#this is my new fave bl

[theflagscene]

These two are unhinged and melting my brain! Billy posted a video of him sneaking up on Babe on Twitter with the caption ‘squirming’ where he grabs Babe’s waist with ONE hand, his waist is damn near Gun Atthaphan level small, I stg. Anyway, one hand, tickles him, Babe squeaks and jumps. Billy then pushes his hips back down with a hand on his ass before tugging on his ear… all completely average normal not at all unhinged behaviour for co-workers lol.

Babe retweeted, chastising ‘Hands! Hands! Hands!’

Yes, I’m completely normal about them and not at all feral. Also, can we appreciate that Babe has a pig nose in his bio, yes because the talking CGI pig movies is what we think of when we see his gorgeous face and not at all; wow, he is a babe! 😍

[chaos0pikachu]

can't believe the thing that's gonna make me write fic again after all this time (literal years) is being salty as fuck about Boston's ending and shameless encouragement from the discord chepies

[bl-bam-beyond-markyourcalendars]

June is soon gone....so let's see what's coming up.

July 2024 Upcoming BL Series

Takara's Treasure

Release: July 1

Platform: Gagaoolala

Country: Japan

Twilight Out of Focus Anime

Release: July 4

Platform: Crunchyroll

Country: Japan

Love Sick Thai Re-Adaptation

Release: Slated for July 6 (maybe later)

Platform: unknown (possibly YouTube)

Country: Thailand

This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans

Release: July 5

Platform: IQIYI

Country: Thailand

Let Free The Curse of Taekwondo

Release: July 7

Platform: No International Released yet

Country: Korea

The Boyfriend (Gay Reality Series)

Release: July 9

Platform: Netflix Worldwide

Country: Japan

Century of Love

Release: July 10

Platform: Netflix

Country: Thailand

Heaven's Candy

Release: July 13

Platform: Japanese cinema Only

Country: Japan

Sky Valley The Series

Release: July 20

Platform: YouTube

Country: The Philippines

4 Minutes

Release: July 26

Platform: Viu (no International release yet)

Country: Thailand

Battle of The Writers

Release: July 29

Platform: YouTube

Country: Thailand

More when updates come in. Are you excited for any of these? Disappointed in any? I'm hoping an international platform for Century of Love is releases ASAP. I'm also curious about Battle of The Writers (a Yim & Tutor Series) as for disappointment I don't like Studios BE ON CLOUD or CHANGE2561 so no 4 minutes (if it gets international release) or this love doesn't have long beans (though the second couple does intrigue me because of Benz but not a fan of most of the studio's pairings) but to each their own.

@pose4photoml (I'll keep you updates in messaging)

@just-another-boyslove-blog (I'll keep you updated in messaging)

[airenyah]

💌 Send this to the twelve nicest people you know or who seem to have a good heart and if you get five back you must be pretty awesome. 💌 🥰🥰

Hi dear @airenyah! I miss your Sana Bakkoush header but will recognize your BBS icon and your kind online voice anywhere! 😍 Accompanying this Ask with good wishes for a beautiful springtime day, to one of the nicest people I know who also has a kind and generous heart! 💖

awwwww that's such a sweet thing of you to say 🥺🥺🥺

i saw this ask first thing in the morning after i woke up and it had me all kinds of 🥰🥰🥰

i too miss my sana bakkoush header (she looks so cute in that shot)!! usually i'd just change my icon but this is the first time since i've made this blog a decade ago that i can't change my icon over my header, because otherwise @ranchthoughts and i wouldn't have matching icons anymore and that thought hurts me more than saying goodbye to sana after 7 years 😔💔

[bl-bam-beyond]

OUR DATING SIM (2023, SOUTH KOREA)

Shin Ki Tae (LEE SEUNG GYU) has achieved his goal to get Lee Wan (LEE JONG HYUK) back in his orbit after 7 years of pining and searching.

Lee Wan learns from his female co-worker that Ki Tae is the one who campaigned for his hiring.

Cute Side Note: Lee Wan is wearing Ki Tae's clothes as he came to a casual dress work environment in a suit.

[youreaclownnow]

Banana fish was good but damn that shit hurted. Would recommend to anyone who loves bl that causes pain or just likes very pretty anime👍

[ppeonppeonhan]

Power couple

my loves 💚💚💚

[bengiyo]

Random QL Superlatives: 2024 Edition

It seems @lurkingshan has begun the end of year listicle game. Time to shout out our faves.

Presented (mostly) in the order I watched them.

Favorite Blorbo of the Year: Dynamite in Cooking Crush

I love when a show reveals that someone who has been upbeat or strong is actually carrying a ton of pain. Learning about how Dynamite suffered so much because of his family touched me to my core, and forever solidified the friendship he has with Samsee and Prem.

Favorite Use of Visual Comedy: I Became the Main Role of a BL Drama

This show really had everything, and more than anything it had some of the best visual gags of the year. There is so much humor in the framing of scenes in this show. It was a genuine delight, and I'm so happy I'll get to see Aoyanagi Hajime again next year.

Favorite Facial Hair: Gu Jing in VIP Only

This show ended up rather flat, but damn do I think about this man's face sometimes.

Favorite Disappointment: Last Twilight

This show really could have been great if it didn't fuck up so badly.

Favorite Existential Crisis: Love For Love's Sake

The way this show telegraphed that it would be heavy, and then still managed to gut the audience, is one of the most impressive things I got to witness this year. I love that this show left people with so many different interpretations that don't contradict each other.

Favorite Use of Omegaverse: Tadaima, Okaeri

Yes, there were two BL omegaverse shows this year. No, I did not enjoy the other one. I was instead overinvested in the success of my gay dads and their kids every week. HIKARU IS OUR HERO!

Favorite Use of Food: She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat 2

I love this show with my whole being. If the Japanese don't figure out a way to get this cast to crossover with What Did You Eat Yesterday? honestly what is even the point of putting queer people on TV?

Favorite Reunion Romance: Perfect Propose

I really loved that this show was about two childhood friends both at the end of their ropes. I also loved the way this show used a questionable sexual encounter to jumpstart the dynamic. I'm so glad Hirokuni quit that nasty job, because this was so difficult to watch after having left a very difficult workplace.

Favorite Cast Dynamics: Ossan's Love Returns

"We are family!" In their 3rd or 4th outing, depending on how you want to look at it, I continue to be obsessed with Haruta, Kurosawa, Maki, and their extended network. I loved seeing Haruta and Maki working on their relationship, and I loved seeing them all grapple with the changes in their lives. I hope I never have to fight my in-laws in my kitchen.

Favorite Version of Tay Tawan: Cherry Magic Thailand

Tay Tawan was at his most charming as Karan. I'm so glad that Tay and New are able to work together again.

Favorite Version of Cherry Magic: The Cherry Magic Anime

Despite my opinion that Cherry Magic TH is the best version of Cherry Magic, I still think the anime is my favorite. The characters have an ugliness to them in this version that I really love.

Favorite Use of Yukata: Love is Better the Second Time Around

Despite my qualms with the final arc of this show, I still think about the way this show handled its second chance romance and especially the way it handled sex. Also, this show has a great visual gag in a woman who doesn't deserve this physically restraining a man from proposing to her.

Favorite Performances: The Cast of Unknown

I really think this is my favorite cast of the year. I really loved the way they all played together, and loved the handling of growing up in this show.

Favorite Use of a Mirror: Memory in the Letter

To be clear, I do not recommend this show. However, I was very impressed with all of the acting and technical work around the mirror in this show.

Favorite Show About Actors: At 25:00 in Akasaka

I really loved the way Niihara and Komagine played actors in this show. It's rare that a character withholding the truth of their feelings works out this well. This is one of the best things I watched this year.

Favorite Boy: Igarashi Daichi from Ossan no Pants ga Nandatte Ii Janai ka!

Not BL, but I love Daichi so much that he gets a shout out here. I love that he wasn't a manic pixie dream gay, that he was allowed to be angry, and that he was allowed to be imperfect. Daichi is now forever a part of my soul.

Favorite Rambutan Enjoyer: Venice in Marahuyo Project

Venice is so funny to me. I love that she's not the brightest one in the group, but she understands everything important. She protects Archie because she understands how hurt and scared he is. She accepts everyone who joins their group unquestioningly. She is eating in almost every scene. She is perfect.

Favorite Flirt: Vee in San's Dreams in Century of Love

I think we should let Offroad flirt with Daou more in future shows.

Favorite Narrative: Knock Knock, Boys!

This is favorite show from Thailand this year. I loved the use of every story in this show. The kindness pouring out of this show was really something special. I loved that this show never made fun of Almond for being a version, let Latte have positive relationships with his exes, let Thanwa dress like a normie, and treated Peak's closeted storyline with immense respect. I look forward to showing it to many more people.

Favorite Back: Mahasamut in Love Sea

I loved the way Fort played this man, and I love that we got another BL romantic lead that doesn't look dehydrated. More romantic leads should get to deck abusive fathers in BL.

Favorite Collector of Marbles: Takara in Takara no Vidro

A rare version of the Knowing blessed us this year in Takara. He was overwhelmed by Taishin's naivete, and I really loved seeing a character who absolutely knew who he was. I loved watching a character manage obsessive tendencies, and I loved how he spent much of the show holding back because he was afraid of himself. What a blessing these two were.

Favorite Use of a Workplace: The Trainee

I really loved that GMMTV used one of their best production houses to tell a story about interns in a production house. It was genuinely refreshing to see a workplace show from Thailand where everyone involved understood the work they were portraying. This was a really solid ensemble piece.

Favorite Homo: Shion in Twilight Out of Focus

I love this pink-haired boy. He was loud and competent. He was clear in what he wanted. He said plainly that he wanted a boyfriend, and HE WON. For everyone who got called slurs in their youth, Shion is for you.

Favorite Second Chance: Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo

Hwang Da Seul was determined to get it right this time, and boy did she! This show did a wonderful job establishing the teen romance, justifying its separation, and earning its reunion. Best BL of the year.

Favorite Adaptation: Love in the Big City

Also not BL technically, but there's no way we make a list of shows form this year without acknowledging Nam Yoon Su's incredible performance as Go Yeong and the efforts of literally everyone involved in this show. If there's one show you need to watch this year, it's this one.

Favorite Angry Outburst: Qi Lu in Blue Canvas of Youthful Days

I loved the way Qi Lu got mad about Qian Xiao holding back with him. It's the most I've enjoyed a character being wrong this year. It was the exact right response for a character like him. He knew who he was, what he was feeling, and that Qian Xiao was feeling it, too.

Favorite Cross-Cultural Exchange: Love in the Air: Koi no Yokon

We've had more than a few Thai adaptations of Japanese works. This is the first time MAME work crossed over to Japan, and it's been so cool seeing how much the Japanese team really loves Love in the Air. I feel no competition between the two adaptations of this novel, because it's clear that the Japanese show is a huge fan of the Thai show. It makes so many loving homages to the source work that it's clear this is a passion project for many people involved. It's so cool that we're now seeing Japan adapt Thai works, and I'm so excited to see where this takes us next.

Well, this was fun! Tag me with your list if you make one!

[the-conversation-pod]

Year in Review 2024

AND WE'RE BACK!

Come join Ben, NiNi, and Shan as we talk about the trends we noticed, air some grievances, hand out some of our favorite fan awards, and make some new resolutions!

Timestamps

The timestamps will now correspond with chapters on Spotify for easier navigation.

00:00:00 - Welcome 00:00:55 - 2024 Headlines: Industry Consolidation 00:06:49 - 2024 Headline: Self-Censorship 00:13:52 - 2024 Headlines: Vertical Format Micro-BLs and Other Shit We're Anti 00:20:14 - Festivus Airing Of The Grievances 00:36:51 - 2024 Fan Awards 00:55:49 - QL Resolutions 01:04:45 - Affirmations and Hopes for the Future

The Conversation Transcripts!

Thanks to the continued efforts of @lurkingshan as an editor and proofreader, we are able to bring you transcripts of the episodes.

