S/TEAM BLOOD)

2023 - One room angel (role: Takashina Takashi/Angel) - Nishimura Takuya (lil Kansai)

2024 - Sahara sensei to Toki-kun (role: Toki Kanade) - Hachimura Rintaro (Watwing)

2024 - I became the main lead of a BL drama (role: Akafuji Yuichiro) - Abe Alan (7ORDER)

2024 - Ossan no pants ga nandatte ii janai ka (role: Igarashi Daichi) - Nakajima Sota (Fantastics from Exile Tribe)

2024 - My strawberry film (role: Ichikawa Ryo) - Fukada Ryusei (Shonen Ninja)

2024 - My strawberry film (role: Toyama Hikaru) - Yabana Rei (7Men Samurai)

Note: Some of the jpop idols/jpop artists are not in BLs (movies/series centred around MxM romance) but are included because the have played gay roles.

[pinkkop]

Day 51 - 15 Days BL Challenge (part 4)

Day 51 - Top 3 BLs that you'd never want to explain to your parents

I'd like to send a letter of complaint to whoever decided that this prompt was a top 3 (past me) because I'm really struggling with narrowing it down

Pit Babe

I already used ABO in my description for this prompt so why not keep it going with this show, because as much as the creators of the show wanted us to believe it wasn't ABO, this is drenched in omegaverse.

This show had such a crazy plot line and I do not want to explain the dynamics of this universe to my parents or really anyone outside of the fandom space. The show itself however committed to the bit and that made it easy to buy into the world of Pit Babe, the plot and the characters, which makes this a really good watch.

Utsukushii Kare (My Beautiful Man)

I find this show hard to explain and also if I do manage to explain the plot to someone, it's probably also going to sound weird to an outsider, so I'd rather not.

It is however one of my favourite Japanese shows and I'd highly recommend it to anyone within the fandom. It's not a dynamic for everyone but Japan does it soooo well in this show.

I'd highly recommend watching at least the full season 1 because a lot of context is given at the end of season 1, so don't give in to any knee-jerk un-comfortableness. Also the final confession is sooooooooo good!

You can find season 1 and 2 fansubbed here or on Viki. The full series with both seasons and a final movie definitely has my stamp of approval!

Look I made more GIFs! Based on the subbed version by lollipopsub linked above.

Don't Say No

No denying that Mame likes to write about trauma and sexual assault and she usually leans into D/s dynamics. Don't Say No is no exception to this which makes it a hard one to explain to outsiders without getting into that.

Love In the Air is my favourite MeMindY show (which could also fit on this list) but Don't Say No is not far behind.

Most of the plot points during this show are wild, like two occasions of blackmail, an abusive mother and a lot trauma, but I really like the basis for this show: childhood best friends who get together after a long struggle, but then they have to figure out how to be boyfriends with all their baggage and assumptions, both of their own but also of the people around them.

It's a battle between what they want, what they think the other person wants and what they think they should want.

Part of that is them finding their roles in the D/s relationship they both want but are struggling to communicate which I find super interesting to watch.

Also I freaking love a Uke that's more sexually experienced than the Seme. No Blushing Maiden Ukes in this show!!

Honerable mentions

If you were wondering how I'd get around the 3 show limit I set for myself, this is it! Neither are full BL shows so I think I'm good

Innocent

This is Taiwanese mini-series about a relationship between a man who's main personality is 5 years old and the man who saved him from an assault.

The show revolves around how his two personalities interact with his partner and how they find themselves in a loving secure relationship

As with most shows out of Taiwan this topic is treated seriously and not used as comedic relief. Even if this is a realistic relationship and the series doesn't revolve around an outlandish plot, I'd still think twice before trying to explain this show to just any stranger.

Sweet Curse

Finally Sweet Curse is a Strongberry short that I have such a soft spot for. It's a horror comedy romance with high heat and a wild plot.

Let's just say: A friend of Ha Jun is jealous of him and decides to summon a demon(?) to haunt Ha Jun, but something is a little wrong (or right?) with Ha Jun so he isn't scared so easily.

The short is 30 min and it's on Gagaoolala (though not all locations but a VPN can fix that easily)

The original challenge is here, part two here, part three here, and four here.

[lurkingshan]

✨2023: A Summary✨

Post your most popular and/or favourite edit/gifset/analysis for each month (it’s okay to skip months!)

Tagged by @dribs-and-drabbles, thanks dribs! It's kind of fun to go back and see what I was on about at various points this year.

January

This blog was a mere bebe this time last year and I hadn't started posting anything substantial yet, so nothing of note here.

