#ql lists

The ones I can think of are

My School President (temple visit)

Big Dragon (temple visit)

To Sir With Love (as of ep 11 parents’ graves, could be more later)

Vegas and Pete in KinnPorsche (temple visit)

Porsche and Kinn in KinnPorsche (parents’ graves)

The Untamed (bowing to ancestors)

Cherry Magic Movie (temple visit)

sort of in Senpai, This Can’t Be Love (temple visit, but just for photos)

maybe I Told Sunset About You or Last Twilight in Phuket? (I can’t remember praying together specifically but it seems likely)

I feel like there must be others. @absolutebl? @heretherebedork? Anyone else?

Simple, answer the questions. @ some people. Include the tag 'g2ky BL mutuals 2022' on your post so we can find everyone's answers!

Thank you for the tags @negrowhat @callipigio @respectthepetty @lelephantsnail and @firstkanaphans! I loved reading your answers.

What has been the BL that took you by surprise this year?

I only started watching BL in July, so the genre as a whole took me as a surprise. And early on I didn't really know what to expect, so I wasn't really surprised by anything. But recently both Big Dragon and Eternal Yesterday have moved me in unexpected ways. Big Dragon because the story ended up being so different, and much more interesting, than the first episode led me to expect, and Eternal Yesterday because I started it having basically no idea what to expect and it's blown me away with it's storytelling and it's weird concept that somehow is tender and heartbreaking and funny and so very human.

What has been the BL that you felt a bit disappointed with this year?

Probably I would say Color Rush. I know it didn't come out this year, but that's when I saw it. It was one of the earliest BLs I watched, and I went into it with high expectations based on hearing great things about it and it just didn't work for me. I was intrigued by the concept, the execution just felt too sketched out to make it work for me. (Also I really wished that the only time it shifted into color was when the dude whose name and sci-fi identity I forget was actually seeing in color, and that it was in black and white for the rest. That alone would have made the world building feel more solid.) That said, I'm curious to re-watch it (since it's so short) and see if my opinion changes with a lot more BL under my belt.

If we're talking shows this year, probably Senpai This Can't Be Love! which started off intriguing, and then just kind of fizzled out. I didn't even watch the last two episodes. War of Y was more frustrating and infuriating, but I didn't have expectations for it in the first place so I wasn't that disappointed.

What has been your favorite BL this year?

AHH! How do I chose??? The ones I've given 10/10 have been: I Told Sunset About You, Bad Buddy, Old Fashion Cupcake, Utsukushii Kare (My Beautiful Man), Semantic Error, Blueming, and To My Star 2: Our Untold Stories. But even though I was a bit frustrated with the ending, the one that felt most like my show as I watched it week to week was The Eclipse. So maybe I will put that.

What are your favorite BL couples (not just of 2022)?

I made another post listing my top ten BL relationships so I will copy and paste it here. I don't know if my "couple" list would be different, but in making this one I was thinking specifically about the way they love each other, and if it felt like a love I believed.

Qi Zhang & Ye Guang (About Youth)

Pat & Pran (Bad Buddy)

Da-woon & Si-won (Blueming)

Mark & Vee (Love Mechanics)

Hira & Kiyoi (Utsukushii Kare/My Beautiful Man)

Nozue & Togawa (Old Fashion Cupcake)

Jae-young and Sang-woo (Semantic Error)

Seo-joon & Ji-woo (To My Star & TMS2)

Fighter & Tutor (Why R U?)

Akk & Ayan (The Eclipse)

I wrote that in October, so I'd now add See-eiw & Cake (My Only 12%) and Yai and Mangkorn (Big Dragon) to the list. And Mitsuru & Koichi (Eternal Yesterday) will probably end up on there once it finishes.

If you had to suggest a BL for someone what would it be?

Hmm. I'm taking this to mean someone who's never seen BL before. Probably Semantic Error or Old Fashion Cupcake. Both are really well crafted series, and are simple but still nuanced and interesting stories. I'd also put Bad Buddy on the list, in some ways it exists in conversation with other Thai BL, but it was the first I watched (besides ITSAY) and it still made sense to me and in a way that made it a good intro to Thai BL. There are many other shows that are a little odder or more difficult (ITSAY, Utsukushii Kare, Blueming) that I think could be a great introduction for the right person, but I wouldn't give them as a blanket rec.

And it's far, far too early to say as it's only been one episode, but if My School President keeps it up, that would be on the list as a tropey Thai high school BL expertly executed.

What's your non-BL favorite for this year?

I have watched very little that wasn't BL this year. But The Devil Judge, despite being pretty obviously a gay romance story under the censorship, isn't technically a BL so I will say that one. If I'm allowed to go back to fall of 2021, (it ended less than a year ago!) I will put Wheel of Time.