We will endeavor to make the transcripts available when the episodes launch, and it is our goal to make them available for past episodes (Coming soon thanks to @wen-kexing-apologist). When transcripts are available, we will attach them to the episode post (like this one) and put the transcript behind a Read More cut to cut down on scrolling.

Please send our volunteers your thanks!

00:00 - Welcome

NiNi

Welcome to The Conversation, the Queer Media And Brown Liquor Podcast.

Ben

I'm Ben, the media critic

NiNi

I’m NiNi, the vibes queen

Ben

And we are your drunk Caribbean uncle and auntie who are sitting on the porch in the rocking chairs

NiNi

We’re here to talk queer film and dramas, with a special focus on Asian QL

Ben

So if you like to dive deep into queer stories…

NiNi

If you like cracked out takes on art and commerce in queer media…

Ben

If you just enjoy simping for attractive people…

NiNi

We believe in simping!

Ben

Tune in!

00:00:55 - 2024 Headlines: Industry Consolidation

Ben 

And we're back. Oh my God, it's time to review 2024 before we get to the VIIB Awards, where it's just nonstop us talking about our faves. Once again, we have brought Shan into the booth because we have too much to discuss. Shan, say hello.

Shan

Hello!

Ben

First, it's time for us to talk about the big ideas of the year. NiNi, as the person who loves Thai BL the most on The Conversation, let's talk about how clearly the money is drying up and everybody is having to shuffle to whoever's got something to offer them.

NiNi 

Is the money drying up or is it just being funneled all to the same place? Because it feels like more money is getting spent on fewer things. I don't think that's necessarily a good thing, but I'm not sure that I can put my finger up and say that's a bad thing, either. We have seen some definite dips in quality. We don't have as many faves this year as we did last year, or even the year before. But what we did love, we loved-loved. 

So it's a complicated picture, I guess, but definitely there's been a consolidation and we wanted to talk about it a little bit because we predicted this in our very first set of episodes, all those many, many, many moons ago. We predicted that there was a consolidation coming in Thai BL because everything just got so big, so fast, and that usually precedes everything's starting to shrink back down a little bit.

Ben 

Big things we noted this year was GMMTV absorbing a bunch of free agents and, in one case, basically the entire staff of a whole studio that they now hire to do production work for them. 

Shan

Mmhmm. It's been wild. Like every week, I feel like we've been seeing announcements of new talent acquired by GMMTV.

Ben 

Barcode is now at GMMTV.

NiNi 

That was a big get.

Shan 

All the Wabi Sabi boys this year, too.

NiNi 

Yeah, those were the two big headlines, Wabi Sabi getting folded into GMMTV was one and definitely Barcode coming right at the end of the year. That was a big one.

Shan 

They also got Dimple Fluke.

NiNi

I mean, we love Dimple Fluke, but I don't know how big Dimple Fluke is in the general fandom—

Shan 

—He's big in my heart, NiNi, big in my heart.

Ben

[laughs] We thought this was coming when they got Singto to come back. Clearly trying to do it on his own didn't work and they were able to get him back in their house. I don't know how I feel about it. Wabi Sabi is no longer doing talent management. BOC seems to be shrinking

NiNi 

BOC (Be On Cloud) has said that they're backing off of talent management, as well. They dropped most of their roster. I think they only represent Mile, Appo, and Bible now.

Ben

Wow.

Shan 

GMMTV is the big studio that seems to want to be in the idol management game. And so that's where a lot of the talent is going. What feels concerning about it to me—we've talked quite a lot on this podcast about the increase in output, but not a commensurate increase in quality from GMMTV.

Out of all of the BLs that they're putting out annually, which is around eight to 10, there may be only a couple that actually have really good scripts behind them. So they're acquiring all this talent, but we know they don't have enough good writing to support shows to support this much talent. They put out, this year, a script writing contest to the plebes to say, “Help us, we need help writing shows.”

NiNi 

I was just gonna bring that up.

Ben

With hostile as fuck language, by the way.

Shan 

They literally went to the fans and said, “Can you write us some shows? Because we got nothing and we're acquiring all this talent.” That's just on the BL side. They've got this whole side of the house of these great, talented actresses and very few projects to cast them in. So it's concerning to me to see all the talent going to this one place that clearly cannot handle everybody that they're taking on.

Ben

It worries me too, because we've noticed a lot less sponsorship deals in most of their shows. One or two shows per year will get the usual eight- to 10-plus sponsor cards at the beginning, but that number has dropped off overall. It's very clear that there's maybe not as much ad money helping fund the production in the first place.

NiNi 

Bestie, I haven't seen an Oishii ad in quite some time.

Shan 

Right, where did Oishii go?

Ben 

If the juice makers have given up, it's over.

NiNi 

It is concerning to see this consolidation happening. There's a few people who are out on their own, who I think might be able to survive on their own. Like Jeff is out on his own, Billkin and PP are out on their own, and they're probably the ones who can sustain. Everybody else is either going to GMMTV or they're getting into the other side of GMM Grammy, like the One31 kind of lakorn side. But even that is shrinking, we're given to understand, people are moving into BL because that's the growing side of the market. 

Actors are moving into BL who might not have done BL before. Big names got into BL this year, like Jes Jespipat did 4 Minutes with Bible, a Be On Cloud production. He's a big lakorn actor. And then JJ and Tor did Spare Me Your Mercy at the end of the year. The headline on that really is like these big lakorn actors who nobody would have ever expected to do gay shit are doing the—well, in the case of Spare Me Your Mercy, semi gay shit. But Jes did gay gay shit in 4 Minutes, you know what I mean? So that's one of the big, I think, headlines that we need to be looking at looking at Thai BL in particular going forward.

00:06:49 - 2024 Headlines: Self-Censorship

Ben 

We need to talk about Thai BL starting to self-censor, likely to reach specific markets.

Shan 

Yeah, it's concerning. I wouldn't call it a trend yet, but we've seen a few examples of it in the last few months and it's making me nervous. What I'm talking about is, productions that are publicly saying, admitting that they are censoring some of the more explicit romantic or sexual content from their BL shows so that they can focus on reaching a wider audience with their message. We've seen statements like that from the Addicted Heroin creator. We've seen recently the screenwriter of Spare Me Your Mercy talk about the decision to remove explicit sexual content from the show for the same reason. We saw some of this related to Love Sick as well. If you're gonna do a Love Sick remake in 2024, the one thing you would expect them to improve on is not having censored kisses, but nope, they didn't do that. 

So there's this drive and this stated intention by some of the creators behind these shows to create BL dramas that minimize the actual BL as much as possible. They want to take advantage of the market for BL. They want to take advantage of the fan interest and the fan engagement for BL while also getting away with keeping the actual queer romance in these stories as minimal as possible. That is pretty shitty. They're coming out and they're saying this openly, this is not us just guessing.

NiNi 

Just saying that taking the romance out is why I left a lot of Western media. I'm so tired of seeing people say things like, “Well this doesn't have any plot.” The romance is the plot, the relationship is the plot and not recognizing that in a genre that is about romance is the part that kind of makes me go like mmm, okay, like yes—

Ben 

The genre is literally called Boy Love. (all) Where is the love? 

How old is that song? Hold on, let me Google that real quick.

Shan 

Don't look it up. But this is what I mean. Like, NiNi and I are refugees from Western romance. We came over to Asia for kdrama, because we wanted to see a genre of television that respected romance, that took it seriously as its own storytelling, that actually respected romance fans and people who like love stories. That is one of the best and most consistent features of Asian drama. And so to have now this subset of Asian drama creators who are specifically working in a queer love space that is even more hard for people to find, even less accepted by the mainstream, to have them intentionally self-censoring because they are trying to prove some kind of weird point. It just completely misses the point for me of why people are here engaging with these dramas. Certainly it doesn't seem to be helping in terms of pushing forward the social agenda in these countries where they're making these shows.

Ben 

This is the part that always stresses me out when we're trying to measure how gay can it be and still get funded because this happens to us repeatedly in queer viewer space. Netflix pulled this shit on us where, when they first wanted to go to digital streaming, they set up deals with all of the gay distribution houses. And we got to watch all of these movies that we had never had access to before. And it was great. And we all were like, hell yeah, I'm going to go on Netflix so can watch my little gay shows.

As soon as they get tastemakers—read: queer and brown people—to pimp their shit, they try and immediately convert and get a bunch of normies in there.

NiNi 

Yep, that's basically what happens.

Ben 

This, again, this is not shit I'm making up! This is what really happened.

Shan 

These are the patterns and we've seen them play out so many times in so many places and it's the pattern we're starting to see play out in BL and it's alarming.

NiNi

I mean! It played out on Tumblr. The platform that we spend so much of our time on, this is exactly what happened. The people who built the ship got kicked out of the ship.

Ben 

It's been an actually horrible year on Tumblr for queer people, especially trans people. It's a bad look that the gays who make the shit who seem like they're in an accepted enough space are either choosing to or being pressured to straighten up their act so that they can continue to get fed and make stuff. That doesn't feel great. It feels really worrisome as a sign about what may or may not be going on. Like it's only a few things right now, but we're seeing this everywhere else.

NiNi 

What we're basically saying is support GagaOOLala

Shan

Please! If you're gonna spend money on any of these platforms, spend your money on the queer platform hosted in Taiwan that actually cares about queer people.

Ben 

If you have spent significant sums of money on iQIYI in the last year for two shows and you haven't spent money on Gaga, reflect and then message us. [all laugh]

NiNi 

And I mean if you need yet another reason to subscribe to Gaga, their social media manager is like the greatest person in the world.

Ben 

They're my favorite person. They made fun of Kidnap. They were like, Kidnap, the show that's probably poorly named, is back on this week.

Shan 

Let's just get on our soapbox about Gaga for a minute, okay? They are the only platform that streams the vast majority of Japanese QL, period. They bring us Taiwanese BL. They bring us Thai BL in increasing volume.

Ben 

The WeTV shows have been consistently airing on Gaga lately. GMMTV is also clearly trying to consolidate and are starting to put their shows behind the Gaga and iQIYI paywall.

Shan 

It's a good platform that is worth supporting and it's far cheaper than any other streaming you're paying for. You should have it. You should subscribe.

NiNi 

This is not an ad.

Ben 

They do. We are not being paid. But if you guys want to hang out—I'm just kidding. Don't put that in there, NiNi. [laughs]

NiNi 

Yeah, but yeah, support Gaga. That's the only platform that when Park Seo Ham came out of the military, sent out a tweet saying, “Tell the world the bitch is back.”

Ben 

I love her!

Shan 

They deserve it.

NiNi

She is us, we are her, and this is a non-binary she. We don't know the gender of the GagaOOLala social media manager, but she's one of the girls.

Ben

I'm using ‘she’ in a gay way. It's very affectionate.

NiNi 

She, non-gender specific.

00:13:52 - 2024 Headlines: Vertical Format Micro-BLs and Other Shit We're Anti

Ben 

While we're bitching about things, let's talk about all these stupid vertical TV shows that keep coming out and how we must continue to refuse to watch them. We have already seen one of the shows that [Iijima] was in is going to apparently be put on TV properly. 

Good job, everybody, in not watching that. [NiNi and Shan laugh]

Do not let this become a thing. We cannot tell them that we are willing to watch shows two minutes at a time on our phones only. Unacceptable.

Shan 

Not only two minutes at a time on our phones only, but only after burning through a huge number of ads. That's how you get to the shows.

Ben

Gross.

NiNi 

This is like Ben's whole conversation in one of our more recent episodes about the BL TikTok filter. They're trying to get you used to the BL TikTok filter in like a million ways.

Ben 

I won't. I will NOT accept this!

Shan

Because the aim of this is to stop making actual dramas and just get us to watch a version of TikTok on our phones and call that BL. That's the end game here, guys. Don't fall for it.

NiNi 

Do not fall for it.

Ben 

We are here to support storytellers only. We are not here to make ad guys happy.

NiNi

I think that's a good segue.

Ben 

Speaking of ad guys who clearly don't like us, Korea is not interested in BL right now. [laughs]

NiNi

Oh my God.