February

most popular — Making fun of Hira in Utsukushii Kare 2 (affectionately)

favorite — Praising Moonlight Chicken's character writing

March

most popular — The Glory does revenge right

favorite — Whining about people using the friends to lovers label wrong

April

most popular — Celebrating Queen Ae Ri from The Eighth Sense

favourite(s) — Making sure people understand Ji Hyun is a drama dork, helping to kick off the most batshit week of discourse in T8S fandom, and of course the first (of many) appreciation posts for Porsche's sweater

May

most popular — On Step By Step removing a scene critiquing BGP because of fan outcry

favorite(s) — 10 Things I Love About WDYEY and 10 Things I Love About Khun Chai (please watch them if you haven't yet people!)

June

most popular — Having a ball with King the Land

favorite(s) — Breaking down Pat's effect on Phupha in Our Skyy 2, the complexity of family trauma in Our Dining Table, and Jeng's reaction to his failed confession in Step by Step (ugh remember when this show was good). And of course this was the month that the La Plue meta round up was born.

July

most popular — Bitching about romance discourse (it was about King the Land at the time but it's quite widely applicable lol)

favourite(s) — Hysterical praise for La Pluie's conflict writing, kudos for Be My Favorite's character work for Kawi, breaking down where Step By Step went wrong

August

most popular — Ah the good times when we were still so amped about Only Friends

favorite(s) — Every moment of the My Ride rewatch, great moments in subtitlery from Laws of Attraction, and praise for Sing My Crush

September

most popular — That one time I actually liked a Mew thing in Only Friends

favorite(s) — Trying to get y'all to watch Love in Translation, comparing Someday or One Day and A Time Called You, clarifying the differences between Boston and Brian Kinney

October

most popular — Boston and Nick my beloveds (it would be shocking if they didn't make this list they are responsible for many of my most popular posts)

favorite(s) — A couple I Feel You Linger in the Air breakdowns: why the romance works despite being underwritten, and Fong Kaew's excellent character arc

November

most popular — Goofing on the unseriousness of Kiseki: Dear to Me

favorite(s) — Breaking down how the writing choices in Only Friends sent toxic messages and final thoughts on the IFYL finale

December

most popular — Japanese BL starter pack

favorite(s) — Simping over Mohk simping over Day in Last Twilight, yelling about Cherry Magic Thailand, kicking off bl superlatives 2023

--

In addition to all the people dribs tagged that I am double tagging because I want to see your answers (@wen-kexing-apologist @grapejuicegay @btwinlines @twig-tea @rocketturtle4 @waitmyturtles @telomeke and @respectthepetty) I am adding some other folks I know wrote/created a lot this year because I'm curious what stuck with you most: @bengiyo, @ranchthoughts, @jemmo, @chickenstrangers, @chicademartinica, @slayerkitty, @my-rose-tinted-glasses, @colourme-feral, @blmpff, @liyazaki, @wanderlust-in-my-soul, @troubled-mind, @benkaaoi.

[twig-tea]

A question for you because you seem like one of those people who has watched everything: how did you get started watching bl, and what are your ultimate favorite shows?

Double-barrelled! I'm honoured.

How did I get into BL?

The short answer is that ~2016 the YouTube algorithm served me up Lovesick and I immediately went EXCUSE ME WHAT IS THIS and looked up everything else available and watched literally everything I could get my hands on (which at the time was easy because there was only a handful compared to today, but it still felt like a wealth of content to enjoy).

The longer answer is that I used to be really involved in GL (I was the secretary at the first Yuricon in North America in 2002 or 2003) and then BL manga fandom (was in a scanlation group for awhile) through ~2006? so its extra hilarious that this wasn't my route in; I apparently took a break right before they started making live action versions in Japan. But when I got into Thai BL it was fun rediscovering these tropes in a new medium and through the lens of a new-to-me culture, noticing how they differed and how the genre had matured (and how it hadn't), and on catching up on the stuff out of Japan, seeing some of the manga I read over a decade ago come to life! So I mention this history because it's definitely a part of why I stayed (and probably why the algorithm found me relatively quickly).

I only started tracking things in a spreadsheet in 2020 (and it's not nearly as comprehensive or useful as @absolutebl 's), but I did try to backfill the highlights of what I've seen and I have over 550 rows on there, fwiw. I'm a completionist so I do try to watch everything, though that's getting more and more impossible these days.