Thanks for the tag @purpleguitar!

Watching:

To Sir With Love — literally i’m taking a break in the middle of an episode to check tumblr.

Eternal Yesterday — it’s phenomenal. it makes me feel so many things.

Choco Milk Shake — i ❤️ milk. i have hope for the 11th episode, i think?

Why You… Y Me? — not primarily a bl, but the bl side characters are darling.

Between Us — i am watching without having seen much of UWMA. so far it works! i ❤️ winteam.

GAP — i love cats. and so i love sam.

Oh! My Assistant — cute! i like the assistant, and how gay they let him be. it’s a little slapstick and a little short for my tastes, but i think i will enjoy it.

My School President — the first episode was like the platonic ideal of a light-hearted high school bl. i ❤️ tinn & gun.

Older Shows I’m Slooowly Making My Way Through:

Vincenzo — i did not realize it was a comedy when starting. it’s great though.

Love By Chance — i love ae and pete (and the horny roommate). i’ve kind of stalled out though. took a break when mame started maming, and haven’t come back yet.

Cutie Pie — i have to be in the right mood to buy into the historical romance style of it all, but i generally like the characters.

Minato Shouji Coin Laundry — also stalled out but plan to finish. there are many things i love, but shin is the type of seme i want to throw in a lake, so it’s been hard to get through.

Hometown Cha Cha Cha — i started it like a year ago, before i even really knew what bl was. i liked it, but it’s not really made for binging, and then once i stopped i never went back. but both @petrichoraline and my sister-in-law recommended it to me recently, so i want to pick it up again.

Rewatching:

Nothing. There’s plenty I want to, but I’m just trying to keep up with the new stuff lol.

Plan To Watch:

Everything? Can I just say that? But also I’m trying not to add anything new right now because I need to do real world things. And I’ve noticed that, now that my initial hyper-fixation has ebbed, I get overwhelmed if I’m watching too much at once.

thank you for the tag @kireshai! I love your gifs, especially the tiger tattoo ;-)

Currently Watching

About Youth - I'm just about to watch the two new episodes, so I'm not fully up to date. But I adored the first two. I love all the characters, and the show keeps surprising me.

My Only 12% - I'm really excited to see where this one is going, although I'm assuming heartbreak is coming. But I love how real and grounded it feels, and all the friendships.

The Eclipse - I love many things about this show (and have written a lot about it), but something I adore is the way it gives equal weight to the queer romances and to its political story.

Takara kun to Amagi kun - After episode 3 I wrote: "[it] continues to be amazing. It’s such an intimate little show, focusing so closely on these teenagers and their emotions, and it does it so well."

War of Y - I had lots of feelings about the NottPan arc in New Ship. I will probably keep watching, at least if I end up subscribing to GaGaOOLaLa, but it's not a priority.

edit 9/6 - I forgot I'm also watching Love In the Air. edit 9/29 - oh, well, that's embarrassing. I just realized I used the poster for the wrong About Youth, and somehow didn't notice that a) it had none of the right actors, and b) it was in Korean. 😳 In my defense, both posters are pink and have "About Youth" written in a cursive script. And, honestly, I think the Korean poster fits the vibe of the Taiwanese show better than its own poster does. I only discovered this because Son Woo Hyun from To My Star is in the Korean one, and now I want to see it too but I can't find any info on it.

I think that's it for shows that are currently airing? I tend to be a binge watcher otherwise, although I've started and stopped but plan on finishing:

Not Me - I wasn't in the headspace for something so intense when I started, but I'm excited about it! Cutie Pie - It looks like ridiculous fun of the sort that's best in small doses. (my thoughts on its genre here), and Minato Shouji Coin Laundry - it looks really fascinating. Shin is the type of character that I find extremely annoying, but I think if I watch it after it's all out, and after reading everyone's analysis I will be able enjoy it And possibly Lovely Writer, if I ever get in the right mood to push myself through the last two episodes. I want to like it, but I just haven't been able to.

Currently Rewatching

There's still so much I haven't seen, I'm not rewatching anything yet. Although I have returned to parts of Blueming and Semantic Error as comfort shows, but without rewatching the whole thing through.

Looking Forward to Watching

I can barely keep up with what's currently on, lol. Although I am excited about Wish You Luck, which @lelephantsnail reminded me of, featuring my beloved background actor Tonnam in a leading role finally, and a fascinating looking post-apocalyptical premise. It's a year away though, so who knows if it will even come out. There are also a billion older shows that I'm looking forward to, I won't even try to list them here.