Ben

We got three good Korean BLs this year.

Shan

At least they were all excellent. I know we talked about it on our recent Hallyu episode but now that the year is complete and the data has been crunched, I just want to underline this. We got, not necessarily fewer shows total from Korea, but we got fewer shows of a decent length. We got fewer shows of quality. A lot of what Korea put out this year was junk, frankly. These little vertical series, these small little web series that are really short episodes and very lacking in narrative. And then they also put out three of the very best things of the year. 

So it was a real dichotomy. In years previous Korea was putting out a more steady run of quality shows. We saw a real drop off of that this year.

Ben 

Oh shit, did Strongberry even make anything this year?

NiNi 

I was just about to say this is the year that Strongberry pissed me off because they made that Happy Ending thing that was neither happy nor an ending.

Shan 

And they made Blossom Campus, which was terrible.

Ben

Ew…

Shan

Strongberry let us down this year for the first time ever.

NiNi 

I kind of feel it for them because the CEO of Strongberry has spent so much time telling us how hard it is to get shit made and to get money to get shit made. So I was just like, ooh, things must be getting, like, real rough if they couldn't put out anything good.

Shan 

Can we though just take a moment to shout out the CEO of Strongberry for putting out his own little story about what happened with that show and basically being like, I told the writer not to fucking do that and he didn't listen to me.

Ben 

I did love that. I love that he just said, I told her she ain't let one listen.

Shan 

He was like, this is not on me. Do not associate this with me. You love Strongberry. You will continue to love Strongberry. [NiNi laughs]

Ben 

He basically did say it like that. We were like, all right, girl. [laughs]

Shan 

We'll let you have this one.

NiNi 

Yeah, but I mean it's a year in which we had nothing good from Strongberry, and that to me is like, wow. We got other really good stuff, some of it came out of absolutely nowhere. And I think that it had to come out of absolutely nowhere to get aired, because, as we saw when things are in the pipeline and they know about it, they're going to try to kill it.

Ben

Our last big highlight of the year we want to point out is that there was a Japanese BL airing almost every week this year. That is unprecedented. Usually, even if stuff gets made, we barely know about it, it gets no distribution, and the fansubbers are having people show up at their houses over. [NiNi laughs]

So we almost never get a lot of the Japanese BL, but there was a significant amount that was just handed to us on legal platforms for us to support, most notably GagaOOLala.

Shan 

GagaOOLala! I started Japanese QL Corner in January of 2024 on Tumblr. It's just a weekly post that I do that tracks the Japanese QL that's out. And I had things to write about every single week for the entire year. And we weren't always having to chase things down in the dark corners of the internet. We had things that we could watch on a regular streaming platform every week from Japan, And there were weeks when I was writing about six or seven shows at a time. That's how much was airing.

NiNi 

Now were those six or seven shows great? 

Ben 

Not always.

NiNi

I would say no, not always, but in terms of batting average, I think Japan did pretty well this year.

Shan 

I'd say still about half of the shows that aired from Japan this year were good to fantastic. And the other half were problematic here and there. There were only a handful that I thought were, like, bad bad.

Ben 

My favorite thing about watching Japanese BL is that I am never mid about it. I either really liked it or I was like, who is this for? [Shan and NiNi laugh]

I love that there's not all this wishy washy shit about like, oh, maybe it's kind of okay if I squint this direction. I'd be like, no, fuck that show. A 4 for you, a 3 for you, a 4 for you. Stay away from the shows I love. All of you over here, my 9s and 10s. Don't look at them. They're not worth it. Averages are not the most useful metric but I really like that when I'm recommending or not recommending Japanese BL, I feel very firm about how I feel about these shows.

Shan 

I do think that there has been a lot more variation in quality with the high uptick in volume of shows. But the batting average is still pretty damn high. 

We've got two new Japanese QL productions starting this week. So I'm excited that it's gonna keep going.

Ben 

That's it for the big highlights.

00:20:14 - Festivus Airing Of The Grievances

Ben 

Before we close out this year, we need to vent a little bit of grief. We need to talk about the things that we were super hype about that made us look like clowns. We're gonna start with our biggest disappointments in no particular order. Starting with the worst. 

NiNi, Wandee Gooday!

NiNi

[laughs] The absolute worst. I am so pissed off at this show. I talked a little bit about how pissed off I was with this show in our mailbag episode, but friends, I still have more ire in me about the show. I was so stoked, and the show dragged me along for a solid five to six episodes and then literally dropped me on my face. And that's something that I do not forgive in any way. I will remain pissed off forever. 

This is not The Shipper level, but damn close and I can't do it.

Ben 

If you want to feel a little solidarity, David was actually bitching about this at brunch earlier this weekend. He said, I can't believe I wrote a whole post for the first time on Tumblr about this show only to be made to look like a clown like this. He said he's never writing anything ever again.

NiNi 

[laughs] David's like, how dare you embarrass me?

Shan 

How dare you? It sucked, man. It was a huge letdown.

NiNi 

And the thing is that it could have been so good.

Shan

Could’ve had it all.

NiNi

I'm convinced that the first half and the second half were written by two different people. That's the only thing that makes any sense to me.

Ben 

Yes, let's start talking about BL like Star Wars fans. STAR WARS COULD BE SO GOOD IF IT WAS GOOD. Before you bitches come after me, my very first email address I made is a Star Wars email. Don't come for me.

NiNi 

Don't come for him, period. Okay?

Shan 

Leave us alone, it's been a long year.

Ben 

Speaking of a long year of disappointments, Shan, I'm letting you have the entire disappointment that was all of Sammon’s collected works this year.

NiNi 

Oh God, here we go.

Shan

We're calling this the Sammon Omnibus entry in the disappointment list. This year there were four different projects associated with Dr. Sammon. She screen wrote three out of four, and was the original writer for one: these shows were Dead Friend Forever, 4 Minutes, Spare Me Your Mercy, and Petrichor. All QLs, all with her attached, all very heavily promoted and very buzzy. 

I'm not gonna say that none of these shows were good at all or had any artistic merit. I actually really liked Dead Friend Forever until it fucked up the ending. 4 Minutes I found to be a very beautiful but ultimately incoherent mess. Spare Me Your Mercy was just a flop for all of us, none of us finished the show after all of us putting it on our list of the most anticipated of the year. 

Ben 

After JJ put his whole ass into Great Men Academy, I can't believe they embarrassed him like this.

[NiNi laughs]

Shan 

We have all seen Tor and JJ in other projects. You are lying if you claim that they were on their game in this show. I'm sorry. They have both done better with other people with better material. This show did not live up to the hype. I did not even finish it because I was so disappointed.

Ben

I can't believe we're saying that Tor was better in fucking Midnight Museum.

NiNi 

He was! He was absolutely better in Midnight Museum.

Shan 

He was better in Midnight Museum! And he had better chemistry with Gun than he did with JJ in this BL. JJ was light yards better in Great Men Academy than he was here. I'm not trying to shade the actors. It's not their fault. It's the material. The writing was bad. The show was flat. They seemed not at all dialed into their characters. They seemed confused about what they were supposed to be conveying, probably because their relationship development arc didn't make any fucking sense. It's not the actor's fault. They are very good actors and this show did not give them what they needed to succeed. I cannot believe what a letdown this show was after all that hype. There's also Petrichor, which is the first GL that has her attached to it. And I had to drop that one, too. It was hard to watch. 

Sammon is kind of considered one of the best screenwriters in the QL industry in Thailand. She wrote Triage. She was attached to Manner of Death. She has a track record. She has all these novels that are very popular and well liked. So there's a certain level of expectation that comes with her shows. But this year, her big year of four QLs, this was not it. Not a single one of these projects left me satisfied. I started the year as such a strong fan of her work, and I'm ending the year kind of throwing my hands up like, well, girl, guess Triage was a fluke. I don't know what's been going on, but you have not even come close to meeting that standard again.

NiNi 

I liked DFF and 4 Minutes more than you guys did. We've talked about this already. But I will say that these are shows that they spent money on. I have no complaints about production quality on any of these shows. They pulled up some quality actors. They got Engfah in Petrichor. They got JJ and Tor for, as you mentioned, Spare Me Your Mercy. Bible and Jes put on a clinic in 4 Minutes. And the DFF boys, they put their whole pussy in. They acted these shows, and they produced these shows. They look great, they sound great, but the writing just didn't hold up to everything else that they were putting in. 

And they got progressively worse because the one that I enjoyed the most was Dead Friend Forever, that was the first one. And the one that I enjoyed the least was Spare Me and Mercy. Like, we all dropped it. For different reasons, I think, but we all dropped it.

Shan 

I mean, it was not working on any level. So no matter what you were there for, there was just nothing to hold on to. If you were there for the romance, if you were there for the mystery, if you were there for the euthanasia discussion, it didn't really succeed at any of those.

NiNi 

Let's move on. Because we could talk about this forever.

Ben

Oh, that's fine. It's time for me to go the fuck off. I've been holding this in for months. [NiNi] It's time to talk about My Love Mix Up.

NiNi 

God, here we go.

Ben

Before I hurt people's feelings about this, I like Fourth and Gemini a lot. I think they're both very charming. I think they are both real talents and I am very much looking forward to seeing how they mature over the next decade, the way we got to experience with the original GMMTV BL boys. That being said, part about supporting your faves, for me, is wanting them to get work that uses them well. And I do not believe that My Love Mix Up used anyone well. It's extremely disappointing to me that after doing such a good job on Cherry Magic Thailand, that GMMTV released a show that did everything I was afraid would go wrong with Cherry Magic Thailand.

Cherry Magic Thailand managed to make the Cherry Magic story applicable to the Thai context in a way that we all loved. My Love Mix Up was not a Thai adaptation of Kieta Hatsukoi. It was My School President in a terrible Halloween costume, clearly trying to sell more tickets for concerts for these boys. It was embarrassing and it was a waste of everyone's time. I am so mad about this because I had doubts about this the whole way into it, but really hoped that after the strong showing in Cherry Magic, that there was gonna be something really cool here. I had a lot of hopes about this. This sucked.

And so much of it comes down to casting. As much as I like Forth and Gemini, I like them as individual actors, not as a branded pair. I think they work just fine together, but they were not the correct boys to play these characters together.

NiNi 

It's especially noteworthy because there were other boys in My Love Mix Up who I think would have done a better job. 

Ben

[performately coughing] Aungpao!

NiNi

They put Aungpao in this show and they didn't make him one of the leads. Aungpao would have killed Atom.

Ben 

Yeah, Aungpao would have done a way better job.

Shan 

Yeah, he would have been perfect. 

Ben 

And I think Fourth should have played Ida's character.

Shan 

I watched one or two episodes of this before I dropped it. And to me, it was just such an obvious case of miscasting. They cast it based on wanting to shove a pre-existing branded pair into a set of characters that did not fit them. And so from the start, the whole production betrayed the story. That's just frustrating.

Ben 

And they clearly did not understand the major themes either. They really fucked it up.

NiNi 

I came at it from a different perspective than you guys, because you guys had watched Kieta Hatsukoi, and I deliberately did not watch Kieta Hatsukoi until after I had watched My Love Mix Up, because I wanted to be sort of a control, and I ended up in the same place on the whole thing that you guys did, watching Kieta Hatsukoi afterward. 

They did not get this right at all. They didn't have the spirit of it.

Ben 

I'm really glad you were able to arrive at this conclusion with us. Kieta Hatsukoi is really solid and I do not understand how they fucked that up that badly. It pissed me off. It was disappointing. Chop!

Speaking of chops, how dare they reboot Love Sick in 2024 and then fuck it up this badly. I loved Love Sick as what felt like the Thai Degrassi. How do you make a worse version of that? In 2014 Love Sick was absolutely insane. They had girls two-timing dudes in the same bed with them in their own apartment complex. They have motherfuckers trying to drown each other in the pools and shit. [NiNi laughs]

Shan

And they had sex. They didn't show it on screen, but those characters had sex.