Ultimate Favourite Shows

This question is so hard. I know you didn't even give me a limit but you have to understand @lurkingshan, I can't choose favourites, I have a draft top ten list that has been blank for 3 years because I can't commit. Okok. I'm just going to list shows as they come to me (not in any particular order):

Thailand: Until We Meet Again, He's Coming to Me, Diary of Tootsies, WhyRU, Ingredients, Not Me, Secret Crush on You, I Told Sunset About You & I Promised You the Moon, Triage, You're My Sky, Make it Right, La Pluie, My Ride, Bad Buddy, My School President, Laws of Attraction, Moonlight Chicken, Dear Dr I'm Coming for Soul, To Sir With Love/Khun Chai, The Eclipse, Midnight Museum, Lovely Writer... Grey Rainbow [ducks, hides, runs away]

Japan: Doushitemo Furetakunai (no touching at all), Kinou Nani Tabeta (What did you eat yesterday?), Our Dining Table, Takara-Kun and Amagi-Kun, Old Fashioned Cupcake, 7 Days (mon-thurs & fri-sun), His (miniseries & movie), I Want to See Only You, Kieta Hatsukoi/My love mix-up, the Cherry Magic Movie, Life~Senjou no bokura/Love on the Line, 180 Degrees Longitude Passes Through Us, Given (anime is my fave version), Tokyo in April Is..., Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese, Utsukushii Kare/My beautiful man

Korea: Our Dating Sim, Semantic Error, The Lover [BL side], Color Rush, Blueming, Cherry Blossoms After Winter, Love Class 2, Made on the Rooftop, Discipline Z, Light on Me, To My Star (yes both seasons), Strongberry (faves are Long Time No See, Confidential Coffee Break, and A First Love Story), Sing My Crush, Just Friends?

Vietnam: Goodbye Mother, Hey! First Love, Nation's Brother, You Are Ma Boy, Follow My Sunshine, FOOLs, Tien Bromance: My Small Family, Love Bill

Philippines: Gameboys, Gaya sa Pelikula, Boys Lockdown, Cheat [warning: horror], Your Home, Better Days

Taiwan: Be Loved in House, My DNA Says Love You, We Best Love (1 & 2), HIStory (Crossing the Line is my fave, and second fave is...Make Our Days Count [ducks, hides, burrows into ground]).

Other: Summerdaze (short from Singapore), Stay Still (Hong Kong), HeHe and He (Hong Kong, final season in progress but s1&2 are so funny) and the bromances/difficult to categorize: Scumbag System, Word of Honor, The Untamed, Guardian, Coffee Prince, Bromance (Taiwanese), Great Men Academy, Mr Queen, Sleuth of Ming Dynasty, SCI Mystery

*deep breath* ok I'm stopping lol narrowing it down any less than this gives me pain so I won't try. Also I'm sure I forgot something obvious (and Tumblr was eating drafts of this at various points). All I can say about this list is it's under 100 and that's the best I could do.

Thanks for the ask, and to anyone who made it this far thanks for reading!

[bl-bracket]

Round 1: Tinn and Gun First Kiss (My School President) vs Hira and Kiyoi Hand Kiss (Utsukushii Kare)

[Submitted Reasons Under Cut]

Tinn and Gun First Kiss: "Obviously MSP was a roaring success even before the final episode. I think we were all a little nervous if they’d really stick the landing. And goddamn did GMMTV come through. It was SO true to the characters sweet, wholesome first love. I don’t know how a scene could be more perfectly executed. Between Tinn’s not so subtle horny jokes, Gun picking up on it and teasing him, and then both of them giving in and having the softest kiss on the bed followed by Tinn’s shyness, their whispered “I love you”s and right back to their adorable playfulness. Idk how many times I’ve watched that scene and it still gives me butterflies."

Hira and Kiyoi Hand Kiss: "THIS KISS SOLD ME ON HIRAKIYO the longing between two of them. kiyoi asking hira if he wants to kiss him then giving a flustered hira the hand. hira immediately going for it but kiyoi taking his hand back saying he wasn’t serious abt it but then…. giving hira his hand again. the way kiyoi looks away to hide his embarrassment and hira kneels down to plant a kiss on his hand. this comes right after imo the moment where kiyoi fell in love with hira (hira beating someone up for him with crazy devotion) and it showcases the devotion hira has for kiyoi and the subservient role he sees himself in as a servant to kiyoi, the king. just a really meaningful, beautiful scene to their relationship and the place it’s in at this point in the show"

[nongnaos]

QL WRAPPED 2023

Tagged by @morkofday thank you ❤️

(I absolutely meant to save this as a draft and accidentally posted instead so if everyone could pretend that didn't happen and we all had normal notifications, it would be nice, thank you 😐)

You watched 22 qls this year (and 11 from other years) that's about 130 hours! (Of content from 2023 only!)