@negrowhat's milestone celebration post made me wonder which my top ten would be. This is the list I came up with. (in alphabetical order because I could not possibly rank them)

1. Qi Zhang & Ye Guang (About Youth)

2. Pat & Pran (Bad Buddy)

3. Da-woon & Si-won (Blueming)

4. Mark & Vee (Love Mechanics)

5. Hira & Kiyoi (My Beautiful Man)

6. Nozue & Togawa (Old Fashion Cupcake)

7. Jae-young and Sang-woo (Semantic Error)

8. Seo-joon & Ji-woo (To My Star & TMS2)

9. Fighter & Tutor (Why R U?) plus

Thanks for the tag, @midnight-sun16!

Da-woon — Blueming

Seo-Joon — To My Star (1 & 2)

Nozue — Old Fashion Cupcake

Ayan — The Eclipse

Tutor — Why R U?

Khai — Theory of Love

Hira — My Beautiful Man

Qi Zhang — About Youth

Cake — My Only 12%

Oh-aew — I Told Sunset About You and I Promised You the Moon

I just went with BL dramas to simplify things for myself. I'm not sure if individual shows count as "fandoms" – I feel like the genre as a whole is the fandom (with the exception of KP and maybe a few other shows) – but that's ok. I could never choose just one character from all of BL. And I suppose Ayan and Cake could get ruined by their endings, but I have enough trust in the characters and their shows to include them early.

Of the shows listed in my post on Workplaces in QL shows, these are the dozen I would consider to be "office romance," in that the romance centers around or starts because of the office setting. (Again, there are many shows I haven't seen yet, so this isn't a complete list.)

Marketing/Advertising Office

🇹🇭 GAP

🇹🇭 Step By Step

🇰🇷 The New Employee

🇰🇷 Roommates of Poongduck 304

Graphic Design Office

🇹🇭 Bed Friend (or is it marketing?)

🇹🇭 Middleman's Love

🇯🇵 Senpai, This Can't Be Love!

Game Design Office

🇹🇭 A Boss and a Babe

🇰🇷 Our Dating Sim

Other/Business Empire/Generic Office setting (or I never figured out what they did)

🇯🇵 Old Fashion Cupcake (i never figured it out)

🇯🇵 Cherry Magic (stationary company, iirc)

Journalism

🇯🇵 Candy Color Paradox

Publishing Industry/Writers Manga Artists/Illustrators

🇰🇷 Oh! My Assistant (an office of two, but I think it still applies)

(even though The Novelist/The Pornographer (🇯🇵) is theoretically the same set-up, I don't feel like it fits the category)

update 1/4/24

Real Estate Company

Step by Step got me thinking about the types of companies that get used as the settings for Office Romance in QL, and then by extension, what kinds of work characters do. I've only included ones where the job or the workplace is somehow part of the story or is a setting (so jobs the characters had as background info don't count). I didn't include censored BL because I feel that setting plays a different (more prominent than usual in BL) role in those types of stories. I didn't count university students doing school projects, but did include teenagers actually working. This is only the list of shows I've seen or know enough about to make as guess, so a lot are missing. Please add on, or make corrections! Titles with an asterisk * are included in multiple categories (leads had different jobs, or one job fits both categories). Titles in (parenthesis) I've only watched a part of, but enough to determine what work they did, titles in [brackets] I haven't seen so I'm going off what I've read.

(updated 1/7/24 with shows some new shows and some old ones I've seen since first posting. still not a comprensive list.)

Marketing/Advertising Office

🇹🇭 GAP

🇹🇭 Step By Step

🇰🇷 The New Employee

🇰🇷 Roommates of Poongduck 304

🇰🇷 All the Liquors *

🇹🇭 [Check Out]

🇹🇭 [Paint with Love] *

Graphic Design Office

🇹🇭 Bed Friend (or is it also marketing?)

🇹🇭 Middleman's Love

🇯🇵 Senpai, This Can't Be Love!

Architecture

🇹🇭 Big Dragon

🇹🇭 Love in the Air *

Game Design

🇹🇭 A Boss and a Babe

🇰🇷 Our Dating Sim

Other/Business Empire/Generic Office setting (or I never figured out what they did)

🇯🇵 Old Fashion Cupcake (i never figured it out)

🇹🇼 We Best Love 2 (some tech thing?)

🇹🇭 To Sir With Love * (business empire)

🇹🇭 Cutie Pie (business empire)

🇯🇵 Cherry Magic (stationary company, iirc)

🇹🇭 Cherry Magic

🇹🇭 Love in the Air * (some sort of business empire?)