Ben 

I get much of the stuff that we saw in 2014. Love Sick may have been adding stuff and they may have been trying to be more true to the book by just making it into this boring ass GL and BL experience, but it just wasn't good. And I was pissed because they went in a cool direction by making Aim queer that was really good, but it doesn't save the show.

Shan 

That was the only interesting thing I heard about this remake, is that they made Aim a lesbian which added a little bit of a layer to her desire to cling on to her boyfriend. But everything else they did worse on than the original show.

Ben 

I don't want to be super mean to these boys because everybody was new in Love Sick and everybody's clearly new here. But goddamn, the new kid does not match Captain. And the way that they went so hard in making him look like Captain undercuts him constantly because he's just not as good as Captain.

Shan 

You know, Ben, the moment I saw that buzzcut is when I knew that this production was doomed. [NiNi laughs] Because that is so not the fucking point. That's not the part of him you have to get right!

NiNi 

My whole thing about this is that to be disappointed you have to have expectations. I was not disappointed in Love Sick 2024 because I had no expectations. I did not watch it. From the time I saw that they were remaking Love Sick, I remember, I think we said on this podcast, “Who needs it? Nobody.”

Nobody needs a Love Sick remake in 2024.

Ben 

We were correct. We asked why it was made and they had no answer.

Speaking of why was this made, Yin and War had a great deal of fun with their friends in the show that they produced, Jack and Joker. I ended up dropping it because they killed Jennie and I refused to accept that and I left.

NiNi 

Jennie Panhan is a goddess and you cannot kill her on your show. I'm sorry, you just can't.

Shan 

They really shouldn't have. It was pointless and gratuitous and disgusting. 

But let me just say, I did finish this show and I don't wanna be super mean to Jack and Joker because here's the thing: it's not a real show. It is a self-funded vanity project from Yin and War so that they could hang out on a set with their friends.

Ben 

And Tee Bundit was there.

Shan 

And Tee Bundit was also there. I went into the show and I was like, I know this is not a real story. They cobbled this script together themselves. We're just having a good time here. That was my only expectation: this will be fun. It'll be entertaining. I have no expectations for a coherent story, for themes, anything like that. And even with that bar, the lowest bar I can possibly grant to a show, somehow this show disappointed me. 

It was a mess, but not a fun mess. It was boring. It was mostly sexless, which was the most shocking part to me. They had three pairings in this show, only one of whom actually kissed on screen. 

Ben 

They had our boy Pee in this show.

Shan 

They put Pee fucking Peerawich in this show and they didn't let him kiss anybody! I was pissed.

I'm livid, still. They had this great side couple that the fandom was super into. They never actually let them get together on screen. They did not become an actual romance. 

Ben 

The most useful thing about that side pair is that Shan recognizes Mark Siwat about 30% of the time now.

Shan 

I know what his face looks like now!

Hi, Mark Siwat, this is my letter of apology to you.

NiNi 

Shan has a very specific Mark Siwat face blindness.

Shan 

It's Mark Siwat-only face blindness. And I'm sorry, Mark Siwat, you don't deserve that from me. You were a delight in this show. And I'm so mad that your character did not get a proper story. 

The thing that frustrated me about this show is it's a fucking fan service project. So why aren't you serving the fucking fans? We spent 16 hours in this show and it was mostly boring nonsense. They stopped doing the capers halfway through for some reason and just made us sit in these endless plots about this stupid fucking mafia whatever, rich families playing squid games. It was stupid. It was boring. 

Meanwhile, they didn't deliver on most of the things that the fans wanted. What a pointless use of so much money. Why, Yin and War? Why?!

Ben 

We hadn't seen Mark properly in BL since Bite Me, so I was especially disappointed. I'm still mad about that, too! Don't you worry! I'm still mad!

NiNi

God, I'm still mad about Bite Me.

Shan 

This should have been the funnest thing that happened this year. And instead, it was boring and sad.

Ben 

I'm so sorry that you were on two of our disappointments, Jennie. You didn't deserve that, either.

NiNi 

That's an important thing to bring up. Like, where's the fun? I feel like there were things that should have been fun that were just a slog. Where did the fun go? If this is gonna be a caper BL, then be a caper BL. You know that it's bad if you can't get me to watch a Tee Bundit show. I have not watched a minute of it. You know I feel about Tee Bundit. I love him even when everybody else hates him. Except for Hidden Agenda, which we will never talk about again. But this show didn't even compel me to watch it, which is saddening.

Shan 

Yeah, it was lackluster and it was truly only the fan sentiment for Yin and War that made it popular. It was just fans supporting actors that they like, and there's nothing wrong with that. But there's no there there with this show.

NiNi 

Shout out to War’s pottery videos. Sir, you are hyper competent and I find that very attractive.

Shan 

And I really recommend just watching his pottery videos instead of this show.

Ben 

That's right, just head to IG instead. War did good work in Love Mechanics. That's why he's a fave. That doesn't mean I have to applaud everything he does after that, especially when it's not that good. 

I did like all of his outfits, though. Clearly he had a great time.

NiNi 

Okay, so now that we have completed our Festivus airing of the grievances… 

Ben

I feel better. I really do.

Shan

I'm happy we got that off our chests.

NiNi

Let's move into our fan awards.

00:36:51 - 2024 Fan Awards

NiNi 

In advance of our Very Important Internet BL awards, VIIB Awards that are coming up later this month for you guys, we just wanted to have a few awards that are just us having fun. And so we put the call out and we got some feedback.

Ben, take us into it.

Ben

We are finally awarding the Girl, You Tried winner of the year. Girl, You Tried, for those of you who have been with us, is something we like to award every season to shows that we think had really good ideas that maybe weren't executed as well as they could have been. We handed out quite a few awards this year. I don't remember all of them right now, but we have selected a winner.

Shan, would you like to announce the winner?

Shan

Ooh, do I get to announce? How exciting. Okay. 

The 2024 Girl, You Tried Award goes to Love Is Better The Second Time Around from Japan. [air horn]

Ben 

We've already covered this. I'm very happy about the yukata sex, but not about episodes 5 and 6.

Shan 

So close to being one of our favorite shows of the year. And that is why it gets this award.

NiNi 

Agreed. I am in 100% agreement.

Ben

Other shows that were up for consideration included The Sign, Living With Him, Ayaka Is in Love with Hiroko, I Hear the Sunspot—oof I got beef with that show—and The On1y One, Shan got beef with that one.

Shan 

I got beef with that show!

NiNi 

I think we made the right choice in terms of the final winner, though. I think of all of those the one that was closest to actually making it.

Ben

A bunch of those guys are in another MBS not-BL right now where they're all playing boxers, hugging each other without their shirts on, and sweatin’ and shit.

NiNi 

Yes, more information? You're burying the lede here. Like, I need to know where I can find it.

Ben

[laughs] Nowhere, man. It's not in the Western circles right now. 

NiNi 

The fan subbers are letting me down. 

Ben

I got a couple of Japanese fans keeping me in the loop. They send me little clips and it's all my favorite boys wrestling on the ground and shit in dark gyms.

NiNi

Why don't they make more shows like that?

Shan 

This is what I'm saying!

Ben 

Let me tell you, Petty's been demanding this BL for like four years.

Shan 

It's true.

NiNi 

I think we are actually getting a boxing BL next year.

Ben 

We are. [everyone laughs]

Onto our next award. It's time to award our Trash Fave of the year. 

NiNi, please describe the award.

NiNi 

Trash Fave is basically my favorite award. I cannot defend any of these shows, but I had such a good fucking time with them.

Shan 

Our Trash Fave winner of the year is Gym Affairs from, wait for it, China! Did you all know that China put out a real modern BL with kissing on screen in it this year? Well, they did, and it's called Gym Affairs, and it's winning the Trash Fave award because, listen. This show is not a quality production. It was clearly filmed on some iPhones with just whatever guys they could find around. But you know what? I respect it because it had a narrative, it had a clear story, and they are doing what they can in China to get these queer stories out, one way or another.

Ben 

It really spoke to guerrilla filmmaking, like they just really popped up somewhere, filmed what they needed to and got the fuck out of there.

Shan 

And it's a cute little show. It goes quick. Watch it on YouTube, it's free. It's a fast binge. It's charming. The actors are cute. It's a good time. We can't really call it a good show because the production quality is so low, but it's a fave. All of our friends who have seen it had a great time watching it. You should join in.

(Transcript note: The show has since been pulled from YouTube.)

Ben 

Our other two shows for consideration were Kidnap and OMG!Vampire. [NiNi laughs]

NiNi 

Yup.

Shan 

O-M-G Exclamation Point Vampire.

NiNi 

I was gonna say that y'all have very different definitions of trash than I do because even though I haven't seen Gym Affairs yet, from what I've heard about it, it is not trash it is just produced on a shoestring. Whereas Kidnap was actual trash.

Shan 

Yeah, Kidnap is super trashy. Like, trashy in the sense of, like, pulp novels.

NiNi 

It's called Kidnap, but there's only half a kidnapping, maybe.

Shan 

Did anyone actually get kidnapped in Kidnap? That was a Gaga joke.

Ben 

This show was so stupid.

NiNi 

At one point the guy kidnapped himself. Like, there was a lot going on.

Ben 

This show was so stupid that I got bored with Ohm Pawat, and was like I can’t do this anymore.

Shan 

I could only sustain myself by looking at Ohm's arms for so long.

NiNi 

This is what makes it my Trash Fave. I watched it till the very end because my favorite two things were in it, Ohm Pawat and being babygirl.

Shan 

You know what I think this is, NiNi? I think it's like when you open the trash can and you look inside, you sometimes find, like, this gem of a thing that someone threw in the trash. And that's what Gym Affairs is. And Kidnap is all the actual nasty, dirty trash around it.

NiN

Ohm, we love you on this podcast, sir. We love you so much and that's all we're gonna say.

Shan 

Free Ohm from this trash. That's what I want to say.

Ben 

We love you, even though all of Tumblr celebrated your character getting shot again, just like a few weeks ago.

Shan

And I don't think any of us actually watched OMG!Vampire.

Ben 

Our friends loved it. They had a great time with Lee and Frank's final show together.

Shan 

Several of our friends submitted it and they had a great time watching it. They highly recommend it if you're into vampires that are, apparently, very bad at being vampires. [NiNi laughs] You know, you should check that out if that's your thing.

Ben 

Onto my favorite award, it's time to award the BEST BOY!

NiNi 

The Namgoong Best Boy Award, which I promise I'm gonna watch Light On Me this year. I promise, I promise.

Ben 

NiNi, I swear to God.

All right. Shan, I'm putting this in my resolutions at the end of this. If NiNi does not watch Light On Me, we are not doing this show next year. [NiNi laughs] I've had enough. I have a list of shows that are non-negotiable for the next awards show. Light On Me and Rainbow Prince. 

NiNi 

Okay, I will. I absolutely will. 

Ben

You will watch them. There will be no more arguing about this!

NiNi

Okay, we're not arguing. It was never an argument. It's just more kind of, it always gets pushed down to the bottom of the list, but I promise you this year, bestie, this year.

Ben

Namgoong is the best boy and is the reason why we have this award. And this year, the award for Best Boy who did everything he could for the gays goes to Yai from The Sign. [air horn]

Congratulations, sir. We loved everything about you. We loved your arms. We loved your heart. We loved your wife.

Shan 

Mostly loved the wife the most.

NiNi 

I definitely had a lot to say about those arms. I'm sorry, I'm spacing out thinking about them now.

Shan 

This award is for the best supporting male friend who is all about helping the couple get together.

Ben 

He was so great. Good job, Yai.

NiNi 

Yai absolutely did that.

Ben 

What a mess of a show, but you had a clear throughline.

NiNi 

I just loved him saying, “Where were you discussing the problem? The bed or the sofa?” I think that was one of my favorite lines.

Shan 

He was mischievous.

Ben 

Other boys in consideration were Ryoga from I Became the Main Role of a BL Drama for his feathers and his support of his friends by tricking them into having a date and also telling Akafuji he was aggravating and then giving him useful advice.

Shan 

He was a real one. He was helpful.