(He's talking about my attempts at maths)

You primarily watched bls from Thailand (50%)

You spent way too much time thinking about these characters: Kiyoi Sou, Li Ming, and Mork. (My emo kings!! They're all a lil angsty and clearly my tastes have not developed since 2005. Am I moooore than you bargained for yet?)

(Obsessed, obsessed, chewing, biting, crying)

Your favorite show was Utsukushii Kare. You kept thinking about it all year. (This was THE hyperfixation for the first half of my year, but the fandom was so so small. I truly am so so in love with them and I wish more people watched them and understood them. Like I do. They're mine.)

Your overall bl mood was dramatic.

You read the most fanfiction about Utsukushii Kare. Like way too much. (According to my ao3, apparently. Good fic about them is so hard to find. Most fanfic I read this year has actually been about shows from 2021/2022)

Another of your favorites from this year was JokeZo. they captivated your gay little heart. (This show is a certified mess, but brought me a truly unexpected amount of comfort. Their chemistry was so so good and I loved Zo's storyline in particular. Love and communication and healing, what more could a 90's gay ask for?)

The soundtracks you listened to the most were [the entire About Youth soundtrack is in my spotify top tracks. But that drama is not from this year] Your World, My World (Our Skyy 2) and Better Days (Last Twilight). It made you feel really normal.

Your favorite acting pair was JimmySea. There was just something so mesmerizing about them... (breathing heavily in Last Twilight feelings)

Bonus shoutout to: ✨️her✨️

(Yes)

Here's to another year!!

Invite friends to share theirs: @airenyah , @icouldhyperfixatehim , and @justafriend-ql

[littleragondin]

2023 Recap - Songs from (QL) Dramas

I've been tagged by @troubled-mind to make a list of my favorites songs from this year's QL dramas (thank you so much 💕) and of course I can't resist. I liked a lot of music from shows this year, which is great but made the selection harder so it will be a little long, I hope you'll forgive me.

OST I've been milking in full

I don't very often go through full OST unless someone does a background music playlist i can put on (Like this one for La Pluie by troubled-mind, and this one for To Sir, With Love for example) but two stood out for me this year.

My School President OST - I knew in advance I would enjoy a musical show, and I have to say I was NOT disappointed. My favorite though is ฟัง by Fourth, Ford, Satang, Winny, and the fantastic Pijika Jittaputta. Have a go at the original too!

Unintentional Love Story OST - This one came late this year for me, but i have been listening to the whole thing again and again. My favorite is Beautiful Day by Cha Seowon. I really enjoy his voice a LOT, and I'm weak for a nice, so soft it's even a little mushy love ballad.

With those two out of the way, let's go through the list country by country I think.

From Thailand 🇹🇭

ลางสังหรณ์ by Teng Tachaya from The Sign

This one is just a banger! It literally rocks, and I keep belting out the chorus every single time i listen to it. I love everything about it, even the spoken words. Also, not music related, but that costume!!

เงา by Lazyloxy from Shadow

I like Lazyloxy's voice a lot, as well as the rhythm/bass line (?) during the verses. There is an edge in that song that fits the show very well, too.

พรุ่งนี้ by Ford Arun from Moonlight Chicken

Ford's voice, do I need to say more? Tbh I got a little teary the first (ten) time(s) I listen to it.This ballad is so very touching, it's gentle and hopeful, I can never tire of it.

Honorable mentions >

รักคุณยิ่งกว่าใคร by NuNew's cover of Got Jakraphan from Cutie Pie 2. I loved this one so much I got myself a video editor so I could post it there. Only honorable because it's a cover, but it got me into luk thung so it deserves to be here.

เพลง รักนี้มากับดวง by Bmine & Near from Lucky My Love. This one is just because it's goddamn cute, sweet and peppy, and it makes me smile and bop my head. Sometimes I don't ask for more.

From Japan 🇯🇵

U&I by Hi-Fi Unicorn from Kimi ni wa todokanai

It's just a perfectly crafted pop song imo. It's cute, fresh and lively, fitting the show perfectly too. Since it came out, you can catch me humming "kimi ni waaa todokanai hmm hmm hmm" all day, every day, so it deserves its place on the list!

Yoruwazura by osage feat Ishino Riko from Kimi to nara koi wo shite mite mo

This one got me the second Ishino Riko started singing. The harmonies between the two are SO good! I really like the guitar in this one, and the little claps in the background. It's also really easy to hum so it stays with me a lot.

Bitter by Royce from Utsukushii Kare season 2

The contrast between the energy of the melody and the nearly bored sound of the voice (the singer sounds like their mouth does not open fully) works reaaally well for me. It's catchy and fun, and well, the lyrics are just so perfectly Hira...