🇹🇼 [Be Loved In House: I Do] *

🇰🇷 [Love Mate]

🇰🇷 Naked Dining *

🇯🇵 Doublemints *

🇯🇵 (Ossan's Love) (real estate)

🇭🇰 [Ossan's Love]

Law Office

🇹🇼 Plus and Minus *

🇹🇭 Laws of Attraction *

Restaurant/Coffee Shop/Bar

🇰🇷 Ocean Likes Me *

🇰🇷 Choco Milk Shake

🇰🇷 The Tasty Florida

🇰🇷 (Unintentional Love Story) *

🇰🇷 To My Star * (1 & 2)

🇰🇷 All the Liquors *

🇰🇷 Happy Merry Ending *

🇹🇼 [Be Loved In House: I Do] *

🇹🇼 Plus and Minus *

🇹🇼 [My Tooth Your Love] *

🇹🇼 [DNA Says Love You]

🇹🇭 [Coffee Melody] *

🇹🇭 [Moonlight Chicken]

🇹🇭 [What Zabb Man!]

🇻🇳 [You Are Ma Boy]

🇻🇳 [My Lascivious Boss]

🇹🇭 Laws of Attraction *

🇹🇭 (Bake Me Please)

🇹🇭 [609 Bedtime Story] *

🇹🇼 [VIP Only] *

Other Shop/Service

🇯🇵 Minato Shouji Coin Laundry (laundromat)

🇹🇼 Plus and Minus * (dry cleaner)

🇹🇭 Love in the Air * (mechanic)

🇰🇷 [Oh! Boarding House]

🇹🇭 [My Ride] * (moterbike taxi)

🇰🇷 Naked Dining* (grocery store)

🇹🇭 Pit Babe (race car team)

Artist/Artist's Shop

🇰🇷 (Unintentional Love Story) * (ceramics)

🇹🇼 [Be Loved In House: I Do] * (jewelry/metalworking)

🇯🇵 Utsukushii Kare Eternal* (photographer)

TV/Film/Idol Industry

🇹🇭 War of Y

🇹🇭 [House of Stars]

🇹🇭 [Show Me Love]

🇰🇷 (The Director Who Buys Me Dinner)

🇹🇭 (Vice Versa)

🇹🇭 (Love Stage)

🇯🇵 (Love Stage)

🇰🇷 To My Star * (1 & 2)

🇹🇭 Lovely Writer *

🇰🇷 Individual Circumstances *

🇹🇭 [Paint with Love] *

🇯🇵 I Became the Main Role of a BL

🇯🇵 Utsukushii Kare Eternal *

Music/Idol Industry

🇰🇷 Happy Merry Ending *

🇰🇷 Ocean Likes Me *

🇰🇷 [Wish You]

🇹🇭 [Coffee Melody] *

🇻🇳 [You Are Ma Boy]

🇯🇵 Kabe-Koji-Nekoyashiki-kun Desires to be Recognized *

🇹🇭 [609 Bedtime Story] *

Journalism

🇯🇵 Candy Color Paradox

🇯🇵 My Personal Weatherman *

Publishing Industry/Writers

🇰🇷 Happy Ending Romance

🇰🇷 Individual Circumstances *

🇯🇵 The Novelist/The Pornographer series

🇹🇭 Lovely Writer *

🇰🇷 [First Love, Again]

🇹🇼 [VIP Only] *

Manga/Manwha Artists/Illustrators

🇯🇵 Kabe-Koji-Nekoyashiki-kun Desires to be Recognized *

🇰🇷 Oh! My Assistant

🇯🇵 Jack o' Frost

🇯🇵 My Personal Weatherman *

Medical

🇹🇭 (Dear Doctor I'm Coming for Soul)

🇹🇼 [My Tooth Your Love] *

🇹🇭 [Manner of Death]

🇹🇭 [Physical Therapy]

🇹🇭 (My Ride)*

🇻🇳 [Mr. Cinderella]

🇻🇳 [Want to See You]

🇹🇭 [Triage]

🇹🇭 [Sky In Your Heart] *

Mafia/Criminal Underworld

🇹🇭 KinnPorsche

🇹🇭 [Love Syndrome]

🇹🇭 [Unforgotten Night]

🇹🇭 [Chains of Heart] *

🇹🇭 [3 Will Be Free]

🇹🇭 [Golden Blood]

🇹🇼 [HIStory 3: Trapped]

🇹🇭 Never Let Me Go (debated whether to include these children, but ultimately decided they work. still unclear on whether it's mafia or a legit business)

🇹🇭 To Sir With Love *

🇯🇵 Doublemints *

🇰🇷 Long Time No See

🇹🇭 (My Dear Gangster Oppa)

Sex Work

🇹🇭 [Playboyy]

🇯🇵 The Shortest Distance is Round

Debt Collection

🇹🇭 [Even Sun]

🇰🇷 [You Make Me Dance]

Park Rangers/Teachers (the "Other" category, but that's what's in it so far)

🇹🇭 [1000 Stars]

🇹🇭 [Sky In Your Heart] *

🇻🇳 [TienTai Bromance]