NiNi 

He was the realest.

Ben 

Our last boy is Ryosuke from The Fragrance You Inherit, a last minute addition to this list.

Shan 

The drama did technically end right before the end of 2024. Ryosuke is the lead’s, Sakura, of the show, he's her bestie. He's been supporting her since college. He's the person who knows her and who props her up through all the hard things in her life, including her gay disappointment, her crushed, unrequited love, and parenting her son who is a perfect angel boy. He's there for it all. He is there to help her out. We love him.

Ben 

He is also played by Takeda Kouhei.

Shan 

He sure is! Looking excellent. Sir, I salute you.

Ben 

If you don't know who that is, you better ask somebody.

Shan 

You better not come ask me, because I'll get mad at you.

Ben 

On to my second favorite award. The Yiwha Best Girl Award!

NiNi 

Yiwha! We love her over here!

Ben 

I absolutely love Yiwha. I love that that show, all these years later, spawned the best girl and worst girls award. The Best Girl, like the Best Boy, goes to the girl who supports the boys the right way and is there for them and willing to scrap for them. 

NiNi, please hand out the award to our Best Girl.

NiNi 

Best Girl for 2024 is Lukpeach from Knock Knock Boys!. [air horn] All she wanted in life was to spread good information about sexual health and behavioral practices, to support her boys and to write non-creepy fan fiction about them. I salute you, Miss Mama. You are the best.

Shan 

Yes, support her in all her endeavors.

Ben 

She was a great character. I really like her as part of the evolution of the shipper character. I'm okay with them finding a way to write girls that really love gay boys and want them to have a good time without it being creepy. 

Beyond Lukpeach, we also had Jane from Knock Knock Boys!, Ju from Century of Love, and Pai from Cherry Magic Thailand on this list.

I liked Pai a lot and she was a strong contender for this award, particularly because she stole a motorcycle to make sure those boys had the scene they needed to have. And then she left. She explicitly said, “That scene is for them. I got what I needed. I know my boys are going to make this happen.”

Shan

Pai  was great at knowing the line between supporting and inserting herself where she didn't belong, and she never crossed the line.

Ben 

What a great character. This was a pretty decent year for fujo characters in the genre. That is one of the positive things I can say about this year in terms of trope-related stuff.

We have introduced a new award this year.

Shan 

What exciting stuff.

Ben

I'm gonna let you award this one, Shan. This is our Bridesmaid Award. This goes to…

Shan 

Hyunho from Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo. [air horn] Oh, I love it. This award is for the second leads. The character that can never win, but that still manages to make you kind of want them to and who makes you sympathetic for them when they inevitably lose. I think Hyunho was the platonic ideal of the kdrama second lead in Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo. He is definitely a deserving winner of this Bridesmaid Award.

Ben 

Our other two people in consideration were Sangwon for Love for Love's Sake, because he got into a whole fight for the gays and then got mad that they kept asking him for help for the rest of the show. And Kurosawa from Ossan's Love Returns, because this man has not won five times now. Incredible.

Shan 

He will always be the Bridesmaid eternally. But yeah, this is really Korea's category to lose, because this is what they do. Second leads are specifically a Korean trope.

NiNi 

Good job, Korea.

Ben 

We are once again awarding our favorite version of BGP!

Shan 

Ben, remind the people what BGP means.

Ben 

BGP is a term that we got from Bump Up Business, a terrible BL from the boys of OnlyOneOf, a Korean kpop group whose entire business model is pretending to be gay, and they made a whole show about idols who had to work together in a what they called a business gay performance to sell records, and wanted us to pretend that it was a real romance. Absolutely insane behavior. The audacity!

Shan 

I can't believe this show happened.

NiNi

I'm sorry! “Is our business gay performance over before it began?” [everyone laughs]

Ben 

Oh my god!

NiNi 

I watched that entire show specifically because they told me that line was in it.

Ben 

She, NiNi was like, Shan and Ben are just cackling. This has to be ridiculous if the two of them have completely lost composure over it. And she was not let down. 

We love the term BGP because it's about the performance of the relationship for consumption. Shan, please announce our winners.

Shan 

This year's BGP award goes to Daou and Offroad, the only potential winners of our hearts.

NiNi 

I have to agree, there wasn't even a question. This was definitely Daou and Offroad’s to lose this year because, sir, the performance is performance-ing.

Ben 

They got a really solid outing with Century of Love despite everything that we now know was happening on that set and around that production. And they have continued to make their music and handle their performances, and they're coming to America this year. That's a huge deal.

Shan 

They have a fan meet in the United States that is already sold out. These boys are making moves.

Ben 

I'm very excited for them. Also up for consideration were Chris Chiu, aka Modi, and Kurt Huang for Unknown the series, because they went way hard on their Taiwanese BGP. Tumblr may not have been paying that much attention to it, but those boys were working very hard. And of course, we're going to acknowledge Yin and War, who got a whole show financed on BGP alone.

NiNi 

That is impressive.

Shan 

Pretty impressive.

Ben 

All right, our final award, our most fun award. We are handing out the Blorbo of the Year Award. This is for the character that took over your brain and you just could not let them go. Every time someone tried to take it from you, you just bit down harder and shook.

Shan 

Ben, would you like to announce the winner?

Ben 

The winner of the Blorbo of the Year award goes to Go Young from Love in the Big City. [air horn] What a great year for us and that character.

NiNi and Shan in unison

He is the moment. [all laugh]

NiNi

Oh my gosh, I can't get it out of my head. You owe me a coke.

Ben 

Yeah, it's gotta be a coke because you guys can't have any more drinks after Friday night. [laughs]

NiNi

Oh my god, no more, no more, no more drinks, no more.

Shan 

Keep it, keep it to soda, non-alcoholic. Nope.

Ben 

Go Young was so important to us. He is one of the most dynamic and complicated queer characters we got to experience this year. I am so thankful that despite all of the drama, we were able to get Nam Yoon Su and friends’ version of these characters. My goodness.

Shan 

I feel unbelievably blessed that they got an actor of Nam Yoon Su’s caliber to play him in the drama. I never in my wildest dreams could have expected that.

NiNi 

And he put his neck, his back, his pussy, and his crack into that.

Shan 

Holy shit. Me and NiNi are kdrama watchers. We have seen him in other work. He transformed himself for this role. It was impressive shit.

Ben 

Our runner up, who we had a great deal of discussion about and who almost won this award until like five minutes before this recording, was Dynamite from Cooking Crush, another complicated queer character with a ton of heart that we deeply loved. I've been thinking about this boy all year.

Shan 

As often is the case when a character you love is misunderstood by others, it makes you love them even more fiercely. That definitely came up with Dynamite.

Ben 

A lot of you don't watch anime, but Twig and I were not gonna let this go unremarked. We wanted to acknowledge Hisashi from Twilight Out of Focus, along with Shion, who was my favorite boy from that show. I love that pink Twig so much! He said, I'm going to high school and I'm gonna get me a motherfucking boyfriend. And he did.

Shan 

The pink twink!

Ben

I love that pink twink so much! He said, I'm going to high school and I'm gonna get me a motherfucking boyfriend. And he did.

Shan

He did. He did it all.

NiNi 

Good job, anime twink. I think there is a missing person here. I can't believe that Ben left this one out considering how he started the year. Aoyanagi Hajime?

Ben 

He's not on my Blorbo list. I think about that boy a lot. But does he take over my whole soul like these boys? He does not.

NiNi 

Mmm, interesting.

Ben 

I admire him deeply, and I think Nachika did a great job with him, but they're getting the sequel, so. It ain't over yet! [laughs]

Shan 

We'll get to talk about him again.

NiNi 

We're gonna talk about them in 2024 and 2025. Fantastic.

Ben 

I'm winning. I might not see Go Young ever again, but I'ma see my boy again this year. A win for me.

NiNi 

Excellent, good job.

Congratulations to the winners of all of our fan awards and our runners-up. These are not VIIBs so you do not get a plate but we will figure out something, I don't know.

Ben 

I'm gonna send you a cup.

Shan 

Souvenir mug!

NiNi

At least it's not a koozie. A koozie is just disrespectful. We discussed this before.

Ben 

I know that if we sent Gap Jakarin a mug that said Best Boy, he would absolutely show it on the IG.

Shan 

He totally would and he’d pose with it!

NiNi 

I believe that. 100% he would totally do it. Maybe, maybe he would even put it next to his bicep.

Shan 

Maybe we should consider sending it.

[Ben laughs]

NiNi 

And I would have a plotz moment. He's large, people, you know how I feel about the large ones.

00:55:49 QL Resolutions

Ben 

It's time for our QL resolutions. Shan has pulled up the record on the things we said we would do for this year. It's time for the call-outs. We'll start with me. 

Shan, proceed.

Shan 

All right, so Ben stated a couple resolutions last year. His kind of not that serious one was he said he will watch 100 shows in 2024. And his second, which he was more serious about, is that he would be backing off of shows when he's getting aggravated with them sooner than he used to and just being more willing to stop watching shows. 

So Ben, you've definitely failed the first goal, but I think you did good on the second one.

Ben 

I did great. I engaged with 75 Asian QLs this year, but I dropped 26.

Shan 

That's big for you. That was a big mental wall that you had to move through this year and you did a great job, bestie.

NiNi 

Four for you again, Glen Coco. Four for you.

[Ben laughs]

Shan 

Are you feeling better now that you started backing off shows you're not liking?

Ben 

Honestly, yeah, I feel way better that I'm recognizing when a show is irritating me and I'm not forcing myself to watch it for this weird sense of ego. Like, “It's really important that I say something about this.” I don't care anymore. Who cares? It sucks. I'm not writing about this. 

The core of what I want to do is, I want to convince uninitiated BL viewers to watch BL. There is no value for me in watching a show that I despise or just isn't working for me, because I'm not using it as a reference to try and get people who might like BL to watch BL. I'm not gonna ask them to watch a mid-tier BL. So it gets dropped.

Shan 

All right, NiNi, in January, 2024, you said your resolution for the year was that you were gonna stop picking on New Siwaj. Let's check in on that, how you feeling?

NiNi 

I definitely had a great time with a New Siwaj show this year and talked about it on the show. These resolutions do have power so you gotta be real careful when you make them. I won't say entirely that I have stopped picking on New Siwaj. I'm still gonna pick on him if he deserves it. But I liked something that he did this year.

Ben 

Don't worry. He definitely deserves it.

Shan 

But you found something nice to say about him this year. You did.

NiNi 

I did find nice things to say about him this year. So I think that I have kept that resolution.

Shan

We did great this year guys, because my resolution from last year was to be more aware of when I'm getting no joy out of a show and cut it off and not feel bad about not finishing it. And I did that this year. I also got better at not starting shows I didn't think I was going to like. And I think that that was a good and healthy choice and I'm glad that I did it because as we've been talking about, the genre just keeps getting bigger. There are so many shows. We can't watch everything and we can't make ourselves miserable trying to force ourselves to watch the things we're not enjoying.

I'm real proud of us. I think we did good on our resolutions this year.

NiNi 

Excellent, good job. So let's look ahead. What are the resolutions that we're all making this year 2025?  

Ben?

Ben 

I have no fucking idea. What should I do?

Shan 

Do you have something about how you wanna write or how you wanna engage on Tumblr?

Ben 

I'm probably going to focus on writing more reviews this year. I stopped doing Stray Thoughts but I don't want to stop writing about things I loved. I think I'm gonna push myself to write more reviews and stuff. I think I'm going to start writing on Tumblr more about Western stuff. I think I'm going to start writing more reviews about more generalized queer work that I'm engaged with. That'll probably be my thing this year, writing more thoughtful pieces about work after it's done instead of yapping about it in real time.

NiNi 

Okay, Shan, how about you? What are you resolving to do this year?