ふたたび Futatabi by HIROBA & Otsuka Ai from Bokura no micro na shuumatsu

I was very surprised when I saw it was a feat with Otsuka Ai (who I only knew for her sugary pop in early 2000). The melancholy of the lyrics and the melody are beautiful, I am a huge fan of the way their voices mesh together, and I can't resist a piano + violins combo like that.

Honorable mention > Go Sign by Billy Laurent from Ameiro Paradox. The little piano, the rhythm, that chorus, it makes me shake my ass every single time.

From Taiwan 🇹🇼

'痛苦擁抱 (Painful Hug) by Ozone from Oh No! Here Comes Trouble

(I won't hear anything about technicality and it being a QL show or not =3) Had not realized it was from a boy group before checking the clip for this list. I like the way the melody rises for the chorus, their voices are pleasant, and it carries both power and some sort of melancholy that reminds me very much of Pu Yiyong.

Honorable mention > Come With Me by K6 from Marry My Dead Body. The whole OST of that movie is great, but I somehow got completely obsessed by this one from the gym scene at the start. It also features Austin Lin (I think as backup on the chorus).

From Korea 🇰🇷

IoU by UTOPI from The New Employee

It's a sweet, simple one that never fails to put me in a good mood, and sometimes that's enough to listen to a song non stop over months =3

Natural by Young K from A Breeze of Love

This one is also sunny, light and joyful. I like the guitars and I am especially fond of Young K's voice - it got me looking into him which I do not regret. A nice little surprise for the end of the year.

Thank you if you made it all the way through it, otherwise...

Tl;dr you can find all songs under this playlist (´꒳`)♡

i'm not sure who would have fun doing this, maybe @iguessitsjustme if you fancy it? Anyone who see this and want to do it, please tag me so I can have a look at your faves! <3

[nieves-de-sugui]

BL/QL Ask Game : The Ugly, the Bad and the Worst

Thank yo to @waitmyturtles for the tag!! I love these games. I'll try to be nice ❤

Worst soundtrack / weirdest song choice in a BL I do not pay enough attention to music in the show that I watch to be able to answer this question. But I guess it would be that time they used the german national anthem in a show? I can't remember which but it was so random xD

Most cringe-inducing line (cute) Holy guacamole.

Most cringe-inducing line (actually bad) My brain does me the favor of erasing these inmediately from my memory. But I'm pretty sure there have been a few recently. Anything relating to "little me"s in BL makes me cringe.

Most stupid decision made by a character Since I can't rememeber well bad stuff from plots of past shows I'm gonna try to recall the last few I was watching. Mmmmm. For Jaab to kiss Jane and then never adress it properly

Worst plot line Either the amnesia in Minato's Laundromat or the fight between Punn and Ashi in Be Mine Superstar

The most problematic show you've watched TharnType? I feel like there's been worse but I can't remember if I watched them or not...

A show people love but you find bad I generally agree with the mainstream consensus. It is very rare for me to dislike something that is generally liked. Oh I know! About Youth.

A show people find bad but you will defend Utsukushii Kare. It might not be the most unpopular but I've seen a lot of people not being able to enjoy it and I will defend it until I die

A show that is just objectively bad but you enjoyed it Dangerous Romance. It hasn't ended, I know. It's not amazing, it could've been better, it was false advertisement, but I'm enjoying it a lot :)

A bad show that you kept watching because you were intrigued/fascinated Future the series. Morbid curiosity is what we should call it

A bad show that you kept watching because you were horny Wedding Plan xD

A bad show that you kept watching because of that one character Remember me...

A bad show that you would still recommend My day xD It's hilarious

The character that ruined a show the most The main guy in Future the series. I couldn't, how tf did I watch that?

Most awful character that you hated The fucking ex in Mr Cinderella

Most awful character that you loved Aoey in Lovely Writer

A character that wasn't awful but that you just don't like Jaab in Step by Step

A hero that should have been a villain I can't think of any

A morally bad character you're into Ray

A morally bad character you're not into and you wish people would stop being into Don't kill me but... Boston. Like, yeah I love what he's doing as a character and all that but I'm not particularly liking him too much xD

The show that disappointed you the most MODC. No show has wrecked me like that so unpromptedly ever before and since

The Worst Show of Them All Because of Your Own Reasons I don't think I have a worst one, I generally move on when I don't like a show. But if I had to chose I guess What The Duck?

