#tragic bl

[absolutebl]

Tragic BL & BL With Strong Tragic Elements

This came from an anonymous ask and it is not my preferred style of BL. I am assuming the asker is already familiar with the dark side and moody arthouse smackdoodle, so I’m trying my attention to BL the borders between the dark and the light, sometimes because it’s not Japan and doesn’t feel compelled to stick to lanes.

The whole “my ghost boyfriend’ oeuvre

He's Coming to Me 

Peach of Time 

Something in My Room 

Ghost Host, Ghost House 

and all the original versions of this from China 

And tangential to this the “one outlives the other pining” take on the above

Dear Doctor I’m Coming For Your Soul 

Once Again

Kissable Lips

Currently airing Eternal Yesterday AKA Eien no Kino

Other’s that have tragic arcs or back stories or generally tug the heartstrings more than most BLs. 

Life: Love on the Line - there a strong theme of giving up and parting 

Gaya sa Peilikula - lots of trauma around identity 

ITSAY & Co. - the general hopelessness of first love 

Given - Mafuyu's dead lover and depression 

Color Rush - Yeon Woo’s desperation and fear of becoming the monster, similarly in #2 

To My Star 2 - just, sigh 

Gameboys - death in the pandemic and isolation of quarantine

Miracle of Teddy Bear

KinnPorsche’s VegasPete storyline 

Until We Meet Again’s KornIn storyline (of course) 

I cover dark BL from Japan here. 

Updated as of Dec 2022. I’ve no plans to keep this updated (since this isn' my favorite BL content). Feel free to comment with others or repost with adds to the list. 

(source) 

[divineandmajesticinone]

"I can't go back and fix it..."

[ahxiang]

tortured jin xiao bao..... for science

[khaoray]

I will. I will bring you back. And we will see each other again. I promise.

@asiandramanet april bingo: tropes & lgbtq+ rep

[apathetic-microwave]

They make me cry

[f4rm]

[kouraissant]

In the examination of a (love poem) name

On a name that was a love poem, On Yudrein Aile, On Eternity (Above) The Vine, Tennessee Williams / Chapter 445, Turning, 쿠유 / Dear [ ], Nick Lantz (2018) / Soft Human, Emery Allen / Handle with Care, Jodi Picoult / Headless John the Baptist Hitchhiking, C. T. Salazar / Maria, West Side Story (Below) Letters to Milena, Franz Kafka

[pharawee]

People say that if you hold your breath, ghosts won't be able to see you.

—THE HIDDEN MOON · เดือนพราง · Episode 01

[decepti-thots]

starscream was born too early to be a Tumblr sexyman specifically but you must understand. starscream has in spirit been a sexyman since the TF fandom had enough reach for everyone to share their sexyman vision for him. i got into TF via TFA in 2007, when Livejournal was still clinging on in the interstitial period when we were all moving away and ff.net was still where i was reading most of my fic. it was well established by then. it was an era when Armada starscream still had an influence on us all; the importance of Armada on the fandom understanding of Starscream simply cannot be underestimated, by the way, if you were there, you know. but even beyond that. half the shit you may think of as a Post Tumblr Fandom Phenomenon is nothing of the sort. they were doing that shit to my guy on geocities personal fic archives dated like, 2001. i have saved snapshots of NSFW fic archives hosted on literal actual porn webhosts (back in the days when that was a thing people did) featuring the most elaborately weird no homo m/m starscream fic you can imagine. so much of the TF Starscream Fanon Stuff TM predates every major platform we now even talk on. he has had this effect on particular parts of the fandom for like. thirty years now. a true constant. incredible, really. inspiring.

[rythyme]

The Fallen Angel is one of my favorite paintings to see adapted as fanart bc it slaps EVERY TIME but one of the biggest tragedies in my humble opinion is that most of you will never experience the phenomenal sluttery and homoeroticism of the Fallen Angel nude model painting scene in Not Me: The Series.

[functionalasfuck]

Love for Love’s Sake is really just out here giving us two people who have terrible self worth, who can’t understand how anyone could possibly love them, and making them fall in love with their mirror image. Therefore proving they are worth happiness and love.

[tomo-mogge]

Sigh…

They got me with their tragic and disgusting yaoi.

(/j i love em)

[heretherebedork]

And here we see, in action, Pete's greatest character flaw... his taste in men.

We get it Pete but maybe also talk to him about not raping people?

[joseigamer]

Patalliro! is fascinating to me because of stuff like this. It's unapologetically gay - even within its anime which aired during primetime hours in 1982 - in a way that many later BL manga would never be, like the ones from the early 2000s which would never dare to call their characters actual homosexuals. Patalliro has actually aged quite well in this regard, there's something comforting about how campy it is.

[byemambo]

KIM NU RIM AS DOHOE

Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo (2024) | 1.01

Ready to get my heart crushed by another Hwang Da Seul production </3

[pinkrosealice]

I have a rather wide and eclectic range of pieces of art, fiction, and media that I enjoy / find compelling.

That being said I don't think any other piece of media will ever top the emotions I felt reading Tokyo Babylon.

The chapter where Subaru channels the spirit of a woman's deceased daughter in an attempt to dissuade her from committing revenge on her daughter's killer, expecting the child's spirit to simply want her mother to be at peace but finding out that it was scared and confused and angry and crying out for her mother to avenge her. Then as he is having to feel those emotions probably as if they were his own considering that he's acting as a psychic medium, as he lies to this grieving woman in a kind hearted but ultimately misguided attempt to provide her a form of closure that she herself was not searching for in the first place.

And doing this breaks Subaru in a way that I don't think he fully ever recovers from. Because he knows on some level what he did was wrong, and for him to then be consoled by Seishirou.............

Like the philosophical discussion on the morality of lying and how we deal with grief and tragedy and Injustice, that goes on between these two men and image of Seishirou putting an exhausted and psychologically worn down Subaru to bed in such a gentle and intimate way...........

AND HOW ALL OF THIS IS COMPLETELY TURNED ON ITS HEAD AND JUXTAPOSED WITH THE FINAL REVEAL OF WHO SEISHIROU REALLY IS AND WHAT HE DOES TO SUBARU AND HOW THIS CHANGES HIM AS A PERSON!!!!!!!!

I can't, I can't!!!! It's just literally the peak of art exploring the human experience!!!!!!! Literally nothing else will top it for me.