Shan

I was thinking about this a bit. I think there's a couple things on my mind. I want to continue quitting shows if I'm really just getting no joy out of them. I want to continue being more selective about what I start in the first place. Another thing I've been doing more of lately that I think is working for me and that I want to continue is waiting to binge shows that I suspect I will not enjoy very much week to week. For me, it makes a real difference how I watch a show, because if I'm watching weekly and participating in a weekly discussion, I'm going to naturally think more about the show, I'm gonna dig into it more. And when these shows are kind of weak or mediocre, I'm spending an awful lot of time thinking about what isn't working. So, I'm trying to identify those shows where I just can tell I'm gonna have a better time if I get it over with quick instead of stretching it out. 

I also wanna stay committed to continuing to have variety in my media diet. I want to continue to watch things outside of QL, want to be better about continuing to mix in Western shows here and there. If you just watch too much of the same thing all the time, you really lose perspective. So I wanna be attentive to that this year and make sure I'm changing it up.

Ben 

You heard it here, friends. Shan is joining me in watching over 200 movies a year!

NiNi 

I'm not sure that's exactly what she said, bestie. [laughs]

Ben 

She said she wants to mix it up! I got a great Indonesian film for you to watch.

Shan

I will say this. This is my big gap. I just don't watch many movies. I like long-form stories. 

Ben

Mm-mm. I’m challenging you, Shan. It's not like I hate movies. You’re gonna watch some movies with me, Shan. I watched a great Chinese film from 2015 last night! 

Shan

Ben’s resolution is to force Shan to watch movies. I don’t hate movies. They just don't fill my soul the same way, you know? They're just here and gone so quick.

NiNi 

Yeah, if I really love something, I definitely need to sit in it for a while. So I am definitely more on the long-form storytelling side of things, as well.

Ben 

A great film just stays with you forever. All right, we're starting with Ghost Dog.

Shan

All right, you can make your list. NiNi, what’s yours?

NiNi

My resolution this year is to finally watch some of the shit I have been meaning to watch. My watch lists keep growing and growing and growing and I need to put some time and effort into actually watching some of this shit. Some of it because Ben is going to stop talking to me if I don't watch it. And we can't have that.

Ben 

It's true! I'm glad you recognized that that is a real outcome!

NiNi 

There's definitely some things that are on the list I gotta get past. I think I've finally gotten past the uncanny valley effect so that I can watch Light On Me. And I'm gonna watch Eternal Yesterday. Finally, I am gonna watch Rainbow Prince.

Shan 

I forgot you haven't watched Eternal Yesterday?! 

Ben

I haven’t!

Shan

Oh my god.

NiNi 

To be fair to me, I do not think that is the thing for me to have watched when I was in the mental state that I was in for most of last year.

Shan 

It's very true. You need to wait for the right moment, but I'm excited for you to watch it.

NiNi 

I am looking forward now that I'm feeling mentally better to getting into some of the things that I have meant to watch, but just not been able to hit play on. Like I said, these resolutions have power, so It's definitely happening this year.

Ben 

I'm excited. My resolution is to torment Shan into watching movies. That's great. I feel good about this one.

Shan 

He's getting revenge because I have forced him to like kdramas and he's mad.

NiNi 

You have gotten Ben to watch kdramas, cdramas.

Ben 

I have watched Goblin, I watched The Rebel Princess. What else did you fucking force me to watch? School 2013. That is like 6,000 hours of TV. You owe me a few movies.

Shan

I sure did! School 2013. He's starting Healer again. Listen, the truth is that Ben likes the kdramas. He hates that he likes them, but he likes them.

Ben

They're just so fucking long. I just spent two hours on a fucking episode of a kdrama. I could have watched one of my fucking movies during this time.

NiNi 

Speaking of movies, y’all have got to watch Paradise of Thorns as soon as you're able.

Shan 

As soon as it's out.

Ben 

I believe it becomes available very soon after we finish recording this.

Shan 

Yeah, I'm excited to watch that one. And I still need to watch How to Make Millions When Grandma Dies. 

NiNi 

Have you not watched that yet?

Shan

No, it was only on New York screens for like a few days and I didn't make it during.

Ben 

We have literally not had access in the US, girl! Like this, it's one of those things where like I've been intentionally waiting because we know it's coming to American distro.

NiNi

It's on that Oscar shortlist, so it's definitely coming.

Shan

Yeah, we need it. It's gonna come for sure. It'll be in theaters and I'll go watch it.

01:04:45 - Affirmations and Hopes for the Future

Ben 

Okay, affirmations for the year. Things that we really liked that we would like to see more of. Number one, Kongthup Productions. Good job this year, guys.

Shan

We love them.

NiNi 

We do. This is the studio that produced Knock Knock Boys!, Monster Next Door. There was a GL. 

Ben 

Apple My Love.

NiNi

Apple My Love, yeah.

Ben 

They have been a really fun breath of fresh air in the genre this year, and I really hope that whoever is having fun funding them is getting returns so that they can keep doing that.

Shan 

They are out here producing original scripts that are interesting and that have things to say.

Ben 

Next, despite how much I deeply despised My Love Mix Up Thailand, I would like to continue to see more of these cross-country collaborations. There were a lot of interesting results we got from that this year. We got Unknown the series out of it. We got Love in the Air: Koi No Yokan. 

Shan

I loved it.

Ben 

We got Cherry Magic Thailand. And we got a couple of interesting projects where it was kind of funded in both places. Like Eccentric Romance, Meet You at the Blossom, Battle of the Writers. There may have been Chinese money involved in that one.

NiNi

There definitely was.

Ben 

It's very interesting seeing these sort of cross-cultural collaborations. And even within the countries, Oxin Films and, what is the other group's name? They teamed up and made Haunted Hearts. It wasn't good, but they worked with someone else.

Shan 

I'm interested in these productions adapting works from other countries in these kind of joint funding models. Love in the Air Koi was great because the MeMindY team was deeply involved in that production and there was a lot of cross marketing. They had actors from the original Love in the Air Thailand cameo on the Japanese show. It was cool to see that kind of cooperation going on.

Ben 

Lastly, and we say this every year, more GLs. There needs to be way more lesbians in this genre than there are.

Shan 

And we need to give them good stories.

NiNi 

And even though there was a ramp up this year, because there was actually quite a bit of GL this year, I can't point to one GL that I saw or was truly that interested in this year that really hooked me.

Ben 

She Loves to Cook happened this year.

NiNi 

I mean, yes, yes, okay. She Loves to Cook, She Loves to Eat, but that goes in the category, the same category as What Did You Eat Yesterday? It's eternal, it's everlasting.

Ben

I'm sorry, you didn't think Chaser Game W changed the face of the game?

NiNi

No.

Shan 

There were a lot of GLs this year, but most of them had, like, really terrible writing. What's wild to me, and this has been a really interesting thing that we've started seeing in the recent months. These shows, even when they're not very good in terms of the quality of the story, they're really popular because the fans are so thirsty for this content. The QL viewership wants GL and these studios need to put some real resources behind making these shows and making them good because there is a lot of potential there.

NiNi

I think GL's kind of following the trajectory that BL followed, which is a shame because BL sort of set the trajectory already, so they could have shortcutted all of that.

Shan 

Can we not just skip to the good content part?

Ben

Well, they did try to make GL SOTUS, so hang in there, girls. [everyone laughs]

That's going to end it for us. We will see you all in the coming weeks as we make our way through the VIIB Awards. I'm very excited.

NiNi 

And a little super special little treat for you before we get to the VIIBs, which I will not spoil but it's gonna be fun. 

That is going to wrap us up on our Year In Review. Oh my god guys, another year. This is our third Year In Review.

Ben 

My goodness.

NiNi 

Absolutely wild. This is our 50-something episode. We're getting up to 60. We're about to be retirees up in here. We love it. 

See you guys next time, we out. Say bye to the people, Shan.

Shan 

Bye people!

NiNi

Say bye to the people, Ben.

Ben

Peace!

[canmom]

Hello! I absolutely love your blog, everything from your festival recounts to animation analysis and programming (one of tumblr's recommended posts was the one where you made your own rasteriser, and I liked your attitude in what I've read so much that I'm gonna attempt to conquer my 3-year-long grudge against using opengl during college and do something similar now that I'm a bit older and have no deadlines :D).

But anyway, I have 2 questions (sorry if there's easily accessible answers, tumblr search is not helping): 1. During your animation nights, does the screen stay black while everyone watches their own video while you provide commentary? I haven't caught any yet but maybe someday! And 2. do you have any youtube channels or just one-off video essays that you like that also cover animation/directors? Or, even programming lol.

Sorry for the long ask have a nice day!

hiii! i'm very touched that you like my dorky eclectic blog <3

For the Animation Nights, I just stream the video over Twitch from local sources on my computer, typically by playing the video in mpv and recording it in OBS. This is obviously not ideal from a video quality perspective, but it's the easiest way to watch video in sync without making everyone download files in advance. Then we all chat in the Twitch chat box (in large part to crack stupid jokes, it's not that highbrow lmao). I've gotten away with it so far!

As for youtube channels, I can recommend...

anime production/history (i.e. sakuga fandom)

SteveM is likely the most sakuga-fan affiliated anituber. He makes long, well-researched and in-depth videos on anime history, usually themed around a particular director or studio.

Pyramid Inu might be my fave anituber - very thoughtful analysis of Gundam, obscure mecha anime and oldschool BL and similar topics. tremendously soothing voice too.

The Canipa Effect does excellent deep dives into the production of specific shows, both western and anime. I appreciate the respect he gives to the Korean animators of shows like AtlA in particular!

Sean Bires's 2013 presentation on sakuga is pretty foundational to this whole subcultural niche, and a great place to get an introduction to the major animator names to know and significant points in the history of anime. unfortunately a couple of the segments got slapped down by copyright but the rest holds up!

animation theory (for animators and aspirants)

I'm going to focus here on resources that are relevant to animation in general, and 2D animation. if I was going to list every Blender channel we'd be here all week :p

New Frame Plus is one of the best channels out there for game animation, describing in tightly edited videos how animation principles work in a game context and analysing the animation of various games. highly recommend

Videogame Animation Study is similar, examining the animation of specific games in detail

the 'twelve principles of animation' (defined by Disney's Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas) remain the standard approach to animation pedagogy; there are various videos on them, but Alan Becker (of Animator vs Animation) has quite a popular series. I haven't actually watched these but many people swear by them! Dermot O'Connor expands the list to 21. Note that some of the terminology can be a little inconsistent between different animators - c.f. 'secondary motion'...

Dong Chang is an animator at Studio NUT, who produces a lot of fantastic, succinct videos on standard techniques in the anime industry, timesheet notations, etc. etc. Studio Bulldog, a small anime studio, are a good complement; they focus more on douga than genga and are generally a bit more traditional.

programming

big topic here, I'm going to focus on game dev and tech art since that's my field. but also some general compsci stuff that's neat

SimonDev - graphics programmer with a bunch of AAA experience, fantastic explanations of advanced optimisations and some of the more counterintuitive aspects of rendering

Acerola - graphics programmer who makes very detailed guides to a variety of effects with a very rapid and funny 'guy that has seen monogatari' editing style. When he's good, he's really good. His video on water is probably the best one I've seen (though I can recommend a couple of others).

TodePond - the most charming, musical videos about recursion and cellular automata you've ever seen. less programming tutorial and more art in themselves.

Ben Eater - known for his breadboard computer series, a fantastic demonstration of how to go from logic gates up to the 6502 with actual hardware. worth watching just for how clean he puts the wires on his breadboards like goddamn man

Sebastian Lague, Useless Game Dev - both do 'coding adventure' style videos where they spend a few weeks on some project and then document it on Youtube, resulting in a huge library of videos about all sorts of fascinating techniques. great to dive into

Freya Holmér - creator of the 'shapes' library, makes videos on mathematical programming, with gorgeously animated vector graphics. Her video on splines is a particular treat.

There are definitely many more channels I can recommend on these subjects, but I'll need to dig into my history a bit - unfortunately I need to rush out right now, but hopefully that should be good to be getting going with!

[summerofofelia]

My BL faves of 2024

We’re coming to the end of 2024 and so I’m reflecting on all the BLs I watched. I went through a major GMMTV phase in the middle of the year because I was super sad about life and distracted myself by going, “hey, what if I watched all the GMMTV BLs chronologically?” And for some reason I was like Yes. That sounds like a Good Idea. I ended up watching 21 and a half (the half is Cupid’s Last Wish lol).