Tag time! Let's get to know people! @aspaceformyself @xagan @cangse-sanren @dribs-and-drabbles @emotionallychargedtowel @mikuni14 @troubled-mind @wanderlust-in-my-soul and whoever wants to do it :)

[gabrielokun]

Dorama/Lakorn/Live-action

Thai

2 Moons

2 Moons 2

2gether

7 Project

609 Bedtime Story 

A Tale of Thousand Stars 

Big Dragon

Coffee Melody 

Cutie Pie

Cutie Pie 2 You

Dark Blue Kiss

Deal lover

Don't Say No

Enchanté

Fish upon the sky

Friend Forever

Future

Gen Y

Gen Y 2

Ghost Host Ghost House

Golden Blood

I Will Knock You

Ingredients

KinnPorsche

Kiss Me Again

La Cuisine

Love by chance

Love in the Air

Love Lie Hide Fake

Love With Benefits

Lovely Writer

Manner of Death

Meow Ears Up

My Engineer

My Gear and Your Gown

My Keychain

My Mate Match

My Only 12%

My Pistachio

My Ride 

My School President

My Secret Love

My Sweet Dear

Never Let Me Go

Not Me

On Cloud Nine 

Our Winter

Oxygen

Remember Me

Saneha Staries 4: Saneha Kap Cheewit

Secret Crush On You

Sky in Your Heart

Star in My Mind 

SOTUS 

SOTUS S

That's My Candy

The Eclipse

The Love Of Winter

The Miracle of Teddy Bear

Tin Tem Jai

Top Secret Together 

Triage

Until We Meet Again

Unforgotten Night

Vice Versa

What Zabb Man!

Why R U?

Work From Heart

Y-Destiny 

You're My Sky

Taiwan

49 Days with a Merman

About Youth

Be Loved in House: I Do

Craving You

DNA Says Love You

Fragrance of The First Flower

Love to Our Youth: He Falls in Love with Him

HIStory1: My Hero 

HIStory1: Obsessed

HIStory2: Crossing the Line

HIStory2: Right or Wrong

HIStory3: Make Our Days Count

HIStory3: Trapped

HIStory4: Close to You

HIStory5: Love in the Future

Innocent

Love Is Science?

My Tooth Your Love

Plus & Minus 

Papa and Daddy

Stay by My Side

Korea

A First Love Story

At a distance spring is green

Boy Meets Boy

Cherry Blossoms After Winter 

Choco Milk Shake

Color Rush

Ghost Doctor

Happy Merry Ending

His, Ice Cream

Hold Me 

Hotel del Luna

Individual circumstance

Kissable Lips

Light On Me 

Love Class

Move to Heaven

Mr. Heart

My Sweet Dear

Numbers

Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding

Ocean Likes Me

Oh! Boarding House

Oh! My Assistant

Our Dating Sim

Please Tell Me So

Roommates of Poongduck 304

She Makes My Heart Flutter

The Director Who Buys Me Dinner

The Lover

The Tasty Florida

To My Star

To My Star Season 2: Our Untold Stories

TREASURE

Two Cops

Unintentional Love Story

Wish You: Your Melody From My Heart

Wuju's Bakery

You Make Me Dance

China

A River Runs Through It

Ancient Detective

Anti-Fraud League 

Be Reborn

Guardian

Killer And Healer

Men with Sword

My Girlfriend's Boyfriend 

Legend of Long Yang

Nirvana in Fire

The Untamed

Winter Begonia

Youths in the Breeze

Japan

Boku Dake ga Inai Machi

Cherry Magic

Criminologist Himura and Mystery Writer Arisugawa

Fallen Angel

Fukou-kun wa Kiss Suru Shikanai!

Gannibal 

His the Movie

His The series

Junkyouju Takatsuki Akira no Suisatsu

Kabe Sa Doujin Sakka no Neko Yashiki-kun wa Shouninyokkyuu wo Kojiraseteiru

Kids

Kieta Hatsukoi

Minato Shouji Coin Laundry 

Minato Shouji Coin Laundry 2

Restart After Coming Back Home

Sumika Sumire

Suki Suki Wan Wan!

Tabikurage Detective Diary

Takara-kun to Amagi-kun

The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window

The Reason Why he Fell in Love with Me 2 

Udagawachou de Matteteyo

Utsukushi Kare

Utsukushii Kare 2

Vietnam

Hey! First Love

MR CINDERELLA

Stupid Boys Stupid Love

The Star Always Follow You

Stormy honeymoon

Want to see you

YOU ARE MY STUPID BOY

Philippines

Ben X Jim

My Day

[emotionallychargedtowel]

paradoxical roles; or, I think I finally figured out the pursuer-distancer dynamic in Utsukushii Kare

I was stewing about the pursuer/distancer thing and how it applied or didn’t apply to Utsukushii Kare for more than a week before I wrote my last post and then as soon as it was up, talking in the comments with @ltrllynbdy and @corollahoist got me thinking about it in a very different way. I don’t want to write any checks my butt can’t cash, but I think maybe I’ve sort of cracked it? First, I want to harken back to some stuff from my first post on pursuer-distancer dyads in BL. These ideas are more fleshed out in the post but I’ll quickly summarize here.

In Harriet Lerner’s writing on the subject, she says that pursuers and distancers respond to stress in different ways. Pursuers respond by seeking more closeness in their relationship/s while distancers respond by “seeking emotional distance or physical space.”

I put it this way in my earlier post:

Lerner sees [these roles] as a sort of unspoken deal that we make with people we’re close to because deep down, we want to avoid acknowledging certain needs and the emotions that come with them. It’s a fairly universal thing that human beings both crave intimacy and fear it. But this is hard to acknowledge. It’s tempting to disavow either our need for closeness or our need for independence....Distancers can convince themselves that they don’t have a need for closeness because their pursuer is holding all of the neediness for them. Pursuers can convince themselves they don’t have any desire to avoid intimacy because their distancer will hold that for them.

So, this is the prototypical pursuer/distancer situation. And it’s complicated enough as it is! Plenty of paradoxical stuff happens in that model. But I think with Hira and Kiyoi we’re looking at an additional layer of stuff that makes the picture significantly more complicated.

Usually, when roles get polarized in a relationship around pursuing and distancing, each partner is either trying to avoid acknowledging either 1) their need for separateness or 2) their need for closeness. If they’re avoiding 1, they usually pursue, and if they’re avoiding 2, they usually distance. In both cases, they’re pretty aware that they’re pursuing or distancing; they’re likely to think of it differently but they more or less understand. For example, a pursuer might say, “I’m always trying to get my partner to talk to me about their feelings, but they refuse most of the time,” or “I always have to be the one to make opportunities for us to spend time together.” A distancer might say something like, ‘My partner is always hounding me to talk about my feelings, it’s too much,” or “My partner is always complaining that we don’t have enough ‘quality time,’ but their expectations are too high.” The needs they don’t want to admit they have are hard for them to admit to, but their behavior mostly isn’t.

Hira and Kiyoi are each avoiding one side or the other of this set of polarized terms. But they’re engaging in behaviors that don’t match the needs they seek to avoid. What they’re avoiding doesn’t match up with whether they are pursuing or distancing. And unlike typical pursuers and distancers, they don’t want to admit to themselves that they’re behaving in the ways they are (more of a Hira thing), or if they do admit it, they feel strongly that they shouldn’t have to behave this way (more of a Kiyoi thing). In addition to being in denial about their needs, they’re often in denial of their behaviors and the effects they have.

Hira disavows his need for independence and separateness, like we would expect from a classic pursuer. And he tells himself he’s a pursuer in many ways. For example, he talks about “chasing” Kiyoi on quite a few occasions. But he’s not actually pursuing most of the time. There are certain things he does reliably. He’s always ready to gaze adoringly at Kiyoi, compliment him (often excessively), and do things for him like being a “gofer” or cooking for him. But when it comes to the kinds of pursuit that actually result in intimacy? This would include things like creating opportunities to spend time together or having open and honest discussions about vulnerable topics. Hira very rarely takes this type of action. How does he justify this to himself? Mostly, he does this by telling himself that his inability to start a relationship with Kiyoi, be close to him in certain ways, get him to stay with him long-term, etc. (depending on where we are in the story) isn’t because of his own choices or his inability to face his fears but rather because of the laws of the universe or Kiyoi’s immutable nature or something like that. For example:

The idea that the amount of happiness a person can feel in their lifetime is finite and that this guarantees he’ll lose Kiyoi and then be miserable for the remainder of his life. This isn’t geared toward justifying anything specific but makes him fatalistic and distracted in a way that lends itself to just not trying (except in the areas where he’s already comfortable putting in effort).

The metaphor about stars he launches into during their argument at the end of s2e3, in which he says that he can’t understand Kiyoi and he shouldn’t even try because “[i]f I try to touch it or to understand it, all I’ll do is pull the star down to my level!” This is a justification for not even trying to see things from Kiyoi’s point of view--in short, to completely avoid any actual emotional intimacy, since taking the other person’s perspective is a prerequisite for that.

Telling Kiyoi he doesn’t want to date him “because you’re the king, and I’m your servant.” This is an excuse not to try to start a relationship with Kiyoi in the first place, and it lays the groundwork for a pattern of substituting servicing Kiyoi for showing up for him emotionally.