But if we’re talking about actual BLs released in 2024 that I watched, here are my faves:

Favourite 2024 BL -

Four Minutes

What I loved about Four Minutes is that it existed in the morally grey. It dwelt in the cracks between black and white. It was told through the eyes of dying men reliving their deepest regrets and imagining themselves to be softer, better men.

The sex scene in episode 4 is my favourite sex from all the BLs I’ve watched this year. The juxtaposition between the dark, ugly world Great and Tyme find themselves in and the tenderness with which they treat each other in that moment is beautiful. And the fact that it was Great’s reimagination makes it so tragic.

Four Minutes ripped my heart out, played volleyball with it, stamped on it several times for good measure then shoved it back into my chest. And I thanked them for it.

I know that as the show ran its course, opinions began to divide, but for me, the only “bad” thing about it was that it was only eight episodes long.

Also the lighting design was *chef’s kiss*

My Top 5 BLs of 2024:

1. Four Minutes

2. My Stand-In

3. The Time of Fever

4. See Your Love

5. Century of Love

Favourite non-2024 BL:

My Personal Weatherman

Non-2024 runner ups:

Tale of a Thousand Stars (the scene where Tian tries to count all the stars broke me)

Dark Blue Kiss (I stand with my cancelled wife Pete)

Comfort rewatches:

History 3: Trapped

Bad Buddy

The Eclipse

And now for the awards…

Best Kiss - San & Vee (Century of Love, episode 1)

Special mention - Hotae & Donghui (The Time of Fever, episode 4)

Best Sex Scene - Great and Tyme (Great’s redo, episode 4) (4 Minutes)

Best “Alternative” Sex Scene - San’s wet dream (the one where Vee was an evil sexy nine tailed fox) (Century of Love)

Special mention - Fadel “taking care of himself” (The Heart Killers)

Best Health Code Violation - Oab and Plawan (This Love Doesn’t Have Long Beans)

Most Unhinged Babygirl - Ming (My Stand-In)

Poorest Little Meow Meow - Fadel (The Heart Killers)

Special mention - Great (Four Minutes)

Best Side Couple Give This Pairing Their Own Show Right Now No Seriously I’m Not Kidding GIVE IT - Fan x Tang/Aou x Boom (We Are)

Best Couple That Had Me, A Grown Ass Woman, Squealing And Kicking My Feet At 1am - Sean & Shaopeng (See Your Love)

Best BL That Made Me Feel So Soft And Warm But Also Shattered Me - The Time of Fever

Best BL I Watched Hunched Over On My Phone In The College Library Because I Couldn’t Wait To Get Home And Watch It Every Week - Jack & Joker

Best In The Context Of A BL I’ll Roll With It But If A Dude Did This In Real Life I’d Be Like BOY BYE - Methas buying JJ’s place of work like it’s no big deal (big yikes) (This Love Doesn’t Have Long Beans)

But let us not cast real world judgment on fictional characters. It ruins the vibes.

Best Okay This Isn’t A BL But My God This Ship Made Me Discover New Colours I Didn’t Know Existed - Zhao Yuanzhou and Zhou Yichen (Fangs of Fortune)

Most Tragic Case Of Second Lead Syndrome - Su Yin (Meet You At The Blossom)

Best Somebody Get HR On The Phone NOW - Elyes and Pat (Bad Guy My Boss)

Best Use Of Height Difference - Sean & Shaopeng (See Your Love)

And finally the very special award for Holy Shit My Life Will Never Be The Same, This Series Has Changed The Trajectory Of My Entire Existence goes to…

Word of Honor and The Untamed (don’t ask me to choose they both made me feel the full spectrum of human emotion)

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

Rose Recaps 2024 - Rose-Tinted Glasses

Post your most popular and/or favourite edit/gifset/analysis for each month (it’s okay to skip months!) @troubled-mind made her own year summary, and I wanted to play to. I want to look back and see what I did and kinda give myself a pat on the back. I've been feeling not that inspired about giffing lately so this might help.

January

Most Popular: Myungha is all of us

Favourite: The Glitch

This one took me a long time to make but I had so much fun. It was a request and I immediately knew what I wanted it to look like, adding the red flare, but then I actually had to make it, which is when I get in trouble, because there are only so many hours in the day and I'm never happy. But I'm really happy with this one.

February

Most Popular: Is the magic gone? - Cherry Magic Thailand, EP 11

Favourite: The End

Yes, it's Love for Love's Sake again. I adore this set. I just love how it turned out. I had a good time trying to get the look I wanted. And of course, them. I love them.

March

Most Popular: S01E06 | S02E06 | S03E06 - Young Royals

Favourite: "So, I've been searching all this time…for someone who would polish off that dish with me."

This show changed me and healed me and it all started here. I love this show too much for words, but I did try to explain my love for it in my second favourite post from this month. It's magic.

April

Most Popular: Silent Screaming - Unknown, EP 9

Favourite: Ok this isn't exactly my post or just one but all the answers from #Rose's Day of Asks, April 2nd. It was just so much fun to go on a ask spree, and get to know some people better and get show recs and just generally interact more. It broke my brain a little but it was such a fun day for me. Also it was a fun excuse to just ask questions, because sometimes I feel awkward dropping by someone's inbox to ask some random question. May

Most Popular: Domesticity - Unknown, EP 12

Favourite: "The ocean is for contemplating things bigger than we are..."

This is such a special set to me. I did it as a gift to the always kind @twig-tea and I love it a lot. She loves the sea and so do I, so to work with it in different shows and just look at it while I was making this set was such a treat for me as well. This was the post that started it.

June

Most Popular: Oyei & Cher - Wandee Goodday, EP 6

Favourite: The 25:00 in Akasaka running.

This show got me so bad. This post basically started because of @lurkingshan tags on another post and then because @colourme-feral asked me about who would do the running in the inevitable running to the beloved moment. And it was fun discussion with great additions from @lurkingshan here and @emotionallychargedtowel take here.

July

Most Popular: Ayaka is in Love with Hiroko, EP1

Favourite: Zettai BL is back!!!

I had a blast giffing this show. It was just great seeing my faves again and getting a new fave in Hatano. Many thanks to @ikeoji-subs for making it possible for us to watch it.

August

Most Popular: 'Friendship is nice, isn't it?' - I Hear the Sunspot, EP 8

Favourite: Rose Watches OJBL - The Novelist: Playback (2021)

Never was I happier to have started the ojbl project that when I finished this series. I love it so much. And this project is dying down because I've seen most of the good ones, and will make my way through others more slowly that I had before. But this project was definitely one of my personal highlights from last year.

September

Most Popular: THE Kiss - The Time of Fever, EP 4

Favourite: 'You've grown up well, Go Hotae.'

I am so critical of my work but damn do I love this set so much. The colours just make me so happy. And them of course. No secret that I absolutely lost my mind with them.

October

Most Popular: The amazing Nam Yoon Su - Love In The Big City, EP 1

Favourite: So I've been thinking about time.

The day I was so smart. I was very proud of myself for figuring this out. It seems silly now, but it was driving me crazy and I felt really good when I finally cracked it. This show also occupied so much of my brain.

November

Most Popular: Parallels LITA - Love in the Air Koi, EP 1

Favourite: Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park | PART THREE

This show gave me so much pain, but it got me doing something different. I really loved making these. And this one was the best of one. I am so rusty using photoshop that it was a challenge at first, and it took ages but it was also really fun. I love these edits a lot.

December

Most Popular: Panther Eyes - Caged Again, EP 6

Favourite: Miseinen parallels - Episode 1 | Episodes 1, 2, 4, 5, 6

I had been paying attention to the places Jin was visiting in the first episode to spot them when they appeared again, so i was very happy when I was finally able to collect them all.

Well that's it for yearly recaps I guess. I feel like I'm getting better at this giffing thing and also writing some thoughts down, even if I still feel intimidated by some people. I had fun here last year and I hope this one continues to be great. I just need to find some inspiration and start giffing again properly. Have a wonderful year everybody! 💜

Also, if anyone wants to do this consider yourself tagged! and you can use this site where you can look for your top posts of each month.

[slonekaru]

15 Day BL Challenge - The Sequel

Back in March the lovely @negrowhat decided we needed some enrichment in our Tumblr enclosure and gave us 15 questions that I very much enjoyed doing and also reading everyone else's answers!

So here is part two, my contribution to keeping us busy!

Anyone can take part! Just answer the questions a day at a time, no rush. Start when you can, take as long as you want. I've labeled my questions Day 16 to 30 as Eboni's were Day 1 to 15.

Add the tag #BLChallenge2k24 to your posts so we can find them all and if you missed the first 15 Days Challenge back in March here is the post, feel free to do them as well if you have time. Or if you just want to see the previous answers look up the tag.

So without further ado....

Day 16: What show has taken you by surprise this year?

Day 17: What's your most returned-to / comfort BL show?

Day 18: What show are you waiting most (im)patiently for?

Day 19: If you could turn any Non-BL show into a BL, which would you choose?

Day 20: Which series do you wish had more episodes than it did or you wish had another season?

Day 21: If you could ship any two actors in a BL pairing who would it be? (OK someone messaged me - so just to clarify I don't mean ship the actors, I mean create a new BL pairing)

Day 22: Day 2 revisited - Fave Rookie Actor Pairing?

Day 23: Most disappointing ending to a series?

Day 24: What Storyline/trope do you enjoy and wish to see more of?

Day 25: Which BL actor do you want to see more of?

Day 26: Top 3 Most Stylish Boys?

Day 27: Top 3 BL Kisses? (Yeah I know some of you are going to struggle with this!)

Day 28: What Love scene gripped you?

Day 29: Best Wingman?

Day 30: Top 3 shows to introduce people to BL?

[namtanlovesfilm]

Can you recommend me any BL or Queer dramas / series that is just pure fluff and soft without much sexual scenes? Just been wanting to watch something not to heated

um... yes! I very much can :) (although shows that fit this description are actually quite rare to find so I had to rack my brain for this lol)

WHOLESOME FLUFFY BL SHOWS

COOKING CRUSH

I mean... as soon as you said 'pure fluff & soft' I thought of this show, bc it's the LEGIT definition of it! it's adorable & hilarious and truly has the healthiest bl ship ever who is composed of the two cutest patooties. it's a true romcom bc it nails both the comedy & romance elements and is just THE feel good show for me :)

MY SCHOOL PRESIDENT

this is another show that has very little drama or un-cute moments. the characters are adorable, the friendship is top-tier, and the slice of life aspect really invests you in the story. definitely will have you smile most (if not all) of the time!

MY RIDE

this show is my little underrated gem! it does have SOME drama, but it's mostly about two overtly kind main characters who fall in love despite odds. it's so cute, so wholesome, and genuinely just a fucking good time if you wanna cheer up :)

OUR DINING TABLE

another show that does have some deeper, sadder moments (almost all shows do lol) but is overall a beautiful story of healing through community & food with, again, incredibly kind and lovable characters which I could not recommend more!

WE ARE

this show is one I had no expectation for... except perhaps that I thought it would suck. however, while it is in no way a masterpiece & will frankly go down as a forgettable show for me, it was actually REALLY enjoyable. this show truly has close to zero drama and is just about love & friendship. frankly the friendship element is what did it for me, paired with the unique & lovable characters. this is just a great time if you want to turn your brain off & enjoy the cuteness imo (there's a couple sex scenes tho but nothing very explicit)

WHAT DID YOU EAT YESTERDAY

yet ANOTHER show about food lol, bc one thing about food bls, there's 500 of them & they're all super cute and wholesome lol it's law :') this one is the OG, it's as non-sexual as it can get since there's barely any intimacy, but it's very wholesome and has 2 seasons + 1 movie + 1 special ep. you just follow this older gay couple through life as they cook their awesome recipes while still getting some social commentary on being lgbtq+ in japan, it's just... I fully want this show to keep getting seasons forever, I love it so much! (also idk if you're interested in gls but 'she loves to cook and she loves to eat' is also a show with the same premise but wlw & I adore it!)

THE NEW EMPLOYEE

this one is also an underrated gem of mine even though it's a very overlooked kbl :( it's a very simple story that is explicitely lgbtq+ (very rare for kbls) & the couple really is the cutest with great chemistry! I really enjoyed this one & would recommend it :)

I WILL KNOCK YOU

now... with a title like this, you might be wondering if this is truly a "wholesome" and "pure" show... IT IS! this show is the proof of the kind of silliness thai dramas can offer, and why they're so great. it's dumb and frankly weird at times, but it's also one of the funniest thai comedies ever & has great character growth! despite featuring SOME violence, it is actually just a really wholesome romcom, and the character of noey is frankly iconic af. one of my fave niche bl shows!

RAK DIAO

speaking of dumb, silly, wholesome comedy... rak diao is the first (and still the only lol) thai bl sitcom. it follows a very simple story with almost no drama and has a very lovable & fun main character. this is such a cute show which is, again, way too underrated!

BON APPETIT

what did I say about food shows & being wholesome? yeah, that! this one does have SOME drama, more than the other shows featured on this list, but it's very quickly squashed down & also so predictable I don't think it will influence your mood whatsoever. this is overall very cute & wholesome, although a bit basic. but the chemistry is very good so I'd recommend it!

LOVE SICK

now, I've mentioned over the years (MANY TIMES) about how love sick is my comfort show. yes, it's old & the camera work, acting, etc. are MILES behind current bl shows, and yes, it's actually not that wholesome bc they're cheating on their girlfriends the whole time, but... this is like the OG my school president, but even more lovable imo. it's a true slice of life, and the characters are all so cute & fun, the friendship literally carries the entire show & phunnoh are one of the most healthy ships ever (despite the affair!) this show has a lot of obstacles to enjoy it but imo it's worth it. I love it so much. it'll forever be super special for me :) also I feel like watching the first ever thai bl should be a rite of passage lol!

BOYS' LOCKDOWN

I had to mention at least one filipino bl here, and it's one that pretty much no one watched but I absolutely loved! this is soft & wholesome to the T, two guys accidentally meet during lockdown (bc they both are wearing masks with d*cks on them lmao this show is great) & fall in love but encounter difficulties meeting through quarantine. there's no drama, the chemistry is great, the story quite well written... it's so cute!

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

my love mix-up

star & sky: sky in your heart

papa & daddy

ossan's love

my secret love

takara & tamagi

our dating sim

destiny seeker

my mate match

[yinwaryuri]

Random QL Superlatives 2024

Got tagged by @baseballmomlesbiandad and yeah, I definitely have been wanting to do one of these, so let's do it before the year is out!

There were so many shows that happened this year, I literally had to make a list by scrolling through mass post editor to see what I had watched. I cannot keep time straight (or my watching habits lol)

Favorite New BL Pairing

TopMick

I think several people can agree with me, they swooped into this last quarter totally unknown and Every You, Every Me stole all of our hearts. As SunDol, PinFirst, XNamping, BlueSian, and PunInn???? All of those???? And both of them dealt with different flavors of queer men (and gender expression) so well. I would gladly be a third for XNamping or BlueSian in the fic of my dreams - I was drooling over each of them (BlueSian, you horny bitches, you made me feral like nothing else 🥵🫣). Namping especially, baby, you live in my heart forever. Honorable mention to Fiat Patchata, boy I've missed you! The Gifted lover in me will always miss my son Korn and Fiat was fantastic as him, and I loved seeing his characters here too.

Fave Guy Who Was In Everything

Title Kirati

I only watched Wandee Goodday, Kidnap The Series, and Pluto The Series with him in it, but he also was in We Are, Ploy's Yearbook, and Perfect 10 Liners. His 2024 schedule was booked! And for good reason. He's showing a fair amount of versatility and I have enjoyed every character he's gotten to play so far. I chose Blue to show though, because as someone on the ace spectrum, his character being an understanding partner to an asexual character meant so much to me. Plakao deserved it, and we were not disappointed.

Top-tier Crossdressing

P'Jessy/Jessie

The MomentTM, Miss Thang, Star of the Year, my pookie, sweetheart #1!!!!!!!!! We need her back. Just one chance???? I am blushing and giggling so hard as I write this asdlfkjclbndfldkfsdljd 🥰❤️💕😘😍💞💖💘

Most Comforting Watches

1000 Years Old/Monster Next Door

WeTV really put out some of the cutest couples (Caged Again is getting everyone on board hehe) and both PunYoh and GodDiew are so special to me. Let's give it up for the weakest vampire Pun and his collection of umbrellas, and his enduring love for Yoh, a silly boy obsessed with aliens. Big win for autism. Meanwhile, we have one of the sweetest romances by way of God and Diew learning how to communicate with each other and enjoy who the other person is despite vast differences in their personalities. Save that turtle though.

Best to Worst Grandma Awards

Jack's Ama - Jack & Joker: U Steal My Heart/ Ai-Oon and Oab-Oom's Yaai - Pluto The Series

Ama - I wish she'd adopt me. She is so understanding, hard-working, patient, supportive, and badass. A few months with her and my life would be sorted. And I'd do anything for her in return.

Yaai - Waste of a caretaker. It took me so long to even find a gif. I'm sending you back to the Laws of Attraction universe where you support your puppy dog grandson and his insane lawyer boyfriend, and play dress-up with Silvy Pavida Maya.

Gift Show of the Year

Meet You At The Blossom

UNCENSORED CHINESE BL IS OFFICIALLY IN!!!!! Boy was this whole thing fun. The hype beforehand, seeing the censors attempt to make it flop and getting the opposite effect, and getting one of the most unhinged shows for our viewing pleasure. Mercenary malewife x jingle bells for braincells, collarbones and torture, aphrodisiac sex, toxic yaoi, murder and betrayal, several kisses, and a happy ending!!!!! Sign me the fuck up a million times. Personal thanks to @guzhufuren for doing all the PR, where is your paycheck?

Unexpected Topic of the Year: Euthanasia

Spare Me Your Mercy/Every You, Every Me (implied)

I'm not here to really discuss the subject itself or which show did a better job with it, especially since Every You, Every Me left that factor up to interpretation (I'm including it anyway, even if it wasn't intended). What I appreciated in both shows was the empathy they showed toward the people whose conditions toward the end of their lives left them wanting to choose for themselves how things would end, and they showed loved ones around them supporting their decisions. I'm not an older queer who was around for most things regarding the HIV/AIDS pandemic, but the use of queer characters for these stories does hit a particular chord in regards to how important respecting the choices of the dying and their supporting circle should be.

Lookalikes?

Toh - Secret Crush On You/Kluer - This Love Has No Long Beans

Seng and Aon should do a show together as brothers. I am constantly on my actors-who-should-play-brothers agenda (ask @thisautistic), and they're on it. I could've added a lot more here, but I'm currently watching Secret Crush On You for the first time and immediately went 🫵 when I saw Toh. Also both of these boys are so precious to me.

Prettiest Mindfuck

Uranus 2324

I waited to receive this film for months and months and months after it was announced and then released and boy did I RECEIVE. FreenBecky really get to show off their chops in this. I loved how it straddled the line between sci-fi and psychological thriller on top of the sapphic romance. Kath and Lin are both fantastic characters in every single storyline. I especially enjoyed the part where they have guns with a bonus of Lin getting a knife. When do they get their action gl?

My wishes for 2025 in no particular order:

GIVE MEN MORE LONG HAIR. Namping and Sian were fantastic, Top Piyawat really gave us so much. I also found out that Sailub Hemmawich used to have long hair and I am so upset it's short now!!!!

More butches in GLs. Short-haired ones even. Jeab Lalana, thank you for existing; I am so excited for 3 Minutes 2 Love.

Give Papang a lead BL role! I'm going to apologize to all the PapangPodd girlies now, while it's great that they're a secondary couple, I just wanna finish the business he had with Pepper Phanuroj in Dangerous Romance. Pepper deserves a lead BL role as well! I'm excited with whatever is going on between him and JJ Chayakorn in The Heart Killers, and hell JJ can join Papang and Pepper. If GMMTV can come through on more polyamory like they're hinting at in Pluto, then we should have this. PapangPepperJJ 2025? Wow. I had some opinions there.

On that note, more polyamory in general

Boun's vampire show???? Is it still happening????? Pretty please????? Also can they get Boss Chaikamon to stay in it somehow? 🥺

All the Chinese QLs. Drown me in them until they absolutely take over my life

In my wildest dreams Oreo Puwanai gets out from Wabi Sabi and joins Yacht at GMMTV so we get the WaanTul story continuation I need desperately

I know everyone is saying this but: COOHEART ADULT ROLE 2025!!!!!! POR FAVOOORRRRR. DÁLE UN PROYECTO ADULTO 😤

Get my man Peter Knight back on my screen. Just wave a scene of him being a dj at a bar or something to get him interested, idc

Dancer BL! Like I previously mentioned in a post about Fiat, we have enough dancer boys to put in the bracket for this!

If I already mentioned you, considered yourself tagged (if you wanna). Also tagging: @sunshinesanctuary @loveable-sea-lemon @firstkant @writerwithoutsound @shubaka @benkaben @scarefox @dommingjeffsatur @chaotic-aro-incarnate @poetry-protest-pornography

[negrowhat]

BL Characters I Would Throw Hands For

tagged by @wen-kexing-apologist

Guy from My Dear Gangster Oppa. I mean...his man is a literally gangster so he doesn't need my protection but Guy is literally the sweetest lil nugget and he deserves nothing but love, respect, happiness, and all the time in the world. That being said...Wahl come to the front and collect this ass whooping.

Sky from Love in the Air. Between Rain and Prapai he's pretty much covered. But that boy has been through the fucking ringer and I will not tolerate any crap when it comes to that sweet boy. He is precious and a gift and should be treated like the ANGEL he is. I would kick teeth in for this boy.

Seo Hae Bom from Cherry Blossoms After Winter. I WOULD LITERALLY FIGHT HIS WHOLE HIGH SCHOOL CLASS FOR HIM! HE WAS SUCH A SWEET AND QUIET KID AND I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY HE WAS BEING BULLIED SO HARD! I WOULD OBLITERATE THAT ENTIRE HIGH SCHOOL FOR THAT SMOL BOY! Sorry...I got a lil heated.

Palm from Never Let Me Go. Ugh, I wanted him to care more about himself but since he puts everyone before himself I WILL FIGHT FOR HIM! He's more than capable of protecting himself but he's such a gentle bean and I love him and would like to hug him forever. I just feel like he needs protection.

Seo Jae Won from The Eighth Sense. I just want to fight damn near everyone in his friend group. DON'T THEY UNDERSTAND THAT JAE WON IS A SAD BOY!? The people around him were such a-holes my gawd. I just wanted to take him and Kim Ji Hyun and run away.

Jao from Secret Crush On You. There's a university of bitches whose asses need kicking. Jao is the sweetest boy ever and he's so relatable and he just wants to eat his snacks and help his besties. He literally don't bother nobody and yet every hoe got a problem with him. Well they bout to have a problem with these hands.

Tops from Ingredients the Series. No one bothers Tops but please believe if a BITCH even looks at my fave Tops Chef funny I'm throwing haymakers.

Kang Seo Joon from To My Star. IDK man, I just love him and I want him to be happy always and I would honestly fight for that man without hesitation. I wouldn't fight Ji Woo for him tho because honestly I feel like Seo Joon would tackle me before I tried but anyone else can catch this fade.

Nail from For Him. Nail is really just trying to mind his own business being the Bad Bitch he is and yet he attracts such pesky mens. Between is trifling ex and the crazy stalker dude who is friends with his new boo he's just not safe. Line them up and I'll fucking drop them for you Nail.

OPEN TAG! AIR OUT YOUR GRIEVANCES FRIENDS. LET ME KNOW WHO YOU WOULD BOX FOR!