Kiyoi starts out by disavowing his need for closeness and intimacy. Well, he mostly disavows it. Early on, he admits to being curious about Hira’s adoration of him, then he gradually admits that it appeals to him at least a little bit. But even as he finally admits to himself that he loves him, he remains totally insistent that he doesn’t need Hira. Think about how many times he says he “doesn’t care” or “doesn’t give a shit” about something involving Hira. Even privately, when he thinks about putting the Hira stuff behind him, he makes it sound way too easy. In season 2, he starts to have a healthier attitude toward these needs, but it’s gradual and hard-won.

Despite disavowing his need for closeness, Kiyoi ends up acting as a pursuer in a lot of ways. Sometimes he just denies he’s doing it, or denies that pursuing is the purpose of the behavior. And it works, because some of the ways he pursues Hira are subtle and have a lot of built-in plausible deniability. For example, making Hira the “gofer” for his friend group was an attempt to find out more about him and planning to rehearse at Hira’s house was just an excuse to see him alone. But he often tells himself he’s doing these things for other reasons. When Kiyoi is conscious of pursuing Hira, he’s often frustrated and resentful. He sees himself as someone who shouldn’t have to be the pursuer. And it makes a certain amount of sense. For one thing, he’s used to being pursued. He’s had people throwing themselves at him almost his entire life. Also, Hira has made so many declarations of love to him, given him so many extravagant compliments, and spent years relentlessly eye-fucking him, so it would stand to reason that he wouldn’t, or at least shouldn’t, have to work so hard to get close to him. And yet, he does. It’s legitimately frustrating.

I wrote previously that pursuers sometimes sabotage their own attempts at experiencing intimacy (because deep down, they’re ambivalent about it) by choosing either distancers or people who are downright unattainable as their objects of interest, and that Hira is a prime example. Hira picked the most desirable boy in school to fall in love with, which should have kept him safe from having to experience the anxieties of real intimacy. But he didn’t know what he was getting into with Kiyoi, who turned out to have a number of reasons to be more interested in what he had to offer than Hira could have expected.

Kiyoi makes a similar, complimentary miscalculation. He chooses Hira to get emotionally invested in because it seems like with Hira, he’ll never have to pursue his partner, feel insecure, or fear abandonment, because Hira is so devoted and downright worshipful. What he doesn’t know is that Hira’s idealization of him is actually a paradoxical way of keeping him at arm’s length.

So it’s like there’s this overlay. A pursuer who’s too afraid to catch his beloved, so he makes up elaborate stories to make sure he can’t. A distancer who has been so starved for love for so long that he chose someone who loved him more than anyone else ever had, then found out too late that he wasn’t going pursue him back in the ways he wanted.

In both cases, the die has already been cast. They’re already deeply attached to the other person. Hira has put himself in a weird double bind where he’ll be miserable if he loses Kiyoi but he’s deeply afraid of actually putting himself out there in the way that would be required for a more balanced, sustainable relationship. Kiyoi has been a bit more successful. His love for Hira has convinced him to push himself to be more flexible, both about acknowledging his need for closeness and about engaging in pursuing behaviors and other ways of meeting Hira halfway. By the end of season 2, Hira seems ready to start to show more of a similar kind of flexibility, but he has just barely gotten started, so time will tell if he sticks with it. They’ll both have to keep it up if they’re going to bridge the gap between them.

[gunsatthaphan]

Hi. Hope you having a lovely day. Love your blog!! I know not many bl shows have coming out scenes, but can you recommend shows where the character actually says they are gay/bi/queer to friends or family. Either coming outs that go well or ones that don’t, or character/s talking about their sexuality to someone else. Thanks!!!! :)

hi there!

thank you!! 🥺💜

Like you said sexuality is rarely touched upon in bls and I feel like it's gotten even less in the last few years which sucks but then again I haven't been watching many bls lately.

But anyway out of the ones I've seen, these are the ones that mention or have a sub-narrative about sexuality (from newest to oldest & with a little disclaimer about the respective experiences of the characters):

Be My Favorite (positive)

Bed Friend (negative)

Moonlight Chicken (positive)

Utsukushii Kare Season 2 (positive & negative)

609 Bedtime Story (positive)

Between Us (positive & negative)

Love in the Air (positive)

Love Stage (negative)

Never Let Me Go (positive)

The Eclipse (positive)

A Tale of Thousand Stars (positive)

Light on Me (positive)

Lovely Writer (positive)

I Told Sunset About You (positive)

Tonhon Chonlatee (negative)

Dark Blue Kiss (positive)

Fujoshi, Ukkari Gei ni Kokuru (negative)

He's Coming to Me (positive)

Love by Chance (positive)

SOTUS (positive)

if someone has more to add, leave a reply!

xxx